1969 Stanley Cup Finals

1969 Stanley Cup Finals
1 2 3 4 Total St. Louis Blues 1 1 0 1 0 Montreal Canadiens 3 3 4 2 4
Location(s)	Montreal: Montreal Forum (1, 2) St. Louis: St. Louis Arena (3, 4)
Coaches	St. Louis: Scotty Bowman Montreal: Claude Ruel
Captains	St. Louis: Al Arbour Montreal: Jean Beliveau
Dates	April 27 – May 4, 1969
MVP	Serge Savard (Canadiens)
Series-winning goal	John Ferguson (3:02, third, G4)
Hall of Famers	Blues: Al Arbour (1996, builder) Glenn Hall (1975) Doug Harvey (1973; did not play) Jacques Plante (1978) Canadiens: Jean Beliveau (1972) Yvan Cournoyer (1982) Dick Duff (2006) Tony Esposito (1988) Jacques Laperriere (1987) Jacques Lemaire (1984) Henri Richard (1979) Serge Savard (1986) Rogie Vachon (2016) Gump Worsley (1980; did not play) Coaches: Scotty Bowman (1991)
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The 1969 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 1968–69 season, and the culmination of the 1969 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was contested between the defending champion Montreal Canadiens and the St. Louis Blues, a rematch of the previous year's finals. As they did in the previous matchup, the Canadiens won the series in four games.

Paths to the Finals

Montreal defeated the New York Rangers 4–0 and the Boston Bruins 4–2 to advance to the finals.

St. Louis defeated the Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Kings in four games each.

Game summaries

This was the second playoff series between these two teams. Their only previous meeting came in the previous year's Stanley Cup Finals. In this year's six-game regular season series, there were five wins for Montreal and one tie.

Claude Ruel became the eleventh rookie coach to win the Stanley Cup. Montreal goaltender Rogie Vachon limited St. Louis to three goals in four games. In the process, he earned his first career playoff shutout.

April 27	St. Louis Blues		1–3		Montreal Canadiens	Montreal Forum	Recap
Frank St. Marseille (3) - 18:24		First period			3:39 - pp - Dick Duff (3) 4:17 - sh - Bobby Rousseau (3)
No scoring		Second period			No scoring
No scoring		Third period			19:46 - John Ferguson (3)
Jacques Plante		Goalie stats			Rogie Vachon

April 29	St. Louis Blues		1–3		Montreal Canadiens	Montreal Forum	Recap
No scoring		First period			17:26 - Ralph Backstrom (3)
No scoring		Second period			9:07 - pp - Dick Duff (4) 14:11 - Yvan Cournoyer (4)
Larry Keenan (4) - pp - 9:20		Third period			No scoring
Glenn Hall		Goalie stats			Rogie Vachon

May 1	Montreal Canadiens		4–0		St. Louis Blues	St. Louis Arena	Recap
Serge Savard (4) - 12:34		First period			No scoring
Jacques Lemaire (4) - 9:16 Dick Duff (5) - 13:38		Second period			No scoring
Dick Duff (6) - pp - 18:35		Third period			No scoring
Rogie Vachon		Goalie stats			Jacques Plante

May 4	Montreal Canadiens		2–1		St. Louis Blues	St. Louis Arena	Recap
No scoring		First period			No scoring
No scoring		Second period			10:50 - Terry Gray (3)
Ted Harris (1) - 00:42 John Ferguson (4) - 3:02		Third period			No scoring
Rogie Vachon		Goalie stats			Glenn Hall

Montreal won series 4–0

Stanley Cup engraving

The 1969 Stanley Cup was presented to Canadiens captain Jean Beliveau by NHL President Clarence Campbell following the Canadiens 2–1 win over the Blues in game four.

The following Canadiens players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup

1968–69 Montreal Canadiens

Players

Stanley Cup engraving

• Anthony "Tony" Esposito's name was misspelled on the Replica Stanley Cup created in 1992–93 as P. FSPOSITO instead of A. ESPOSITO.
• Claude Ruel was the 10th NHL rookie coach to win the Stanley Cup.
• &-Gilles Tremblay missed the playoffs with a career ending injury. His name was still included on the Stanley Cup.
• &-Lucien Grenier played 2 Semi-Finals games, but name was left off the Stanley Cup even though he qualified to be engraved on it
• ^-name was left off the Stanley Cup, but qualified to be included.

Won 4 Stanley Cups in 5 Years with Montreal 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969

Ralph Backstrom, Jean Beliveau, Yvan Cournoyer, Dick Duff, John Ferguson, Terry Harper, Ted Harris, Jacques Laperriere, Claude Provost, Henri Richard, Bobby Rousseau, Gilles Tremblay, Jean-Claude Tremblay, Gump Worsley (14 players), David Molson, Sam Pollock, Larry Aubut (3 non-players).

See also

• 1968–69 NHL season

Notes

References

• Diamond, Dan, ed. (2000). Total Stanley Cup. NHL.
• Podnieks, Andrew; Hockey Hall of Fame (2004). Lord Stanley's Cup. Triumph Books. ISBN 978-1-55168-261-7.

Preceded by Montreal Canadiens 1968

Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup Champions 1969

Succeeded by Boston Bruins 1970