ATD 2013 BIO Thread (quotes, stats, pics, sources, everything)

[tony d]

Defenseman Steve Smith

Position: D ▪ Shoots: Left
Height: 6-4 ▪ Weight: 215 lbs.
Born: April 30, 1963 (Age 49) in Glasgow, United Kingdom

Some stats on Smith

-375 points in 804 career games
-52 points in 134 career playoff games
-1 Time All Star
-42and all time in Career Penalty Minutes
-3 Time Stanley Cup Champion

Legends Of Hockey:

Smith who was towering defenseman with the Oilers enjoyed some great times in Edmonton, capturing his first of three Stanley Cups. Known more for his play in his own end, Smith also had an offensive aspect to his game. During the 1987-88 season, Smith tallied 55 points (12-43-55) while amassing 286 penalty minutes and helping the Oilers capture yet another Stanley Cup.

Joe Pelletier:

Steve Smith went on to become one of better defensemen of his era, playing in 804 games, scoring 72 goals, 303 assists, and 375 points while winning three Stanley Cups and a Canada Cup.

We would be remiss to not mention his career 2139 penalty minutes, which is amazing given that he was not a noted fighter. Smith was an intimidating monster back on the blue line, not afraid to impose his 6'4" 220lb body on any incoming forward.

Blessed with balance and agility on his skates and ridiculously long reach, Smith was tough to beat one on one. He was also very good at reading the oncoming plays and was always in good position to defend.

Smith was much more than just one dimensional shut down defenseman. He had surprising mobility, able to cover more ice and maximize his physical impact. He could rush the puck out of the zone when needed, but more often than not relied on an effective first pass out of the zone to key the transition offense.

Smith had a solid offensive game, relying mostly on slapshot from the point. His shot was not particularly overwhelming, but he had a good knack to get the shot through traffic and on net.

Smith persevered after the playoff disaster to become one of the Oilers best defenders.

Though known more for a playoff disaster in 1986 (His scoring on his own net), Smith was actually a pretty good defenseman, really like him as my #5 defenseman.

 

[tony d]

Defenseman Phil Russell

Position: D ▪ Shoots: Right
Height: 6-2 ▪ Weight: 205 lbs.
Born: July 21, 1952 (Age 60) in Edmonton, Alberta

Some stats on Russell:

-424 Points in 1016 Career Regular Season Games
-26 Points in 73 Career Playoff Games
-3 Time All Star
-51st All Time in Career Penalty Minutes

Legends Of Hockey:

Russell made the leap directly onto the Hawks' blueline corps in 1972-73. From the moment he hit the ice in training camp, the rookie defender made a strong impression on the minds of management and on the bodies of his teammates and opponents.

He arrived in the big leagues as a soft-spoken but hard-nosed type who could skate well for his size, play with muscle, handle the puck with confidence, and contribute to the power play.

Joe Pelletier:

Phil Russell was one of the most physical defensemen in the NHL through out the 1970s and mid 1980s. He played the game like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Some called him exuberant, while others called him just downright nasty.

But everyone called him valuable.

Phil wasn't valuable just because he was so feisty. Yes he intimidated more than a few opposition forwards to be sure, but 6'2" 200lb monster was also a very good skater - which is a bit unusual for defensemen of this sort, especially in that era. As a result, Phil was a standout on the blue line as his mobility proved to be a real asset. He could cover a lot of ice without the puck, and was able to do more than just fire the puck out of the zone once he gained possession.

Really like the pick of Russell for my team. Think his meanness and feistiness will combine to make him one of the best #6 defensemen in the draft this year.

 

[tony d]

Head Coach Pat Burns

Born: April 4, 1952 in St-Henri, Quebec

Some stats on Burns:

-501-353-151-14 Career Coaching Record
-78 and 71 Record in the Playoffs
-3 Time Jack Adams Trophy Winner
-2003 Stanley Cup winning Coach
-7 40 Win Seasons

Some quotes from famous people on Burns' legacy courtesy of Kukla's Korner Hockey Website:

Cliff Fletcher:

“Hiring him 18 years ago was easily my best decision in hockey.â€

Jacques Demers:

“He was a confrère, we stick together. We competed against each other, we yell at each other, but when someone dies in the coaching fraternity, it’s a sad day. Pat Burns should have been in the Hall of Fame this year. Not because he was dying, but because he was a Hall of Fame coach. Five-hundred wins, a Stanley Cup, three times coach of the year — to me, it would have been so special for him, before he died, to be in the Hall of Fame. We got the arena for him but I don’t know why that didn’t happen.â€

GM Serge Savard

“It was a matter of time before we brought him to Montreal. I liked Jean Perron, but at the time we needed a coach that was tougher and that was Pat. He was a hard worker and he had the respect of the players.â€

John Madden

“He was a great coach for me in New Jersey, and I had my best years under Pat. As a coach he really knew how to get me going and fire me up. He taught me a lot about myself and how to play in this league, so I’m very thankful to have known Pat Burns. I watched him when he coached the Toronto Maple Leafs, being a Toronto boy. He had Dougie Gilmour and [Dave] Andreychuk and Wendell Clark, and I always wanted them to win a Cup. When L.A. beat ‘em out that one time, I hurt just as much as they did when they went out, so when we all won the Cup together in [New] Jersey, it was nice.â€

Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

“My favourite memory was Pat taking the Leafs all the way to the semifinals, but he didn’t win the Stanley Cup,which goes to show that, with the Maple Leafs organization, a great coach can take a team a long way, but only God can work miracles.â€

Mike Babcock:

The first time I went to a Stanley Cup final [in 2003], we lost in Game 7 in New Jersey and Pat was coaching the team. Just watching overall his coaching career, he coached over 1,000 games in the league, won over 500 games and had a great career

Burns was such a great coach and a better person, glad to have him as the head coach for the Baltimore Blades.

 

[Dreakmur]

Alexander Gusev !!!


Awards and Achievements:
8 x Soviet League Champion (1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978)

Olympic Gold Medalist (1976)
2 x World Championship Gold Medalist (1973, 1974)

IIHF All-Star (1973)


Offensive Accomplishments:
Goals among Defensemen - 1st(1970), 1st(1971), 1st(1973), 2nd(1972), 2nd(1975), 2nd(1976), 4th(1974), 9th(1977)

Olympic Points among Defensemen – 8th(1976)
Canada Cup Points among Defensemen – 4th(1976)
World Championship Points among Defensemen – 1st(1973), 1st(1974), 10th(1972)
Summit Series Points among Defensemen – 2nd(1974)

Alexander Gusev was considered one of the strongest Soviet blueliners in the 1970's. He was a graduate of the CSKA youth hockey program and spent most of this career playing in the Red Army Club. Being an exceptionally strong athlete, Gusev was an effective player at both ends of the ice quiet often showcasing mastery of physical game and bodychecking. He enjoyed the respect of hockey specialists for his wicked slapshot and hard-hitting style in defense.

Alexander Gusev was a big defenseman known as a physical player and hard open-ice hitter in the Soviet league, but as Vyacheslav Gavrilin of Krasnaya Zvezda wrote: Gusev couldn't intimidate the Canadians with bodychecks like he does Soviet players in league play. He came to lose confidence in himself. The aggressiveness and never-quit attitude of the Canadian forwards shocked him."

Gusev was also known in Russia for his booming slapshot. He would score only once with that shot in this series, but it was a huge goal. It tied the game in game 5 before Vladimir Vikulov scored the game winning goal to cap off an amazing comeback from a 4-1 deficit to capture the third Soviet victory, winning 5-4.

Gusev played in 6 of 8 games, and would serve him well in becoming an elite player in the latter half of 1970s.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Philadelphia selects G Andy Moog

7x Top 8 AS Voting(3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8)
6x Top 8 Vezina Voting(3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8)
3x Stanley Cup Champion
4x All Star Game Participant
10x Top 10 Wins(2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10)
6x Top 9 GAA(2, 4, 4, 7, 9, 9)
5x Top 9 SV%(3, 4, 8, 8, 9)
7x Top 10 Shutouts

In 1988, his dissention was rewarded with a trade to the Boston Bruins where, for five seasons, he gave the Bruins the goaltending foundation they needed. Teamed initially with Reggie Lemelin, Moog took the Bruins to the Stanley Cup finals. He enjoyed his best year in 1989-90 when he and Lemelin won the Jennings Trophy for allowing the fewest goals-against in the regular season. That year, again, the Bruins returned to the Stanley Cup finals as Moog lead all playoff goaltenders with a pair of shutouts and a 2.11 goals-against average.

http://www.legendsofhockey.net/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayer.jsp?player=18344

Andy Moog retired in 1998 compiling a 372-209-88 record in 713 NHL games with Edmonton, Boston, Dallas and Montreal, with an 88-57 mark in the playoffs. Those numbers rank him among the all time greats of the game. His regular season victory total at the time ranked seventh among NHL goalies, while his .622 winning percentage is the highest among the 15 goalies who have more than 300 career wins.

That would be high point for Andy on an individual basis in his 7 year career in Edmonton. He starred with the Oilers for 7 years, winning three Stanley Cups (1984, 1985, 1987). However Moog had to share the puck stopping duties with Grant Fuhr. The dream tandem is one of the better goaltending duos in league history, but it did lead to frustration on Andy's behalf. Fuhr seemed to get the nod for the big games and especially the playoff games. Despite a 143--43-21 record in the regular season, Moog only got to appear in 11 post season games in the three years that he earned a Stanley Cup ring.

Moog led the Bruins to two Stanley Cup Championship series (1988 and 1990), only to fall short to, ironically, his old teammates from Edmonton both times.

Moog was moved on to Dallas for Jon Casey in what became a steal for the Stars in a 1993 off season trade. Casey flopped while Moog had 4 strong seasons

Moog only played one season in Montreal, and he played very admirably. It was a bit of a surprise when he did announce his retirement, given his strong play and existing contract.

http://goaltendinglegends.blogspot.com/2007/06/andy-moog.html

That year he was spectacular in a three-game first round sweep of the Montreal Canadiens.

Moog soon gained a reputation as the Bruins' biggest "Hab-killer" shutting out the Canadiens as part of a sweep in the 1992 postseason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Moog

"Andy came in on and stood on his head." While he was doing that, he got a little help from his friends. He needed it. In our earlier two games at Montreal we scored a grand total of one goal.

"He couldn't have been more right. We beat them 6-3, and Moog kept making saves. The more saves he made, the more reassured we felt in front of him. We relaxed, realizing we didn't have to play defensive all the time and as we opened up, the Canadiens backed off. It was hard to believe that this wonderful Andy Moog had a 14-3 record with Wichita in the Central League and a 3.33 goals against average. Overnight, he had become a Canadian national hero - except of course, in Montreal.

"But could Andy Who do it again? The test came in Game 2 and Moog passed it with as much ease as he had in the opener. Staked to a 2-1 lead after 2 periods(Coffey and Siltanen ahd scored for us, which shows you we had offense on defense!), Moog shut the door on the Habs in the 3rd.

"And to top it all, Montreal's goaltending was mediocre compared with the Magnificant Moog. We dominated them in Game 3 and Moog continued to play like Georges Vezina.

On another team Andy would have been the goalie, but the Oilers also felt comfortable with a youngster named Grant Fuhr.

In 1992-93 he finished with a career high 37 wins and went 17-1 in his last 18 games with a 1.88 GAA. He was, as Dallas Stars' GM Bob Gainey said, "able to carry his team."

Respect was restored in Texas. Moog became one of the top stars on the Stars and one of the NHL's workhorses.

Never the best goaltender in the world, Moog nevertheless was very good, very often. From 1987-88 through 1992-93 - five full seasons - the Penticton, BC native gave Beantown fans the kind of goaltending reassurance they had received in earlier years from the likes of Tiny Thompson, Frank Brimsek, and Pete Peeters.

"I had as much confidence in Andy," said Oilers defenseman Kevin Lowe, "as I did in Grant. Andy was a great goalie. He had a kind of cockiness, a confidence was one of his biggest assets.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Zx...ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=andy moog&f=false

Fuhr would team up with last year's playoff hero Andy Moog to give the Oilers the best young netminding duo in the league.

http://books.google.com/books?id=qA...ved=0CD0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=andy moog&f=false

Moog, on the other hand, is a fine veteran goalie, as he proved again in Game 3 with 28 saves, 13 of them in the third period, and he was largely responsible for the Bruins' winning their first three rounds in the playoffs.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136820/3/index.htm

In September, Andy Moog, Grant Fuhr's backup and a premier NHL goaltender in his own right

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1066684/index.htm

"He is definitely the difference," Montreal Coach Pat Burns said of Moog. "Their whole team played well, but Andy made the big saves at the right time, even down to the end. If he doesn't make them, it goes into overtime."

"We just couldn't put it in," Montreal's Russ Courtnall said. "Andy Moog was great for the entire series."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...IEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2613,7677661&dq=andy+moog&hl=en

some spectacular goaltending by Andy Moog was tempered by the stinging loss of Craig Janney...

https://www.google.com/search?q=and...87,d.dmQ&fp=2b99da229ad2d868&biw=1366&bih=611

Moog made 20 saves for Boston on Wednesday night, many of them spectacular. "Andy is a good goaltender, there's no doubt about that," said Fuhr, who shared Edmonton's goaltending duties with Moog from 1981-87...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...pg=5411,609432&dq=andy+moog+spectacular&hl=en

... superb goaltending from Andy Moog Friday night to subdue the Boston Bruins...

https://www.google.com/search?q=and...87,d.dmQ&fp=2b99da229ad2d868&biw=1366&bih=611

The fact is, the Boston Bruins had Andy Moog in goal for them last night, so it didn't make much difference who deserved to win. Moog wasn't going to lose, so the Bruins couldn't lose.

They fled Madison Square Garden with a 5-0 victory and their 8 game unbeaten streak(7-0-1) intact and they owed it all to Moog.

Moog made 41 saves, dozens of them spectacular, in his first shutout this year...

"We all were aware of how big Andy had come up over the first two periods..."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...pg=3260,640157&dq=andy+moog+spectacular&hl=en

And this season, if you give goalie Andy Moog a 2-0 lead, you can be sure it'll stick. Moog had another spectacular performance, turning away 24 Chicago...

https://www.google.com/search?q=and...87,d.dmQ&fp=2b99da229ad2d868&biw=1366&bih=611

And the Bruins won only one of those three games and that one only because Andy Moog played a spectacular game in the Boston goal.

https://www.google.com/search?q=and...87,d.dmQ&fp=2b99da229ad2d868&biw=1366&bih=611

Randy Gregg of the Edmonton Oilers says he scores "ordinary" goals, but it was extraordinary goaltending by Andy Moog that stood out against the Buffalo Sabres Friday night.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...g=2458,4943489&dq=andy+moog+spectacular&hl=en

 

[tony d]

Goalie Evgeni Nabokov

Position: G ▪ Catches: Left
Height: 6-0 ▪ Weight: 200 lbs.
Born: July 25, 1975 (Age 37) in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Stats on Nabokov:

- Career Record of 326-206-72
- Playoff Record of 40-38
- 2 time All Star
- 2001 Rookie of the Year
- 6 Top 10 Finishes in Wins
- 326 wins are 21st All Time for A Goalie
- 7 Top 10 Finishes in Shutouts
- 55 Shouts are 19th most all Time

Legends Of Hockey:

Netminder Evgeni Nabokov emerged as the first stringer on the San Jose Sharks in 2000-01. A top performer in the USSR, he worked his way through the minors and became a top flight NHLer in his second year in the league.
Born in Ust-Kamenogorsk, USSR, Nabokov starred in his home town before moving on to the more heralded Dynamo Moscow squad. Chosen 219th overall by San Jose in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft, Nabokov came to North America and played solidly for the AHL's Kentucky Thoroughblades in 1997-98. The next year he counted 26 wins for the club then suited up for a few games in San Jose in 1999-00. The next year he emerged as the club's top choice between the pipes with 32 wins though the club was eliminated in the first round of the post-season.

In his first full season in with the Sharks in 2000-01, Nabokov won 32 games, posted a 2,19 GAA and went on to capture the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie. Nabokov followed his 32 wins in 2000-01 with 37 in 2001-02 before sitting out the early stages of the 2002-03 with a contract dispute. Upon his return to the Shark lineup, Nabokov and the Sharks struggled before rebounding in 2003-04, helping his team reach the Western Conference Final, only to lose in six games to the Calgary Flames.

In the years that followed, Nabokov and the Sharks would become a regular season powerhouse in the Western Conference, consistently among the top teams in the NHL and even winning the Presidents' Trophy in 2008-09. That same year Nabokov would appear in his second career all-star game and would stop all eight shots he saw during his lone period between the pipes.

Glad to have Nabokov on the Blades, as a backup he should provide solid goaltending for the Blades on Worter's nights off.

 

[tony d]

Left Winger Gerard Gallant

Position: LW ▪ Shoots: Left
Height: 5-10 ▪ Weight: 190 lbs.
Born: September 2, 1963 (Age 49) in Summerside, Prince Edward Island

Some stats on Gallant:

- 211 Goals and 269 Assists for 480 Points in 615 Career Playoff Games
-39 Points in 58 Career Playoff Games

Joe Pelletier:

Looking for an All Star power forward who, in his prime, averaged 37 goals, 80 points and 236 PIMs a year? Look no farther than Gerard Gallant.

One of the few natives of Prince Edward Island to play in the National Hockey League, Gerard Gallant was competitive, chippy, sometimes dirty player. His game was as a no-nonsense, up and down winger with good hockey sense and he absolutely hated to lose. Although he was only 5'10" and 185 pounds, he played like he was 6'3" and 215 pounds. One of Detroit's "Bad Boys" with the likes of Joey Kocur and Bob Probert, Gallant became a fixture on superstar Steve Yzerman's left wing in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Although he was certainly no heavyweight, he showed up every night and kept the opposition honest. Much like Kevin Dineen, Gallant showed up to the rink every single night determined that no one would out hustle him that game. But Gallant also had the finesse tools to play with one of the league's most electrifying players in Yzerman.

Not a great skater, Gallant benefited greatly from playing with Yzerman. Yzerman would draw the attention of the entire other team with is chaotic display of puck control and skating excellence. Meanwhile Gallant's job was to get himself open and in scoring position. More often than not, Gallant had a gift wrapped pass on the tape of his stick. Once he had that puck he used his heavy and accurate shot to bury it.

But it should also be said that Yzerman benefited from Gallant's play too. Early in his career Yzerman was all offense, and later became the gritty, solid player that he is best known for. But during those early years when Yzerman was putting up mind-boggling numbers, it was Gallant who would dig for the puck in the corners and in front of the net, doing the dirty work for Stevie Y. Gallant loved to play a physical game, often initiating contact and and hitting anything in sight. Gallant gave everything he had on every single shift.

Really glad to have Gallant on the team, he should provide grit coming off the bench.

 

[tony d]

Centre Alexander Almetov

Height: 5'10''
Weight: 185 lbs
Position: Center
Shoots: Right
Date of Birth: January 18, 1940

Some stats for Almetov:

- 58 Points in 35 Career WHC games
- 7 Top 10 Goal Finishes in the Russian Domestic League

Joe Pelletier:

Anatoli Tarasov wrote the following in his book Road to Olympus:

"Perhaps sports fans who have seen our national team in action have noticed that whenever we have one man short, Alexander Almetov is sure to appear on the ice. When it comes to individual play, a question of holding on to the puck and beating off a superior force, Almetov is in a class by himself! He is not a solist, he is a star in the good sense of the word."

Tarasov had identified Almetov as a top hockey prospect when Almetov was 14 years old and a student at Central Red Army hockey school. He was an effortless skater but more impressively he was incredibly efficient and intelligent on the ice, a true master of the game.

Almetov was a regular linemate of Konstantin Loktev and Venjamin Alexandrov. Those three formed the second great troika in Soviet hockey history as they followed the threesome of Babich, Shuvalov and Bobrov. All three are Merited Masters of Sport in Russia (the equivalent of a Hall of Fame). Almetov and Loktev meshed together especially well, with the brooding Alexandrov playing the role of trigger man.Together the three earned their country a neck-full of World and European championship gold medals.

Glad to have Almetov on the team, he should provide to be quite a good guy to come off the bench for the Blades.

 

[tony d]

Defenseman Doug Bodger

Position: D ▪ Shoots: Left
Height: 6-2 ▪ Weight: 210 lbs.
Born: June 18, 1966 (Age 46) in Chemainus, British Columbia

Some stats on Bodger:

-528 Pts. in 1071 Games
-24 Pts. in 47 Career Playoff games
-61 Career Power Play Goals

Buffalo Sabres Legends Website:

A solid defenseman with speed and a booming shot from the point, Bodger made his presence felt almost immediately upon joining the Sabres. He scored his first goal as a Sabre on November 27, 1988, helping the Sabres to a 7-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. He scored six more goals during the 1988-89 season and added 40 assists in only 61 games played. His 47 points was, at the time, the seventh highest single season total by a Sabres defenseman. Bodger became a leader on the Sabres powerplay. Six of his seven goals that year were scored when the Sabres had the man advantage.

Bodger recorded his best goal-scoring season as a Sabre in 1989-90, when he chipped in 12 goals. 8 of Bodger's 12 goals came on the powerplay. He also added 36 assists, and finished second to Phil Housely in scoring among Sabres defensemen for the second straight year.

Bodger was one of those picks that was a personal favourite of mine growing up, still he was good enough on his own to warrant a selection in this.

 

[tony d]

Finishing off the team with defenseman Dave Langevin:

Position: D ▪ Shoots: Left
Height: 6-2 ▪ Weight: 200 lbs.
Born: May 15, 1954 (Age 58) in St. Paul, Minnesota

Stats on Langevin:

-119 Points in 513 Career Games
-1983 All Star

Joe Pelletier:

Dave Langevin was a hard hitting and calculating defenseman best known for being a member of all four New York Islanders Stanley Cup teams. Although often obscured by some of his more famous teammates, Langevin earned the respect of many Isles fans during the early 80s.

Langevin probably won't get much ice time with the Blades but if pressed into action I expect good things from him, great way to finish the team.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Ilya Kovalchuk, LW/RW

• 6'3" 230 lbs
• RH shot from the point on the powerplay

NHL stats (as of 2011-12):
Goals: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 3rd, 6th, 6th, 7th, 8th
Assists: 15th, 18th
Points: 2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th

Vs2 scores 100, 92*, 86, 83, 82, 78, 67, 64, 61, 57
*used 3rd place in 2006 (standard with

5 Year Peak: 2004-2009
2nd in Points (89% of 1st place Joe Thornton)
1st in Goals (105% of 2nd place Alex Ovechkin)

10 Year Peak: 2003-2012
3rd in Points (97% of 2nd place Martin St. Louis)
1st in Goals (110% of 2nd place Jarome Iginla)

Between the 2005 and 2012 lockouts:
6th in Points (88% of 2nd place Joe Thornton)
2nd in Goals (88% of 1st place Alex Ovechkin)

Led his team in playoff points in 2 of the 3 seasons he made the playoffs.

2012 playoffs

• Led the Cup runner-up in points and tied for the team lead in goals.
• 2nd on his team in overall TOI, and 1st among forwards by a wide margin (1:51 more than 2nd place), largely due to the massive amount of time he can handle playing the point of the PP
• Tied for the overall playoff lead in goals with 8, 3rd in overall playoff points with 19, the co-leaders had 20.

International
IIHF Best forward in 2009
IIHF Points – 1st(2010), 2nd(2009), 10th(2011)

in 2010 WC, kovalchuk played with datsyuk and malkin and was the playmaker. datsyuk, who is much more a passer than shooter, finished with 6g and 1a in 6 games. malkin, who is more balanced, had 5g and 2a in 5 games, and kovalchuk had 2g and 10a in 9 games. passing between them was very good.

Legendary endurance

For several seasons now, Kovalchuk has led all NHL forwards in ice time by wide margins, largely because he played the full powerplay from the point:

Ilya Kovalchuk is playing an absurd amount

Far be it for me to tell an NHL coach how to use his extremely well-paid extremely talented star, but Peter DeBoer is playing the bananas off Ilya Kovalchuk. Alexander Semin is getting the second-most minutes-per-game for forwards in the NHL, logging time on the powerplay, penalty-kill and of course even-strength, for an average of 22:11 a night. It’s around that number that we start to see some other top forwards show up, with names like Iginla, Tavares and Ovechkin all within a minute of him.

Wayyy, way off in the distance is Kovalchuk, who’s playing an average of 26 minutes and 23 seconds a night, over four minutes more than the 2nd place Semin. He’s 10th overall, which is hugely rare for a forward. Four minutes over the next closest forward. That blows my mind.

It’s not like he’s new to this: he led forwards in TOI in 2011-12 (24:26, 18th overall) and 2010-11 (22:23, 45th overall) and 2009-10 (22:07, 65th overall), but you just wonder how much you can ask from one player before he starts to wear down.
26:23! It’s getting out of hand.

http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2013/02/04/note-worthy-tracking-time-on-ice-around-the-nhl/

To me this seems like a crazy high number. It means for every 2 minute penalty Kovalchuk is on the ice for 1:44 of it. That just makes me say “WOW!†but Kovalchuk is not alone in getting big PP minutes. Here are some other players who have played in >70% of his teams 5v5 PP minutes (in games he played in) over the past 5 seasons.
...
I knew some players played a lot of PP ice time, but that still astonishes me. Oh, and for the record, in addition to being on the ice for 87.25% of his teams 5v4 PP ice time, Kovalchuk was on the ice for 89.66% of his teams 5v4 PP goals.

http://hockeyanalysis.com/2013/01/25/ilya-kovalchuks-power-play-ice-time/

Kovalchuk is a flawed player, but his shot front the point on the power play is absolutely deadly, and I think he's accomplished enough in his career by this point to be the centerpiece of a second line, especially now that he's recently completed the best all-round season of his career and he's done it as a right-winger.

Kovalchuk will also contribute to the Swamp Devils being one of the better teams in the draft at celebrating:

 

[BubbaBoot]

Karol Gut
head coach

• Born: September 16, 1927 • Prague, Czechoslovakia •
• Coached: 1973-1980 (Czechoslovakia National Team) \\\ Spartak (Czech) \\\ Landshut (German Bundesliga) \\\ 1994-2004 (President of Czech Ice-Hockey Federation) •
• Inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame: 1998 \\\ Inducted into the Czech Hockey Hall of Fame: 2009 •

• Championships •
1970 • Landshut (German Bundesliga)
1975 • Izvestia / Channel One Cup
1976 • Spengler Cup
1978 • Izvestia / Channel One Cup
1983 • Landshut (German Bundesliga)

• International Medals •
1976 • Gold - World Championships (Poland)
1977 • Gold - World Championships (Austria)
1974 • Silver - World Championships (Finland)
1975 • Silver - World Championships (West Germany)
1976 • Silver - Olympics (Innsbruck)
1978 • Silver - World Championships (Czechoslovakia)
1979 • Silver - World Championships (USSR)
1973 • Bronze - World Championships (USSR)
- World Championships and European Championships were were decided in one tournament.

- Coached in the 1976 Canada Cup / 2nd place.

• Accolades •

Karel Gut, the President of the Czech Ice Hockey Association, celebrated his 75th birthday.Gut is one of the most accomplished hockey personalities of the world. As a player, he represented his Czechoslovakia on 114 occasions, taking part in 9 IIHF World Championships and 3 Olympics. As a coach Gut led Czechoslovakia to two world championship gold medals (1976 and 1977) as well as 4 silver medals. Gut also coached the national team in the 1976 (silver) and 1980 Olympics.

Gut played for Spartak until 1964 and immediately transferred to coaching. Among other achievements, he developed a new summer training program with harder and more frequent workouts. He was already well on his way to success coaching Spartak and the german club EV Landshut. While he was with EV Landshut they won championships in 1970 and 1983. He alternated between the two clubs until 1973, when, after a contract with the juniors and the Czech 'B' team, he became coach of the national team.

The players he coached called him "Vraska" (Wrinkle) because of his worried expression, which faded when he managed a slight smile. It was a fairly accurate nickname, for Gut always radiated calm and showed little emotion.

"I was basing everything on hard work in the preparation. At the same time, i prefered the psychology of dealing with people. A coach has to be demanding, consistent and precise. However, the player must feel he is the coach's partner, with different rights and obligations, not his subordinate"

His approach led to success on the international ice. Under his coaching Czechoslovakia won the World Championship two years in a row–1976 and 1977. A year later Czechoslovakia ended up one goal shy away from a third gold medal.

In 1967, ten years after the construction of the ice rink, the stadium was roofed and converted into an arena. That year the EV Landshut signed coach Karel Gut from Sparta Praha for three years. In his first year at the Isar his team was placed third. The following year was rather disappointing: Being placed fourth, the squad had to play relegation. The 1969-70 season preliminary round, being under pressure to perform, was finished on the first place. As the champions round was also dominated by Landshut, the team won the German championship for the first time.

In 1980 the coach of the first championship, Karel Gut, returned to Landshut. This season saw the NHL-like playoff system introduced. While the team was eliminated in the 1980-81 quarterfinals, and the 1981-82 semifinals, they knocked out the Mannheimer ERC in the 1982-83 finals and could call themselves German champions for the second time.

THE PERFECT GAME AGAINST THE BEST TEAM: CZECHOSLOVAKS-SOVIETS 7-2
April 10, 1974 – Helsinki, Finland

This is what coaches dream about – the perfect game. A game in which you don’t have to scream and shout, take a timeout, or write a myriad of X’s and O’s on the chalkboard between periods. A game where you simply relax and let the players do their job and just make sure they don’t wake up. This is probably how the Czechoslovak coaches Karel Gut and Jan Starsi felt on April 10, 1974, during the game against their eternal rivals, the world champions Soviet Union, midway through the 41st World Championship in Helsinki, Finland.

.......Goaltender Vladislav Tretiak had never before conceded seven goals in one game for the national team (he never did again, either). The Soviet team existed until 1991, but it never experienced a worse loss. But how do coaches Gut and Starsi and the players remember Helsinki 1974? With bitterness. The best game ever played against the most superior team didn’t earn the winners the gold medal.


These were the days when the tournament was a double round-robin affair and final position in simple standings determined the medals. Czechoslovakia lost the second game against the Soviet Union, 3-1. On top of that, they lost one game each to Sweden and Finland and had to settle for a silver medal.


But the 1974 World Championship will forever be remembered for one game when a team played perfect hockey.

http://www.iihf.com/iihf-home/the-iihf/100-year-anniversary/100-top-stories/story-67.html

When the 45th World Championship took place in Prague in the year 1978, the heart of every true Czechoslovak hockey fan was beating wildly and it had only one wish: a Gold Hat-trick! The national team of Czechoslovakia had won the tournaments in Katowice (Poland) 1976 and in Vienna (Austria) in 1977 too. “Please, please, please let them win for a third time in a row…“ could sum up the hockey dreams of the whole country.

The players even stayed in the same hotel as they did the last time they won at home in 1972. The coaches were Karel Gut and Jan Starsi. Remaining from the Golden Team of ’72 were only Vladimir Martinec, Ivan Hlinka, Jiri Holecek, Oldrich Machac, and Jiri Bubla.

The last rival which stood in the way to the gold were the Soviets. According to the standings and the particular rules of the tournament, the Czechoslovaks could even lose the game but only by a difference of one goal. In the first period, Balderis split the Czechoslovak defense and scored to make it 1-0. In the second period the score was widened to 2-0. In the beginning of the third period, it became 3-0. But then Ivan Hlinka scored to make it 3-1, and then seemingly Vladimir Martinec to make it 3-2… But Czechoslovak hopes were dashed when the goal was disallowed. And thus, with their one goal difference the Soviets took the championship title. Silver had a bitter taste for the host Czechoslovaks.

http://www.mshokej2004.cz/www/index.php?action=print&id=433&sessid=8ef4622c884ca%202e6ac283ae4ffb79c16

Coaches Karel Gut and Jan Starsi assembled a team which has overthrown the Russians superiority in world amateur play.

The Czech team, led by forwards Milan Novy, Ivan Hlinka, Jiri Holik and Vladimir Martinec, uses a five-man attack which some fear will be hampered in the narrower Canadian rinks. To counteract this, Gut had extra players on the ice during warmups to get the feel of closer contact and had his players trying to get their shots off faster.

"We have a good team which is well oiled, in good shape and looking forward to the Canada Cup. He conceded that the team would be faced with several difficulties which would make adaption a little difficult.

"The rinks are smaller than those in Europe, the crowd is different and so is the concept of play of the professional teams," he said. "In several training matches we have tried to simulate a smaller rink by playing against teams with six players. We have also tried to eliminate passes to the corner, where there is no room for manoeuvre, and attempted to improve our faceoff drill and shooting drills".

He said he did not consider the Canada Cup to be an unofficial world championship as many claimed. "For us the world championship with be in Vienna next spring. The Canada Cup will be excellent opportunity to come into the cream of North American professionals and try out some tactics and plays. But consider it just another tournament like the Izvetiya Cup."

Gut added that his team was in excellent physical shape "as good as that of the Canadians, who after all are only human beings as well." He said his team will play its own style and not try to adapt to the Canadian strategy. The Canadian style, he said, is more direct, with fewer frills and more physical than the Czechoslovak game. "It is based on passing the puck into the offensive zone and then going after it with all they have".

The Czech game, he said, was based more on technical and tactical skills, with more complicated drills and more passing. "Our stle will be a bit cramped by the smaller rinks, but next year in Vienna we shall take advantage and the Canadians will have to adapt to the bigger rinks."

Asked if he was afraid of the tougher physical attitudes of the North American professionals, Gut said his players were physically capable of giving and taking as much as anybody. "But that is not our style and we are going to Canada to play our kind of hockey and not to brawl. Our game is based mainly on technique and we try to keep our emotions more under control".

Canadian journalists were surprised to see Vladimir Dzurilla playing in goal for Czechoslovakia in this round-robin clash. Jiri Holecek, named the top netminder at the 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1976 IIHF World Championships, had started all three previous CSSR games. Why wouldn’t coaches Jan Starsi and Karel Gut come back with him?

“We were not surprised because Dzurilla always played better against North American teams than European teams,” said Czech teammate Jiri Bubla. “It was because of his style. Dzurilla kept himself square to the shooter and would skate out to challenge.”

http://hockeyadventure.com/2007/08/27/heroes-of-the-canada-cup-and-world-cup-of-hockey/

• Playing Achievements •

Karel Gut, D. VanI did a nice little bio on him and we'll try to add to it this time around.
He'll be at least on the second PP and third pairing.
He led the Olympics in scoring among defensemen in 1956 (top 10 overall) and 1960, and finished 3rd in 1952.
His final Olympics statistics are 17 points in 22 games.
He also led defensemen in the WC in scoring in 1955, 1956 (top 10 overall), 1959.
He was also captain of the Czechoslovak national team for all major international events from 1952-1960.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=53350165&postcount=141

The captains of both teams, back Karel Gut and forward Vseolod Bobrov, are exchanging flowers and flags before the first official match against the Soviet Union at the Prague’s Štvanice island in January 1957. This match preceded the World Championship that for the first time was played in Moscow at that time still at an open stadium. Both Gut and Bobrov were among the team stars and both later became successful coaches.
- -czech-ice-hockey-history.html

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Peter “Pekka†Lindmark
Goalie
5’11â€
176lbs
Catches Left


Team Sweden – Canada Cup
Silver Medal: 1984
Semi-Finalist: 1987
Starting Goalie: 1981 (did not make medal round)

Team Sweden – World Championships
WC Best Goaltender: 1981, 1986
WC All Star: 1981, 1986
Gold Medal: 1987, 1991
Silver Medal: 1981, 1986, 1990

Team Sweden – Olympics
Bronze Medal: 1988

Izvestia Golden Stick Voting Finishes
3rd, 5th, 5th

Swedish Elite League
Golden Puck (League MVP): 1981
MVP by Players (like the Lindsay): 1987
1st Team All Star: 1981, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988
League Championship: 1986, 1988, 1992, 1994


Swedish Wikipedia (with google translate)

Club Career

Lindmark grew up in Kiruna and represented both of the city's leading team IFK Kiruna Kiruna AIF. The AIF struggled he among other things Gote Wälitalo to be leading goalkeeper. Pekka was recruited from IFK Kiruna series competitor Timra IK where he got his big break. Pekka debuted in the Tre Kronor is already a player in the then second highest series Division 1 and helped to put Timrå back to the Elite League. Sejouren in the top flight, however, was only one year. After Timrå degradation wrote Lindmark contract with Färjestads BK. Timrå and Farjestad did not agree on the transfer fee and Lindmark risked being suspended from all hockey as so-called one-year basis. The clubs finally agreed to Lindmark got to play with Timra and instead go to Farjestad free year after. Another teammate, Anders Wikberg, was in the same situation after Timrå not agree with MoDo HK about his transition. After intricacies around Wikberg and Lindmark modified Swedish Ice Hockey Federation its transition so that players do not risk shutting down.

The final season in Timra reached the team qualifiers advanced but not back to Elitserien. Instead, Lindmark to next seasons harvest great success with Färjestad where the highlights were two national championships for big games by Pekka. After four seasons in Karlstad was recruited Pekka a fierce betting Malmo IF in Division 1. With strongman President Percy Nilsson began Malmo IF a bet against the Elitserien, Sweden peak where a large number of really brilliant hockey stars were attracted to the club. The initiative was successful and Malmö took not only up but also managed to win two national championships during Pekka's spell at the club.

Lindmark did nine seasons in Malmö during the club's heyday but was in the end not obvious starter. Lindmark left the club and moved north to Piteå. He came to stand as a reserve goalkeeper in the booth in a match with Luleå HF and also had some leadership positions in the club.


National Team Career

Lindmark debuted for the national team before he made his first league match. After a successful operation in a training international, Pekka more chances and played into both the World Cup team and squad for the Canada Cup. From 1981 onwards, Lindmark resident in the national team. Pekka example contributed greatly to the Tre Kronor World Championships 1987. He played great in group playoff match against the Soviet Union, which ended 2-2.

The Lewiston Daily Sun – May 7, 1988
Hockey: Lindmark won’t go

Star goalie Peter Lindmark said Friday he would not pursue a career in the NHL, opting instead to play for a semi-pro team in his native Sweden. “No offer from an NHL club can change my mind,†said Lindmark, considered one of the world’s top goalies. “I’m 31 and I must think about my future. That includes a job after my career is over.†Lindmark, who became a free agent after leading Farjestad to the Swedish Hockey League title last month, was given an attractive offer by Malmo in the Swedish second division. Lindmark, whose strong goaltending carried Sweden to the 1987 world hockey championship, had been approached by at least 10 NHL teams. Another 15 Swedish teams wanted him.

The Calgary Herald – Sept. 1, 1981
(Canada Cup Preview)

Goaltender Peter Lindmark and not Pelle Lindbergh, Philadelphia’s outstanding minor-league netminder is expected to draw the majority of tournament assignments and if he repeats his World Championship performance, he will be difficult to beat.

The Saturday Windsor Star – Sept. 15, 1984
(On Canada Cup Play)

Nilsson said the key to the Swedes victory over Canada was discipline. And that will be the key to winning the final.

That plus continued strong goaltending from Peter Lindmark. He has given up just two goals in each of the last four games.

“Everyone said, even in Sweden, that our goaltending was not good enough,†said Boork. “But I know that Peter Lindmark is outstanding.â€

The reason no else did is because Lindmark plays in the second level of Swedish hockey and hasn’t been able to show his talent.

“You just have to get it to the surface and now he has shown it.â€

“THEY HAVE been getting great goaltending,†agreed Canada’s Wayne Gretzky. “And when you get great goaltending that makes a big difference. If you don’t’ get the goaltending, you don’t win.

The Calgary Herald – Sept. 19, 1984
(Canada Cup Gold Medal Game 2)

Swedish coach Leif Boork took a calculated risk by starting backup goaltender Goete Waelitalo ahead of the sometimes sensational Peter Lindmark. The move proved to be his team’s undoing.

Waelitalo gave up four goals on nine shots in seven minutes and 13 seconds before he threw in the towel.

In came Lindmark. Like a baseball reliever, Lindmark came in and stopped Canada cold.

As Sweden abandoned its defensive tactics in search of a tie, Lindmark held his teammates in the game, limiting Canada to two goals in almost 53 minutes played.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Glen Sather, coach

Sather is famous for his trademark "smirk" behind the bench. While some have described his look as arrogance, consider that Sather has the best winning percentage in the playoffs of any coach in the history of the game. Internationally, he led Team Canada to the 1984 Canada Cup championship and was general manager of the Canadian team that won the World Championship in 1994, Canada's first since 1961.

the Oilers felt that the secret to a happy, successful team in the playoffs was to let the players enjoy the regular season and get their points. When the playoffs arrived, they would naturally tighten up their approach and increase their defensive intensity.

May 9, 1998

Sather was guy who believed in loading up on top offensive talent, and building his team and its system to complement those individual talents. His teams prominently featured offensive superstars, who were allowed to run-and-gun, while being backed up by role players who took care of the defensive side, so the stars didn't have to.

Sather ended up becoming the first coach to successfully bring the European style of hockey to North America after deciding that it would be a perfect fit for Gretzky. Gretzky himself praised Sather for realizing that every player was different and treating them differently, so I would imagine that in an ATD setting, Sather would build his system around his offensive stars.

CANADA'S FIRST GOLD MEDAL AT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN OVER 30 YEARS

I'm starting the bio with this section because it's a little known story that really illustrates Sather's philosophy as head coach and GM.

Canada had last won gold at the Worlds in 1961. In 1994, Glen Sather was given the task of constructing a team that could win the World Championships. Sather was successful, using a very unorthodox strategy.

Later that year, I had the good fortune of working with Glen Sather when we built that World Championship Team. Glen gave me a lot of leeway.
...
We planned a very aggressive style with four men on the attack. We felt we had the right team to go for it and force other teams to handle our attack. To do this, we needed special defensive players to handle the potential outnumberings that might occur. Our special defensive players were Luke Richardson, Bobby Dollas, and Marc Bergevin. We were criticized before we left Canada because these guys were not your typical international players...

We were able to do something that 33 previous Canadian entries, many of which had better individual talent, couldn't accomplish. We were a team!

Simply the Best, Insights and Strategies from Great Hockey Coaches, page 156

I think the passage above says a lot about Sather as a head coach. He created an unorthodox system revolving around his stars going all-out on the attack, knowing there would always be a player back whose role was to defend. He didn't care what others thought about his system or player selections. And once Sather decided the big picture, he gave his assistants a lot of leeway in implementing it. And most importantly, the team won.

INFLUENCE ON WAYNE GRETZKY

When Gretzky first arrived in Edmonton, he stayed with coach Sather, who immediately promised him that he'd one day be captain of the team and win the Stanley Cup.

Wayne Gretzky, who was at Rexall Place with his Phoenix Coyotes to celebrate Glenn Anderson’s No. 9 being retired, said Glen Sather should get the next banner hanging from the rafters in Edmonton because he was “the architect of this whole organization here.”

Absolutely, Slats should have a banner. How he handled all of us, how he believed in us when we were all 19 or 20 . . . he was like a father to us.

He hung in there with us. He was a mentor, he pushed us. He was the guy. He treated everybody differently. He’s a great example that you don’t treat everyone the same, whether a classroom in school or a hockey team. Every individual is different. Some like to be pushed, some don’t. He understood and accepted that. All and all, at the end of the day, players like playing for him and that goes a long way.

http://www.faceoff.com/hockey/nhlnews/story.html?id=1fd1c292-3f9a-419d-815f-d7753a41ac8c

My father and Glen Sather were the biggest influences on my hockey career. It's as if my father raised me until age 17, then said to (Sather) 'You take him from here.' It was Sather who would do the pushing. If I got 80 goals, Slats would tell me I could've had 85. He was never satisfied. But he always had faith in me (and) he made me a better player.

It would be a crime to have the God-given talent Wayne has and not make the most of it because you didn't push hard enough

http://www.nhl.com/history/greatnessascendant.html

PRAISE FROM FELLOW COACHES

Glen Sather is my role model. He doesn't operate out of the fear of making a decision but out of a sense of confidence that feeds through the entire organization. That confidence has sometimes been labeled as arrogance, but I have a great deal of respect for it.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136216/3/index.htm

Glen Sather. I liked Glen Sather's ability to coach a bunch of superstars and make them all perform at a high level every single night.

Simply the Best, Insights and Strategies from Great Hockey Coaches, page 147

PRAISE FROM RIVALS

"He hasn't had nearly the acclaim he deserves," says North Stars general manager Lou Nanne. "Many people look at a team that's got a lot of talent and think all you have to do is open and close the door to coach it. That's not the way it works. You still have to deal with people."

Even archrival Torrey gives Sather his due, though he tempers his praise. "His team was as well prepared last year as any we faced in the playoffs," he says, then adds: "They should have been. They had nine days to get ready for us. But the fact remains that they were."

The sound you hear in the background is the grinding of Torrey's teeth.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119280/5/index.htm

BUILDING A SYSTEM AROUND WAYNE GRETZKY

In 1976-77, Sather resigned as a player and took over as coach of the Oilers, where he began to unveil his true talent. In his second year as WHA coach, Sather took the Oilers to the playoffs in 1977-78, where they lost to eventual league champs the New England Whalers.

Glen Sather was given a very young, very unconventional player in Wayne Gretzky, who had broken all kinds of records in junior hockey. But many hockey people thought Gretzky didn't necessarily have the game to translate into the pros. Sather's task was to build a champion around his potential superstar.

(In 1979, Sather tried and failed to sign Butch Goring). Undeterred by that disappointment and others, Sather concentrated on developing the team, bolstering its defensive side so that it could make sudden offensive attacks led by Wayne Gretzky

Acquiring Wayne Gretzky or other strong players didn't represent a "Sather strategy" as such. It was merely the initial phase of bigger, more ambitious one. The next phase meant building a team around his key offensive star. But what kind of team, and what kind of play?
...
(the 1970s was the era of good hockey, but that's not the road Sather took). What Glen Sather was about to do was flaunt conventional wisdom. In this, he was not alone.
...
Glen Sather had been impressed by the likes of Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, and other European players in the WHA. The point, Glen Sather knew, was not to import these players and then attempt to retrain them to play North American-style hockey. To some extent, the (Winnipeg) Jets embraced a European style - a winning style - of playing. That was another point not lost on Glen Sather. He liked the style and he liked winning...

Sather took trip to Finland and Sweden to observe the style of hockey:

He liked the swift passing, the sudden switching of sides, and the use of attacking defensemen. Glen brought it all back with him: the flow, the finesse, and most of all, the speed-skating offense

.

The ideal situation for a team builder such as Glen Sather was to undertake the construction work in relative obscurity. Perfecting plays based on innovative strategies was best done in secret. Not only did a lack of outside attention help focus energy and effort, but it allowed the strategies to remain safe, even when executed before thousands of spectators. Used against different teams in different places, these strategies were rarely fully realized in single, or even consecutive games.

Fortunately during this time, the press helped Sather out by providing almost no coverage of the fledgling Edmonton team.

Edmonton Oilers, against all Odds by Richard Mole

Sather, once a consummate mucker and brawler as an NHL player, has achieved coaching success by embracing a style of play that was imported from Europe,

He is also shrewd, patient, innovative and vastly underrated as a coach.

If Sather hasn't changed, the game has, and the Oilers are at the very root of it. NHL hockey has always been a sport of follow-the-leader, and now the Campbell Conference teams in the West are following the Oilers' lead by emphasizing high-powered, wide-open offenses, while the Prince of Wales Conference teams in the East are, by and large, sticking with time-tested NHL tactics of checking and disciplined defense.

The irony is that Sather, a plodding, occasionally goonlike forward, would be the first NHL coach to be successful using so-called European tactics. His Oilers emphasize speed, passing and puck control rather than a lot of shots and territorial advantage. At the core of Sather's system is the transition game—five players switching from defense to offense, then back again, as the puck changes hands. The Oilers make those transitions faster than any other team.

Sather, who was named player/coach of the Oilers in 1977, first became intrigued with the European style of play when he saw the great Winnipeg Jets teams of the mid-to-late '70s led by Bobby Hull and a host of Swedes.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119280/5/index.htm




CREATING A CHAMPION

(Sather) is also smart enough to understand that the most talented team usually wins. In 1982, the Oilers, who had scored what was then a record 417 goals in the regular season, were upset by Los Angeles in the first round of the playoffs. A year later they were swept by the New York Islanders in the finals, causing theorists to question whether an offensively oriented team, no matter how powerful, could win in the traditionally defensive playoffs. Instead, Sather saw his players as immature but inevitable champions, and viewed each setback as a learning experience. He preached defensive responsibility without frustrating creativity, and little by little the message took hold.

He took that aggressive attitude with him behind the bench. After the first period of a game in Vancouver in 1983, Sather thwacked the earphones off the head of a 70-year-old Canucks fan who was giving him a hard time as Sather was on his way to the locker room. "He's giving it to me and I can't give it back because he's listening to the broadcast on the radio," Sather says. "So I took his earphones off, that's all." Sather was found guilty of assault, but was given an absolute discharge by a provincial court judge.

After Islander G.M. Bill Torrey, speaking at an NHL luncheon during the 1984 finals, dropped a half-kidding remark about the too-early-in-the-morning practice times assigned to his team in Edmonton, Sather wasn't kidding at all when he took his turn at the podium. He criticized New York fans, New York weather and the Oilers' practice times in New York. He then predicted that the Islanders, who were then trailing 2-1 in the series, wouldn't win another game. They didn't.

"I don't care what the occasion was," says Sather. "I wasn't going to back down. Not after they had beaten us in the finals the year before. Sure, it was motivational. I was trying to show our team we were there to win."
...
He loved coaching but felt that 10 years with the same teacher was dulling the students

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136216/3/index.htm

MOTIVATIONAL TECHNIQUES

Sather is standing in the front of the team bus. The Oilers have been drubbed 6-3 by the lowly Vancouver Canucks, their fourth loss in the last seven games, which is a terrible stretch for a team that now stands 46-17-10 on the year. Despite the fact that the Oilers clinched a playoff berth practically on opening night, and the loss is essentially meaningless, the mood is somber and sulky. "Anybody doesn't want to go for some Chinese food?" Sather shouts. "I know a place and I'm buying." No one answers, and Sather waits for a couple of "all rights." "O.K., no moping around in there, eh?"

At the restaurant Sather orders all the food plus as much beer and wine as the players want. After a while they begin to loosen up. The next day, back in Edmonton, Sather chews them out for 20 minutes, then skates them hard for 40 more. Everyone agrees it's a dynamite practice.
....
As a journeyman player Sather got to see some fine coaches in action, among them Harry Sinden, Francis, Scotty Bowman. "One of the things I learned from Scotty was not to be predictable," he says. "Otherwise the players think they've figured you out and stop reacting to you."
...
It's the sort of attitude Sather encourages. "He operates using positive rather than negative motivation," says Dr. Art Quinney of the University of Alberta, who oversees the Oilers' physical conditioning. "The carrot approach."

The Oilers have known all kinds of carrots, including trips to Palm Springs and Hawaii. "Sather's a master psychologist," says Quinney. "He has an intuitive grasp for what turns people's cranks."

On the Oilers' Stanley Cup rings, carved into the thick gold band, is a carrot with a single bite in it. That was the players' idea. There is room for more.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119280/5/index.htm

To the players, Glen Sather was many things. He was fair, taking a player aside to let him know how he felt about his absymal play, rather than chewing him out in front of his teammates. He could also be ruthless, often in particularly creative way. (Mark Messier one time arrived at the wrong airport in Edmonton for a team flight. Sather said don'tworry - his ticket would be waiting for him in the right airport - turns out the ticket Sather left Messier was to the home of the minor league affiliate). Messier was left there for two weeks).

He was also a master manipulator. No surprise: Slats had studied psychology in college.
...
Later, Kevin Lowe remembered how positive Sather was. More than positive, he could be downright inspirational. On the eve of the finals with the New York Islanders, the team was tense. For months, the players had be reliving the agony of a resounding defeat at the loss of the Stanley Cup the year before. Sather could sense the paranoia.

"You guys are the best team in the NHL!" he exorted. "If you use your heads and play the way we are telling you to play, you're going to win, and you're going to win easy." It wasn't just what he said, it was how he said it.

When he spoke, I got goosebumps," recalled Lowe. "I wanted to get out onto the ice right away

While on the road, nobody knew when Sather would check player's beds.

Edmonton Oilers, against all Odds by Richard Mole

 

[Velociraptor]

Emile Francis, coach

Born: September 13th, 1926 in North Battleford, SK
Nickname: "The Cat"

- inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1982.
- Stanley Cup Finalist (1972)
- three 100+ point seasons in the NHL
- 388 wins in 778 regular season games.
- 39 wins in 89 playoff games.

The below is a discussion for retro Jack Adams recipients, note the transition made when Francis took over the Rangers.

1971-72: Emile Francis: No obvious choices, so he'd likely win it as a coach who'd been around for awhile and hadn't won it yet.

He'd probably have had one in 66-67 - the Rangers went from 18-41-11 to 30-28-12. Johnny Wilson would be a good candidate for 71-72, took over the mess in Detroit and nearly got them into the playoffs.

rangerpundit.blogspot.ca

Emile Francis was in full control and there was optimism in the air for Ranger fans. Francis was fiery and a shrewd tactician.

dropyourgloves.com

Emile Francis was a successful offensive tactician but he was never smart enough to incorporate muscle into his lineup.

Who's Who In Hockey

He was a strict disciplinarian, able to elicit fierce loyalty from his players.

Bangor Daily News - Apr 15, 1974

Ranger Coach Emile Francis used a tactic out of the Montreal strategy book, frequently mixing his lines and using no set combination whatsoever

NYRangers: All-Time Roster

RANGERS RECORDS
Most games coached — 654 (1965-1975)
Most coaching victories — 342 (1965-1975)
Best career regular-season winning percentage — .602 (1965-1975)
Most playoff games coached — 75 (1967 to 1975)
Most playoff coaching victories — 34 (1967 to 1975)

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Philadelphia selects LW Ray Whitney, whose offense has been quite underrated around the ATD.

1x Stanley Cup Champion
2x NHL All Star Game Participant
4x Top 9 LW AS(2, 6, 7, 9)
12th Selke Voting, 11-12
12th Hart Voting, 11-12
11th AS RW, 11-12
1 vote for LW & RW AS, 08-09
VsX Scores: 79, 76, 73, 73, 71, 70, 63, 60, 58, 58, 53, 52
Scoring Ranks on Team(starting 97-98 to 11-12): 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 6, 6, 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 1
2002-03 Columbus Blue Jackets Captain
25 points in 30 career World Championships Games(including Captain of team in 09-10)

Study of VsX Scores of Wingers

1. G. Howe 122.9
2. Jagr 108.9
3. Richard 103.0
4. Bo. Hull 102.8
5. Lindsay 100.4
6. Bathgate 99.9
7. Lafleur 95.0
8. Bossy 91.1
9. Selanne 90.3
10. Blake 89.3
11. Bill Cook 89.0
12. C. Conacher 87.9
13. Bentley 87.8
14. Geoffrion 86.8
15. Recchi 86.0
16. Br. Hull 85.8
17. Schriner 85.2
18. Bucyk 84.1
19. S. Howe 83.9
20. Jackson 83.7
21. Kurri 83.6
22. Iginla 83.3
23. Mahovlich 82.9
24. Robitaille 82.3
25. St. Louis 81.6
26. Moore 81.3
27. R. Conacher 81.3
28. Kariya 81.0
29. Abel 80.4
30. Kovachulchuk 79.7
31. Fleury 79.6
32. Alfredsson 79.5
33. Gilbert 78.8
34. Joliat 78.5
35. Hossa 78.5
36. Bure 77.3
37. Mosienko 77.1
38. Mar. Naslund 77.0
39. Shanahan 76.1
40. (undrafted) 75.8
41. Tkachuk 75.6
42. Heatley 75.2
43. Elias 75.0
44. Mogilny 75.0
45. LeClair 74.9
46. Hodge 74.7
47. Goulet 74.6
48. Thompson 73.7
49. L. Patrick 73.6
50. Palffy 73.2
51. Olmstead 72.9
52. Hextall 72.7
53. Damphousse 72.2
54. Ovechkin 71.9
55. Bun Cook 71.4
56. Rousseau 71.3
57. Dumart 71.0
58. Dillon 70.9
59. Sedin 70.7
60. Demita 70.7
61. Gottselig 70.6
62. Cournoyer 70.3
63. McDonald 70.2
    Ray Whitney 70.0
64. Larmer 69.8
65. Amonte 69.8
66. Hejduk 69.7
67. H. Lewis 69.6
68. Drillon 69.4
69. Middleton 69.3
70. Bondra 69.0
71. Ciccarelli 68.5
72. Mullen 68.2
73. G. Anderson 67.7
74. Andreychuk 67.5
75. Barber 66.8
76. Gartner 66.8
77. Prentice 66.3
78. Taylor 66.3
79. Aurie 66.2
80. (undrafted) 66.0
81. Propp 65.5
82. Wharram 65.1
83. Shutt 64.8
84. Gaborik 64.6
85. Nolan 64.4
86. R. Martin 64.2
87. Doan 64.0
88. J. Ward 62.8
89. Robert 62.2
90. Stevens 61.8
91. Verbeek 61.8
92. G. Stewart 61.7
93. Cashman 61.0
94. Litzenberger 60.9
95. Guerin 60.9
96. Northcott 60.2
97. Bauer 60.1
98. Hadfield 60.1
99. Nevin 60.0
100. Pronovost 59.9
101. K. Nilsson 59.8
102. Armstrong 59.5
103. Roberts 59.3
104. Tocchet 58.7
105. S. Smith 58.7
106. Simmer 58.6
107. Stasiuk 58.4
108. (undrafted) 57.9
109. H. Watson 57.4
110. Neely 57.0
111. Nash 56.4
112. Bailey 55.7
113. Duff 55.6
114. Gare 55.3
115. Tonelli 55.2
116. Mats Naslund 54.8
117. Kerr 54.7
118. Gillies 54.4
119. C. Lemieux 52.3
120. Tikkanen 50.8

"That's why (Whitney) is out there," Williams said. "He's an unbelievable playmaker, one of the best in the league, I think. He's very underrated in that aspect in that he doesn't get the recognition that he deserves for the little stuff that he does out there, and you can tell by his points this year, the way he racks up assists and helps his linemates."

http://www.nhl.com/ice/preview.htm?id=2006020743

the Red Wings appear to have added a solid goal-scorer and power-play sniper, Ray Whitney, a 32-year-old left wing who has been a dangerous up-front threat for the Columbus Blue Jackets

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we...page=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

It was a prototypical Whitney goal with the ageless forward knifing through the Bruins defensive pair of Zdeno Chara and Johnny Boychuk before sliding a shot through Rask’s leg pads.

http://www.necn.com/12/29/11/Hagger...anding_sports.html?blockID=620902&feedID=3352

"We know we're going to have to be at our best to beat them. The lineup they have is impressive," said Canadian captain Ray Whitney, a crafty playmaker who has been one of few Canadian players consistently creating offensive opportunities.

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Hockey...-meet-topranked-Russians-in-hockey-quarters/1

Not to be overlooked are the contributions of wingers Cory Stillman, Justin Williams, and Ray Whitney, all three of whom have been tremendous clutch performers in this postseason.

http://www.nysun.com/sports/one-goal-in-mind/33832/

He added five-time 60-point forward Ray Whitney, who despises losing more than anybody I've ever covered.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ray...87,d.dmQ&fp=2b99da229ad2d868&biw=1366&bih=611

Whitney is known as the wizard for his array of playmaking skills...

https://www.google.com/search?q=ray...87,d.dmQ&fp=2b99da229ad2d868&biw=1366&bih=611

 

[BillyShoe1721]

LW John Ferguson

5x Stanley Cup Champion
2x NHL All Star Game Participant
7x Top 9 PIM(1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9)
.638 Adjusted PPG(before adjusted for games played, so it's slightly lower)
VsX Scores: 60, 58, 53
Received one or two votes for LW AS in 64-65, 68-69, 69-70
1 Hart Trophy vote in 68-69

"Everyone knew what he stood for during his eight seasons with the team … how he felt, what he thought, liked, loved and hated. What he loved was to win. Losing was what he hated. There was nothing complicated about his game. It was hit first, ask no questions later. He played to inflict pain … to intimidate. No exceptions. Opposing players were fair game. If he happened to be a goaltender, tough!"

Beliveau wrote that Ferguson was "the most formidable player of the decade [the 1960s] and possibly in the Canadiens' history. His greatest contribution was his spirit … his intensity consumed him, his blood boiling when that of others simply simmered."

Ferguson was the league's most feared player. Fans from the day remember his brawls with Chicago's Bobby Hull and Toronto's Eddie Shack, almost gothic stuff, no holds barred, no helmets worn.

He was more than a noble savage. Behind the mayhem was an intelligence. Hockey's toughest player was possibly the smartest.

Teammates, though, understood Ferguson's role and recognized his value. One year they voted him their most valuable player. None of Ferguson's teammates appreciated him more than Beliveau. Late in his career, Beliveau played his best hockey with Ferguson patrolling his wing.

Opponents looked at Ferguson like a china shop owner would eye a rodeo bull, but they recognized his importance to Montreal's success. "I was scared to death to be on the ice against him and he probably even scared his teammates," says Bob Clarke, who broke in with Philadelphia in 1969.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=obits/ferguson/071227

Playing wing for the Canadiens from 1963 to 1971, Ferguson proved an intimidating presence, but he was adept with the puck as well

Ferguson was not burly, at 5 feet 11 inches and 190 pounds, but he was quick with his fists and happy to dole out hard checks.

“He was the No. 1 tough guy,” Shack told The Toronto Star. “He was one of the best fighters there was.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/sports/hockey/16ferguson.html?_r=0

John Ferguson is known througout hockey circles as perhaps the toughest hockey player in the modern day NHL. He is often considered to be hockey's first "goon" or "designated sitter." Critics claimed he was only there to protect the smaller skilled players on the Montreal Canadiens. However the colorful and feared left winger was also a very solid hockey player.

The main concern from Montreal coach Toe Blake was with Boston's "Terrible" Ted Green, who played "with the heart and guts of a pitbull" and was generally considered to be hockey's toughest player. Green was well aware of the rookie known as Fergie and was willing to test him. Just 12 seconds into the game the two collided and dropped the gloves. Ferguson landed three quick blows numbing Green and instantly taking the title as hockey's unofficial heavyweight champion, a title he never relinquished until he retired.

He was a key member of 5 Montreal Stanley Cup Championships. Make no doubt he made those who played with him a better player. Small and speedy guys like Geoffrion, Cournoyer, Beliveau, and Henri Richard played a lot bigger knowing Fergie was behind them.

http://habslegends.blogspot.com/2006/05/john-ferguson.html

Bruising left-winger John Ferguson earned quite a reputation in an NHL career that spanned just eight seasons. From the moment he suited up for the Montreal Canadiens Ferguson vowed to be "the meanest, rottenest, most miserable cuss ever to play in the NHL." The Canadiens had recruited the fierce forward because they felt the team lacked toughness, and John Ferguson delivered in spades.

http://www.legendsofhockey.net/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayer.jsp?player=12581

Though he consistently ranked among the NHL's penalty minute leaders during his career, Ferguson could also be an effective scorer.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8m...A#v=onepage&q=john ferguson canadiens&f=false

Enter a 5'11", 190 pound 25 year old left winger named John Ferguson who never liked to see a teammate get beaten up. Montreal's toughness issue seemed to go away pretty quickly starting with the 1963-64 season.

Ferguson was more than just a tough, intimidating player - he s could score goals, notching 20 in 1966--67, the last season of the O6.

http://books.google.com/books?id=lo...Q#v=onepage&q=john ferguson canadiens&f=false

Ferguson compared to other "Goons" and tough bottom 6ers drafted in the ATD

Player|Adjusted Points|Games Played|Adjusted PPG|Percentage of Points on PP
John Ferguson|319|500|.638|22.44%
Bob Probert|347|935|.371|22.66%
Tiger Williams|421|962|.438|19.49%
Dave Schultz|181|535|.338|5.5%
Wendel Clark|543|793|.685|30.67%
Brian Sutter|510|779|.654|30.19%
Eric Nesterenko|639|1,219|.524|14.11%
Mario Tremblay|474|852|.556|15.07%
Dave Balon|431|776|.555|16.91%
Ron Ellis|618|1,034|.598|18.13%
Mike Foligno|587|1,018|.577|23.25%
John McKenzie|483|691|.699|30.17%
Yvon Lambert|402|683|.589|25.47%
Bob Nystrom|433|900|.481|9.16%
Wilf Paiement|668|946|.706|26.2%
Terry O'Reilly|513|891|.576|10.89%
Don Marcotte|424|868|.489|5.79%
Mike McPhee|335|744|.450|5.01%
Mel Bridgman|572|977|.585|20.11%
Stan Smyl|539|896|.602|26.9%
JP Parise|559|890|.628|19.53%
Adam Graves|626|1,152|.543|28.73%
Mike Keane|468|1,161|.403|12.34%
Al Secord|395|766|.516|23.84%

Now, the major thing to note is Ferguson has the fewest games played here, but this just goes to show he's not a black hole offensively. He played with good linemates and that helped him, but there are guys(Sutter and Clark especially) whose offense was not that much better, but received significantly more PP time.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Phil Housley
Defenseman
5’10â€
185lbs
LHS


All-Star Record: 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10, 14
Norris Record: 3, 5, 5, 5, 9, 10

Top 20's Among Defensemen
Points: 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5(4)*, 6, 6, 6, 9, 18, 25(13)*, 47(5)*
Goals: 1, 1, 2, 2**, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 9, 11**, 12, 12, 12, 13**, 14
Assists: 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5**, 6, 6, 6**, 9, 10**, 12, 13, 17, 19

*Played time at forward these years. Points earned at forward have been taken out. Parenthesis show where he ranked with those points. See quote below for numbers.
**Played time at forward. No data for how many goals and assists came at forward, so no adjustment has been made.

HockeyDraftCentral.com

Often played forward during early years in Buffalo. He had 13 points at forward in 1983-84, 37 points at forward in 1984-85, and 18 points at forward in 1985-86

Powerplay Specialist
Top 25 PP Points (All Players): 1, 3, 5, 14, 16, 22
Top 25 PP Points (Defensemen)*: 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14
*Years with time at forward not included


Points Leader on Own Team: 1991, 1992
Assists Leader on Own Team: 1983, 1985, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2000


Stanley Cup Finalist: 1998
World Cup of Hockey: Gold Medal
Olympics: Silver Medal
NHL All-Star Game: 1984, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000
IIHF Hall of Fame
Buffalo Larkin Trophy (Team MVP): 1989


Joe Pelletier

One of the best offensive defensemen in the high scoring 1980s, Phil Housley played 1,495 regular-season games played, which set the standards for all American born players. Housley also retired as the highest scoring US born player with 1,232 points (338 goals and 894 assists).

Housley began his NHL career with Buffalo in 1982. The 6th overall draft pick from 1982 skipped college and went straight from high school to the NHL without missing a beat. In his rookie season he scored 19 goals and 66 points by as a defenseman. There was no sophomore jinx for Housley, as he improved to an incredible 31 goals and 77 points in season two. He did spend some time playing left wing however.

Scoring was never a problem for Housley. He was a superior skater, blessed with speed and agility, and a powerplay specialist. He was equally adept at rushing the puck or making the perfect first pass out of the zone. His small stature gave him trouble on one-on-one battles in the defensive zone, and he struggled early in his career with his defensive game, but there were very few defensemen better at the transition game.

Housley was a mainstay in Buffalo until 1990 when he was part of the Dale Hawerchuk trade with Winnipeg. Housley's offense only improved in Winnipeg. In his third year he and a rookie named Teemu Selanne formed a special chemistry. Selanne smashed NHL records with 76 goals as a rookie, and many of those goals were on assists from Housley. Housley had a career high 79 assists and 97 points that season.
…
Throughout his career Housley endeared himself to the international game as well. In 1982, Housley played in the world junior championships. Seven times he would skate for Team USA at world championships. He played in the 1984 and 1987 Canada Cups. He was a member of the victorious 1996 World Cup of Hockey team and the silver medal winning Team USA at the 2002 Olympic games. He is a member of the IIHF Hall of Fame.

Playing D with Phil Housley (Bob Cunnigham, 2001)

Perhaps only Paul Coffey is more renowned than Phil Housley for his scoring among defensemen. Housley, now with the Calgary Flames, is in his 13th NHL season, a tour of duty that included stops in Buffalo, Winnipeg and St. Louis. And without a doubt, the smooth-skating blueliner has had his greatest impact on the game in the offensive end.

But the first thing Housley points out when asked to assess his game is the gradual improvement in his defense. Relatively undersized at 5’10†and 185 pounds, Housley has increasingly relied on savvy and anticipation to ward off would-be attackers. And when they make a mistake, he’s there to capitalize in the form of a goal or assist.

 

[bluesfan94]

Bill Cowley
"Cowboy Cowley"

6/12/1912 - 12/31/1993
Position: Center
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 165 lbs
Hand: Left

Played For:

St. Louis Eagles (1934-1935)
Boston Bruins (1935-1947)

Statistics
Regular Season:

Year|League|Team|GP|Goals|Assists|Points|PIMs|Adj. G|Adj. A|Adj. Pts
1934-35|NHL|St. Louis Eagles|41|5|7|12|10|8|14|22
1935-36|NHL|Boston Bruins|48|11|10|21|17|21|22|23
1936-37|NHL|Boston Bruins|46|13|22|35|4|21|48|69
1937-38|NHL|Boston Bruins|48|17|22|39|8|27|42|69
1938-39|NHL|Boston Bruins|34|8|34|42|2|14|63|77
1939-40|NHL|Boston Bruins|48|13|27|40|24|21|50|71
1940-41|NHL|Boston Bruins|46|17|45|62|16|26|77|103
1941-42|NHL|Boston Bruins|28|4|23|27|6|5|32|37
1942-43|NHL|Boston Bruins|48|27|45|72|10|29|54|83
1943-44|NHL|Boston Bruins|36|30|41|71|12|27|43|70
1944-45|NHL|Boston Bruins|49|25|40|65|12|25|55|80
1945-46|NHL|Boston Bruins|26|12|12|24|6|14|20|34
1946-47|NHL|Boston Bruins|51|13|25|38|16|14|35|49
||||||||
Total|NHL|Boston Bruins, et al.|549|195|353|548|143|252|555|807

Playoffs:

Year|League|Team|GP|Goals|Assists|Points|PIMs
1935-36|NHL|Boston Bruins|2|2|1|3|2
1936-37|NHL|Boston Bruins|3|0|3|3|0
1937-38|NHL|Boston Bruins|3|2|0|2|0
1938-39 | NHL | Boston Bruins | 12 | 3 | 11 | 14 | 2
1939-40|NHL|Boston Bruins|6|0|1|1|7
1940-41 | NHL | Boston Bruins | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
1941-42|NHL|Boston Bruins|5|0|3|3|5
1942-43|NHL|Boston Bruins|9|1|7|8|4
1944-45|NHL|Boston Bruins|7|3|3|6|0
1945-46|NHL|Boston Bruins|10|1|3|4|2
1946-47|NHL|Boston Bruins|5|0|2|2|0
|||||||
Total|NHL|Boston Bruin|64|12|34|46|22

Bold indicates Stanley Cup Champion

Transaction History:

1935: Drafted 6th overall by the Boston Bruins in the 1935 dispersal draft.

Yearly Rankings:

Regular Season:
Points: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th
Goals: 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 10th
Assists 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th
Assists Per Game: 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 6th, 9th

Playoffs:
Points: 1st, 7th, 10th
Assists: 1st, 4th, 8th, 8th

Career Rankings:
Regular Season:
Points Per Game: 56th (1.00)
Assists Per Game: 42nd (.643)
Adjusted Assists: 96th (555)

VsX Scores

1934-35: .255
1935-36: .525
1936-37: .875
1937-38: .886
1938-39: .955
1939-40: .930
1940-41: 1.41
1941-42: .500
1942-43: 1.09
1943-44: .922
1944-45: 1.03
1945-46: .462
1946-47: .603

Records:

Third highest PPG in a single season, trailing only Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky
Retired as all-time leading point scorer
Set record for most assists in single season with 45.
Retired as all-time leader in assists.

Awards:

Stanley Cup Champion: 1939, 1941
Retro Conn Smythe: 1939
Hart Trophy: 1941, 1943
1st Team All-Star: 1938, 1941, 1943, 1944
2nd Team All-Star: 1945
"Art Ross":* 1941
*Trophy was not actually awarded

Voting Records:

Hart
1941: 1st
1942: Received Votes (Place Unclear)
1943: 1st
1944: 2nd - Winner was Walter Pratt
1945: 3rd - Winner was Elmer Lach
Lady Byng
1937: 4th
1938: 5th
1939: 4th
1945: T-4th
1st Team All-Star*
1938: 1st
1940: 3rd - Winner was Milt Schmidt
1941: 1st
1941:^ T-4th
1943: 1st
^As Right Wing
2nd Team All-Star*
1937: 3rd - Winner was Art Chapman
1938: 2nd - Winner was Syl Apps
1939: T-6th
1940: 3rd - Winner was Neil Colville
1941: 2nd - Winner was Syl Apps
1942: T-6th
1943: 3rd
Italics imply that he won 1st team All-Star that year
All-Star*
1944: 1st
1945: 2nd - Winner was Elmer Lach
*Until 1944, 1st and 2nd Team All-Stars were voted on separately.

Honors:

Inducted into HHOF (1968)
Ranked 53rd on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players.
Inducted into Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.

Miscellaneous:

Coached the Vancouver Canucks of the PCHL
Co-founded and co-owned the Ottawa 67's
The only member of the Hall of Fame to begin his career with the St. Louis Eagles.
Upon his retirement, Cowley was the last active player that had played for the Senators/Eagles franchise.
Was two points away from setting the single season points record in 1943-44 when he got hurt with six weeks remaining.
His 62 points in 1940-41 were 41% ahead of the number 2 mark, an NHL record that would not be bettered until Wayne Gretzky did so 40 years later.
Cowley was the only player inducted into the HHOF in 1968
In the 1942-42 season, Cowley petitioned the NHL to remove an assist from his record that he felt he didn't deserve - this ended up costing him a share of the scoring title.​

Quotes:
Joe Pelletier:

Bill Cowley was very much an early day Wayne Gretzky. He is considered to be the greatest playmaker in hockey while he graced the ice surfaces of the NHL.

At the time of his retirement, Cowley was arguably the greatest player the NHL had seen. He retired with 548 career points, enough for him to claim the title as the NHL's all time leading scorer until 1952. His 353 career assists were also all time highs.

Legends of Hockey:

Bill "Cowboy" Cowley was one of the top playmaking forwards in NHL history - three times in his 13-year career he led the NHL in assists. He always seemed to know where his linemates were positioned. An unselfish player who always aimed to set up a colleague for a goal before taking a shot himself, and he rarely jeopardized his team's fortunes by taking a penalty. Because of his ability to see the whole ice, he was arguably the Wayne Gretzky of his era.

The Bruins, a team stacked with experienced forwards, originally used him as a left winger, but his swift skating and precise passes forced them to move him to center.

Elmer Ferguson:

Bill Cowley of Boston is the smoothest play-maker in hockey, the finest craftsman of modern times. He is in the business of creating scoring opportunities for his line-mates, even scoring, occasionally, a goal or two himself. He hasn't the speed of Sylvanus Apps, the Leafs' one-man tornado, but he's a better play-maker. He hasn't the spectacular qualities of Morenz. Rather, he's a combination of these two, plus a dash of Nighbor.

Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 17, 1937

Bill Cowley is moving right along in the NHL scoring race....He got an assist in Boston last night...Cowley is now rated as one of the big stars of pro hockey

The Calgary Daily Herald, Feb. 17, 1938

They pit Art Ross' big, hammering club - with Eddie Shore leading one of the game's great defences and Bill Cowley sparking the forward lines....

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

The majority of the selectors considered only Bill Cowley, the 26-year-old Ottawan who is Bruins' standout pivot man, and Syl Apps, the Toronto ace, for centre. Twice as many voted Cowley on the first team as named Apps.

Lester Patrick in the Montreal Gazette, Mar 30, 1938

Young Bill Cowley is a clever playmaker...

The Montreal Gazette, Feb 17, 1939

...there is smart Bill Cowley, doing all right despite a long layoff through injury...

Montreal Gazette March 2nd, 1939

Young Roy Canacher can share his laurels with Bill Cowley, the tireless Bruin centre whom sports writers ranked the best in the league a year ago...somehow or other back of all those goals and the rapid rise to fame of the blond wingman lies the steadying and helping hand of the veteran Cowley.

Art Ross moved Bill in between Conacher and Mel Hill and overnight young Roy started to hit the headlines. League statistics of February 5, first after the new line was formed, showed Conacher with nine goals for three months work. The latest records, February 27, gave him 18, doubling his total in less than a month. And back of almost all those goals was the playmaking Cowley.

The Leader-Post, April 10, 1939

'Those goals of mine were just little things along the way,' Hill said, 'Cowley who really knows how to lay down a pass, handed me the puck and I batted it in.'

The Leader-Post, Oct 25, 1939

So will such playoff heroes as Bill Cowley, Roy Conacher and Mel (sudden death) Hill.

The Calgary Herald, Feb 7, 1940

Around the league, rival teams talk of Cowley's upraised stick and infighting methods, but one ever tries to belittle his ability to put the puck where it is needed when it counts.

Ottawa Citizen, Dec 3, 1940

Bill Cowley's six-point scoring spree as Boston Bruins whipped Americans last night carried the starry Bruin center into a first-place tie with Bryan Hextall, of New York Rangers, in the National Hockey League scoring race.

At this point Cowley was playing with Des Smith and Gordon Bruce

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, March 27, 1941

The way Sylvanus Apps slipped away from his doctor's care to demoralize Boston ranks sickened the Bruins the last time out but they shook off some of the nausea Wednesday when it was learned that their own great playmaker - Bill Cowley - will return to the Stanley Cup wars tonight

Ottawa Citizen, December 30, 1941

The "best individual achievement" in Canadian sport during 1941 turned out to be a double today with Theo Dubois' sweep of the North American sculling championships tying Bill Cowley's capture of the National Hockey League scoring championship for the honor. ... Cowley, still at the very peak of his form at 29, swept the scoring championship with 62 points and established a record of 45 assists in taking the title.
Cowley was awarded the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player and most of the writers naming him on their ballot (for the Canadian Award) coupled this with his winning of the scoring championship. He has few peers, if any, as a center player and has been at or near the top of the scorers in an attempt to retain his title this season.

Calgary Herald, Dec 24th, 1942

Bill Cowley hit the headlines again with six point. The best play-maker in the big time for years, Bill now is making super-man forwards out of Buzz Boll and Art Jackson.

The fellow has been a star on various lines. Wingmen taking passes from Cowley find the path to the goal an open one. He knows how to lay down a pass and Boll and Jackson are just two more wingers who will find their scoring output increasing as members of the Cowley unit.

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Nov. 5, 1943

Manager Lester Patrick predicted the fans will find that in going in on the goal, Boucher will be the second-best play maker in the league, shaded only by Bill Cowley of Boston Bruins.

The Calgary Herald, April 8, 1943

Bill Cowley, playmaking wizard of the Boston Bruins, was named Wednesday as the winner of the Dr. David A. Hart trophy for the most valuable player to his club in the National Hockey League in the 1942-43 season....He is fourth multiple winner in its 20-year history, the others being all-time hockey greats...

The Montreal Gazette, March 28, 1944

Bill Cowley, master play-maker of hockey, is back at centre with Lorne Carr of Toronto and Speedy Doug Bentley of Chicago on his wings. Here is a line which even in pre-war days would be able to hold its own.

Ottawa Citizen, March 5, 1960

One of the smoothest skaters ever to hit the National Hockey League, Bill Cowley, will return to the puck wars for a one-night stand according to officials of next Wednesday night's March of Dimes Game at the Auditorium.
Cowley, who "made" more wingers than enough with his deft passing, joins a familiar list for the game...

The Montreal Gazette, June 12, 1968

Never noted as a great goal scorer, Cowley was acknowledged as one of the slickest playmakers the league has ever produced.

For more on the Bruins' play with and without Cowley, see this post

 

[Sturminator]

Harvey "Busher" Jackson

Position: LW
Shoots: L
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 195 lbs.

Stanley Cup champion 1932 - Toronto Maple Leafs

NHL 1st team All-Star: 1932, 1934, 1935, 1937
NHL 2nd team All-Star: 1933
NHL scoring leader: 1932

Top 7 seasons VsX scoring: 106, 100, 94, 89, 88, 77, 72

Something special- That extra bit of speed, the size and strength, packed into almost perfect physique.

Harvey "Busher" Jackson was a flashy member of the Kid Line, the Toronto Maple Leaf trio that dominated the National Hockey League in the 1930s. Along with big Charlie Conacher and the slick-passing Joe Primeau, Jackson established himself as a star on the left wing with his flair and wicked backhand.

Jackson was a great rusher, with good size and a pure ability to score goals. He was famous for his backhand, which was lethal as he darted across the ice from the left side. With his physique and natural talent, Jackson avoided serious injuries even though he had a driving, entertaining style of play.

5.5.1932 - The Border Cities Star:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AIBAJ&pg=4847,5180628&dq=busher+jackson&hl=en

Harvey "Busher" Jackson, slick-haired young winger of Toronto Maple Leafs, chosen by 12 of 32 sports writers in National Hockey League cities for the left-wing berth on the Canadian all-star team, is the youngest player in the circuit today. Too, he is one of the most promising youngsters in the pro game.

Although a mere youth, Jackson is a veteran of three years' big-time campaigning. At 21, he ranks with the finest stick-handlers in the professional sport and has one of the hardest back-hand shots in the game. The "Busher" as his team-mates know him, is a constant menace to opposing goal-tenders as indicated by his record of 23 goals and 20 assists, which places him at the top of the N.H.L. scorers.

A natural player whose tireless strides mark his smooth play, Harvey first broke into prominence when playing in the Toronto city leagues. Joining Marlboro juniors, of the Ontario Hockey Association series at the age of 15, Jackson helped Dukes capture the Ontario title in 1926-27. The following year he was with the Marlboros when they annexed Dominion honors.

Stepping direct to the N.H.L. while still eligible for junior company, the "Busher" made good with a bang. Now he teams with Joe Primeau and Charlie Conacher to form the highest-scoring forward line in the Calder circuit. He has improved steadily under the keen eye of coach Dick Irvin.

The 180 pound winger is known for his aggressive fighting spirit. Fearless, the lad never backs up from an opponent. In a recent game with Montreal Maroons in Toronto, Harvey squared off with big Lionel Conacher when a free-for-all broke out in the last minute of play. But the hard-plugging Leaf forward earned an even break with the one-time amateur boxing champ of Canada.

30.12.1940 - Saskatoon Star-Phoenix:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AIBAJ&pg=4826,5909920&dq=busher+jackson&hl=en

Handsome Harvey Jackson zipped into New York Americans' dressing room and said to no one in particular: "I'm a kid again and I feel like scoring a lotta goals."

That bore out what the Manhattan hockey mob has been talking about for two weeks - the rejuvenation of the Busher. He's flying again like the Jackson who shone as a member of the kid line with Toronto Maple Leafs.

...

Friday night, with Thurier out with a knee injury, Jackson made a play to Hunt for the Americans' first goal. His aggressiveness earned the praise of Manager "Red" Dutton.

"We wuz robbed," said Dutton, "but that Jackson was a pip."

13.2.1954 - Montreal Gazette:

He (Joliat) picked an all star team (at the request of W.A. Howard, a writer for Canadian National Magazine) confined to players who played against him during his 16 years as a professional. He puts Benedict or Gardiner in goal; Shore and Noble on defense; Nighbor at centre; with Cook and Jackson on the wings. It's a well balanced unit.

 

[Dreakmur]

Tony Amonte !!!


Awards and Achievements:
Olympic Silver Medalist (2002)
World Cup Gold Medalist (1996)

5 x NHL All-Star (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001)


All-Star voting - 4th(1997), 4th(1999), 5th(2000), 10th(1992)


Offensive Accomplishments:
Points - 6th(2000), 15th(1999), 17th(1998)
Goals - 2nd(1999), 3rd(2000), 11th(1997), 15th(1998), 19th(2001)
Assists - 18th(1998)


5-Year Peak: 1997-2001
11th in Points, 81% of 2nd place Teemu Selanne
5th in Goals, 90% of 2nd place Teemu Selanne
34th in Assists, 62% of 2nd place Peter Forsberg


10-Year Peak: 1995-2004
19th in Points, 76% of 2nd place Joe Sakic
12th in Goals, 82% of 2nd place Patr Bondra
35th in Assists, 64% of 2nd place Peter Forsberg


Scoring Percentages:
Points - 89(2000), 80(1998), 73(2002), 71(1997), 70(1999), 67(2001), 61(2004), 59(1992), 53(1996), 51(1993), 50(1995), 49(2003)

Best 6 Seasons: 450
Next 6 Seasons: 323

He's a very talented player, very quick. He works hard all the time ... He's happy to be first in there on the forecheck. Before you play with him, you just think that he's very talented and fast and everything and (don't) really get to appreciate how much he digs and grinds and competes.

He's like a kamikaze, the way he goes to the net with abandon. He's one of our hardest workers. An unbelievable talent, with a great disposition to go with it.

I always think of Tony Amonte as a blue-collar superstar. He has world-class, elite skills. He has a lot of flair and flash and pizzazz. To go with his high skills, he has a very strong work ethic. He always comes to play and battle. He never takes the night off.

He's got this really active stick that just finds the puck.

MVP: Tony Amonte, Chicago Blackhawks: Don't get us wrong, Dominik Hasek was a tremendously deserving MVP winner. But here at LCS Hockey we like to give attention to the guys that often get overlooked. And Tony Amonte deserves far more attention than he's receiving from the main stream media.

Amonte was a one-man team this season in Chicago. When Jeremy Roenick, Joe Murphy, and Bernie Nicholls all left down over the off-season, it was widely believed that the Blackhawks' offense went with them. Don't tell that to Amonte. The speedy right winger became a national hero in the United States for scoring the winning goal for the stars and stripes at the World Cup. He carried that momentum into the regular season, along with a flowing mane of hair, to become an honest to goodness superstar.

Known previously as a secondary scorer that could chip in 30 goals, Amonte stepped forward as the go-to guy for the 1996-97 Blackhawks, leading the team with 41 goals and 77 points. Amonte was the Chicago offense, accounting for 18.4% of the team's total goals. He just became a much better finisher this season. Amonte started to gain a rather infamous reputation in recent years as someone who never buried enough of the chances that his speed produced. Whatever the reason for the turnaround, whether it be the confidence from the World Cup or the strength derived from his Samson hair style, Amonte was a different man this season. It showed most on breakaways, where he even developed a lethal backhand-forehand deke that left many a goaltender swimming.

And it wasn't just that he was scoring goals, it was how he scored them. Amonte took charge of games and dominated with his speed and determination. He came through with the big goals in the big games and he did all the little things to make himself and his team better. When he wasn't blasting shots on net or streaking in on breakaways, Amonte became a much more aggressive hitter and took care of business in the defensive end, racking up an incredible +35. The guy did it all.

Without Amonte in the Chicago lineup, the Hawks would have been a joke. Jagr had Lemieux, LeClair had Lindros, Selanne had Kariya, but there was no one to help Amonte carry the load. Sure, Alexei Zhamnov was around, but he isn't even close to the same stratosphere as those other players. Amonte was the show. In a season that was almost completely void of excitement, Amonte was a bolt of lightning.

Tony Amonte is fast. When he's on the ice, it's best if you don't blink, because you could miss something amazing. Tony Amonte is really fast. If there's a breakaway to be had, Tony Amonte will get it. Tony Amonte is really, really fast. That's why he leads the NHL with 22 goals.

Amonte has used his speed and skill to his advantage this season, getting solid scoring chance after scoring chance on a Chicago Blackhawk team that hasn't seen a legitimate scoring sensation since the old-school days of Jeremy Roenick.

Sure, the 28-year-old winger has several high-profile centermen to aid him in his quest for 50 goals, but the numbers show that Amonte has had to do most of the work himself. Alexei Zhamnov and Doug Gilmour are the main two centers on the Hawks roster, but both are having sub-par seasons. And without those two guys, Amonte is the lone gun in Chicago. He his scoring around 30 percent of his team's goals, which is an impressive stat in itself.

Amonte's speed is his biggest asset. He shows an ability to chase down loose pucks and clearing attempts and turn them into great scoring chances.

And once he gets in tight on a goalie, he's pure money. Amonte's favorite move is when he skates in on a goaltender and fakes to his backhand. But instead of going that direction, he practically stops dead in his tracks in the crease and tucks the puck around the sprawling goaltender on his forehand. The move almost never fails. Amonte's quick skating and even quicker hands make the move impossible to defend against. Unless, you know, a goaltender gets all wild and crazy and flings every appendage he has in Amonte's general direction...

...

If Mike Keenan had his way, Tony Amonte probably wouldn't be among the list of favorites to take the crown. Keenan, you see, never saw eye to eye with Amonte when he was coach of the New York Rangers and Amonte was an up-and-coming star for the Blueshirts. Amonte scored 35 goals in his rookie season in New York in 1991-92, then 33 more the next season.

But then Keenan took over the helm in the Big Apple and Amonte's numbers were reduced to 16 goals in 72 games during the 1993-94 season. Keenan dealt Amonte near the trade deadline to Chicago in exchange for Stephane Matteau and Brian Noonan. Keenan and the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup that year, while to this day Amonte continues to fight for his chance to meet Lord Stanley.

"(Keenan) definitely didn't like me, and I didn't like him and I don't think I still do," Amonte said of his former coach. "But it was business at the time, and that's what I felt. He didn't feel that I was going to be any help to the (team), and the way I felt at the time, he had me believing that I wasn't going to be any help to the club. So I think it was a good career change for me, and I was thrilled just to get a chance just to come to Chicago.

"You know, coming out of New York, you don't know where you're going to go. But getting a chance to come to Chicago, I'm as happy as could be. But I was a little disappointed not staying for the Stanley Cup run, but that's life. And that's what Mike Keenan says: `Life is not fair.'

#4. Tony Amonte, Chicago Blackhawks: When discussing the best all-around forwards in the game, the usual names come up: Peter Forsberg, Ron Francis, Mike Modano, Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov. Well, it's about time that people start to realize that Amonte belongs in that group.

While his skating and scoring always gets the majority of the attention, Amonte is a tremendous defensive player. A tireless worker without the puck, Amonte uses his fearsome speed to pressure the play all over the ice and seldom misses an opportunity to finish a check. Once the puck does get turned over, Amonte's speed again comes into play, making him one of the most dangerous transition players in the game.

Even though he scored 31 goals last season and 41 the previous year, Amonte isn't really a natural goal-scorer. He works hard for everything he gets. If he could finish even half the chances his speed creates he'd be a perennial 50-goal man. One area where he has improved is on breakaways where he's developed a lethal forehand move over the past two years that usually leaves goaltenders wrecked. But he still probably misses more than he makes. Yet, while more goals would be appreciated, it isn't like he's playing with the '84 Oilers. Amonte, who has missed only two regular season games the past four years, is on his own most nights. The guy can only do so much.

Tony Amonte, Chicago Blackhawks (41-23-13-36): With all due respect to the great Chris Chelios, Amonte is the only reason to watch a Chicago game. He's a phenomenal player. He works the defensive zone like a demon, he hits, he scores goals, he sticks up for his teammates, and oh yeah, he can skate really, really fast. It's gotta be the hair. Amonte is simply one of the coolest players in the NHL.

But Amonte should flourish in Phoenix. Amonte proved in the past that he could score with little help in the offensive zone. He will have to do the same in Phoenix. Outside of little man Daniel Briere and Daymond Langkow, the Coyotes have little to offer offensively.

9. Tony Amonte, Phoenix Coyotes: Ed Belfour, Chris Chelios, Jeremy Roenick, and now Tony Amonte... Chicago has the rare knack of recognizing its best player and then allowing him to leave town without getting much, if anything, in return. It's genius, really. Who needs identity? Heart and soul can be so overrated.

Wayne Gretzky and the Phoenix Coyotes were more than happy to take advantage of Chicago's ignorance, signing Amonte to a multi- million dollar contract to bring him to the desert. Why the Blackhawks would be willing to part with Amonte is puzzling.

Amonte's numbers were down last year. An eight-time 30-goal scorer, his 27 goals in 2001-02 snapped a string of six consecutive seasons with at least 30 red lights. But if the Hawks are betting Amonte has nothing left, they're fooling themselves. He still has the speed and shot to put up another 35 or 40 goals this season for the Coyotes. If anything it was the grief of his contract situation that hampered his scoring, not a deterioration of skills.

Amonte could score 10 goals and he'd still be a tremendous addition to any club. No one works harder. He plays every shift like it's his last. He's not some pretty boy goal scorer living off the sweat of his teammates. Amonte does all his own dirty work. And you know he's gonna show up every night. Amonte hasn't missed a game in five years, and he's only missed two contests over the past eight seasons. Death and taxes aren't so reliable.

The rookie had 33 goals, and that was a sound qualification right there.

But there were other reasons why Ranger right wing Tony Amonte picked up an endorsement this weekend for rookie of the year from linemate Mark Messier. They had to do with the way Amonte skates, those huge shoulder pads flapping in the breeze, toward the goal.

"He's like a kamikaze, the way he goes to the net with abandon," Messier said. "He's one of our hardest workers. An unbelievable talent, with a great disposition to go with it."

The topic was Amonte, because the 21-year-old forward out of Boston University is hot, and because he appears to have a real shot at the Calder Trophy when voting takes place in a couple of weeks. On Saturday night, he scored his first career hat trick, against the Blues, who were without the ailing Brett Hull, during a 6-0 Ranger rout in St. Louis. Amonte has five goals in his last two games.

And this endorsement:

"He got mine a long time ago," Neilson said. "He's got this really active stick that just finds the puck."

The play was one of trust as much as technique or design. Adam Graves, his back to the goal, turned and slid a blind pass back through the slot. Tony Amonte, not a regular on the club's top line, was where he should have been; where Graves gambled he would be.

Graves was right. Amonte was alone. Trust was rewarded. The Rangers' run of perfection was intact.

...

Amonte, starved for goals and forced to content himself with the unglamorous, often unrecorded contributions of a grinder, accepted the puck and stared at a yard of open net. Winnipeg goaltender Bob Essensa, stoicly spectacular all night, was overcommitted and vulnerable. Amonte, asked only to temper his ambition and deposit the goal, did it and then exhaled loudly enough to be heard over the crowd's roar.

"He's been right there so many times," Coach Mike Keenan said of Amonte.

"He hasn't changed roles completely," Messier said with a smile. "We're still looking for him to score."

Chicago - Tony Amonte.
Heading into the all-star break, there's where the list of all that's right with the Chicago Blackhawks begins and ends. Aside from the high-scoring, hard-working Amonte and a few role players, everybody on the team - including supposed standouts Ed Belfour, Chris Chelios, Alex Zhamnov and Eric Daze - has fallen well short of expectations.

Graham also points to Amonte's development as a total player for his inclusion in that group. Even a few seasons ago, Amonte and defense weren't on a first-name basis. At times, they weren't in the same rink.

But Graham says Amonte has become one of his most responsible defensive players, not a bad admission coming from the 1991 winner of the Frank Selke Trophy, awarded to the forward who best excels at defense.

"Tony has always been able to score," says Graham. "The biggest thing he has been able to accomplish is becoming a strong defensive player. He didn't have that when he first got here. That's the key to his whole success. He does the little things defensively and gets all kinds of scoring chances because of it. That's part of rounding out your game."

Indeed, Amonte has come a long way from his first few seasons, when he crashed into the league with the New York Rangers and scored 35 goals his first season, finishing second to Pavel Bure for the Calder Trophy.

Not that Amonte doesn't look at those days fondly. He got to play with two of the league's greats--Mark Messier and Adam Graves--on some of his most impressionable and development-starved days in the league.

But he also remembers, at times, how little of a clue he had.

"Coming into the league, you don't know much about the game and style of play," Amonte says. "It is totally different from any other league in the world and you have to adapt your style to playing in the NHL. There are very few who step in and are successful right away.

"I was fortunate enough to play with Mark and Adam on a line for two solid years every night. I played 160 games with those guys and they taught me a lot about competing and showing up every night and being there for your teammates and playing hard. It was a great way for me to break into the league.

"But I didn't know what defense was then. As the years go on, you pick up more things. Three years ago when I scored 40 goals (actually, a career-high 41 in the 1996-97 season), I was thrown into a bigger role than I had ever had in this league. I was a goal scorer and a top-line guy and a go-to guy. That is an opportunity everybody in this dressing room waits for. I'm just trying to make the most of it."

When Blackhawks captain Tony Amonte steps onto the ice, he is a personification of the city in which he plays.

"I always think of Tony Amonte as a blue-collar superstar," says Nashville coach Barry Trotz. "He has world-class, elite skills. He has a lot of flair and flash and pizzazz. "To go with his high skills, he has a very strong work ethic. He always comes to play and battle. He never takes the night off."

For 279 consecutive regular-season games, the longest streak by an active NHL player, Amonte has come to play and battle.

...

Individually, Amonte got off to a splendid start and appeared to be in a position to surpass his career high of 44 goals in 1998-99. But in his last 14 games he has been able to score only two goals, giving him 14 for the season.

One of the reasons is because he is a marked man on a team that doesn't have a lot of weapons.

"Chicago has two prominent lines, but we feel if you shut down Amonte, you have a chance of winning the hockey game," said Trotz after his Predators were shut out by the Hawks 3-0 Saturday night in Nashville. "We did that in this game, but their other top players made things happen."

By his standards, Amonte is having an off year with 13 goals and 20 assists at the halfway point. But factor defensive play, durability and attitude into the Amonte equation and he becomes much harder for the Hawks to replace. His streak of 369 straight games is the longest in the NHL.

 

[Dreakmur]

Mario Tremblay !!!


Awards and Achievements:
4 x Stanley Cup Champion (1976, 1977, 1978, 1979)

Selke voting - 14th(1983)


Scoring Percentages:
Points – 54(1983), 51(1979), 50(1982), 49(1985), 47(1981), 44(1977)

Best 6 Seasons: 295

He was one of the top role players in the 1970s and '80s. He was able to score, check, hit, and get under the skin of opponents while helping the Montreal Canadiens win four straight Stanley Cups… was a combative force all over the ice.

He was a physical player, unafraid of bigger foes and reckless in throwing his body around. The fiery and short tempered man was a great competitor who burned to win, although sometimes he took a few too many liberties with his stick.

Regardless, his attitude definitely was infectious on the Montreal bench. Whenever coach Scotty Bowman wanted to give his bench a jolt of energy, he was sure to call on #14 for a shift.

He was strong in the corners, but the best part of his game was his ability to make plays with the puck once he retrieved it. Hockey has a lot of hard working pluggers who are willing to fight for loose pucks in high traffic zones, but the best are separated by the ability to do something with the puck once they get it.

He was fast on his skates and able to throttle by most defenseman. He would dart in and out of traffic, often stealing the puck. He was definitely more of a shoot-first, pass-second type player. He boasted a howitzer of a shot and was also good at finding loose pucks and rebounds in scrums in front of the goalie.

The term “worker†more than adequately describes the type of player that he was. The right-winger rarely took an evening off during a 10-year NHL career - all spent with the Canadiens - and was universally regarded by his teammates as one of the most dogged competitors around… combining to form a feisty, two-way trio that played a major role in the first of four consecutive Stanley Cup titles.

....

A player who never backed down, he played a part in one of the NHL’s most unruly moments, the sixth game of the Adams Division Final between Montreal and Quebec, on April 20, that has been tagged the “Good Friday Massacreâ€. He was tossed from the game for his manhandling of Peter Stastny during the violent bench-clearing brawl.

The Leafs, already hurt by injuries to several key players, lost defensemen Borje Salming and Claire Alexander. Salming dislocated his shoulder when he was checked by Mario Tremblay and Alexander was removed from the ice on a stretcher after injuring his right knee on a check by Doug Risebrough.

Bourne suffered a slight separation of the left shoulder when he was taken into the boards by Montreal's Mario Tremblay in the first period. He is likely to miss the remainder of the series and Arbour indicated that either Richie Hensen or Walt Ledingham, both recalled from the minors, would replace him in the lineup.

Even the beer tasted like Stanley Cup champagne to Mario Tremblay in the Montreal Canadiens dressing room.

"I was told I have something to prove," said the 21 year old winger, drenched by liquid refreshment from the National Hockey League's championship trophy.

Tremblay proved he could score, with two goals Thursday night that ended the Boston Bruins' hopes for a championship upset. Montreal won Game 6, 4-1, and the best of seven series, 4-2, for a third consecutive NHL title.

"When we were tied at two games," Tremblay said amid the tumult, "we had to win the fifth game. I was called in and told it was time to show whether I was a kid or a man."

He was tough in Game 5 at Montreal, decking Boston's Bobby Schmautz with one punch, and the Canadiens won. In Game 6, Boston still was punchy. The Bruins led 1-0, then were smothered.

"Me hitting Schmautz helped our guys," said Tremblay. But of his two goals Thursday night - Tremblay's first of the playoffs - the sudden celebrity said only "Mon Dieu."

"The Bruins are alley fighters," said Montreal's Steve Shutt. "But Mario had fire in his eye."

[The Montreal Gazette – March 8th, 1979]Tremblay has always been a good two-way hockey player. Linemate Houle believes the biggest thing Mario has going for him is his hustle.

"His hustling in the corners is a very big thing. When he does that it seems he passes better and shoots better."[/quote]

If the Bruins are to rally in the third game, they will have to do it without captain Wayne Cashman, who sat out the second game and was admitted to hospital here Monday for treatment of a nagging back injury.

"I don't think he'll be ready," Cherry said of Cashman. "I know he took a big check from Mario Tremblay early in the Thursday game in Montreal, be he said that wasn't what did it. He said he really hurt when his feet went out from under him on the last play of the game."

Yvon Lambert, the burly Montreal Canadiens' left winger, skated in front of the Boston Bruins' net, took a pass from Mario Tremblay "right on the blade of my stick" and made no mistake.

Lambert poked the puck under Boston goalie Gilles Gilbert at 9:33 of overtime Thursday night to give the Habs a 5-4 victory in the decisive seventh game of their National Hockey League semi-final series, moving Montreal closer to a possible fourth consecutive Stanley Cup victory.

Second Line - Risebrough, Mario Tremblay and Lambert have been playing together for five years, although they have been broken up a bit this season because of shoulder and nose injuries suffered by Risebrough. This is a line which is best in the grinding, bumping style of game, although they can be among the peskiest checkers in the league.

Montreal's success in the playoffs has been due largely to the play of unheralded forwards Yvon Lambert, Mario Tremblay and Rejean Houle, who form Montreal's top checking line.

Montreal's 2-1 and 3-1 victories in Boston have upset the Bruins' applecart. The best goaltending of Penney's brief career, the tight, alert defense overall by the Canadiens and a near perfect checking game have stifled the Boston offense, which has been represented by two Tom Fergus goals. Barry Pederson (39-77-116) and Rick Middleton (47-58-105), having their most productive years, have one assist (Pederson's) between them. Credit the Bob Gainey - Guy Carbonneau - Mario Tremblay bodychecking unit for that.

That broke up the artistic Stastny line and even though they had not posed a great threat to that point, they were even less noticeable thereafter.

Montreal coach Jacques Lemaire put the line of Guy Carbonneau, Mario Tremblay and Bob Gainey against them, and the Stastny brothers, Anton at left wing, Peter at centre and Marian at right wing, were not able to disentangle themselves and get into that lyrical swinging style with those crisp little passes.

Carbonneau outshot Trottier (suffering through a sub-par playoffs) and also outscored him, which is something Jarvis, now a Selke Trophy candidate with Washington, didn't do. Carbonneau's goal, his fourth of the playoff, came with 3:19 left in the first period on a pass from Mario Tremblay, who, since joining Carbonneau and the ever plucky Bob Gainey on the line late in the season, has improved its offense.

On a team that admittedly needs goal scorers, the line of left winger Naslund, centre Pierre Mondou and right winger Tremblay has provided a breath of fresh air.

...

"In our case it's a good mixture between myself, who carries the puck, and Mario, who digs in the corners," said Naslund. "His strong points are my weak points, and vice versa. And Pierre adjusts to whatever we're doing. He's good defensively, but he knows offense as well."

Mondou agrees that Tremblay is a persistent forechecker who always plays aggressively, but added: "People don't realize just how good a shot he has, especially from the slot. He always gets himself in good position. And Mats...he has everything - speed and a good shot."

 

[Dreakmur]

Tommy Gorman !!!


Awards and Achievements:
2 x Stanley Cup Champion (1934, 1935)


Coaching Record:
133-132-62 in 327 Regular Season Games
13-8-4 in 25 Play-off Games

An NHL pioneer, and one of the game’s great characters…a smiling, quick-talking wit who wore his emotions on his sleeve. He loved an audience, and had endless stories about his colourful past…. Had a gift for promotion and an ability to create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and optimism.

There were speeches, including one by Connell…a grim-faced man on most occasions, Connell had tears in his eyes as he thanked Gorman for luring him out of retirement. “You know Gorman is like a tonic”, he said. “He can make you do things you never thought yourself capable of.” The word **** ******** used to describe what Gorman brought to the team was “harmony”. “Tommy’s the man who developed the harmony,” he said. “Remember that.” Years later, Hooley Smith described his old coach in similar terms. “…boy, he could make you feel like the best player in the league. Then you’d get out there and really play hockey. Gorman knows how to inspire his players”.

Gorman was not a typical coach. He liked what he saw and didn’t hide it. “That Toronto team can’t hold this speed,”, he told a group of reporters. “Look at the balance we’ve got.” And then, as an afterthought: “Mind you, it’s going to be a tough battle.”…After game 1, Gorman, ignoring the cautious “it’s only one game” tone most coaches would have adopted, declared that the Maroons were the best team he had ever coached. Reminding one reporter of a sideshow barker, he went on about how good the Maroons were. “When they want open hockey, our team gives it to them. When they want defensive hockey, we have that too. What a team! What a team!” Then the slight, nimble man bounced around the room and serenaded his players with a song.

Gorman had little to say to his players during the pause before overtime, but decided to work off some nervous energy by taping a stick. He made a complete mess of the job, using an entire roll and producing a stick that looked like it had a doughnut strapped to the blade. As soon as the players saw the ludicrous effort, they burst out laughing, breaking the tension that had descended on the room. The Maroons had more to smile about a few minutes later… Baldy Northcott fired a high shot that beat Chabot for the winning goal.

In his speech Ahearn made a strinking admission about his relationship with Gorman, with whom he had had a falling out years earlier when Gorman was his hockey partner. “I am awfully sorry it ever happened,” he said. Referring to his buyout of Gorman after a dispute over club personnel, Ahearn continued, “If Tommy Gorman had stayed here, it would have been the greatest thing that ever happened for Ottawa in a hockey sense.”

Thomas Patrick Gorman committed his life to improving and enjoying sports, especially hockey. While serving as a player, coach, executive, owner and journalist his enthusiasm knew no bounds.

The Ottawa native was particularly adept at lacrosse in his youth. In 1908 he led the Canadian lacrosse team to the gold medal at the London Olympics. As a student he demonstrated a proficiency in writing and an interest in journalism. He worked one year as a pageboy in the House of Commons and was a favourite of Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Gorman worked in the sports department of the Ottawa Citizen and eventually became section editor. A well-rounded reporter, he was sent by the paper to cover the historic Halifax harbour explosion in 1916.

Gorman became involved in the operation of a hockey club for the first time when his family purchased the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey Association (NHA) during World War I. Ottawa hockey fans owed the Gormans a debt of gratitude for stepping in since the original owners were going to dissolve the team. Losing a franchise at this time would have severely damaged the fortunes of the league as well.

Gorman gradually took over most of the responsibilities with the Ottawa franchise and was one of the founding members of the National Hockey League in 1917. Most significantly, he was the club's manager where he was a strong motivator and astute judge of talent and character. He was personally responsible for Lionel Hitchman, Alex Connell, and King Clancy joining the team. Under Gorman the Senators became the NHL's first dynasty with three Stanley Cups in four years between 1920 and 1923.

Following the last Stanley Cup, Gorman sold his interest in the club to a group of Ottawa entrepreneurs led by Thomas Ahearn. Gorman returned briefly to the league in 1925 when he purchased the Hamilton Tigers and transferred the franchise to New York where they were known as the Americans.

Gorman left the NHL a second time to focus on his love of horseracing but returned as coach of the Chicago Black Hawks in 1932-33 as a mid-season replacement for Emil Iverson. The next year he added the responsibilities of general manager and helped guide the Hawks to their first Stanley Cup championship in 1934. He left the Windy City for Montreal prior to 1934-35 season to serve as coach and general manager of the Maroons where he earned his fifth Stanley Cup title. Never a quitter, Gorman stuck with the Maroons while they struggled through the Depression and eventually folded in 1938.

Gorman returned to Montreal as general manager of the sagging Canadiens in 1940-41. He and coach Dick Irvin Sr. revitalized the club's fortunes and won the Stanley Cup in 1944 and 1946. Gorman stepped down after the second Cup in Montreal to coach amateur hockey and promote other sports. He purchased the senior Ottawa Senators and led them to the Allan Cup in 1949, managed a successful North American tour by figure skater Barbara Ann Scott in 1950 and helped bring the Ottawa Giants Triple A baseball franchise to the Nation's Capital.

Gorman was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1963.

In hockey circles, Tom Gorman’s name is synonymous with success. Blessed with tremendous instincts, Gorman was above all else, a visionary. While he never played the game himself, he nevertheless etched his name on the Stanley Cup seven times as either a head coach or general manager.

When he joined the Canadiens in 1940, Gorman possessed a hockey resume which already spoke for itself. He had four Stanley Cups to his credit, including a pair earned behind the bench with the Ottawa Senators in 1920 and 1923, one with Chicago in 1934, and another with the Montreal Maroons in 1935. The latter pair of championships made him the only coach in league history to win consecutive Cups with different teams.

Gorman assumed the reins of the Canadiens determined to restore glory to a team that had just missed the playoffs. He wasted no time molding his new club by first having the foresight to hire Dick Irvin as his head coach. His next big move was one which would forever alter the face of the Canadiens. By signing Maurice Richard just prior to the 1942-43 season, Gorman secured the missing piece he was looking for. It didn’t take long for Gorman’s inking of the Rocket to pay dividends, as the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup the following year to snap a 13-year championship drought.

Gorman’s final year as GM was a memorable one, as the Canadiens gave him the perfect sendoff by raising the Cup in the spring of 1946. Over his six seasons with the organization, Gorman led the team to two championships and six postseason appearances.

Gorman was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a Builder in 1963.

1934]To Tommy Gorman and his Blackhawks must go unlimited credit. They were not rated prospective Stanley Cup winners before the playoffs started on March 22 last. But, they marched through all opposition to the finals, won two games on Detroit ice and the necessary one of two played in Chicago.

When Gorman took charge of the Hawks late last season, they weren't much, but by judicious re-building, he moulded them into a Stanley Cup winning team in one season.

Jack Adams and his Red Wings are also entitled to great credit. Like the Hawks, the Wings were "outsiders" in opinion of the experts, yet they won the National Hockey League championship and were worthy opponents for the new world champions in the Stanley Cup series.

Montrealers Score Second Win in Final Stanley Cup Series

Thomas P. Gorman, king of optimists, painter of dreams that come true, whooped "three straight for us" tonight, and his obedient Montreal Maroons promised to make this extraordinary Stanley Cup series as short and painless as possible for Conny Smythe's Toronto Maple Leafs.

To the great consternation of a thrilled crowd of 14,147 last night, Maroons accomplished three bits of spectacular sniping to overthrow the aroused champions of the National Hockey League, 3-1, and reach a point only one win distant from the most prized bauble in the hockey world.

They won the first of the best-of-five series Thursday night here, 3-2, in overtime, largely because of defensive perfection. They made it two straight, in spite of being shaken for two periods by crackling Toronto artillery that every minute threatened to blast the Redmen from the rink entirely.

Maroons Have Edge

The chuckling Gorman, the mastermind behind Montreal's drive, took his Maroons back home after the triumph with the hope that the series would be all over Tuesday night. If a fourth game is necessary, it will be played on Montreal ice also. The Leafs must square the series by winning both games away from home, if a fifth is to be played back here.

It seems to bring a special sort of pleasure to Tommy Gorman, the man of a few million words who coached the Chicago Blackhawks to a Stanley Cup triumph two years ago, then won the same trophy last season with the Montreal Maroons, to prove that his system of hockey is a little better than any other.

Since Gorman left Chicago, the Blackhawks have abandoned the tight "fore checking" system he taught and done pretty well in the National Hockey League with a more open style.

Reign of Forechecking and Sponsor Unbroken

The reign of forechecking and its chief sponsor, Thomas Patrick Gorman, extended through 1935 in the National Hockey League, although the former Ottawa newspaperman changed his place of abode, took charge of a complete new set of players and faced one of the strongest hockey teams in the world, Toronto Maple Leafs.

Gorman accomplished this spring with Montreal Maroons exactly what he accomplished the previous year with Chicago Black Hawks. He kept the Stanley Cup at his elbow and became professional hockey's most successful administrator. Those critics who said Gorman wasn't a great manager were made to eat their words.

In a campaign that brought some of the most sensational developments in years, some of the best individual feats and a dramatic coup by Maroons at the finish, Gorman was always in the midst of the fight. Sometimes he was merely talking for the fun of it, and these funny sayings made interesting reading along in April when they had all come true.

Gorman was merely talking, they said, on January 1 when he predicted his Redmen would win the Stanley Cup and probably beat the Maple Leafs in the final. Toronto's Charlie Conacher was on the way to his second straight scoring championship at the time and the Leafs didn't look as though they ever would be beaten. Eddie Shore, staging a great comeback after his collapse following the Ace Bailey accident in the late 1933, had Boston Bruins moving steadily ahead.

Detroit Red Wings looked powerful, Clem Loughlin was scoring a success with the Chicago club and on one was counting out New York Rangers. That was in January 1, 1935. By April, Gorman's Maroons had won second place in the Canadian section and polished off the Black Hawks and Rangers. They were ready for the big test.

The Leafs had won the Canadian section and beaten Shore and the Bruins in four grueling games for the NHL title. To the astonishment of the hockey world, they were then humbled in three straight by Maroons in the classic Stanley Cup series. That is how Gorman consolidated his position of head man.

Cecil Duncan, president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, last night gave out a decision regarding the rule about "icing" the puck in amateur hockey. The rule has been enforced to date this season with a view to preventing a team from deliberately delaying the game, play being stopped and the puck brought back and faced-off in the defending team's zone when a shot from that zone has crossed the second blue line.

Toronto's Maple Leafs, noted for their penchant for an incessant attack, did an about-face last night at the Forum and resorted to strictly defensive hockey. The strategy was immediately successful because it enabled the Leafs to shut out Canadiens, 2-0, but it failed to provide a crowd of 7,000 with much in the way of spectacle.

...

Thomas Patrick Gorman, the Forum's manager who this year looks on at hockey as merely another spectator, must have had his eyes opened by the Leafs' display of a defensive system he evolved at Chicago in 1933-34 which helped the Black Hawks win their first Stanley Cup, said system being forechecking. For the Torontonians gave a remarkably effective demonstration of this type of play bs repeatedly, at Canadiens' blue line and in the centre-ice area, before they were well started.

...

The Leafs, despite their defensive attitude, had more good chances than the Habitants, because they broke faster, but they managed to capitalize on only two of them. Busher Jackson, skating as smoothly and as fast as ever on left wing, started the play for the initial goal. He went in on the left after a loose puck and passed to Gus Marker, the ex-Maroon on right wing. Marker bumped into Thoms on the play, touched the puck, but Thoms grabbed it and drove an off-chance backhander at Wilf Cude. Cude kicked at the low shot and missed, and the puck entered the net on the short side.

Development of Modern Forechecking:

Forecheck Wins in Hockey Title

Forechecking, a new development in professional hockey, instead of the usual rushes and back-checking won the Stanley Cup for the Chicago Blackhawks according to Manager Tommy Gorman. The radical idea developed in the last six weeks of the season, will be generally used throughout the National Hockey League before the end of another season, he added.

The idea of "forechecking", he explained, is to bottle up the opposing forwards in their own defensive zone. Our system consisted of the center and wings doing right down into the opponents' territory while our defense men moved over our own blue line. The Canadiens gave us more trouble than any of the other clubs because of the speed of Howie Morenz and the great stickhandling of Aurel Joliat.

"Forechecking" Becomes Latest Hockey Style
Tommy Gorman Discusses Success of System

Forechecking, a new development in professional hockey, won the Stanley Cup and world championship for Chicago, Tommy Gorman, manager of the victorious Black Hawks, explained today. Before leaving for his Ottawa home, Gorman told about the system he believes will be generally used by National League teams next season.

The Hawks, he said, used a revolutionary idea for the last six weeks of the season and in downing Montreal Canadiens, Maroons and Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs. Perhaps it explains why the Hawks had more shots on goal than their foes and yet played near-perfect defensive hockey.

"True, our backchecking was great," said Gorman, "but it was our forechecking that downed all our rivals. About five weeks ago, just prior to playing the Rangers in New York, we conceived the idea of bottling up the opposing forwards - not letting them our of their own zone.

"We studied and developed a system which consisted of the centre and wings going right down into their opponents' territory while our defensemen moved over our own blue line. Canadiens gave us more trouble than any of the other clubs because of the terrific speed of Morenz and the great stickhandling of Joliat and Gagnon.

"In Montreal, in the first game of our series against Maroons Johnny Gottselig scored the first goal for us in less than a minute when he dashed in and stole the puck off the goaltender's pads. We carried the play right to them and scored in 40 seconds.

"In the third period, when they expected us to lay back, having obtained a lead of one goal, we again gave Maroons the works and scored twice in less than two minutes. When Maroons returned here we tallied the opening goal in 25 seconds. Against Detroit, we carried out the same system with equal success. We scored on them in 28 seconds in last Sunday's battle here and would have made it three straight if Chuck Gardiner had been himself.

"Jack Adams was the first of the opposing managers to see through our new system. He tried to beat it by having the defensemen trap the puck and then whip it over to their forwards at the blue line. In Sunday's game it looked as though Jack had us bewildered, but our forwards kept on going in and the Red Wings could never get organized.

"The forechecking fo the Black Hawks in Tuesday's game won the championship. Weiland, Lewis, Auris and other Detroit forwards were completely baffled. Lewis became so disgusted on one occasion that he golfed the puck down the ice. Goodfellow could never get going as MacFayden followed in like a leech and kept poking the puck off his stick.

"It was necessary to change our attack every minute or so, but all three lines stood up wonderfully well. In each playoff series we stam-rollered our opponents and wore them down. Instead of backing out of the enemy zone, the Black Hawks kept charging in. The system worked much better than we expected.

"Here are examples of what our prowling forwards did in close. Thompson's winning goal in the first overtime game at Detroit was scored after Romnes had poked the puck off Teddy Graham's stick. In the instance of March's winning goal here, our defensemen moved up and refused to let Detroit get the puck out of their own territory.

"Conacher finally trapped it behind the Red Wings' net and then March held it against the boards. Both Coulter and Conacher moved up and when Romnes drew the puck from Weiland, he had three men to pass to. Goodfellow was off at the time and March was uncovered. Then followed his winning shot."

Gorman, who built the Hawks into a championship outfit in one season, said he expected every club in the NHL would employ some variation of forechecking next season. "They will have to," he said, "just as they had to follow suit when Major McLaughlin, owner of the Hawks, introduced his three forward lines four years ago."

While Joliat was the pick of the sports writers he was not without competition. Big Lionel Conacher, defensive bulwark of the Hawks, around whose bulky figure Tommy Gorman built up the strategy which resulted in the Stanley Cup going to the Western United States city for the first time in history, ran Aurel a close race.

 

[markrander87]

A place to dump info on Duke Keats:

But Cowley Wasn’t the greatest playmaker Dick had ever seen. He reserved that distinction for Duke Keats. Keats was a slow skater but he was a wonderful stickhandler and so big and powerful that you couldn’t get at the puck. He’d hold it until his wings were in position and then put it right on the stick of one of them.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AJ&pg=4301,1318041&dq=lach+morenz+irvin&hl=en

TDMM's bio from last year:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=46106305&postcount=216

He is an ideal pivot man, plays his position to perfection and knows all there is to know about combination. And his vigorous back-checking adds all kinds of strength to his team.

The Duke is an ideal type of athlete, of husky build, quick on his skates and possessing a good abundance of grey matter. He has one fault and that is temperament.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...38,1552914&dq=duke+keats+defensive+play&hl=en

Interesting enough, the above link says that Lalonde is a poor defensive player.


Duke Keats led his league in PIMS by a hilarious Margin.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...44,3409136&dq=duke+keats+defensive+play&hl=en

The Duke, one of the greatest playmakers hockey has known

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...IBAJ&pg=3932,1076639&dq=duke+keats+best&hl=en

 

[markrander87]

A Place to dump info on Ted Kennedy

Fellows like Schmidt, Kennedy and Abel go into the corners and get the puck out to their wings

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AJ&pg=4301,1318041&dq=lach+morenz+irvin&hl=en