Sanderson gives his side of ‘The Goal’ on 54th anniversary of Orr’s memorable score

“I often tell people that I made the kid famous… even if it falls on deaf ears,” Derek Sanderson is saying with a laugh.

The kid would be Boston Bruins legend Bobby Orr, who 54 years ago on Friday scored the 1970 Stanley Cup-clinching goal in overtime of Game 4 against the St. Louis Blues.

Orr slammed the winner past Blues goalie Glenn Hall on a perfect pass from Sanderson, who was behind the St. Louis net ready to execute a set play that he and the superstar defenseman had often practiced.

Just as Bruins’ speedy forward David Pastrnak converted a set play with defenseman Hampus Lindholm in overtime in Game 7 of the first round on May 4, eliminating the Toronto Maple Leafs, so did Sanderson brilliantly feed Orr 40 seconds into 1970 overtime to defeat the Blues.

On Friday, Sanderson will be at home 15 miles west of Boston to watch the Bruins and Florida Panthers play Game 3 of their Eastern Conference Second Round at TD Garden (8 p.m. ET, MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC). The best-of-7 series is tied 1-1.

He can absolutely expect the 1970 anniversary of that 4-3 game to be mentioned, “The Goal” a proper noun -- indeed, a life-defining moment -- for many Bruins fans.

“If Bobby and I set up a cross-Canada tour and called it ‘The Goal,’ signing pictures of it, I’d make a ton of money,” Sanderson said. “Playmakers can be almost invisible. Goal-scorers, ping! that’s it. But another player has to set it up. That’s what’s so great about the game today – the passing is so good.”

On Wednesday, Sanderson was still spellbound by the dramatic goal from Pastrnak, who had sprinted behind the Maple Leafs defense to take the carom of Lindholm’s 100-foot shot into the corner and beat goalie Ilya Samsonov on a crafty deke.

Derek Sanderson in alone on Toronto goalie Bruce Gamble during a March 14, 1970 game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Gamble made the save in Toronto’s 2-1 win.

“I was amazed. Lindholm shot that in at a perfect, perfect angle,” he said. “Where Pastrnak was on the outside, he was going to get to the puck first. Samsonov was totally surprised, frozen by it. He looked at his defensemen, like he was saying, ‘Can they get him?’ The Leafs forwards were saying the same thing on the backcheck.

“Lindholm made a perfect shot. The puck came out of the corner semi-dead but with enough force to bring it into play, and Pastrnak is just a wizard when he sees what he’s got. He thinks faster than most other players.”

By comparison, Sanderson to Orr in 1970 was a grittier play, a give-and-go that the pair had worked on in practice and used successfully in games.

“Absolutely no doubt Bobby was going to the net after he gave it to me,” Sanderson recalled.

Derek Sanderson as the Boston Bruins Fan Banner Captain on April 30 before Game 5 of this season’s Bruins-Toronto Maple Leafs First Round series, and with fellow 1970 and 1972 Stanley Cup champion Phil Esposito before the TD Garden game against the Montreal Canadiens on Nov. 18.

Orr pinched in along the boards deep in the Blues end, grabbed a clearing puck and gingerly fed it to Sanderson behind the net. Orr cut sharply left toward the goal, between Blues goalie Hall and defenseman Noel Picard, and snapped the return pass into Bruins lore forever, Picard pitchforking him into history.

“That was my most famous assist,” Sanderson said of setting up Orr. “It’s the one everyone remembers.”

The 77-year-old native of Niagara Falls, Ontario played 598 NHL games between 1965-78 -- first with the Bruins, for whom he won the Calder Trophy as the League’s top rookie in 1967-68 and the Stanley Cup in 1970 and 1972, then the New York Rangers, Blues, Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins. He had 452 points (202 goals, 250 assists), with another 30 points (18 goals, 12 assists) in 56 playoff games.

Sanderson loves the black and gold in his veins and the energy of TD Garden but says it’s more comfortable to watch games at home than navigating through a crowded arena.

Derek Sanderson on the Boston Bruins bench during the 1967-68 season.

He walks with a cane following back surgery necessitated by a spine curvature that’s the result of 10 hip replacements -- six on the left, four on the right -- that have left his left leg an inch and a half shorter than the right.

“I’ve waddled since 1983,” Sanderson said, his first hip surgery done four decades ago. “I could get rid of the waddle if they’d shave an inch and a half off the right leg. I’d gladly trade the height if I could play golf. I don’t walk very far now, doing a lot of physio. I’ve gone to the rink, done the ‘Hi, how are you?’, stayed for the flag-waving, then got back in the car they provide and go home.”

The Bruins’ 2023-24 centennial season has been a delight, he said, including the November banner-raising for the 1970 and 1972 championships that assembled many of the players from those teams. 

Sanderson lauds captain Brad Marchand and everything the scrappy forward brings to today’s Bruins on and off the ice, having seen Marchand’s potential since he turned two defensemen inside out in a preseason game probably 15 years ago.

Derek Sanderson with teammates Bobby Orr (left) and Wayne Cashman following the Bruins’ April 16, 1970 Game 6 quarterfinal victory in New York, eliminating the Rangers. Boston would then sweep Chicago and St. Louis to win the Stanley Cup.

“I love Brad, love him,” Sanderson said. “I was looking more at Charlie McAvoy as captain, but they couldn’t have made a better choice. You never know what Brad’s going to do. Watch his antics on the replay, (messing) around with everybody. He hits everybody, gets them all upset.

“He's a wonderful goal-scorer, a heck of a leader. The guys love him. You see him bouncing off teammates in the corridor before they come out for a game, getting everyone psyched up.

“And (goalie) Jeremy Swayman. He’s a beautiful person, a good, good person, kind, great with kids. He and (fellow goalie) Linus Ullmark get along so well. I see no squabbles between them. I think the Bruins have the best one-two goalie combination in the League.”

Sanderson believes that the Bruins and Rangers are on a collision course to meet in the Eastern Conference Final, the winner of that series advancing to the Stanley Cup Final.

Derek Sanderson with Toronto’s Ron Ellis behind goalie Bruce Gamble’s net, and as a member of the 1975-76 New York Rangers.

He’d love nothing better, having played for each historic franchise and the centerpiece of a wild, wonderful 1970 Bruins-Rangers playoff story that he finally wants to set straight.

Game 2 of the quarterfinal series was ridiculously tame, only 10 penalty minutes called in Boston’s 5-3 home-ice win, putting them up 2-0.

“Last minute or so, (Rangers’) Billy Fairbairn, a great guy and great player, is on the ice playing out the final minute,” Sanderson said. “I jousted him, he jabbed me back and away we went. I said to him, ‘That’s for nothing. Now see what you’ll get for doing something.’ ”

No penalties called, off to New York they went for Game 3. A little more than minute into the first period, Sanderson lined up against Rangers center Walt Tkaczuk, New York goalie Eddie Giacomin skating out to the face-off circle.

That night, and forever since, it’s been reported that Giacomin told Sanderson that the entire Rangers team was being paid to get him. That Sanderson told reporters precisely this in the aftermath of the ensuing melee gave the story strong legs.

Derek Sanderson in a 1967-68 Boston Bruins portrait, and in the early 1970s in a pose for an O-Pee-Chee hockey card.

“It was a lie,” he admits now. “I’d scored goals off the face-off, shooting almost before the puck touched the ice. You’re pretty close to the goalie, so if you don’t hit him, it might be going in. So Giacomin came out and told Walter, ‘Watch him, he’ll try to shoot.’ ”

Sanderson exchanged words with Giacomin, then just missed his quick shot off the draw before racing in behind the Rangers net, where he was flattened by defenseman Arnie Brown. 

“Walter and Billy (Fairbairn) were very close, I think they were both (upset) with me,” Sanderson recalled. “I’m run into the boards and I see everybody coming. I throw an elbow at Arnie, I’m down, Keystone Kops, nobody’s punching because you can’t get loose. I snuck out the side. I got into a fight with Arnie, then Dave Balon.”

Sanderson was assessed a double major for fighting, a misconduct and game misconduct 91 seconds into the game. He was still unlacing his skates when singer Paul Anka wandered into the unpoliced dressing room and parked himself beside the banished Bruin.

“I see him and say, ‘Hey, Paul, what’s going on?’ ” Sanderson said. “Paul’s like, ‘What did Giacomin say?’ and I told him, ‘He said the entire Rangers team was paid to maim me.’ In comes the press later and I told them what I’d told Paul. They jumped all over it and ever since, I’ve not been able to beat that story down.”

Derek Sanderson in the 2020 NHL Network Originals documentary “The 1970 Bruins: Big, Bad & Bobby,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Bruins’ 1970 championship.

Referee John Ashley called 174 penalty minutes that night, setting a handful of records that long ago were pushed well down all-time lists.

The story almost rivals that of Sanderson, a 21-year-old plenty-to-prove rookie, giving Canadiens captain Jean Beliveau an unsolicited punch in the face at the Forum as payback for the Montreal icon being too rushed to sign Sanderson’s autograph book a decade earlier after a game in Toronto.

“It wasn’t a vicious punch but I said that I’d get Jean,” he said of bopping Beliveau. “His face was there, so boom. Then I look up and there’s John Ferguson (the Canadiens’ rugged policeman). His face lit up, he was maniacal. Good thing for me the net was between me and Fergy or my career would have been over before it started.”

With the Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks not making the playoffs and the Maple Leafs now out, Sanderson looks at the Bruins and the Rangers and considers the possibilities of a conference final matchup. It would be the 11th postseason series between two rivals of the Original Six era, Boston leading 7-3 between 1927-2013.

“If injuries don’t play a role, it’s a foregone conclusion that it’s Boston against New York in the next round,” he said.

It matters little to Sanderson for now that the Panthers, convincing 6-1 winners in Game 2 on Wednesday, might shove a stick in the spokes of his dreams.

Top photo: Derek Sanderson lifts his stick in celebration behind an airborne Bobby Orr after having set up the latter’s Game 4 Stanley Cup-clinching overtime goal against the St. Louis Blues on May 10, 1970.