Guy Chouinard

[JianYang]

Does anyone remember this guy? I stumbled upon him when looking at Kent nilsson's 131 point season in Calgary. Guy Chouinard was 2nd on the team with 83 points in 52 games that year.

575 points in 578 games overall. He also scored 50 goals and over 100 points in 78-79.

I'm looking at this guy's numbers and I am left wondering why I've never once heard of this guy, and why did his nhl career end up so short?

Was there major defensive issues? Injuries?

Click to read more...

 

[reckoning]

He led the Flames in assists in 82-83, and was the main playmaker helping Lanny McDonald to his 66 goal season. Then he gets traded to St.Louis for future considerations. There has to be more to the story.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Finesse player that mostly took advantage of a bad league and being a bad team scorer. Slow starter because he didn't seem very dedicated. Also, he was rushed into the pro game because that was the style at the time...he probably would have been a terrific WHA player, that was more his speed.

He was slower paced, very smart playmaker. Think like, uh, I don't know...Jason Allison kind of.

He just couldn't keep the pace as the league improved like many others who dominated in the 1977-1983 or so window. A lot of those players died when the league healed itself in the 1985-1987 area.

I went back and checked the papers and THN...no one thought it odd that he was dumped to St. Louis for nothing even.

 

[JMCx4]

Refer to this 2018 HFBoards thread. The new topics in HF Land are few & far between.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

He suffered two severe injuries during the 81-82 season, and just did not look like the same player during the 82-83 season. The eye injury was brutal, I recall an interview after he came back saying he was having trouble with depth perception (and it looks like that eye was often dilated), and he had a serious groin pull that effected his skating. He wasn't a speed demon to begin with, but he definitely looked sluggish in his last season with the Flames, and really was only effective on the PP. Plus, the Flames had locker room problems starting with the 81 playoff run when coach Al MacNeil criticized Kent Nilsson publicly in the media, calling him "magic" for "disappearing," which the media ran with. Willi Plett, who was linemates with both Chouinard and Nilsson, thought MacNeil was unfair and out of line for picking on Nilsson specifically, and led a revolt against MacNeil, which eventually ended up with Plett and a couple of others being traded, and may have contributed to MacNeil's firing, as the locker room troubles apparently lasted the entire 81-82 season. It is likely that Chouinard was seen as part of the "Plett clique" and Cliff Fletcher decided to move on from him as soon as possible, and the injuries and subsequent decline in play likely did him no favors. Fletcher started making moves to get guys he felt were more solid "character players" like McDonald, Risebrough and Mel Bridgman.

At his peak, he was fun to watch, a pure finesse player who really seemed to have no trouble gelling/producing with any of his linemates with the Flames, and could drive offense. He was a great passer and could at times be sneaky around the net. He also could play all three forward positions effectively if called on, so during his 4 seasons as Nilsson's primary linemate they often switched positions depending on who their primary winger was (Plett, McDonald, Bob MacMillan, Eric Vail, Jean Pronovost). When the Flames first moved to Calgay he was the player I liked best at the outset.

 

[Moose Head]

Still remember his friend, Rejean Houle, taking guy’s son, Eric Chouinard instead of who the scouts wanted, Simon Gagne, in the draft. Ughhh

 

[Crosby2010]

I wonder, at the age of 28 why he didn't play more. I realize there was some drama between him and St. Louis, but someone is going to pick up a guy who scored 46 points in 64 games in 1984.

I still wonder why his son Eric didn't pan out. Granted I liked Simon Gagne a lot better too, but Eric looked like a blue chipper for sure. Big body, nice shot if I remember correctly. I do remember him having next to no penalty minutes in his draft year (it was 18) and there was concern that maybe he didn't get involved in the play quite as much. Next two years in the QMJHL something happened and he ends up with over 105 PIM his last year of junior. But he never even put up good numbers in the AHL either. So I don't know, did he just veer off from his game and never get it back?

Anyway, Guy is a guy you could win a bet with with a trivia question. "Who scored 50 goals and 107 points for the Atlanta Flames in 1979?"

 

[The Panther]

We need to do a History-forum collection of money to pay someone to interview Chouinard and get the answer to the mystery, which is clearly being suppressed.

#Justice-for-Guy-Chouinard!!!

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

The emergence of rookie Doug Gilmour as the Blues' second line center likely made Chouinard redundant. It is notable that they also traded for Doug Wickenheiser that season, so it's clear he wasn't working out how they hoped.

 

[carjackmalone]

Didn’t he not get along at all with Ron Caron and have a tense contract negotiation?

 

[Staniowski]

Chouinard was a slick passer, and anybody who watched him play would definitely remember him for that. So, he was pretty talented for his era, but not an outstanding skater. His relative advantage declined in the '80s when overall skating improved in the League (Mike Farkas' description above is good).

He wasn't as talented, overall, as his teammates Reinhart, Nilsson, McDonald, but was a good mate for them.

Calgary didn't miss him, partly because he wasn't that important, and partly because the Flames produced a continuous supply of good talent throughout the '80s.

I'm not sure how big of a factor his injuries were to his eventual retirement.