Scoreless Wonders

The energetic Detroit Red Wings were obviously the class of big-time hockey. Sharpshooting Left Wing Ted Lindsay was the National Hockey League's leading scorer and Center Forward Sid Abel was runner-up. With such fire-power the Red Wings boomed past the mid-season mark last week safely entrenched in first.place and with only one worry in the world: lately they couldn't beat the New York Rangers.

Last week, as the Wings took aim on the Rangers in Madison Square Garden, they were sore from two successive thumpings (1-0 and 2-1) by a team which had been playing dead for eight years. When the game was only 29 seconds old, the red light flashed over Detroit's goal and the Wings trailed, 1-0.

Ranger Coach Lynn Patrick had found a way to jam Detroit's high-velocity forward line of Lindsay, Gordon Howe and Abel by borrowing from platoon football. He simply used his own second line as a defensive unit whose chief function was not to score but to keep the Wings from scoring. When Detroit's main-line trio of Lindsay, Howe and Abel skated onto the ice, so did Patrick's nuisance line. When Lindsay & Co. were called off the ice to rest between sallies, so were their Ranger shadows. Then Coach Patrick inserted the line that he was counting on to score: Dune Fisher, Edgar Laprade, Tony Leswick.

In last week's game it worked again. Detroit's big three, who had not made a single goal in the last two Ranger games, were held scoreless again. With Goalie Chuck Rayner and the nuisance boys performing in style, the Rangers won, 2-1.

Since becoming the Rangers' coach in the middle of last season, Lynn Patrick has been trying frantically to correct an ingrained Ranger habit: they score too few goals. He still has the lowest-scoring club in hockey (2.2 goals a game this year). But after getting off to a miserable start, Patrick's scoreless wonders have lifted eyebrows all around the National Hockey League by losing only three games in their last 15. By last week, thanks to victories over Detroit and Montreal, they were in second place.

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