The Montreal Canadiens continued to steamroll the rest of the National Hockey League in 1958-59. The Habs took first place by 18 points and went on to win their fourth of five consecutive Stanley Cup championships.
Dickie Moore led Montreal with 96 points. He also led the league, earning his second consecutive Art Ross Trophy. The 96 points eclipsed Gordie Howe’s NHL record by one point for most in a single season. Teammate Jean Beliveau was right behind with 91 points on an offensive powerhouse that scored over 50 more goals than any other team in the league. The Canadiens took out Chicago in the opening round and the surprising Maple Leafs in the final to capture the Stanley Cup… read more.
The Toronto Maple Leafs won the first of three consecutive Stanley Cup championships in 1961-62. The second place Leafs met the third place Chicago Black Hawks in the finals with Toronto coming out on top in six games. Montreal dominated the regular season while the Boston Bruins reached franchise lows. Boston’s .271 winning percentage that year still stands as the second lowest in team history today. The lowest came in their first year of existence, 1924-25, when the team won just 6 of its 30 games, equal to .200.
Bobby Hull led the Chicago Black Hawks with 84 points and was awarded the Art Ross Trophy as league leader. Andy Bathgate of the New York Rangers also ended up with 84 points. Hull and Bathgate both played the full 70 game schedule but Hull was awarded the scoring championship on his 50 goals to Bathgate’s 28. It was the second of three times that Bobby received the Art Ross… read more.
The 1962-63 National Hockey League season had one of the tightest finishes of the ‘Original 6’ era, at least for the top four teams. Just five points separated the first place Toronto Maple Leafs and the fourth place Detroit Red Wings. Toronto edged the Chicago Black Hawks for first place by just one point.
However, beyond Detroit, the NHL dropped off into a deep abyss. The New York Rangers finished with 56 points, 21 less than the Red Wings. The Boston Bruins ended up with just 45, 32 points out of the final playoff position… read more.
The Montreal Canadiens dominated the 1965-66 National Hockey League season. The Habs finished first overall in the six team league, eight points ahead of second place Chicago. Montreal then swept the Toronto Maple Leafs in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs before capturing the championship in six games against the fourth seed Detroit Red Wings.
Bobby Hull not only led the Chicago Black Hawks but finished atop the whole NHL with 97 points, capturing the Art Ross Trophy. Hull’s 97 points set an NHL record for most points in a season, eclipsing the previous mark of 96 set by Dickie Moore of Montreal in 1958-59… read more.
1966-67 marked a major end of an era for the National Hockey League. The league played its last season with just six teams. The following year, the NHL doubled in size to 12 teams and within seven years that number would increase to 18. 1966-67 also marked the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs would win the Stanley Cup.
The NHL was also a couple of years away from the offensive explosion, in most part brought on by the Boston Bruins. None of the six team leaders in 1966-67 would exceed 100 points, although Stan Mikita’s 97 points would establish a league record for most points in a season. That record was shattered just a few years later… read more.
1967-68 NHL East Division Team Leaders
The 1967-68 National Hockey League season marked the addition of six new teams. Normally, expansion increases offense due to the watered down product on the ice. In 1967-68, that wasn’t really so. Stan Mikita won the Art Ross Trophy for the second year in a row but with ten less points than in 1966-67. Bobby Hull of the Chicago Black Hawks led the league with 44 goals. It was one of only five times from 1965-66 to the present when the goal scoring leader had less than 50 goals.
Stan Mikita, obviously, led the Chicago Black Hawks with 87 points. Mikita played his entire NHL career with the Black Hawks from 1959-60 to 1979-80, contributing a total of 1,467 regular season points and winning the Art Ross Trophy four times. As for the Black Hawks, the team finished fourth in the newly formed East Division and lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup semi-finals… read more.