February 2, 1978
On this February evening, the Flyers were taking on the lowly Colorado Rockies in a Thursday night game at the Spectrum. In between the pipes for the Flyers, was All-Star goalie Bernie Parent. In this Flyers victory, he would reach another personal milestone in his Hall of Fame Career.
In the 3-0 shutout, he turned away just 18 shots from the Rockies, en route to his 50th NHL shutout. Goals by Bob Dailey, Bobby Clarke and Gary Dornhoefer led the charge against Colorado as the Flyers peppered goaltender Michel Plasse with 36 shots. Parent was also playing in back-to-back games, a night after facing just 14 shots in Chicago, but being defeated 3-1.
In the Stanley Cup winning seasons of 1973-74 and 1974-75, Parent led the NHL in shutouts each time with 12, while compiling a staggering 91 regular-season wins. Overall, Parent recorded 54 career shutouts – 50 as a Flyer, three with Toronto in 1971-72 and one with Boston in 1965-66 at age 20. The 50 shutouts as a Flyer is a team record that still stands to this day and will take a very long time to be broken – if ever at all.
The goalie who currently sits second on the list? Roman Cechmanek with 20.
If there ever comes a day that a Flyer goalie even approaches this team record, he will have to be something special, on a team that is very special.
Because as the legend goes: only God saves more than Bernie Parent.
Mike Watson is a contributing writer for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on twitter @Mwats_99
