(Author's note: July 1 would have been Rod Gilbert's 84th birthday. He retired in November 1977 but is still the Rangers 'all-time leader in goals and points. To celebrate his birthday, Forever Blueshirts remembers the most memorable game of his career — the night he scored four goals in his hometown.)
Rod Gilbert may have been "Mr. Ranger" and one of the most popular athletes in the history of New York City. However, he was born and raised in Montreal – though luckily for the New York Rangers , they found him first.
Gilbert's skills got him noticed at an early age. At 14, he was playing with grown men in the competition for the Allan Cup, Canada's senior amateur championship. When the Rangers hired Yvon Prudhomme, the scout who had invited him to play senior hockey, to start a Junior B team, he signed Gilbert. Even better for the Rangers was that Gilbert proved to be a good talent scout, urging Prudhomme to sign boyhood friend and linemate Jean Ratelle, who became his longtime center with the Rangers.
Despite two serious back injuries that nearly derailed his hockey career, Gilbert was already a three-time 20-goal scorer by the time he and the Rangers came to the Montreal Forum for a Saturday night game against the first-place Canadiens on Feb. 24, 1968.
The Rangers were enjoying their best season in a decade – they ended up in second place, their best showing since 1957-58. But the Forum had been a house of horrors for the Rangers, who were 4-18 with one tie in their previous 23 visits to Montreal. The Canadiens were 19-0 with one tie in their previous 20 home games against all comers.
This night, however, was different. The greatest night of his career, and just the third four-goal game in Rangers history, came in his hometown that night — but only because Gilbert didn't want to let his family and friends down.
"I was sick as a dog the morning of that game," he remembered decades later.
"Friday night I had dinner with my parents and my brother and sister. I woke up with a 103-degree fever and I didn't think I could play that night. I didn't go to the pre-game skate; I stayed in bed. I was hot, and I called the doctor from the hotel. He gave me some antibiotics, and I went back to sleep. I wasn't sure if I could play."
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But tickets for a Saturday night game were hard enough to get at the Forum in those pre-StubHub days, even for a Montreal native and visiting player. Having made the effort to get tickets for family and friends provided some extra incentive to suit up.
"I had bought 15 tickets for the game, so I had to play," Gilbert remembered. "I wound up getting really hot in the warmup and forgetting about the whole thing (feeling sick). I went out there and just played."
Did he ever!
After Ron Stewart gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead 4:13 into the game, Gilbert made it 2-0 at 6:28 with a power-play goal, rocketing a 20-footer past Canadiens goalie Rogie Vachon.
Montreal made it 2-1 at 6:06 of the second period on a goal by Yvan Cournoyer. But Gilbert restored the Rangers' two-goal lead at 12:01, beating Vachon from 25 feet. He completed a hat trick at 19:10, beating Vachon over the shoulder from 35 feet.
"(Jean) Ratelle, (Vic) Hadfield and I had our line going in high gear," Gilbert said.
Ratelle earned his third assist on Gilbert's fourth goal of the night, flicking a loose puck past Vachon. Gilbert earned an assist on Ratelle's goal at 16:34 that completed the scoring in the 6-1 victory.
Gilbert said Vachon, a fellow Hockey Hall of Famer, played well despite surrendering four goals to him and six to the Rangers.
Jean-Yves Ahern-Imagn Images
"I got 16 shots on goal (an NHL record at the time), and I only scored four goals," he said. "I should have had maybe eight. Rogie Vachon made some incredible saves against me.
"I was banging that thing toward the net — and remember, we didn't shoot from far out. Our line worked it in pretty close. I had a lot of chances. I also had an assist on Ratelle's goal, so I finished the night with five points. We didn't win often in Montreal, so to win 6-1 and score four goals, that was a pretty big night."
By the end of the night, even the fiercely pro-Canadiens crowd was giving some cheers to the hometown boy.
"They never should have let him get out of Montreal," one fan said, according to The New York Times. "He learned to play here."
Gilbert had two other four-goal games in his NHL career, both against the Detroit Red Wings . He scored four in a 5-5 tie against them at the Garden on Feb. 2, 1975, and again in a 5-4 win at the Olympia on Feb. 7, 1976.
But scoring four at the Forum in front of 16,070 fans on that February night was the kind of game no player would ever forget. Gilbert certainly didn't.
"I had a lot of friends and family in Montreal – it was my hometown – so it was pretty important," he said. "It was extra special."
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