Road to the Cup - April 16, 1980 -- Isles 2, Boston 1 (Isles lead best-of-7 series 1-0)

40 Years Ago Tonight...

By Eric Hornick

Game 1
Isles 2, Boston 1 (OT)

 

After their first round win over Los Angeles, the Isles needed to wait nearly 48 hours to find that the Bruins were their opponents; two days later they were at Boston Garden to face the Big Bad B's.

Clark Gillies converted a pass from Butch Goring for the winning goal just 1:02 into overtime as the Isles defeated the Bruins 2-1 to take the opening game of the series.

Following a scoreless first two periods, Peter McNab scored in the opening minute of the third to give the Bruins the lead.  Garry Howatt tied it less than three minutes later to set the stage for Gillies in overtime.

The Scoring:

1st Period

None

2nd Period

None

3rd Period

00:51 BOS Peter McNab (4) Brad Park, Mike Milbury

03:49 NYI Garry Howatt (3) Bryan Trottier, Bob Nystrom

Overtime

01:02 NYI Clark Gillies (2) Butch Goring, Gord Lane

Here's Jethro's overtime goal.  Brad Park, who found himself in the goal after JP Parise's winner five years earlier, figures into this one as well.  Steve Albert and Ed Westfall had the call on Channel 9:

The Series:

Game 1: Isles 2, Boston 1 (OT)

Game 2: At Boston 4/17
Game 3: At Isles 4/19

Game 4: At Isles 4/21

(Isles lead series, 1-0)

Mini-Skinny: 

The Isles out-shot Boston 27-23; they also out-shot the Kings in all four games in the series.  Billy Smith improved to 4-0 in the playoffs, besting Gerry Cheevers...There were no fights in the game, but that would totally change in game two the following night...This was the only OT goal in Clark Gillies' playoff career...It was the 4th game in five nights for Boston. .. It was the second shortest OT game in club history to that point; 40 years later it is still one of only 50 Stanley Cup games to be settled in the first minute of overtime....At the time, Butch Goring (who assisted on Gillies' goal) had the earliest overtime goal vs. Boston in Cup play,  Alexandre Burrows would break that record in 2011.

Overtime is Our Time!

1st round vs LA : Game 3  (W 4-3 Morrow 6:55)

2nd round vs Bos: Game 1 (W 2-1 Gillies 1:02)

There were a lot of back-to-backs in early rounds of the playoffs in that era. Game 2, the Bruins' 5th game in 6 days, would be one of the most memorable in Islanders history.  We'll tell that story tomorrow.