I’ve never told anyone this story until now, but during the second game of Lou’s tenure, we were playing in Toronto, and they were really giving it to us. One of Lou’s biggest frustrations with the team he inherited wasn’t just that we weren’t all that good, but that we’d get beat up and pushed around too much. In general, we didn’t carry ourselves in a way that demanded respect. At some point during the game against the Leafs, Claude Loiselle received an elbow to the head by Wendel Clark, a talented young player who was tough as nails. It looked bad, and Claude was woozy coming to bench.
After seeing that, I hopped over the boards for my shift and challenged Wendel to a fight at center ice. I don’t remember who won it, but I’m going to safely assume I took a few good shots.
We ended up losing the game, but afterwards Lou came up to me and stuck his hand out to shake mine, and I noticed he was gripping a couple of $100 bills. My eyes kind of widened and I looked at him seriously and said, “What’s this for?”
He goes, “I like what you did tonight. You stuck up for a teammate. Now take this and get yourself something nice.” I said, “That’s not necessary. This is my job.” Then Lou got a little hot, looked me in my eye and said (minus the expletives), “I want this team to understand that we’re in this together, thick and thin, on and off the ice. Read between the lines!”
I don’t remember every detail of my career, but I’ll never forget that moment. From that instant, I knew we got a guy in charge who was going to be tough, fearless and loyal as hell to his players. It really was all about winning. I was so young that it didn’t fully register with me at the time, but once I retired and got to reflect on everything, I realized that what Lou was doing in that moment was changing the culture and the direction of the entire organization. Now, he never did that again with anybody — and he didn’t need to, because we had salaries — but I knew we’d be a team to be reckoned with. It’s no coincidence that in that first year under Lou, we came out of nowhere to make it to within one game of the Stanley Cup Finals.