March 18, 1965: 10 Goals By 10 Different Players

March 18, 1965: The Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 10-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Such a high goalscoring total is unusual, but this one was a unique achievement in NHL history: The Wings got goals from 10 different players.

Gordie Howe, already the NHL's all-time leading goalscorer, scored at 2:05 of the 1st period. Hubert "Pit" Martin scored at 3:58. Val Fonteyne scored at 10:39. Floyd Smith scored at 12:17. Gary Bergman scored just 40 seconds later. Finally, Reggie Fleming got the Bruins on the board at 17:27, and the 1st period ended 5-1.

Ron Murphy made it 6-1 at 3:08 of the 2nd period. Ron Schock got one back for the Bruins at 8:46. Alex Delvecchio scored at 14:19, to make it 7-2. In the 3rd period, Tommy Williams scored for Boston at 2:48, but 7-3 was as close as they would get. Doug Barkley scored at 7:40, Ted Lindsay at 13:38, and Norm Ullman at 14:47.

Assists: Ullman 4, Howe 3; 2 each for Delvecchio, Barkley and Bruce MacGregor; and 1 each for Marcel Pronovost, Bill Gadsby, Paul Henderson and Albert Langlois. Howe, Delvecchio, Lindsay, Ullman, Pronovost and Gadsby would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Jack Norris, no relation to the Norris family that owned the Wings, allowed all 10 Detroit goals. Roger Crozier was the winning goalie.

As the final score might suggest, the Wings finished 1st overall in the NHL, winning the Prince of Wales Trophy under the format then in place; while the Bruins finished 6th and last, missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But the Wings were eliminated from the Playoffs in the Semifinals by the Chicago Black Hawks, who then lost the Finals to the Montreal Canadiens.

The feat of 10 goals by 10 different players has been done once since, by the 1992 Calgary Flames.

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March 18, 1965 was a Thursday. This was also the day that Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov conducted the 1st spacewalk, and the banana truck crash that inspired Harry Chapin's song "Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas" occurred. I have separate entries for those events.

Also in NHL action that day, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum. The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. One game was played in the NBA: The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 113-110 at the Cincinnati Gardens. The Royals are now the Sacramento Kings, and the Bullets are now the Washington Wizards.

This was also the day that Soviet "cosmonaut" Alexei Leonov made the 1st "spacewalk." I have a separate entry for that event.