We continue with the second phase of our original NHL Saturday miniseries, going backward into the Original Six Era. We realize we did this backward, and maybe we should have gone back to 1943 to work our way forward to 1967. Alas, we just decided to do it differently than we did with the MLB, NBA, and NBA miniseries. We understand it’s a little confusing at times, in terms of counting numbers of trophies. Sorry!

1963 Hart: Gordie Howe, RW, Detroit (original, confirmed)

Almost every team had a forward in the league’s Top 10 for Point Shares: Detroit right wing Gordie Howe (9.5); New York RW Andy Bathgate (8.4); Toronto left wing Frank Mahovlich (8.4); Chicago RW Stan Mikita (7.8); and Montréal center Henri Richard (7.0). Howe won the vote, so we have to check the standings to see how that impacts the raw sabermetrics: Detroit finished fourth, but it was very close.

The top four teams—Maple Leafs, Black Hawks, Canadiens, and Red Wings—all ended up within five points of each other in the standings. With Howe having the highest PS mark, and doing it on the “worst” playoff team, we confirm the vote. Bathgate’s Rangers finished a whopping 21 points behind Detroit, by the way. Howe topped the league in goals (38) and points (86), while notching 100 PIMs for the time since 1956.

We gave Howe our Conn Smythe for 1964, but this is the first Hart for him so far, as we go back in time.

1963 Norris: Pierre Pilote, Chicago (original); Bill Gadsby, Detroit (revised)

Black Hawks defenseman Pierre Pilote (6.1 PS) won the first of three straight Norris votes; we confirmed the other two (1964, 1965), but we need to re-assign this one. The Top 5 vote getters here included two Maple Leafs and two Black Hawks; the fifth was Detroit veteran Bill Gadsby (6.3). He was third among the vote getters in Point Shares, and as noted above, the Red Wings were the “worst” playoff team. He wins this nod.

1963 Vezina: Glenn Hall (original, confirmed)

Legendary Chicago creasemaster Glenn Hall was awarded the Vezina, since the Black Hawks surrendered the least amount of goals (178). But Hall also posted the highest PS mark in the league (13.6). We will confirm this award, as Chicago finished second in the standings. Hall led his peers in wins (30), save percentage (.918) and shutouts (five). He played in 66 of 70 games, registering 65 decisions (30-20-15) along the way.

This is the third Vezina we’ve given Hall in the past four seasons (1963-1966). This was his earliest vote win, however; the other two came in 1967 and 1969 (the last one when he was with the expansion St. Louis Blues). We did not confirm those two nods, but as we have said many times before here in these spaces, it all evens out, really.

1963 Calder: Kent Douglas, D, Toronto (original); Doug Barkley, D, Detroit (revised)

This award comes down to two defensemen: the Maple Leafs’ Kent Douglas (6.6 PS) and the Red Wings’ Doug Barkley (6.1). Toronto finished five points ahead of Detroit in the standings, and we know the Maple Leafs had two other defensemen in the Top 5 Norris vote. So Douglas had a lot of help, where as the Detroit players did not have as much (see Howe and Gadsby above). Therefore, we give this nod to Barkley, for value.

In truth, Douglas won the vote by one point over Barkley, so this is not much of a stretch at all: both players were in their age-26 seasons. Barkley posted two Norris Top 10 vote finishes in 1965 and 1966 before being forced to retire to blindness in his right eye from an on-ice incident during his final season. We didn’t know that until writing this column, however. Yet it makes us feel better about our sabermetric decision above.

1963 Conn Smythe: Johnny Bower, G, Toronto

Toronto beat Montréal in five games to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals, where the Leafs dropped the Wings in five games as well. Overall, they outscored their opponents, 31-16, in the postseason, with only one skater posting more than a point per game (C Dave Keon, who would win the 1967 Conn Smythe vote). However, we see G Johnny Bower as the real dominant one here: 8-2, .949 S%, 1.60 GAA, and two shutouts.

It’s hard to lose when you have goalie standing on his head like that. You don’t need to score much to win.