Obscure hockey facts/stats

[chrispw1]

Thinking of two legends who had their careers cut short due to injuries. If they had been playing as old as Chris Chelios:

Bobby Orr would have played until 1995-96
Mike Bossy would have played until 2004-05 (well it was the season wiped out by lockout, so effectively until 2003-04)

Likewise if Chelios would have had his career cut short at the same age as Orr he woukd have been done by 1991-92 and had basically his last full healthy season in 1988-89

 

[chrispw1]

Danny Gare is the only player to captain a Red Wings team with Yzerman on it and not the captain

 

[Sanf]

Danny Gare is the only player to captain a Red Wings team with Yzerman on it and not the captain

Though prior to the season Yzerman was selected as captain he wasn´t even alternate which is quite interesting. They had Ogrodnick and Larson as Alternates. Then later O´Connol when Larson was gone. And even used Petr Klima as captain late season to boost his self esteem.

 

[Iapyi]

In the 1919-1920 final series, warm weather forced 2 games to be moved from Ottawa to Toronto. Jack Darragh nets all game-winners as the Senators beat the PCHA's Seattle 3 games to 2.

 

[Iapyi]

The 1926 - 1927 Stanley Cup Finals was the first all-NHL finals.

Ottawa won twice and there were 2 ties - the last in Cup final history.

 

[adsfan]

Gordie Howe isn't the only man to have played professional hockey at age 52. Ron Duguay was 52 when he played two games in the Eastern Professional League during the 2008-09 season. In those two games, he also became the last professional player not to wear a helmet.

Duguay must have had a hard head. He played a game at Milwaukee. He got in a fight, head butted his opponent and was ejected. I don't think that the game was even 5 minutes old. He acted like a goon that night! It must have been around 1991. He would have been about 34 years old. He was a marked man after that night. When San Diego came to town after that, the Admirals put on extra security because the fans wanted to rip his head off. They started booing him when he stepped onto the ice for the warm up session! I could not believe that it was the same man that played for the Rangers and the DRW.


I was at the last IHL game for the San Diego Gulls. I just happened to be on vacation there and the Admirals ended up playing on Friday and Saturday nights in the playoffs in April of 1995. There were only about 2000 fans on Saturday, about 1/4 of which seemed to be cheering for the Admirals. Both of my kids got pucks.

I remember it well because we also drove up to Anaheim to go to Disneyland. It was the same day as the Oklahoma City Federal building bombing, the following Wednesday, April 19, 1995.

 

[Iapyi]

Most hockey history fans are aware that Bad Joe Hall one of hockey's toughest and meanest players had been felled by the flu that hit North America in 1919.

Many aren't aware however the Canadiens owner George Kennedy [said to really be a French Canadian named Georges Kendall] who had seemed to recover from his own illness at the time would be dead within 2 years of complications from the Black Flu.

 

[The Panther]

Goaltender Bill Durnan (born 1916, Toronto) played from age 25-27 for the Montreal Royals in the old Quebec Senior Hockey League. Through his early/mid-20s, he'd been in (presumably) moderate obscurity in Kirkland Lake, though he did win the Allan Cup there.

Then, suddenly -- and for reasons I don't understand -- Durnan was promoted to starting goalie of the Montreal Canadiens in 1943, aged 27, having never played in the NHL before. (This 1943-44 season was also Maurice Richard's breakout season.)

Durnan didn't exactly struggle. He played all but 10 of Montreal's 210 games over the next four years, led the League in wins every season, led the League in GAA every season, and thus was 1st-team All Star and Vezina winner each of his first four seasons. In the '44 and '46 playoffs combined, he went 16-2 and had the best GAA both springs, winning two Cups. (He also had the best GAA in '47, but the Habs lost in the Final.)

Has any goalie EVER had a better first four NHL seasons?

He was 1st-team All Star and Vezina winner again his last two seasons ('49 and '50) and then abruptly retired, apparently because he couldn't handle the stress of NHL hockey.

I get that his early peak was in a war-weakened NHL, but it's a heck of a first four seasons...

 

[Iapyi]

Goaltender Bill Durnan (born 1916, Toronto) played from age 25-27 for the Montreal Royals in the old Quebec Senior Hockey League. Through his early/mid-20s, he'd been in (presumably) moderate obscurity in Kirkland Lake, though he did win the Allan Cup there.

Then, suddenly -- and for reasons I don't understand -- Durnan was promoted to starting goalie of the Montreal Canadiens in 1943, aged 27, having never played in the NHL before. (This 1943-44 season was also Maurice Richard's breakout season.)

Durnan didn't exactly struggle. He played all but 10 of Montreal's 210 games over the next four years, led the League in wins every season, led the League in GAA every season, and thus was 1st-team All Star and Vezina winner each of his first four seasons. In the '44 and '46 playoffs combined, he went 16-2 and had the best GAA both springs, winning two Cups. (He also had the best GAA in '47, but the Habs lost in the Final.)

Has any goalie EVER had a better first four NHL seasons?

He was 1st-team All Star and Vezina winner again his last two seasons ('49 and '50) and then abruptly retired, apparently because he couldn't handle the stress of NHL hockey.

I get that his early peak was in a war-weakened NHL, but it's a heck of a first four seasons...

Maybe Sawchuk?

 

[Retire91]

Zdeno Chara recently hit a very obscure milestone and I don't think anyone noticed. Last year he became only the second player ever to score at least 200 goals in his NHL career without ever having a single 20-goal season. The first guy to do it was Larry Robinson.

Larry Robinson is also one of only two players I believe to play 20 seasons and make the playoffs every single season.

 

[DeysArena]

Al Arbour had a clause in his contracts requiring his consent before he could be called up to the NHL. Punch Imlach liked to use him as a spare defenceman for the Leafs, but would often leave him on the bench. Arbour preferred to play in the AHL than sit in the NHL.

 

[Retire91]

Not sure if this was posted already,

Dean Morton is one of two NHL players to score a goal in their first game and never play a game in the NHL again

 

[DeysArena]

Two players have won the Hart Trophy in the first NHL season: Wayne Gretzky and Herb Gardiner.

Gretzky was 19. Gardiner was 35.

Note: edinson correctly pointed out that Nels Stewart did it too.

 

[edinson]

Two players have won the Hart Trophy in the first NHL season: Wayne Gretzky and Herb Gardiner.

Gretzky was 19. Gardiner was 35.

Actually, I think they are three. Nels Stewart did it in the year before Gardiner.

 

[kaiser matias]

Not sure if this was posted already,

Dean Morton is one of two NHL players to score a goal in their first game and never play a game in the NHL again

Brad Fast would be the other, scoring the last goal to result in a tie-game in 2004.

 

[adsfan]

Not sure if this was posted already,

Dean Morton is one of two NHL players to score a goal in their first game and never play a game in the NHL again

I saw him play for the Cincinnati Cyclones once or twice. Mostly I remember him becoming a referee.

 

[Retire91]

Two players have won the Hart Trophy in the first NHL season: Wayne Gretzky and Herb Gardiner.

Gretzky was 19. Gardiner was 35.

Note: edinson correctly pointed out that Nels Stewart did it too.

I think Gardiner is also the oldest player to win the heart getting his name on two heart trophy records.

 

[crobro]

Bobby Hull is the only player to play for a team named after his nickname

the Golden Jets

 

[member 51464]

Brad Fast would be the other, scoring the last goal to result in a tie-game in 2004.

What were the circumstances of these two scoring a goal and not getting to play again? talk about a high bar!

 

[kaiser matias]

What were the circumstances of these two scoring a goal and not getting to play again? talk about a high bar!

For Fast at least his debut came at the tail end of the 2003-04 season, and with the lockout and already being 24 I gather he just kept sliding down the depth chart. He spent 2004-05 in the ECHL, and while he was signed by the Kings he never got back to the NHL, bouncing around before retiring in 2011 in Korea. I think he was featured in Ken Reid's book on single-game NHLers too so that may give more info (it's a fin book regardless, I'd definitely recommend it either way).

 

[Prsut18]

Bobby Hull is the only player to play for a team named after his nickname

the Golden Jets

Not the only one.. There is still Jagr and his Jagr Team

 

[Johnny Engine]

...and the 99 all stars, of course.

If only Maurice Richard could have played for Laval in the AHL.

 

[ShelbyZ]

I was chucking through some old Red Wings articles and saw something from the summer of 1995 about how the Wings felt like they had no other option but to match the Rangers lofty (for an enforcer at the time) long term offer sheet made to Stu Grimson because otherwise their only option for a tough guy would be to sign washed up Ranger's "cast-off" Joe Kocur, who was still an unsigned free agent.

A little over a year later, the Wings would waive Grimson, with that contract being part of the reason, and lose him to the Whalers. He would eventually be replaced by that washed up Kocur, who played a regular role for the Wings in their 97 and 98 Cup wins.

 

[alko]

Stan Mikita played an exhibition game in 1967 for VSZ Kosice, team from Czechoslovakia.

 

[Megahab]

How many players have played for a team whose nickname (or singular term of team nickname) is the same as their last name?

Dwight King of the LA Kings is the only one I can think of but there have been many NHL players with the last name King. The only other possibilities I see are if there were players with last names like Ranger, Leaf, or Knight that played for those teams.