1917–18 Toronto Hockey Club season

Team business

A series of disputes in the NHA with Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone led the owners of the four non-Toronto teams to resign from the NHA and create the NHL for the 1917–18 season. The owners turned down a proposal from the management of the Toronto Arena Company to create a new Toronto-based franchise to join the other former NHA teams in a five team NHL. When the Quebec Bulldogs announced they didn't have enough financing to ice a team for the NHL's first season, the NHL granted a temporary franchise to the Toronto Arena Company, maintaining a balanced four team league and providing representation to the second largest market in Canada.

Toronto Arena Company reached an agreement to lease most of Livingstone's NHA players, as Livingstone found himself in a dormant one team NHA. The Toronto Arena Company paid players on a cash basis, and many players played without a contract. The players used the same uniform as the previous NHA season – blue with a white 'T'.

While agreement was reached on leasing the players, financial terms were not settled and this would lead to Livingstone filing a post-season lawsuit against the Toronto Arena Company. This dispute included a disagreement regarding the distribution of revenues from the Toronto Stanley Cup games in 1917, resulting in the Toronto club never engraving their name on the Cup to memorialize their series victory. In 1948, the NHL engraved "1918 Toronto Arenas" on the Cup, using the official nickname of the closely related 1918–19 Toronto franchise.

In response to the lawsuit, instead of returning the players to Livingstone, or even paying Livingstone, Toronto Arena Company returned their temporary franchise to the NHL and immediately formed a new club, the Toronto Arena Hockey Club, popularly known as the Toronto Arenas. The new club was a standalone corporation that could exist separate from any legal action. While the temporary 1917–18 Toronto franchise 'ceased' to exist, it is still considered the first step of today's ongoing NHL Toronto franchise ("Toronto Hockey Club" to "Toronto Arenas" to "Toronto St. Patricks" to "Toronto Maple Leafs"), and an unofficial continuation of the NHA Toronto Blueshirts franchise since the 1917–18 team was a nearly complete (though unpaid) leasing of the NHA team of 1916–17.

Regular season

The Toronto team (the 'Torontos' for the remainder of this article), Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, and Ottawa Senators were the original four teams of the league. The Wanderers would not finish the season, as the Montreal Arena burned down on January 2, 1918, and the club would fold after just six games.

The Torontos would finish the first half of the season with an 8–6–0 record, finishing second to the Montreal Canadiens, however, the Torontos put up a league best 5–3–0 record in the second half of the season, earning a spot in the O'Brien Cup finals against the Canadiens. Overall, the Torontos finished 13–9–0, tied with the Montreal Canadiens with the best record in the NHL.

During a game on January 28, 1918, Alf Skinner of the Torontos and Joe Hall of the Montreal Canadiens were involved in a stick swinging duel. Both players received match penalties, $15 fines, and were arrested by the Toronto Police for disorderly conduct, in which they received suspended sentences.

Reg Noble led the Torontos with 30 goals, which placed him third in the league, while Corbett Denneny had 20 goals, and Harry Cameron scored 17 goals. Alf Skinner, Ken Randall, and Harry Meeking would each get into double digits with goals, scoring 13, 12, and 10 respectively. Randall led the club with 55 penalty minutes, while Rusty Crawford earned 51 penalty minutes in only 9 games after being acquired from Ottawa.

In goal, Hap Holmes played the majority of games, earning a club high 10 victories, while backup Arthur Brooks posted a team best 4.00 GAA.

Final standings

Note: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against
Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold.
The Wanderers defaulted scheduled games against the Canadiens (Jan. 2, 1918) and Toronto (Jan. 5, 1918), when their arena burned down.
These appear as losses in the standings, but the games were not played.

First half

Toronto 10, Montreal Canadiens 7

The Torontos qualified for the post-season as they had the best record in the league in the second half of the season, and faced the Montreal Canadiens, who were qualifiers from the first half-season, in a two game total goal series.

In the first game at Mutual Street Arena, with Hap Holmes in goal for the Torontos, against Georges Vezina of the Canadiens. Toronto took an early 1-0 lead on a goal by Harry Meeking five minutes into the game. The Torontos Ken Randall gave the club a 2-0 heading into the second period. Montreal cut into Toronto's lead, as Newsy Lalonde scored four minutes into the second period, however, a minute later, the Torontos restored their two goal lead as Harry Meeking scored his second goal of the game. In the third period, Harry Meeking scored his third of the game to give Toronto a 4-1 lead. Bert Corbeau cut the Torontos lead down to 4-2 after he scored two minutes later, however, two quick Toronto goals, one by Jack Adams and another by Harry Cameron gave the team a commanding 6-2 lead. Newsy Lalonde scored his second of the game a minute after Cameron's goal, cutting the lead to 6-3, but the Torontos responded on a goal by Harry Mummery, giving them a 7-3 win.

The series moved to the Montreal Arena for the second game, with Hap Holmes getting the start for Toronto against Georges Vezina of Montreal. Reg Noble scored the only goal of the first period, giving Toronto a 1-0 lead. In the second period, Montreal tied the game on a goal by Joe Malone, and took a 2-1 lead after a goal by Jack Mcdonald. The Torontos Rusty Crawford tied the game 2-2 late in the period. The Canadiens Newsy Lalonde scored early in the third, giving Montreal a 3-2 lead, however, Rusty Crawford tied it for Toronto midway through the period. Two and a half minutes later, Newsy Lalonde gave Montreal a 4-3 lead, however, that was all the Canadiens could do, as Toronto defeated Montreal 10-7 in the two game total goal series.

Stanley Cup final

The Toronto club would face the Vancouver Millionaires of the PCHA to determine the winner of the 1918 Stanley Cup Finals in a best of 5 series, with all games being played at Mutual Street Arena. The Torontos took the series opener by a 5–3 score, with the Millionaires earning a 6–4 win in the second game. The teams would again split the next two games, setting up a fifth and final game. The Torontos would hold off the Millionaires with 2–1 victory, as Corbett Denneny scored the winning goal of the series.

Goaltending

Note:

Awards and records

Transactions

Stanley Cup engraving

Even though they officially did not win the Cup during this season, the Vancouver club had the words "Vancouver/Defeated Seattle/1917–18/Score 1–0" engraved on the Cup after winning the PCHA championship over the Metropolitans, who won the previous year's Cup finals. This was similar to the practice prior to 1915 when the trophy was officially passed on to the winner of the league championship of the previous Cup champion's league.

However, the Toronto club never did engrave their name on the Cup to memorialize their series victory over Vancouver. At the time, the NHL club was in a dispute with the owner of the NHA Toronto franchise holder over the Stanley Cup revenues. In 1948, the NHL engraved "1918 Toronto Arenas" on the Cup.