Red Wings acquired Babando from Bruins on Aug. 15, 1949, was X-factor behind 1950 Stanley Cup title
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Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as “The Hockey Maven,” shares his humor and insight with readers each Wednesday. This week shows how the Toronto Maple Leafs might benefit from replicating a trade made 76 years ago this week. The deal eventually led to a Stanley Cup-winning goal delivered by an unlikely hero.
Finding a replacement for high-scoring right wing Mitch Marner is a daunting challenge for the Toronto Maple Leafs and general manager Brad Treliving.
One possibility could be a trade that might enhance the Maple Leafs’ Stanley Cup aspirations.
The Detroit Red Wings and general manager Jack Adams were in a similar situation 76 years ago this week. A trade was made Aug. 16, 1949, leading to Detroit’s fourth Stanley Cup championship.
“My fans demanded I make a move,” said Adams at the time. “Toronto had won the Stanley Cup three times in a row. In the last one (1949), they beat us four straight in the Final even though we had finished first by a mile (nine points ahead of the second-place Boston Bruins and 18 in front of the Maple Leafs).”
Treliving knows that the Maple Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967, so they must replenish their arsenal after trading Marner to the Vegas Golden Knights on July 1.
“Toronto has lost a franchise player in every aspect of today’s game,” said Neil Smith, the general manager of the New York Rangers who won the Cup in 1994 and co-host of the “NHL Wraparound” podcast. “Marner’s skill, speed and hockey I.Q. makes him a dominant force in every game.”
Seeking more offense, the 1949-50 Red Wings went for broke in a six-player deal. Adams figured that top-rated defenseman Bill Quackenbush would be enticing trade bait.
“We want the Stanley Cup,” Adams said. “We have defensemen, but we don’t have forwards. I learned my lesson long ago not to stand pat when I should be dealing.”
Quackenbush had been a First NHL All-Star the previous two seasons and was penalty free throughout the 1948-49 season, winning the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.
“I also was one of the top-scoring defenseman,” Quackenbush said.
In his book, “Hockey 365,” author Mike Commito wrote: “Quackenbush was remarkably disciplined and one of the premier puck-moving defenders of his era. He had little difficulty evading opponents as he rushed up the ice.”
The four-for-two deal had the Bruins sending forwards Jimmy Peters and Pete Babando, and defensemen Clare Martin and Lloyd Durham, to the Red Wings for Quackenbush and pesty, second-line forward Pete Horeck.
At the outset, it appeared that Adams had lost his opportunity. Durham never played a game in the NHL and Martin played six undistinguished seasons split among Boston, Detroit, the Chicago Black Hawks and Rangers. Nothing about Peters’ game suggested anything more than second-line work.
“We had high hopes for Babando,” said Red Wings’ publicist Fred A. Huber Jr. “He’d scored 19 goals (in 58 games) for Boston in ’48-’49, but not for us.”
If Detroit fans were dismayed by Quackenbush’s departure, a measure of disappointment pervades in Toronto over Marner’s move to Vegas. Marner missed only one game last season and had an NHL career-high in points (102). He also averaged a point a game in 13 playoff games (two goals, 11 assists).
“Marner is good five-on-five, a deft penalty-killer and excellent as a first-line powerplay skater,” Smith said.
Results for the Red Wings without Quackenbush eventually proved gratifying. They finished 1949-50 in first place and won a bitter NHL Semifinals in seven games against the defending champion Maple Leafs.
In the seven-game Stanley Cup Final, the Rangers extended the Red Wings to overtime in the series finale. When the second sudden-death period approached nine minutes, Babando was dispatched with linemates Doc Couture and George Gee for the face-off deep in New York’s zone.
“Gee took the draw,” Babando told sports editor Ken Pagan of the Timmins Daily Press. “George told me to line up a little more to the side. He said he’d get it to me.”
After winning the draw, Gee passed the puck to Babando’s right. Badando took a stride and fired a backhand along the ice that beat screened goalie Chuck Rayner at 8:31 of the second OT to clinch the Stanley Cup for Detroit.
“I was just in the right place,” Babando said, “and at the right time.”
“For that goal alone, Jack Adams looked like a genius getting Pete in the Quackenbush deal,” Huber said, “but it didn’t prolong his Red Wings career.”
Babando was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks on July 13, 1950, in a nine-player exchange. After 3 1/2 seasons in the Windy City, he was traded to the Rangers on Aug. 8, 1953, and retired from the NHL after the season
“Babando never did for us what he’d done against us,” Rangers publicist Herb Goren said.
Quackenbush enjoyed a successful seven-season run in Boston but never played on a Stanley Cup winner.
“I got some revenge against Detroit in the ’53 playoffs when they were defending The Cup,” he said. “They’d finished way ahead (21 points) of us in the season, but we knocked them out in the first round.”
Now it’s a chance for Treliving and the Maple Leafs front office to craft a Cup winner with marquee players available to obtain a Marner replacement. It’d be something if they found a reasonable facsimile of Babando, circa April 23, 1950.
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