Hi this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire ” brought to you by your local Auto Logic, the Logical Choice.
The Stanley Cup Final concluded Sunday night in San Jose as the Pittsburgh Penguins finished the Sharks with a 3-1 win in Game 6 of the Final.
I think it’s fair to say the better team won, certainly the faster team won, although the Sharks were no slouches in the speed game either.
Sidney Crosby won the Conn Smythe Trophy and I have no beef with that, but I will say the most outstanding player in the final was San Jose netminder Martin Jones.
At the other end of the rink, Matt Murray backstopped the Penguins to the title in a remarkably swift rise to prominence.
Watching Murray on Sunday as the clock ticked down, I wondered if any other starting goalkeeper had gone from the Ontario Hockey League to Stanley Cup Champion as quickly.
Then I got thinking, ‘ who was the last OHL grad to win the Stanley Cup as a starter ? ‘
To the best of my research, it would be…….Bernie Parent in 1975 with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Parent last played junior for the Niagara Falls Flyers in the Ontario Hockey Association in 1964-65.
So Matt Murray becomes the first OHL-OHA grad to backstop a Stanley Cup winner in more than 40 years. That seems like an awful long time.
Will it be 40 years before we have another OHL grad win the Stanley Cup as a starter ?
I’m Fred Wallace