Road to the Cup - April 9, 1980 -- Los Angeles 6, Isles 3 (best-of-5 series tied 1-1)

40 Years Ago Tonight...

By Eric Hornick

Game 2
Los Angeles 6, Isles 3

For most of the late 1970's, Al Arbour said that he had two number one goalies, so after Billy Smith cruised to a victory in Game 1, it was Glenn "Chico" Resch's turn in Game 2.

You can easily argue that Resch's Islander career essentially ended with this game, as the Kings scored two first period shorthanded goals, and led 6-0 midway through the game before the Islanders scored three goals in the final 24:11 to make the final score more respectable.

The series was tied, and headed to Southern California.

The Scoring:

1st Period
05:54 LAK SH Mike Murphy (1)
13:59 LAK Dave Taylor (1) Marcel Dionne, Robert Palmer
15:21 LAK Glenn Goldup (1) Jerry Korab
18:31 LAK SH Andre St. Laurent (1)

2nd Period
04:00 LAK Dave Taylor (2) Dave Lewis, Robert Palmer
11:59 LAK Steve Carlson (1)
15:49 NYI PP         Bob Bourne (1) Stefan Persson, Denis Potvin
16:55 NYI         John Tonelli (1)

3rd Period
07:28 NYI         Garry Howatt (1) Stefan Persson, Butch Goring

The Series:

Game 1: Isles 8, Los Angeles 1

Game 2: Los Angeles 6, Isles 3
Game 3: April 11 @ Los Angeles

(Series tied 1-1)

Mini-Skinny:

It was the third time the Isles had allowed at least six goals in a playoff game; ironically all three games were at home....The Isles outshot Los Angeles 34-33... Mario Lessard earned the win for Los Angeles; Resch was chased after the first period; he would make only one other playoff start with the Islanders....It was not a "banner night" for Denis Potvin (-4) or Butch Goring (-3)....The Isles allowed two shorthanded goals in a period for the first of only two times in their history...Garry Howatt  fought Jay Wells in the second period...Andre St. Laurent played in 59 Stanley Cup games; his winning goal was the only one he ever scored shorthanded.... Mike Murphy opened the game with the only shorty he scored in 66 Cup games; he had 35 others in regular season play...Mike Bossy left the game in the second period after injuring his thumb.

Among the 14,047 fans that night was me; I walked out of the Coliseum wondering if I had seen the final home game of the season.  Long past midnight two nights later I still had that thought, but Ken Morrow thankfully had other ideas.

(At this point the Rangers were closer to the Cup than the Isles, having beaten the Atlanta Flames twice)