Keith Magnuson by Doug Feldmann

Author:Doug Feldmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2013-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

It was a wild start to a wild week of hockey, as Chicago won the series in five games while posting a team-record 22 goals, the most ever by the Hawks in a five-game postseason round. Meanwhile, Magnuson and the rest of the defensive crew helped Esposito keep St. Louis to only nine goals of their own.

A short time after being eliminated by Chicago, the Blues head coaching position would be taken over by one of the Hawks players from the series in Lou Angotti. Angotti left for St. Louis in June 1973 for what was known as the “intraleague draft,” which was designed to make the former expansion more competitive in a quicker amount of time. (During the 1973–74 schedule, Angotti, who in 1967 had become the first captain of the Philadelphia Flyers, spent the final 23 games of that season as player-coach of the Blues.)

Fortunes were flying high for the Hawks after their easy opening-round triumph; however, they would soon turn quickly for Magnuson in the other direction.

In the semifinals against New York, the Hawks regrouped after losing Game 1 at the Stadium and took a 5–4 win in Game 2. It was the first of four straight they would grab from the Rangers, sending themselves to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Canadiens for the second time in three years. Reay had the club rolling once again, and the multitalented youngster Marks was moved from the defensive line and placed on left wing with Mikita and Koroll.

But in the second game of the series, on April 15, Magnuson’s jaw was shattered on a slap shot by Park in the second period—the result of Magnuson selflessly falling in front of the shot in an attempt to block it during a Rangers power play.

Esposito had always told Magnuson (as well as the rest of the Chicago defensemen) that if they try to block a shot, they had better get a piece of it—otherwise he would not be able to see the puck. Get a piece Magnuson did, and he dropped to the ice as a stunned audience sat in silence. Mikita later vividly remembered the impact of the vulcanized rubber striking Magnuson’s face. “You could hear it reverberate throughout the old stadium,” he said.

A stretcher was summoned, but Magnuson waved it off and willed himself up to his knees. He then pushed upward onto his skates and finally insisted on skating off the ice, with slight assistance from Marks and Maki, receiving a thunderous ovation from the crowd that snapped itself from its frightened silence in an instant. Skip Thayer was of course on the scene immediately to aid Magnuson, but Magnuson would dismiss Thayer as well, only permitting the trainer to give him a towel, nothing more. When Thayer later thought about that scene, he just shook his head in disbelief; Thayer could not conceive Magnuson’s high threshold of pain. “You couldn’t hurt that kid’s head with an axe,” the trainer marveled.

In addition to having his jaw set and secured, Magnuson also received 75 stitches for the wide cut that resulted from the blow.

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