Thanks LL
Springfield Indians Team Bios
Phil Esposito
He was an origional 205 pounds of supersition theatrics ego skill and courage all in a 6'1 frame. Like all great scorers espo had the gift of mastering time and space. He wasnt a great skater but when he got the puck in the slot the plough horse showed the finish of a thoroughbread. Phil just didnt wait for the puck to shot. Lost in the volume of close in and garbage goals was a canny craftsmanship and imagination that produced 5 consecutive 55 or more goal seasons.- top 50 of all time
He was the centerman who held the greatest scoring record of them all before Wayne Gretzky came along and broke it - 76 goals in a single season in 1970-71. Espo won the Art Ross Trophy five times, the Hart Trophy twice, the Lester B. Pearson Award twice and the Lester Patrick Trophy for service to hockey in the United States. What's more, he was a ten-time All-Star and represented Canada in the 1972 Summit Series, the 1976 Canada Cup and the 1977 World Championship. While a member of the Boston Bruins, he scored 40 or more goals in seven straight seasons and 50 or more in five straight seasons. In his 76-goal season, he also recorded an amazing 76 assists for a league record at the time of 152 points.
While Espo was gaining a reputation among NHL coaches and fans as a goal scorer, his fellow players were also beginning to recognize that they were dealing with a real character and a practical joker in the dressing room and on road trips. He liked to smoke cigars, and one reporter, noting his constantly furrowed brow and droopy expression, started calling him "the Happy Worrier."
Besides these traits, teammates noticed that he was a player who stuck steadfastly to ritual. One night when a sore throat caused him to put on a black turtleneck, he played especially well. From then on, the turtleneck became a regular part of his game-time garb. This was just one example of the quirky Esposito's adherence to game-day habits
On the international front, Phil starred for Team Canada in the classic Summit Series as the leading individual scorer - with seven goals and six assists - and inspirational leader of the team that defeated the Soviets in the best eight-game series ever played. He joined brother Tony, who was teaming with Ken Dryden as the Canadian netminder on the legendary team
While a member of the Boston Bruins, he scored 40 or more goals in seven straight seasons and 50 or more in five straight seasons. -Legends of hockey
Esposito was the first player to reach the 100-point mark in a season.
NHL Totals 1282 717 873 1590 910 Playoff Totals 130 61 76 137 138
Art Ross Trophy (69,71,72,73,74) First All-Star Team Centre (69,70,71,72,73,74)
Hart Memorial Trophy(69,74) Lester B. Pearson Award(71,74)
Lester Patrick Trophy(78) Second All-Star Team Centre (68,75)
Ted Lindsay
Nicknames sometimes say a great deal about the person they are attached to. Ted Lindsay's moniker - "Terrible Ted" - tells only half of his story. Lindsay was indeed a rough, often mean competitor who spent more time in the penalty box than any player in his time. He was only 5'8" and 160 pounds but could hold his own in fights and in the corners with much larger opponents. But Lindsay was also a gifted offensive player, a natural goal scorer who set records for a left wing and made up one third of Detroit's famous Production Line in the 1940s and 1950s. Nine times he was an All-Star, eight of those selections to the First Team. Such a combination, in such a small, powerful package, hadn't been seen in the National Hockey League before the arrival of Terrible Ted Lindsay, and it hasn't been seen since.
Ted Lindsay was born in 1925 in Renfrew, Ontario, a small town that once boasted one of the great teams of early professional hockey, the Renfrew Millionaires. Ted's father, Bert, starred with the Millionaires, among other teams, as a goaltender. Ted was a standout in minor hockey in Kirkland Lake before moving to the St. Michael's College junior team in Toronto. St. Michael's was defeated in the Ontario junior championship by the Oshawa Generals in 1943-44, but teams at the time were allowed to take four players from other clubs as wartime replacements. The Generals coach, Toronto Maple Leafs great Charlie Conacher, chose four from St. Michael's including Lindsay and Gus Mortson, and Oshawa, bolstered by the imports, went on to win the Memorial Cup. Lindsay was so impressive that he was invited to the Detroit Red Wings' training camp. He was offered a two-year deal by Detroit that included a no-minor-league clause guaranteeing he'd play in the NHL, and Lindsay decided to turn professional for the 1944-45 season.
Lindsay spent two quite ordinary seasons in Detroit until 1946-47, when he was put on a line with veteran center Sid Abel and rookie right wing Gordie Howe. In 1948 the threesome was dubbed "the Production Line," partly because they plied their trade in Detroit, the automotive manufacturing centre of the U.S., and partly, of course, because they produced goals, assists and wins. At the end of the 1947-48 season, Lindsay was in the top 10 in scoring for the first time. In 1949-50, the line placed 1-2-3 in the league scoring race with Lindsay leading the way and the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, as they did in 1952, 1954 and 1955, the latter two with Lindsay replacing Abel as team captain.
In 1957 Lindsay had what could arguably be called his best individual season, leading the league in assists and finishing with a career-high 85 points. With the help of other high-profile players including Montreal's Doug Harvey, Chicago's Gus Mortson, New York's Bill Gadsby and Jim Thomson of Toronto, Lindsay organized the NHL Players' Association. They were intent on ensuring that the league dealt fairly with the players on such issues as the pension fund, covering expenses after trades and instituting a minimum salary for first-year players. Lindsay and Jack Adams, Detroit's general manager, hadn't spoken for three years prior to 1957 even though the rugged winger was captain of the Wings. Lindsay's role in the NHLPA certainly didn't help their relationship. Before the 1957-58 season, Adams traded Lindsay, at the time the league's third all-time goal scorer, and goalie Glenn Hall to the lowly Chicago Black Hawks in a move that was more a punishment than a sound hockey move.
Lindsay spent three seasons in Chicago, helping the Black Hawks return to respectability after almost a decade of poor results. He retired following the 1959-60 season, having played 999 games in the NHL. He devoted himself to his business interests in the automotive industry but continued to play hockey and stay in shape, often practising with the Red Wings. In 1964 Sid Abel, the Detroit bench boss and general manager, offered Lindsay a chance to make a comeback. The feisty winger agreed, though reaction to the news was mixed, to say the least.
It was an amazing year for Lindsay and the Red Wings team, which finished first in the league for the first time since Lindsay's initial departure. At the end of the year, Lindsay left the playing grind behind for good. In 1966 he was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Lindsay politely declined to attend the ceremonial banquet since it was an all-male affair and he felt he owed a debt to his family for its support over his long career. Not coincidentally, the next year the banquet was opened up to include both sexes.
Lindsay returned to the league and to the Red Wings as a general manager in 1977 and later as an interim head coach. As a GM, he was also a tough man to get along with, battling with Alan Eagleson of the players' association and making roster moves involving 41 players in his first year. As in his playing days, his toughness had winning results, as the Wings rebounded as a franchise and Lindsay was awarded several executive of the year honours.-legends of hockey
Tim Horton
Though it would be impossible to prove, the case could be made that Tim Horton was the strongest man ever to lace up skates in the National Hockey League. As a junior player with the St. Michael's College team in the Ontario Hockey League, Horton had NHL scouts and executives claiming he'd be the league's all-time great defenseman. But Horton's career, for all of its early promise, got off to a slow start. Though his attributes were obvious, he took a while to mature as a defensive player and spent several years moving back and forth between Toronto and its minor-league team in Pittsburgh. When he did find a regular job with the Maple Leafs during the 1952-53 season, respect was hard to come by, mostly because the expectations had been so high during his junior days.
In 1954, having just turned 24, Horton was selected to the league's Second All-Star Team and his career took off from there. With a few weeks left in the 1954-55 season, however, Horton broke his leg and jaw in a thunderous collision with the New York Rangers' Bill Gadsby. Gadsby later said it was the hardest hit he ever delivered. Horton, in traction and fed intravenously for days afterwards in the hospital, certainly agreed. When he returned to the ice after missing almost half of the 1955-56 season, he was slow to regain his form.
In 1958-59, Horton was paired on the blue line with Allan Stanley. Stanley's solid play allowed Horton to take a few more chances carrying the puck, knowing he had the speed to recover should he lose possession and that Stanley would be there to back him up. With Bobby Baun and Carl Brewer also starring on defense, the Leafs had a core of skilled, rugged and reliable defensemen. And the defense was the foundation of a Toronto team that won the Stanley Cup in 1962, 1963 and 1964, with Horton earning a spot on the Second All-Star Team in 1963 and First Team honours in 1964. The team went through a minor slump in 1965 and for part of the season coach Punch Imlach moved Horton to the right wing on a line with George Armstrong and Red Kelly, another defenseman turned forward. Horton scored 12 goals, many of them with his huge slapshot from close range.
After the Leafs' last Stanley Cup win in 1967 - after which Horton was once again selected to the league's Second All-Star Team - the Maple Leafs went into decline. Many of the stars of the championship teams moved on or retired. Though he remained and was a First Team All-Star the following two seasons, Horton was tempted to retire in 1969 because of the success of his business off the ice, a chain of donut shops bearing his name, and of Punch Imlach's dismissal as coach of the club.
Horton claimed he wanted double his salary to even consider returning. Lacking any veteran leadership on its blue line, Toronto surprised Horton by giving him over $80,000, roughly double his salary of the year before. The team, so young that Horton was the oldest defender by 16 years, was dead last in the league in the spring of 1970. Horton's large salary was impractical for a team with little promise and he was traded to the New York Rangers. He spent a full season in New York in 1970-71, but was then selected in the next two intra-league expansion drafts, moving first to Pittsburgh for an injury-plagued season in 1971-72 and then to Punch Imlach's Buffalo Sabres.
Early in the morning of February 21, 1974, Tim Horton was killed in a single-car crash while driving home to Buffalo after a game in Toronto against his old team. Police who chased the sports car reported that it was traveling over 100 miles per hour before it crashed just outside of St. Catharines, Ontario. Toronto won the game that night, but Horton, even though he missed the third period with a jaw injury, was selected as the game's third star for his standout play. He left behind a wife and four daughters. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1977. Today there are Tim Horton donut shops all across Canada.-legends of hockey
VladislavTretiak
In the minds of hockey fans around the world, the name Vladislav Tretiak is so closely linked with goaltending excellence that it's hard to imagine that before 1972, the Soviet superstar was almost completely unknown to the North American sporting public. But that's pretty much the way it happened. Canadian hockey scouts had dismissed him as a weak link in the Soviet defense prior to the Canada-USSR series in 1972, calling him inconsistent, with a weak glove hand that could be exploited almost at will. And so coaches and fans hardly paid any attention to him in the pre-series buildup. By the time the Summit Series was over, though, Tretiak was no longer a mystery to NHL fans, who saw him turn away Canada's top goal-scoring stars time and again for eight frustrating, nail-biting games.
Tretiak's stellar performance in the 1972 showdown - as a mere 20-year-old - was only the beginning of his amazing international play. Behind his unprecedented 1.78 goals-against average in 98 international games, the Soviets won Olympic gold medals in 1972, 1976 and 1984. They also captured 10 World Championships and nine European titles and remained virtually undefeated for the better part of a decade in IIHF tournament play.
In addition to shining in international championship play, Tretiak also habitually inspired himself to play his very best during exhibition games against NHL teams. In a game against the Montreal Canadiens on New Year's Eve, 1975 - one that many hockey fans still consider the greatest goaltending performance of all time - Tretiak held the Habs to a 3-3 tie despite being widely outshot, 38-13. He was the MVP of the 1981 Canada Cup, leading the vaunted USSR to their first victory, and the following year turned in another standout series of games on the Soviet All-Stars tour of North America, the highlight of which was his 5-0 shutout of those same Canadiens in the Forum.
From 1971 to 1984, he was the Soviet league's First Team All-Star goalie, spending 14 consecutive seasons as the number one man in the Soviet cage. During this amazing string with the Central Red Army squad, Tretiak won 13 league titles, captured the MVP honors in the Soviet league five times, was awarded the Order of Lenin for his service to the USSR in 1978 and won the coveted Golden Hockey Stick as the outstanding player in all of Europe in 1981, 1982 and 1983. In the 1981 Canada Cup, he was the tournament MVP and the First All-Star Team goalie, posting an amazing 1.33 goal-against average over six games against the world's best teams.
Other than the game eight disappointment in 1972, which can hardly be called a disaster for Tretiak, coming as it did at the tail end of the series that really launched him onto the world hockey scene, there was only one dark spot on his entire stellar career in the international arena. It appeared in the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, a competition won by the squad from the U.S. In the second to last game, Tretiak was the victim of a fluke goal by Mark Johnson in the first period and was pulled in favour of Vladimir Myshkin.
Tretiak retired from active play on a high note in 1984, after shutting out Czechoslovakia 2-0 to win the Olympic gold in Sarajevo. The actual close of his career, which saw him take part in 287 games overall with the national squad, came at the end of the Izvestia tournament in December 1984. He and fellow Soviet standouts Valeri Vasiliev and Alexander Maltsev took part in a special All-Star game between the USSR and European players who had taken part in the Izvestia games. The contest ended with a huge ovation for the tearful Tretiak as he said his goodbyes, never to compete for his nation again at the highest level.
Just before the start of the 1990-91 season, Chicago Blackhawks coach Mike Keenan announced that he would be signing Tretiak as a member of his coaching staff, in particular to work with the squad's young goaltending corps that included Ed Belfour.
His intellectual knowledge and understanding of the position is equal perhaps only to Jacques Plante, who wrote the first book on being a goalie and detailed everything from strategy to conditioning. Coaching had always been part of Tretiak's post-playing plans. He started a series of hockey schools as part of a life-long love of teaching kids about the sport.
As a superb goalie, sports ambassador and teacher of both pros and children, Vladislav Tretiak defined all three roles in his long career in hockey. The Hockey Hall of Fame is richer for his inclusion in its hallowed rooms.-legends of hockey.
Serge Savard
Rangy defenseman Serge Savard played 17 seasons in the NHL, 15 (his first season consisted of two games) with his hometown team, the Montreal Canadiens, and two with the Winnipeg Jets, who lured him out of retirement after he'd left Montreal following the 1980-81 season.
A member of the Canadiens "Big Three" defensive stars along with Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson, Savard was known as "the Senator" by his teammates for his involvement in activities - mostly in politics - outside the game. In the mid-1980s, he served as general manager of the Habs.
But hockey had been the first thing on Savard's mind since his boyhood in Montreal. When he was 15, a scout noticed him playing a school league game and put him on the team's list of promising reserves. Savard progressed quickly and within a few seasons was captain of the Junior Canadiens. Unlike many prospects of the day, Savard wanted to complete high school. But the Habs signed him to a contract and sent him to Houston to play for the Apollos of the Central Hockey League in 1966. He won the rookie of the year award that season with Houston and the following year was called up by the Habs. By the 1968-69 season, only his second full one in the NHL, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Habs won the Cup in a four-game sweep over the Blues in the finals.
Although Savard was overshadowed by his better-known teammates, he did win another significant award during his years as a player. In 1979 the NHL presented him with the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to "the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey."
Savard almost didn't make it much further in NHL play, however. In a game during the 1970-71 season against the Rangers, he skated after New York's Rod Gilbert, trying to stop a breakaway. Savard dove for the puck and felt his left leg crumble underneath him. The result was five separate fractures and three operations that took him out of the game for three months.
After a complete recovery, Savard continued to have problems with the leg and further injuries. In the 1971-72 season, he suffered a new fracture to the same leg after being hit. In 1973 he injured his ankle severely as he tried to help firefighters break down a door during a fire at the Canadiens' hotel in St. Louis.
But the injuries failed to stop Savard. Upon his return to the game, he started to blend his patient, hard-working style with the hard-charging, rushing play of Lapointe and Robinson, the skillful scoring of Guy Lafleur and the outstanding play in the net of Ken Dryden. The result was another Cup for the Habs in 1976, when they swept the defending champion Philadelphia Flyers in four straight games, a victory that many relieved fans hailed as a triumph of skilled play over the fight-filled game of the Broad Street Bullies.
Internationally, Savard's attitude was rewarded by his being named to the Canadian team for the 1972 Summit Series. He appeared in five of the eight games, and - as Savard liked to remind people - Canada won four of those games and tied the other.
By 1981 Savard had had enough of being knocked around in the NHL. He had, after all, played on eight Stanley Cup-winning teams with Montreal and had seen more doctors and surgeons than he cared to remember. His retirement didn't last long, though. He was lured out of inactivity by the Winnipeg Jets, who wanted him for his experience on a young but improving team.
Savard lasted two seasons in his comeback with Winnipeg before the Canadiens came calling again. They bought him out of the final year of his contract with the Jets so he could return to Montreal as the team's managing director. Savard, who had been active in the business world during his last days as a player and during his retirement, inspired the confidence of the Habs players and management.
Savard was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1986-legends of hockey