1918 Stanley Cup Final

Paths to the Finals

Main article: 1917–18 NHL season, 1917–18 PCHA season

Prior to the 1917–18 season, the National Hockey Association (NHA) had suspended operations as the result of a power play to oust Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone. The remaining clubs then met in November 1917 to form the NHL, using the same constitution and playing rules of the NHA. The NHL took the NHA's place in competing for the Cup in a playoff series with the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

The Toronto NHL players were assigned from the Toronto NHA franchise, and played for a 'temporary' Toronto NHL franchise, operated by the Toronto Arena owners. This is why it is often retroactively called the 'Arenas' although no hockey club with the official name "Arenas" existed until after the 1917–18 season. The team at the time used no nickname; it was often referred to at the time as the "Blueshirts", the nickname of the NHA franchise, as it was announced by the NHA that the franchise had been sold, although Eddie Livingstone had not agreed to this as he wanted to resume his franchise or be compensated under his terms.

Toronto won the second half of the split regular season, while the Montreal Canadiens won the first half. Toronto then won the NHL title by defeating the Canadiens in a two-game, total-goals series, 10–7.

Meanwhile, Vancouver finished the 1917–18 PCHA regular season in second place with a 9–9 record behind the 11–7 Seattle Metropolitans. However, Vancouver beat Seattle in that league's two-game, total-goals finals, 3–2, with a 1–0 game two victory.

Bracket

| team-width = 160 | RD1-seed1=N1 | RD1-team1=Montreal Canadiens | RD1-score1-1=3 | RD1-score1-2=4 | RD1-seed2=N2 | RD1-team2=Toronto | RD1-score2-1=7 | RD1-score2-2=3 | RD1-score1-agg=7 | RD1-score2-agg=10 | RD1-seed3=P1 | RD1-team3=Seattle Metropolitans | RD1-score3-1=2 | RD1-score3-2=0 | RD1-seed4=P2 | RD1-team4=Vancouver Millionaires | RD1-score4-1=2 | RD1-score4-2=1 | RD1-score3-agg=2 | RD1-score4-agg=3

| RD2-seed1=NC | RD2-team1=Toronto | RD2-score1-1=5 | RD2-score1-2=4 | RD2-score1-3=6 | RD2-score1-4=1 | RD2-score1-5=2 | RD2-seed2=PC | RD2-team2=Vancouver Millionaires | RD2-score2-1=3 | RD2-score2-2=6 | RD2-score2-3=3 | RD2-score2-4=8 | RD2-score2-5=1 | RD2-score1-agg=3 | RD2-score2-agg=2

Game summaries

As with the three previous NHA-PCHA Cup Final series, the series alternated between the NHL champion and the PCHA champion each year, while the differing rules for the leagues alternated each game. This meant that all of the games for the 1918 championship series were played at Toronto's Arena Gardens.

Two of the major differences between the two leagues' rules proved to be a major factor in the series. The PCHA allowed forward passing (adopted in the 1913–14 season) and played with seven players per side; the NHL did not adopt forward passing until the following season, and only played with six players. In every game, the winner was the one playing under its league's rules. The Torontos won Games 1 and 3 with victories of 5–3 and 6–3, and the Millionaires recorded 6–4 and 8–1 wins in Games 2 and 4. Because game five was played under NHL rules, it helped Toronto's Corbett Denneny to score the series winning goal in a 2–1 victory. The Torontos outscored the Millionaires by a combined total of 13–7 in the three games played under NHL rules. Conversely, Vancouver recorded a 14–5 margin in the games under PCHA rules.

Toronto goaltender Hap Holmes recorded a 4.20 goals-against average during the series, while Alf Skinner led Toronto with eight goals. Cyclone Taylor scored nine goals for Vancouver.

|1-1-1 =16:00 – Cyclone Taylor (1) 17:00 – Cyclone Taylor (2) |1-1-2 =Reg Noble (2) – 08:00 Harry Meeking (4) – 10:00 Reg Noble (3) – 11:00 Alf Skinner (1) – 19:50 |1-2-1 =10:00 – Mickey MacKay (1) |1-2-2 =Alf Skinner (2) – 13:00 |1-3-1 =No scoring |1-3-2 =No scoring |goalie1-1 =Hugh Lehman |goalie1-2 =Hap Holmes

|2-1-1 =18:00 – Cyclone Taylor (3) |2-1-2 =Alf Skinner (3) – 17:00 |2-2-1 =02:00 – Cyclone Taylor (4) 06:00 – Mickey MacKay (2) 14:00 – Mickey MacKay (3) |2-2-2 =Harry Cameron (2) 16:00 |2-3-1 =06:00 – Si Griffis (1) 10:00 – Mickey MacKay (3) |2-3-2 =Alf Skinner (4) – 08:00 Alf Skinner (5) – 16:00 |goalie2-1 =Hugh Lehman |goalie2-2 =Hap Holmes

|3-1-1 =No scoring |3-1-2 =05:00 – Harry Cameron (3) 08:00 – Alf Skinner (6) 13:00 – Corb Denneny (1) |3-2-1 =Ran McDonald (1) – pp – 06:00 Cyclone Taylor (5) – 16:00 |3-2-2 =11:00 – Harry Cameron (4) 14:00 – Corb Denneny (2) |3-3-1 =Cyclone Taylor (6) – 03:00 |3-3-2 =13:00 – Alf Skinner (7) |goalie3-1 =Hugh Lehman |goalie3-2 =Hap Holmes

|4-1-1 =05:00 – Cyclone Taylor (7) |4-1-2 =No scoring |4-2-1 =04:00 – Barney Stanley (1) 11:06 – Mickey MacKay (5) 13:06 – Barney Stanley (2) |4-2-2 =Ken Randall (1) – 04:26 |4-3-1 =06:00 – Cyclone Taylor (8) 13:00 – pp – Lloyd Cook (1) 13:45 – pp – Ran MacDonald (2) 15:00 – pp – Lloyd Cook (2) |4-3-2 =No scoring |goalie4-1 =Hugh Lehman |goalie4-2 =Hap Holmes

|5-1-1 =No scoring |5-1-2 =No scoring |5-2-1 =No scoring |5-2-2 =No scoring |5-3-1 =Cyclone Taylor (9) – 09:30 |5-3-2 =00:30 – Alf Skinner (8) 10:30 – Corb Denneny (3) |goalie5-1 =Hugh Lehman |goalie5-2 =Hap Holmes

Player stats

Stanley Cup engraving

The 1918 Stanley Cup was presented by the trophy's trustee William Foran. Toronto never did engrave their name on the Cup for their championship season.

It was not until the trophy was redesigned in 1948 that the words "1918 Toronto Arenas" was put onto its then-new collar.

The following Toronto players and staff were members of the Stanley Cup winning team.

1917–18 Toronto Arenas

• 3 Ken Randall‡ (captain)
• 11-7 Harry Mummery
• 5 Corb Denneny
• 9 Jack Adams
• 8 Rusty Crawford
• 7 Jack Coughlin†
• 10 Harry Meeking
• 12 Jack Marks† |non-players=
• Charlie Querrie (President/Manager), Dick Carroll (Coach)
• Frank Carroll (Trainer) ‡ Played rover position in the Stanley Cup Finals † Missing from team picture. |engraving-notes= Although the Vancouver team was not the winner of the series, the Vancouver club had the words "Vancouver/Defeated Seattle/1917–18/Score 1–0" engraved on the Cup after winning the PCHA championship over the Metropolitans, who won the previous year's Cup finals. This was consistent with the practice at that time of the trophy being officially passed on to the winner of the league championship of the previous Cup champion's league.

The Toronto club never did engrave their name on the Cup to memorialize their series victory over Vancouver. At the time, the NHL club was in a dispute with the owner of the NHA Toronto franchise holder over the Stanley Cup revenues. In 1948, the NHL engraved "1918 Toronto Arenas" on the Cup.

Dick Carroll was not only the first NHL coach to win the Stanley Cup in his first NHL season, Carroll was also a rookie coach.

References

Citations

Bibliography

References

1. "Schedule {{!}} Mar 20, 1918 ET".
2. "Stanley Cup Champions 1918-1929".
3. Holzman, Morey. (2002). "Deceptions and Doublecross".
4. {{harvnb. Holzman. Nieforth. 2002