The other story, widely considered the main reason for the American victory, was goalie Jim Craig. The Soviets peppered him the whole second period, outshooting the Americans , but Craig made several remarkable saves to keep his team alive heading into the second intermission. The emboldened Americans tied the game on a powerplay goal about 9 minutes into the third, and the arena of about 8, in Lake Placid, NY erupted in approval.
The tide was turning. Then, only later, captain Mike Eruzione unleashed a wrist shot towards Mishkin, who was screened by one of his defensemen, and the puck snuck under his right arm for what would prove to be the winning goal with exactly ten minutes remaining. Those ten minutes were agony for just about everyone involved, the Americans essentially packing bodies in front of their net and clearing the puck when possible—like a hockey prevent defense, just trying to hang on—and the Soviets searching for some sort of opening, but being forced to take difficult shots through the sea of humanity only to be stymied by Craig nine more times in those final ten minutes.
Craig would finish the game with 36 saves on 39 shots. As the Soviets buzzed frantically around the American zone seeking one last chance to tie the game, the puck was finally cleared from the zone with about five seconds remaining, prompting Al Michaels to say the words that would give chills to any American or sports fan to this day:.
He told them they had accomplished nothing to that point, and put them through one last grueling workout. There would be no letdown by the Americans. They beat Finland and became the first American team to win gold since the Soviet reign had begun in The U. World events and politics had cast the matchup in an entirely different light.
The game was a victory not just for Brooks and his team, but for the U. It also exposed many more Americans to the sport and gave it a boost in popularity. It was the kind of experience most coaches dream of and point to as an example for their own teams, where a team came together to be more than the sum of its parts.
Where discipline, hard work, and toughness overcame raw talent. It would not be overly bold to call it the greatest upset and greatest team win in sports history. A happy 41st anniversary to the Mens National Team and the gold medal they earned. The much-anticipated game started at 5 pm but was broadcast on tape delay at 8 pm that night to capture a larger TV audience.
A record 36 million American households tuned in. Like every other game the Americans played in Lake Placid, the U. The Soviets answered minutes later to go Then, with just seconds left in the first period, forward Mark Johnson snagged a rare deflection from the Soviet goalie Tretiak and scored what many believe was the turning point of the game.
When the Soviets took the ice to start the second period, Tretiak was on the bench. While Johnson led the offense, Craig was an absolute beast in the goal. He recorded 36 saves that night for a. Team USA was up It was bedlam in Lake Placid as the flag-waving crowd roared to its feet. But there were still 10 long minutes on the clock. Somehow, Craig and the U. In the locker room before the championship match, which the Americans ultimately won , Brooks abandoned his mind games to deliver a heartfelt pep talk.
They had won each of the previous four Olympic gold medals in hockey and 12 gold medals in the 16 world championships they played in between and Even when the U. Oh, and that doesn't even include the Soviets' infamous blowout exhibition win to close out the U. The idea of competing with the Soviets was absurd on paper. But the victory becomes even more miraculous when you see how badly the U.
Here's a look at possession-based numbers from the game, gathered through meticulous game-tracking by hockey analytics guru Corey Sznajder. The most basic metric is total shot attempts -- the total number of shots a team takes, whether they hit or miss the net or are blocked by the opposition, commonly known in the hockey stats community as Corsi -- specifically those taken when both teams are skating five players a side.
It is commonly presented to show possession tendencies. When taking that same statistic and looking at only 5-on-5 situations, the USSR held a shot attempt advantage When looking at shots that hit their target, the official box score credited the USSR with 39 total shots on goal, and we determined it had 31 at 5-on The United States? Try 16, and just seven at 5-on We actually classified six of those 16 American shots as dump-ins on goal, too, meaning there were really 10 true shots from Team USA.
Running a possession deficit that substantial is not usually going to lead to success, and it's somewhat rare to see. Over the past three NHL postseasons, only five playoff games out of have had a possession disparity as large or larger than what we saw in the Miracle on Ice. Yet against the Soviets, losing the possession game was almost an inevitability in a "You can't stop them, you can only hope to contain them" kind of way.
Perhaps the more alarming metric is the number of scoring chances the U. According to our manually tracked data, the Soviets accounted for 20 scoring chances at 5-on-5 unblocked shots that come from within a more dangerous area of the ice.
The U. We tracked seven total scoring chances during 5-on-5 play for the Americans. That's it. That means the Soviets owned That's some serious opportunism. But then it mustered only two shots on net in the second frame and trailed heading into the third period. Twenty minutes to score two goals, all while holding off the Soviet offensive attack?
After a period like that? It seemed impossible against a juggernaut like the Soviets. Until it wasn't -- thanks in part to goaltender Jim Craig's nine saves in that final frame. One of the single biggest reasons the Miracle on Ice will always resonate is that it is a unique example of what happens when human beings do extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances. It's probably one of the big reasons the world stops to watch the Olympics on a biannual basis.
He was a brilliant goalkeeper and one of the smartest goalies I've ever met. Indeed, it was the game of his life. He posted a. Without Craig's performance, there is probably no Miracle on Ice. His ability to kick shots away and not allow many second chances were major keys to success for this team. There was little doubt the Soviets had the better team at 5-on The possession was tilted their way, as detailed above, and Craig registered an even-strength save percentage of.
Perhaps most importantly, Craig stopped eight of 10 "high-danger" scoring chances over the course of the game, which are shots that come from areas on the ice most likely to result in a goal. He continuously stumped the Soviet offense.
Low and hard was the shot of choice at the time, as goalies weren't accustomed to the butterfly style that is now commonplace. Craig turned aside 25 of the 27 shots that came his way down low. The goals he did allow were all pretty much no-doubters. They included a deflected shot off of a defensive-zone turnover, a broken play and unfortunate bounce ending with a wrist shot over his glove, and finally a breakaway from the blue line in.
To win this game, the Americans had to play it perfectly. That's what gets lost more than anything today. Every hockey game you need a few bounces to go your way, but this was not some lucky break or fluke win. He pushed them hard for seven months, and I witnessed every second of it.
Color analyst Ken Dryden described the Soviets' counterattack like a fast break in basketball. They thrived on odd-man break situations. But the U. There always seemed to be three or four players back, which was a credit to the U.
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