# 1973 WHA playoffs

The 1973 WHA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the World Hockey Association's 1972-1973 season. The tournament concluded with the Eastern Division champion New England Whalers defeating the Western Division champion Winnipeg Jets in five games for the first Avco Cup championship.

## Playoff seeds

The top four teams in each division made the playoffs.

### Eastern Division

* New England Whalers, Eastern Division champions – 94 points
* Cleveland Crusaders – 89 points
* Philadelphia Blazers – 76 points
* Ontario Nationals – 74 points

### Western Division

* Winnipeg Jets, Western Division champions – 90 points
* Houston Aeros – 82 points
* Los Angeles Sharks – 80 points
* Minnesota Fighting Saints – 79 points

## Bracket

| Quarterfinals | Quarterfinals | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Semifinals | Semifinals | Finals | Finals | Finals |
| E1 | New England | 4 | | | | | | |
| E4 | Ottawa | 1 | | | | | | |
| E4 | Ottawa | 1 | E1 | New England | 4 | | | |
| Eastern Division | Eastern Division | Eastern Division | E1 | New England | 4 | | | |
| Eastern Division | Eastern Division | Eastern Division | E2 | Cleveland | 1 | | | |
| E2 | Cleveland | 4 | E2 | Cleveland | 1 | | | |
| E3 | Philadelphia | 0 | | | | | | |
| E3 | Philadelphia | 0 | | | | E1 | New England | 4 |
| | | | | | | W1 | Winnipeg | 1 |
| W1 | Winnipeg | 4 | | | | | | | W1 | Winnipeg | 1 |
| W4 | Minnesota | 1 | | | | | | |
| W4 | Minnesota | 1 | W1 | Winnipeg | 4 | | | |
| Western Division | Western Division | Western Division | W1 | Winnipeg | 4 | | | |
| Western Division | Western Division | Western Division | W2 | Houston | 0 | | | |
| W2 | Houston | 4 | W2 | Houston | 0 | | | |
| W3 | Los Angeles | 2 | | | | | | |

## Preliminary Round

At the end of the season, the WHA had a problem involving the fourth and final team to make the postseason in the Western Division. The Alberta Oilers and Minnesota Fighting Saints finished the season with the same record of 38–37–3. The two tiebreakers the league had were wins and head-to-head, but Alberta had won the final game of the season over Minnesota 5–3 that was also their fourth victory over Minnesota in eight contests. The league Board of Governors, meeting quickly to decide, elected to move on a one-game playoff while allowing the Oilers to have a choice of site, and they elected to pick Calgary.

## Division Semifinals
### Eastern Division Semifinals
#### (E1) New England Whalers vs. (E4) Ontario Nationals

Owing to a dispute with the city of Ottawa, the Nationals elected to play their playoff games at Maple Leaf Gardens rather than their regular season home of the Ottawa Civic Centre. The team called themselves the "Ontario Nationals" for the playoffs and never played in Ottawa again, as they were sold to interests that had them play in Toronto as the Toronto Toros. Brit Selby and Mike Byers each scored game-winning goals in overtime to win games for the Whalers, with the latter being the first to end a postseason series with an overtime goal that saw the Whalers send the Nationals home.

#### (E2) Cleveland Crusaders vs. (E3) Philadelphia Blazers

The Crusaders finished as the second-best team in the East with a 43-32-3 record and led the league in goals allowed with just 239 to go with a 4th best offense with 287 goals. The Philadelphia Blazers squeaked into the postseason as the 3rd team with a record of 38–40 to go with the third best offense with 288 goals scored and a 10th ranked defense with 305 allowed. In the first game, Ron Buchanan became the first WHA player to score a playoff overtime goal that gave Cleveland a 3–2 victory. It wound up also being the last WHA game played by Bernie Parent, who elected to leave the team in a contract dispute where the team had apparently dipped into the escrow account meant to play Parent's salary that essentially saw his contract voided.
In Game 2, Cleveland held Philadelphia scoreless for the first 56 minutes in a 7-1 win while Gary Jarrett became the first WHA player to accomplish a playoff hattrick (six further players joined him in the postseason). The Crusaders rolled to a four-game sweep while the Blazers moved to Vancouver in the offseason.

### Western Division Semifinals
#### (W1) Winnipeg Jets vs. (W4) Minnesota Fighting Saints

The Winnipeg Jets marched in as the best team in the Western Division with a 43-31-4 record that excelled at defense, holding teams to 249 goals allowed (2nd of 12 teams) with a passable 5th-ranked offense. The Minnesota Fighting Saints, having survived the tie-breaker and marching in with a 38-37-3 record that had a weak offense (250 goals, 11th of 12 teams) and a middling defense (6th). The Jets won the first two games and split the two in St. Paul to set up Game 5, which they won.

#### (W2) Houston Aeros vs. (W3) Los Angeles Sharks
## Division Finals
### Eastern Division Final
#### (E1) New England Whalers vs. (E2) Cleveland Crusaders

New England beat Cleveland in five games.

### Western Division Final
#### (W1) Winnipeg Jets vs. (W2) Houston Aeros
## Avco Cup Final
### (W1) Winnipeg Jets vs. (E1) New England Whalers

The first Avco Cup matched the two best teams in the Divisions with the Winnipeg Jets and the New England Whalers. Unusually, the Whalers hosted Game 1 but not Game 2, as Winnipeg hosted Game 2 and Game 3 before the series shifted back to Boston for Game 4 and Game 5. Winnipeg had a lead in three of the five games, but the Whalers came back twice to go along with a powerful scoring attack that saw fourteen different players score a goal for the team in the series, with Larry Pleau scoring the first hat trick in an Avco Cup Final in the pivotal Game 5.
* New England won series 4–1

## Player statistics
### Skaters

These were the top ten skaters based on points.
| Player | Team | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM |
| Norm Beaudin | Winnipeg Jets | 14 | 13 | 15 | 28 | 2 |
| Tom Webster | New England Whalers | 15 | 12 | 14 | 26 | 6 |
| Bobby Hull | Winnipeg Jets | 14 | 9 | 16 | 25 | 16 |
| Tim Sheehy | New England Whalers | 15 | 9 | 14 | 23 | 13 |
| Jim Dorey | New England Whalers | 15 | 3 | 16 | 19 | 41 |
| Larry Pleau | New England Whalers | 15 | 12 | 7 | 19 | 15 |
| Tommy Williams | New England Whalers | 15 | 6 | 11 | 17 | 2 |
| John French | New England Whalers | 15 | 3 | 11 | 14 | 2 |
| Bill Sutherland | Winnipeg Jets | 14 | 5 | 9 | 14 | 9 |
| Christian Bordeleau | Winnipeg Jets | 12 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 4 |

### Goaltending

These were the top five goaltenders in terms of minutes.
| Player | Team | GP | GA | SA | SV | SV% | SO | MIN |
| Al Smith | New England Whalers | 15 | 49 | 430 | 381 | .886 | 0 | 909 |
| Gerry Cheevers | Cleveland Crusaders | 9 | 22 | 278 | 256 | .921 | 0 | 548 |
| Wayne Rutledge | Houston Aeros | 7 | 20 | 228 | 208 | .912 | 0 | 423 |
| Joe Daley | Winnipeg Jets | 7 | 25 | 199 | 174 | .874 | 0 | 422 |
| Ernie Wakely | Winnipeg Jets | 7 | 22 | 210 | 188 | .895 | 2 | 420 |