Once again, we finished on top of the league, 15 points clear of the second-place Canadiens. We were also 21 points better than Boston, whom we were slotted to face in the semifinals of the playoffs. We had owned them in our head-to-head matchups during the regular season and were feeling confident going into the series. Boy, were we in for a surprise. The Bruins beat us in six games and, just like that, our season was over. As the defending Stanley Cup champions, to fall flat against a team we thought we thoroughly outclassed was obviously a big letdown. That season, it wasn’t my only disappointment.
If I had to choose my favorite thing in hockey, it would be assisting on a goal. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed putting the puck in the net, but making a great pass strikes a different type of chord. It’s like distilling what it means to be part of a team into a single action. When you help a teammate to score, he wins, you win, and so does the club. It’s like hitting the trifecta. As much as I always looked to make the best hockey play, at the end of the 1952–53 season my teammates were less interested in being set up and more concerned with helping me to score. I was having a great year shooting the puck. Every time I got a clean look, it seemed like the puck found its way into the back of the net. In the third to last game of the season, I scored twice against Boston to put my tally at 49. I was 1 goal shy of the record set by the Rocket in 1945, with two games remaining. Everyone in the NHL knew that the Rocket took a lot of pride in that record, as well as in his status as the league’s top goal scorer. For the most part, I didn’t give too much thought to that sort of thing. I figured that if I played well, the team would win and everything else would fall into place. Given the rivalry between the Wings and the Canadiens, though, it would be a lie to say I didn’t want to break the Rocket’s record once I got close. We didn’t like the Habs and they didn’t like us. Taking away the Rocket’s record would have been a satisfying way to poke a stick in their eye. For his part, Jack Adams badly wanted to see it happen, as did Tommy Ivan and my teammates. In our penultimate game of the season, against the Black Hawks, Tommy gave me some extra shifts, but I came up empty. With one game left in the regular season, I remained stuck at 49 goals.
Our final game, at home against the Canadiens, had all of the elements needed to be fairly poetic. The press went into overdrive talking about the possibility of me breaking the record while skating against the Rocket himself. It was a nice thought, but when the puck dropped the game didn’t work out that way. Once again, Tommy had me on the ice for some extra shifts, but every time I jumped over the boards I found Montreal left winger Bert Olmstead attached to my hip like some sort of pesky shadow. I found out later that Dick Irvin told him to stick to me like glue. I think Irvin cared more about stopping me that night than he did about winning the game. At one point, I was at our net talking to Sawchuk during a break in the action, and Olmstead was right there with us. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t say a word. I almost have to admire him for following his coach’s instructions to the letter. Even with Olmstead stalking me, I had a few chances on Gerry McNeil that night, but didn’t manage to put one by him. Irvin was overjoyed and, true to form, pretty obnoxious about his boys shutting me down that night. He slid across the ice and raised the Rocket’s arm as if he were still the heavyweight champion of the world. As it turned out, 49 goals ended up being the high-water mark in my career. Along with my 46 assists, I finished the season with 95 points, which was the highest total anyone had ever put up at that point. The funny thing is, I think I did get that 50th goal. In February we had a game in Boston. Late in the third period, Red Kelly fired a shot from the blue line that got past goalkeeper Jim Henry. I was pretty sure I tipped that shot in, and a lot of my teammates agreed, but the officials didn’t see it. At the time, I wasn’t as close to the 50 goal mark, so I wasn’t too concerned. But looking back, it would have been nice if that one had counted.
Some people, including Irvin, suggested that the reason we lost to Boston in the playoffs that year was because I was too tired from chasing the Rocket’s record during the regular season. I don’t really buy into that line of thinking. I might have taken a few more shifts, but for the most part I was just playing hockey as usual. I was still only twenty-five years old at that point, and my body recovered pretty quickly. Physically, I don’t remember running out of steam against the Bruins. Mentally, I can’t say that I recall the pressure being too hard to handle either. The chase for 50 goals that season certainly wasn’t anything compared to the pressure I felt in 1963 when I was closing in on the Rocket’s career total of 544. That was definitely more of a grind. Sometimes there’s just no convenient explanation for why teams lose. I still think we had a great squad in 1953. Rather than trying to figure out why we lost, credit should really go to Boston for beating us. Unfortunately for the Bruins, they couldn’t keep it going in the next round. They ended up losing to the Canadiens in five games. It was Montreal’s third straight appearance in the finals, but their first Stanley Cup since 1946. We knew they’d be tough to beat in the following season. Then again, we knew we would be, too.