By CRAIG EVANS The Courier-Post Staff - 8/3/1974
PHILADELPHIA- Wings played their finest period of the season in the first period of Friday night’s game against Maryland in the Spectrum.
They scrambled, clawed, and fought their way to 14 goals, setting a one-period record for themselves. That’s when Wings’ coach Bobby Allan started worrying.
“At the end of the first period,” Allan said. “I told them the game was like 0-0.”
Actually, the game was 14-5 and, after jumping into that kind of lead, a letdown was inevitable.
A letdown? It was like A.J. Foyt leading the Indy 500 by three laps, then running out of gas with 100 feet to go.
The momentum gradually started swinging the other way, and by the end of the evening the Maryland Arrows had pierced the Wings in overtime, 27-26.
Defenseman Wayne Granger had scored on a breakaway with just a little over a minute to go in the extra period, as the Wings were concerned, was that it should never have been that close.
Larry Lloyd, a tall slender forward who had just set a team record for most individual goals with eight, sat by his locker in an atmosphere that resembled a hospital ward. He broke the silence as he tried to explain what happened after the first period.
“It’s really odd,” he thoughtfully reflected. “You just try to block a period like that out of your mind, but some unknown force allows you to sit back.”
Larry was far from sitting back as he took penalty shifts, power play shifts, and his regular turns. His goal total broke the record held by John ‘Tree’ Grant, who had six.
“Now it hurts our chances for first. We backed ourselves into a corner. I can’t even remember a team putting away a nine-point lead.”
The Wings remained in second place, one point behind Rochester, who lost last night to Syracuse, 19-11, and six ahead of Montreal, which was edged by Toronto, 22-21.
If they had won last night, they could have had sole possession of first place.
But you just can’t blow nine-goal leads and expect to advance too quickly. A relatively calm Allan thought the referees might have had a little to do with the outcome.
“I guess the refs are human, too,” he said. “They take a look at the scoreboard now and then.”
That might explain why the Wings were penalized six times to Maryland’s three in the second period. It might also explain why the Arrows were able to take advantage of the tiring Wings, like Lloyd and Grant, who do extra duty.
“It takes a hell of a lot out of a man like me,” explained Lloyd. “It’s not that I’m not in shape, but it’s like running a couple of 200-meter sprints back-to- back.”
Allan also thought that the refs blew it when Arrow forward Pat Ryan, who fell, bobbled the ball and had it bounce off his chest for the tying goal in regulation time with one second showing on the clock. Allan contended there were too many men on the playing surface.
“It’s a shame to lose that way,” Allan said. “When the ball got passed off, the guy coming off the floor wasn’t even close to the door (to the players’ bench).”
It might not have made that much difference, however, as the Wings’ defense had failed to cover Ryan effectively. There had been numerous lapses after the first period and the goaltending was sporadic.
John Hamilton, who was playing in place of Wayne Platt, victim of phlebitis in his leg, would turn in a spectacular save that would have the 9,050 fans applauding one moment, then yield an easy long chance, the kind that kill.
The Wings’ effort was just as sporadic.
