Do we want to do a watch along?
This is the best regular season game footage from 1970-71 I saw.
My notes from the first period.
This wasn't Orr's best period. He wasn't involved in either Boston goal. He was on the ice for Montreal's goal, and I think he could have played it better. And he didn't have a single end to end rush, as the commentator noted near the end of the period.
That said, Boston looked night and day different with Orr on the ice instead of Ted Green at right defence. Green was a good defender, he could skate and defend well and he knew where to be, but when he was out there instead of Orr, Boston looked slow and laboured to move the puck down the ice. Orr just transformed them.
Orr was in complete command with the puck on his stick, made good decisions on the breakout and set his teammates up to succeed. And the Habs gave him a ton of room, because he was nearly impossible to forecheck when he was playing in control.
Montreal also avoided Orr's side of the ice on the rush, constantly attacking Boston's left defence instead. With one exception which I'll get to.
Some examples of good breakouts by Orr (times are the Youtube time, not the game time).
10:00 - Montreal is set, with Henri Richard at the tip of the spear waiting for Orr to come out behind his net. And Orr still hits Don Marcotte in stride across his blueline with a pass from his own end line.
15:40 - Orr skates it out from behind his own net and beats the first forechecker with a little burst, seemingly effortlessly, and sends a forward in on goal with a pass.
16:10 - Orr has a forechecker on him and a second one in the area and spins out of trouble into open space.
16:40, 33:15, 34:00 - some other clean breakouts starting with Orr
35:20 - Orr one-touched the puck out of a scrum in his zone to send Esposito on an end to end rush. Just one touch and one read but it looks like he knew exactly what he was doing.
On the other hand, while Orr was in complete control on his side of the red line, he didn't do much offensively after crossing the red line. Both times he carried the puck across, he tested Phil Myhre with a slapshot from the neutral zone. 26:00, 35:00.
Orr did have a couple of turnovers early in the period, both on the same type of play. Montreal had possession of the puck in the zone, Orr got his stick on it, and decided he could clear the zone all on his own by accelerating and stickhandling. Both times he lost it just before his own blueline and Montreal briefly had a 3-on-1 with him out of the play, although they weren't able to get a good chance either time. See 6:50 and 12:40. This is where you'd like to see the decision making be better, and Orr should probably have cut out these one-man zone clearing attempts against a quality opponent.
One offensive zone play for Orr that I liked was on the power play at 17:55. Guy Lapointe clears the puck up the boards to Orr's backhand at the offensive blueline, with Tardif pressuring him. Orr makes one touch and hits the jets to carry the puck across the blueline like Tardif wasn't even there, drawing both Montreal forwards to him and setting up a shot. Just a small play but you don't see that control and decisiveness in a small space too often, combining the touch with the skating.
The Montreal forwards looked faster than the Boston forwards, especially later in the period and especially during the 4-on-4 play.
The 4-on-4 was the one time when Montreal attacked Orr of the rush - see 27:20 - as Lapointe sent Lemaire in with a great pass which started the sequence leading to Montreal's goal. Lemaire passed to Backstrom who passed back to Lemaire, and Dallas Smith made an ill-advised lunge for the return pass, missing and taking himself out of the play. Orr slid to block Lemaire's centering pass and missed, and Montreal defenceman J.C. Tremblay was all alone in front to finish it, with Fred Stanfield too late on the backcheck. Orr maybe should have stayed up and stayed back to play it like a 2-on-1 - although I'm not sure how much they trusted the goalie to stop the shot in those situations, maybe he was expected to take the player with the puck - but Smith and Stanfield both made clear mistakes to my eye.
Speaking of J.C. Tremblay, he was pretty good on the breakout for Montreal. See 25:10, 34:40, 35:05, and some very nice puck-ragging by Tremblay on the penalty kill at 18:45.
On Boston's first goal, Esposito really showed his ability to use his reach and stick skills to vacuum up the puck in the slot area and get it on goal, and then get the rebound on goal again. See 7:50.
