Installment No. 10 in an occasional series highlighting the most memorable game in which players participated as a member of the Penguins.
Player: Jim Rutherford
Date: April 1, 1972
Game: Regular-season game No. 77, vs. Philadelphia
Site: The Spectrum, Philadelphia
Result: Tie, 4-4
It was a place where the Penguins once went 15 years -- and 42 games -- between victories.
Where they absorbed some of their most humbling, soul-crushing defeats.
Where they were embarrassed at least as often as they were at the Forum in Montreal of Boston Garden.
Which is to say, a lot.
But not everything that happened in the Spectrum, the Flyers' home during their early decades in the NHL, left a psychological scar on the Penguins.
Fact is, Jim Rutherford says a game there was the most memorable of the 115 in which he appeared while playing for them.
Not because the Penguins won.
They didn't.
And not because he recorded one of his 14 career shutouts.
He didn't.
Rather, it's because of what was at stake: The Penguins needed to take at least a point out of that game, played on the next-to-last day of the 1971-72 season, to preserve their long-shot chances of qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"I remember the build-up to our game," Rutherford said. "It was such a big game and, obviously, playing in Philadelphia ... if I remember right, Kate Smith, they played that song, "God Bless America" (the franchise's perceived good-luck charm for decades)."
She didn't get on the scoresheet that afternoon, but for a while, it seemed as if most of the Flyers would.
After Steve Cardwell of the Penguins beat Philadelphia goalie Doug Favell at 2:49 of the opening period, Bobby Clarke and Gary Dornhoefer countered for the Flyers over the next 10-plus minutes.
Clarke put another puck past Rutherford at 7:37 for the only score of the second period, which meant that the Penguins went into the final 20 minutes with a two-goal deficit. On the road. Against a motivated opponent.
"We had to come from behind," Rutherford said.
The chances of that appeared to rise when Greg Polis scored just 12 seconds into the third, but Ross Lonsberry restored the Flyers' two-goal edge at 6:04.
However, Bobby Leiter revived the Penguins with a goal 110 seconds later (off an assist from Tim Horton) and Polis capped their improbable comeback by scoring with 46 seconds left in regulation, courtesy of a set-up by Eddie Shack and Syl Apps.
"We got the point," Rutherford said.
What they didn't get was a guarantee that it would put them into the playoffs, because the Penguins still needed to beat St. Louis in the regular-season finale the next night at the Civic Arena and have Buffalo, a team in just its second season, knock off Philadelphia at Memorial Auditorium.
That would allow the Penguins to tie the Flyers in points, and move ahead of Philadelphia by virtue of a tiebreaker.
Still, having a modest chance to get into the postseason was infinitely better than having none.
"That point against the Flyers was the key to setting up the Sunday game," Rutherford said.
The Penguins would go on to do their part on the regular season's final night, dominating the Blues en route to a 6-2 victory, but it didn't figure to matter as time ran down in the Flyers-Sabres game with the score tied, 2-2.
It stayed that way until just four seconds remained, when Sabres forward Gerry Meehan attained instant folk-hero status among Penguins partisans by launching a long shot past Favell to give the Sabres a 3-2 victory -- raising their record to a robust 16-43-19 -- and the Penguins a spot opposite Chicago in Round 1 of the playoffs.
Their trip to the postseason didn't last long. Chicago, whose lineup was headlined by Hall of Famers such as Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito, swept the series, although the Penguins were surprisingly competitive in every game.
"We went into in the playoffs and played a team that was much better than us," Rutherford said. "We were overmatched by the Blackhawks."
No question about that, although that reality didn't detract from the feat of getting into the playoffs for just the second time in the franchise's first five seasons.
And it was all made possible by a game the Penguins didn't win. In a place where they rarely did.
MOST MEMORABLE GAMES
• Bob Errey
• Eddie Olczyk
• Phil Bourque
• Bill Guerin
• Ron Francis
• Brooks Orpik
• Rick Tocchet
• Colby Armstrong
• Matt Cullen
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