Tribute Damn, Chris Chelios was so good with the Habs

[Masao]

I was looking at old videos, and this highlight reel from a Habs / Nordiques game in 1988-89 makes me sad and nostalgic:

Click to read more...

 

[Doc McKenna]

I remember this. Wow goalie is small. Scrudland McPhee Corson. I watched a lot of hockey that year I was in my early teens. Lemieux is ripping it up too and big bird is still playing

Courtnall was one of my favouirte players. He was very fast. A lot of 20+ goals on that team...we can only dream

 

[26Mats]

I remember this. Wow goalie is small. Scrudland McPhee Corson. I watched a lot of hockey that year I was in my early teens. Lemieux is ripping it up too and big bird is still playing

Courtnall was one of my favouirte players. He was very fast.

What trades: Kordic for Coutnall, then Courtnall for Bellows, then a cup!

 

[Habs]

I remember this. Wow goalie is small. Scrudland McPhee Corson. I watched a lot of hockey that year I was in my early teens. Lemieux is ripping it up too and big bird is still playing

Courtnall was one of my favouirte players. He was very fast.

I always get trashed for this, but 80's-90's hockey was a total joke looking back. Goalies were awful, small, the net looked enormous. Guys like Probert could pot 19-20 goals , you could clutch and grab .. try and find legitimate one-knee sniper highlights like what Stamkos, Ovy and some of these kids today do, you won't. I grew up watching hockey from the 70's onwards, and its funny to watch how awful the majority of the players were. Lemieux would be a god in any decade, but Gretzky? Not so sure, the stars alligned for him. Imagine having the fighting rules of today, no Semenko and the boys to patrol the superstars.

TLDR - Chelios was awesome regardless.

 

[Habby4Life]

What trades: Kordic for Coutnall, then Courtnall for Bellows, then a cup!

Serge Savard was a great GM.

 

[Doc McKenna]

I always get trashed for this, but 80's-90's hockey was a total joke looking back. Goalies were awful, small, the net looked enormous. Guys like Probert could pot 19-20 goals , you could clutch and grab .. try and find legitimate one-knee sniper highlights like what Stamkos, Ovy and some of these kids today do, you won't. I grew up watching hockey from the 70's onwards, and its funny to watch how awful the majority of the players were. Lemieux would be a god in any decade, but Gretzky? Not so sure, the stars alligned for him. Imagine having the fighting rules of today, no Semenko and the boys to patrol the superstars.

TLDR - Chelios was awesome regardless.

Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV

 

[Habs]

Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV

For sure not saying it was worse, the game could be 5-1 and a team could come back.

 

[Beendair Donedat]

Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV

Absolutely! And the larger roster rules allowed each team to carry at least a couple of policemen to keep things interesting. The last 5 minutes in a blowout game could take an hour to play. I miss the linebrawl. It’s completely disappeared from the game.

 

[David Suzuki]

Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV

The coaches today are too good IMO. They should mandate that only drunk guys at beer league can coach NHL teams. Let's bring back the 8-6 games.

 

[26Mats]

Serge Savard was a great GM.

Savard trades: Kordic for Coutnall, then Courtnall for Bellows, but also Chelios for Denis Savard, and then wins the cup!

Am I just reaching for parallels:

MB trades: Galchenyuk for Domi, then Domi for Anderson, but also Sergachev for Drouin, and then .... fill in the blank ...

 

[salbutera]

The best Habs Dman I have seen in my lifetime - could do it all. Offense, defense, grit, nastiness...dominant in regular season & playoffs

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

Entirely different times. I prefer that hockey though. It was more entertaining. Stand up goalies and not being locked into a trap system is a lot more interesting to watch.-for me. YMMV

I honestly miss it as well...hockey was a totally different game back then...I miss the GRIT hockey had back then; it was just raw ground warfare...yes, compared to today's game it was primitive and unrefined, but that's what made it beautiful and majestic...call it nostalgia or old age, whatever; I still miss it...

 

[Tyson]

An argument can be made that he is top 5 best American born player of all time

 

[JianYang]

I always get trashed for this, but 80's-90's hockey was a total joke looking back. Goalies were awful, small, the net looked enormous. Guys like Probert could pot 19-20 goals , you could clutch and grab .. try and find legitimate one-knee sniper highlights like what Stamkos, Ovy and some of these kids today do, you won't. I grew up watching hockey from the 70's onwards, and its funny to watch how awful the majority of the players were. Lemieux would be a god in any decade, but Gretzky? Not so sure, the stars alligned for him. Imagine having the fighting rules of today, no Semenko and the boys to patrol the superstars.

TLDR - Chelios was awesome regardless.

I think the early to mid 90s was the golden era.

The players are bigger, stronger and faster today but that is a natural evolution for all athletes over time, and it doesn't necessarily make the game more entertaining.

The earlier hockey brought out stronger emotions, and there were more clearly defined villains.

The goalies were not as refined as they are now, but it also made it more fun because there were so many different styles unlike today. You had your stand up guys like mclean, scramblers like hasek, hybrids like brodeur, and butterfly specialists like Roy.

Goaltending is down to a science now, and it's looks pretty generic these days. It takes away from some of those eye popping saves you see back then. Goalies also didn't look like they were playing lacrosse back then. Take a look at how small patrick roy looked on 1986 compared to 2003.

But the evolution of goaltending reflects what has happened to the game in general. The coaching has refined, and the players have refined to the point where the game has become more robotic.

It's more about all players playing within a system now, whereas the early to mid 90s was more chaotic, and aggressive. Coaches hadn't quite got to the point of breaking down video yet except for a few exceptions, and there was generally less x and o type coaching, and more emotional button pushing.

I think the player is better today, but I can't say the same about the entertainment value of the product.

 

[David Suzuki]

An argument can be made that he is top 5 best American born player of all time

Kane
Modano
Chelios
Lafontaine
Leetch
Roenick
Housley

Is my gut feeling list but obviously not as knowledgeable as some others about stuff that happened before, we'll say, 1999. So Lafontaine is just a feeling of how people talk about him.

 

[JianYang]

Kane
Modano
Chelios
Lafontaine
Leetch
Roenick
Housley

Is my gut feeling list but obviously not as knowledgeable as some others about stuff that happened before, we'll say, 1999. So Lafontaine is just a feeling of how people talk about him.

You gotta have hull in there.

Hull probably could have broke Gretzky's single season goal record that year where he got 86 goals.

The thing is, hull scored 86 goals with zero empty net goals. He was never used in those situation unlike Gretzky.

Also, hull was never used in shorthanded situations, and he probably pots a few there.

 

[1909]

Chelios was a horse, a super fit athlete as well as a super talented d-man. The guy could play in any situations and be on the ice for 30 minutes if needs be. He was mean and nasty on top of that.

Too bad Ronald Corey and Serge Savard decided they had enough with Chelios' off ice behaviours (and bad knees, they said). This guy should had played all his long career in MTL.

But who is the last player who played his whole NHL career (10 + years) with the Habs ? Maybe Price (no other choice) will be that one.

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

Chelios was a horse, a super fit athlete as well as a super talented d-man. The guy could play in any situations and be on the ice for 30 minutes if needs be. He was mean and nasty on top of that.

Too bad Ronald Corey and Serge Savard decided they had enough with Chelios' off ice behaviours (and bad knees, they said). This guy should had played all his long career in MTL.

But who is the last player who played his whole NHL career (10 + years) with the Habs ?

Markov

 

[Mrb1p]

An argument can be made that he is top 5 best American born player of all time

An argument can be made that he is the best, lol. He is for sure a top 3, if not top 2.

Modano and Kane?

 

[JianYang]

Chelios was a horse, a super fit athlete as well as a super talented d-man. The guy could play in any situations and be on the ice for 30 minutes if needs be. He was mean and nasty on top of that.

Too bad Ronald Corey and Serge Savard decided they had enough with Chelios' off ice behaviours (and bad knees, they said). This guy should had played all his long career in MTL.

But who is the last player who played his whole NHL career (10 + years) with the Habs ? Maybe Price (no other choice) will be that one.

Off the top of my head:

Markov has been mentioned
Plekanec
Koivu
Brisebois

Those guys have played at least 10 ish years with the habs, but only markov played his whole NHL career here.

 

[Beendair Donedat]

That elbow he drilled Brian Propp with in the 1989 playoff run was a thing of beauty. Just crushed him and set the tone for the entire series. Flyers were good and as usual they were cheap, mean, and dirty. Chelly gave it right back to them with interest. Nearly killed poor Propp and never served a minute of suspension while Propp missed game 2, and the Flyers never really were able to get past that incident.

Great write up from former referee Kerry Fraser about Chelios here too:

On being on Hall of Fame defenseman Chris Chelios' bad side:
It was Chris Pronger's rookie year; he and the Hartford Whalers were facing the Chicago Blackhawks at Chicago Stadium.
Brian Propp had joined Hartford from Minnesota. And he and Chris Chelios had a long-running feud. When Chelios was with Montreal (during the 1989 playoffs), he hit Propp with an elbow that looked to me like it was a shoulder. Propp's head hit the stanchion, it knocked him out and he fell backwards. His helmet stayed on, but his head was cut and he was taken off on a stretcher.
I asked Chelios, "You just hit him with a shoulder, right?" And he said, "Oh, no, I hit him right in the effing head with an elbow. I got him good." So I said, "Thanks for that, I'll remember that." That was the playoff year where (Flyers goalie) Ron Hextall went apeshit and pounded him with his blocker, and he got a seven- or eight-game suspension into the next season. (Was actually 12)
In this particular game, Hartford was winning handily. Early in the third period, Brad McCrimmon was on defense for Hartford, and Jeremy Roenick, who never knew when to take the foot off the gas, ran McCrimmon into the boards with a couple of minutes left in the game. And in the ensuing scrum, over by the bench, Chelios sucker-punches Propp right in the kisser.
So Chelios is in the middle of this, and he wants to get over to another fight. And his jersey and shoulder pads are off, and the linesman was trying to control Chelios - and he was water-skiing behind Chelios on his suspenders. So Chelios gets to the fight, and sucker-punches Adam Burt right in the eye.

I go back to Chicago Stadium after Chelios serves his suspension. And I wanted to get my skates sharpened, so I walk down to the trainer's room and I start talking to Randy Lacey, the Blackhawks' equipment guy. And he's sharpening my skates, and Chelios comes out with his skates tied and all of his lower gear on.

He looks at me and says, "What are you doing here?" I say, "I'm just talking to my friend. He says, "You don't have any f***ing friends." So I went, "Lace, I probably shouldn't be here. When you're done with my skates, please send them down to the (officials) room."

As I'm walking away, Chris says, "You're f***ing right you shouldn't be here - and I'm going to shoot a puck right at your head tonight." I turned and said, "What did you say?" And he said: "You heard me. I'm going to shoot a f***ing puck at your head tonight."
I said, "I'll tell you what." And I pointed at him and said, "You might not want to finish getting dressed, because you might not be playing tonight." And I turned, and walked away. Chelios dressed, but he never said anything, never looked at me. Game over, no incidents.

The next year, we're in Chicago Stadium, and the Penguins are the visitors. One referee. Midway through the third period, the Hawks are down by a goal. Pittsburgh dumps the puck down. Chelios goes back and gets the puck behind the net. I'm following Tony Amonte, a left winger, down his side. I go as deep as the deepest forechecker, eight feet from Amonte, up the wall.

There was no outlet beyond me for the Hawks. If the puck comes to Amonte, he could stop and skate with the puck, or throw it to the far side. But he had no outlet. Chelios fired an excessively hard pass along the ice. Tony, being a left-hand shot, has his stick ready to take the puck. At the very last second, he saucered the stick, which launched the puck up toward my face.
I put my elbow up immediately to try and block the puck with my elbow pad, and I just missed it. It came through, broke my nose, cut my lip for seven stitches down the middle, and broke a tooth. I blew the whistle to kill the play, and blood went flying out of the hole.

I stop the game, go over to (Chicago head coach) Darryl Sutter, and say, "Suds, we gotta stop the game here. I gotta get stitched up. And typical Sutter, he says, "Holy f***, Frase. Hurry up and get back, we're pressing." I went into the locker room, the doctor zips seven (stitches) in really quick, and I came back out and finished the game.


Chris and I developed a positive relationship after that, but I never asked him how they set it up. It just didn't make any sense that on the power play, with no outlet up top, that Amonte would saucer his stick to redirect the puck into my face. You be the judge.

 

[David Suzuki]

You gotta have hull in there.

I thought OP specified American born players which Hull technically isn't.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Chelios was a nasty dude.

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

I thought OP specified American born players which Hull technically isn't.

They can have him...whether I'm just being bitter or not, I don't consider him Canadian...


OK, yes I'm being bitter...don't care, he's an American to me...

 

[David Suzuki]

They can have him...whether I'm just being bitter or not, I don't consider him Canadian...


OK, yes I'm being bitter...don't care, he's an American to me...

Lol right but he grew up playing in Canada so I'd see him as Canadian trained. Either way, if he's included he'd in the top 5 for sure.