The Five: Fun Facts About the Mud Bruneteau Game on 86th Anniversary

Today marks the 86th anniversary of Modere “Mud” Bruneteau scoring the goal that made his name synonymous with long overtime games.

Bruneteau scored at 16:30 of the sixth overtime to give the Detroit Red Wings a 1-0 triumph over the Montreal Maroons in the longest playoff game in NHL history.

Today, when a game starts to pile on the OT minutes, broadcasters often invoke the memory of Bruneteau who gained more notoriety with that goal than anything else he did in his career.

Here are five fun facts from that memorable night:

1. Normie Smith made 90 saves in the Red Wings net in what was his Stanley Cup debut

2. It was also Bruneteau’s first NHL playoff game. Mud Bruneteau also scored a Stanley Cup OT goal in the semifinals against Boston on March 29, 1945 but nobody remembers that.

3. The puck wedged between the back bar in the top of the net and the netting and never fell. The goal light didn’t go on. Montreal Maroons goalie Lorne Chabot fished the puck out of the netting and had it sent over to the Detroit dressing room to be given to Bruneteau.

4. Prior to the game a Red Wings fan offered Detroit defenseman Bucko McDonald $5 for every hit he made that night. McDonald finished with 26 hits.

5. The game broke the record set by Toronto and Boston in 1932. Four players in this game also played in that game – Detroit’s Marty Barry (Boston) and Montreal’s Chabot (Toronto), Bob Gracie (Toronto) and Joe Lamb (Boston). So none of the four finished on the winning side in both games.