Montreal’s third NHL franchise, which won two Stanley Cups in 14 seasons, almost went to Philadelphia

The Montreal Maroons never played another game after the 1937-38 NHL season.

But, as it turned out, they didn’t completely go away. Not then, anyway.

Arguably, they survived until this date in 1967, when the NHL finally arranged to pay off the man who had tried unsuccessfully to revive them both before and after the Second World War.

Len Peto, a Montreal business executive and sportsman who was involved for many years in soccer, football, and hockey in that city, had started working on a resurrection of the Maroons within a year of their departure from competition. He allied himself with the operators of the Montreal Royals senior amateur team, and in February 1939 they announced that they would seek to acquire the Maroons franchise and use it to move the Royals into the NHL.

That didn’t come to pass, but Peto did become a director of the Canadian Arena Company, which owned the Montreal Forum, the Montreal Canadiens, and the rights to the Maroons franchise. In this capacity, his name was engraved on the Stanley Cup after the Habs’ victory in 1944.

Following the war, he revived his revival plans for the Maroons and, after resigning as a Canadian Arena Company director, paid the company $25,000 for the rights to the Maroons. He also announced that he intended to move the franchise to Philadelphia and reactivate it there in a new arena he would build.

Unfortunately, he ran into opposition from Philadelphia’s existing AHL team, from the AHL itself, and from the power brokers at Madison Square Garden, who had a hand in the ownership and/or operation of four of the then-six NHL teams. Long story short, Peto’s arena didn’t get built and the Maroons were not revived to play in Philadelphia or anywhere else.

Legal action followed and continued for years thereafter until the Canadian Arena Company and NHL, at the league’s annual meeting on September 27, 1967, agreed to refund Peto’s $25,000. Coincidentally, this happened as the new Philadelphia Flyers were preparing for their first season of play.

It isn't known when the NHL officially cancelled the Maroons franchise, but arguably they continued to exist until the final debt associated with them was repaid. 

Peto's payoff was only one item the league dealt with on that date. It also confirmed that the 1968 Stanley Cup final would be decided between the champions of the NHL’s East and West Divisions.

The league’s board of governors rejected a suggestion from president Clarence Campbell that they avoid a final matchup that would likely be a mismatch. He recommended that a divisional crossover should occur in the second playoff round, with the winners of those two series then meeting for the championship. But the governors successfully argued that as long as the six new teams were going to comprise an entire division of their own, they had a right to play off amongst themselves and crown a true division champion.

Campbell's recommendation did finally come to pass in 1970-71, after three straight Cup finals that predictably ended in sweeps by the established East Division clubs.