Perry Turnbull in Montreal

[reckoning]

Midway through the 1983-84 season, Montreal GM Serge Savard made what was considered a major deal at the time, trading former #1 overall pick Doug Wickenheiser, along with Gilbert Delorme and Greg Paslawski, to St. Louis for Perry Turnbull.

Turnbull had been drafted by St. Louis as the #2 overall pick in the stacked '79 draft; and while he hadn't been a star in St. Louis, he was a consistent producer- scoring over 30 goals in each of his last three seasons to go along with his high penalty minute numbers. A lot of the media thought Turnbull was exactly what Montreal needed: a big, strong tough guy who could score. It was assumed that he would be a huge asset in those physical battles against divisional foes like Quebec and Boston.

As it turned out, Turnbull only had 6 goals and 7 assists in his 40 games with Montreal, was a healthy scratch for some of the games during the Habs '84 playoff run, then in the offseason was dealt to Winnipeg for Lucien Deblois.

Anyone here have any insights or theories on what went wrong with his career?

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[Staniowski]

It was easy to see why Perry Turnbull was drafted so high. He was big, he could skate, he had some good skills, and he could fight. At first glance, he looked good. You could imagine the potential he had when he was a teenager.

But if you looked closer, you could see he was missing something. He actually wasn't a very good scorer....his hockey sense, not great. Played on the periphery.

Maybe it could have worked decently on some teams. He didn't fit in with the Habs, who were becoming very strong defensively when he joined them.

 

[Staniowski]

Perhaps a rough comparison with Alex Galchenyuk....some similarities.

 

[barbu]

He's part of a string of Montréal acquisitions from that time period that stopped scoring as soon as they joined the team: Turnbull, Deblois, Flockhart. Might be others too I'm forgetting.

 

[decma]

He's part of a string of Montréal acquisitions from that time period that stopped scoring as soon as they joined the team: Turnbull, Deblois, Flockhart. Might be others too I'm forgetting.

I'd add Ryan Walter. One decent scoring season with Montreal before a steep decline.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

I'd add Ryan Walter. One decent scoring season with Montreal before a steep decline.

Not really that fair - his role & style of play changed. Just like Bobby Smith, when Lemaire came on the scene he made every forward learn to play D, or lose his spot. Walter went from being a scoring forward in Washington to a defensive forward in Montreal.

As for Turnbull, a big part of it is that he was lost in the shuffle on a deep team. And being a solid second liner for the Blues wasn't exactly the same as a second liner on the Habs - he wasn't automatically guaranteed that spot - they had a solid first line scoring unit, and the Carbonneau-Gainey-Nilan checking unit, meaning he had to basically take Steve Shutt's second line spot or be relegated to the fourth line, which is basically what happened. There were literally 11 forwards who outperformed him that year. I think on the Habs side, they were done with the Wickenheiser experiment and wanted an upgrade, but Turnbull, like Mark Hunter, couldn't impress enough to knock some of the veterans out of their roles.

 

[barbu]

Not really that fair - his role & style of play changed. Just like Bobby Smith, when Lemaire came on the scene he made every forward learn to play D, or lose his spot. Walter went from being a scoring forward in Washington to a defensive forward in Montreal.

As for Turnbull, a big part of it is that he was lost in the shuffle on a deep team. And being a solid second liner for the Blues wasn't exactly the same as a second liner on the Habs - he wasn't automatically guaranteed that spot - they had a solid first line scoring unit, and the Carbonneau-Gainey-Nilan checking unit, meaning he had to basically take Steve Shutt's second line spot or be relegated to the fourth line, which is basically what happened. There were literally 11 forwards who outperformed him that year. I think on the Habs side, they were done with the Wickenheiser experiment and wanted an upgrade, but Turnbull, like Mark Hunter, couldn't impress enough to knock some of the veterans out of their roles.

You've got the wrong year. Jacques Lemaire wasn't coaching the habs yet when the trade happened- for a few months. And the habs were having a terrible year, their worst in a very long time and barely made the playoffs, 19 points behind the 3rd place Nordiques so there certainly was a spot for him on the top lines for him to grab but yeah even then he couldn't.

 

[MS]

It's interesting what a dynamic ES goalscorer Turnbull was in the early 1980s. 10th in ES goals in 81-82, 14th over the 3-year period from 1980-83. Most of the guys ahead of him are in the HHOF.

And in that 81-82 season, looking at his scoring logs he was a top-10 ES scorer in the NHL splitting the season between a 2nd line with Blake Dunlop/Tony Currie and a 3rd line with Mike Zuke/Jim Nill. Barely any PP time and very limited ES time with Federko/Sutter. Seriously impressive results given the context.

Seemed like a guy with a lot more to give at that point but it never really happened for him. Especially with the disaster in Montreal. It's also strange for a big PF type how little PP time he received in his career - those guys were usually given heaps of PP time as netfront/puck retrieval types.