99

by Wayne Gretzky

  But the expansion teams faced an uphill battle. In later rounds of expansion, the league understood that teams needed to be viable from the very beginning if the market was going to warm up to them. But they hadn’t figured that out in 1967, and didn’t yet think of the new teams as partners in the success of the league. Not surprisingly, the Original Six owners kept all the best players for themselves.

  At the June 1967 expansion draft, the original teams were allowed to protect eleven skaters and a goalie. The expansion teams selected goalies in the first two rounds and then skaters in the following rounds. The Black Hawks protected Denis DeJordy, who had just shared the Vezina with his teammate Glenn Hall. Terry Sawchuk had just won the Cup with Toronto that season, but Toronto coach Punch Imlach protected Johnny Bower instead. (The Leafs would not do well in the years after expansion, in part because Imlach protected too many of his veteran players. He protected George Armstrong even after he had announced his intention to retire. Montreal, on the other hand, traded some veterans they felt they could spare to expansion clubs in exchange for draft picks. It set them up for the future, and it worked. They won eight Stanley Cups in the next twelve seasons. That strategy works even better today under a salary cap.)

  Patrick knew he’d be happy with either Terry Sawchuk or Glenn Hall, but he had third pick. Jack Kent Cooke took Sawchuk for the Kings. Philadelphia had next pick, but Glenn Hall was asking for $50,000. Too much for Philly’s GM Bud Poile. He told Hall, “I don’t make that much.” And Glenn said, “Yeah, well, you’re not a goalie.” So Poile picked Bernie Parent from Boston.

  Patrick’s team budget when he was in Boston for the 1964–65 season had been $250,000, and he always came in under budget. The Blues had $475,000 to pay players, but expansion salaries were much higher. Hall had started out twelve years earlier in Detroit being paid what all the other rookies were making: $6,000 a year. In his last year with Chicago he made $25,000. Moving to an expansion team was his chance to get paid what he was worth, so he was still asking for $50,000 when he talked to Patrick. The Blues offered $45,000, and they split the difference. Patrick knew that Hall deserved it—and that if he didn’t get the raise he’d stay home. It’s a testament to the depth of those Original Six teams that St. Louis could pick third in an expansion draft and still get a Vezina winner and future Hall of Famer (as were the two guys picked ahead of Hall).

  Hall was the first butterfly goalie. This was thirty years before Patrick Roy, who’s often credited with that innovation. When Glenn butterflied, he taught himself to keep his inside blades on the ice so that he could get up in one motion. He said the butterfly was a natural way to play because a goalie could get up so much quicker than he could stacking the pads.

  The game was changing. Starting in the late 60s, defensemen were becoming better skaters, making it much more difficult for forwards to speed through or around them. So teams started working the puck back to the point to spread out the defense. Now, instead of snipers picking corners, goalies were facing bombs from the blue line and deflected pucks. That is just incredibly dangerous for a goalie who’s not wearing a mask. Hall always thought it was amazing that no one got killed in goal back then. Bobby Hull was shooting harder than most guys in the league right now, and no one in their right mind would stand in front of even a midget player today without a mask, let alone an NHL defenseman.

  Hall complained only about the shots that caught him in the mouth. That happened to him three times, and all of them needed at least twenty-five stitches. He was playing in Detroit when a puck hit him right below his bottom lip. In those days they didn’t use freezing when they stitched you up. As the doctor was sewing, Glenn kept saying, “Ohh, that’s enough, that’s enough.” The doctor said, “No, just a few more.” But Glenn stopped him, and so he had to go back a few months later to have a big lump of scar tissue removed.

  The next puck was in Chicago. Gordie Howe deflected an Alex Delvecchio shot from the point and Glenn took it in the mouth. He went back to the dressing room for thirty stitches. No freezing again, but he let the doctor finish this time.

  The third in the mouth happened during the second-last game Glenn played with Chicago. It was the biggest cut yet, requiring thirty-six stitches, and the only time he lost a tooth. He played 1,021 games in the NHL, most of them without a mask, and he lost only that one tooth.

  For Glenn’s second year with St. Louis, he signed for $50,000, which made him the third-highest-paid player in the NHL behind Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe. He played with the team from 1967–68 to 1970–71, and they made it to the playoffs all four years and to the finals in the first three. You know that famous picture of Bobby Orr at the Stanley Cup finals in 1970, as he’s flying through the air after scoring the shot that won the Bruins their first Stanley Cup since 1941? The goalie in the net is Glenn Hall. He still jokes that no one ever talks about all the times he shut the door on Bobby.

  • • •

  The guy behind the bench also ended up in the Hall of Fame, with 1,244 regular-season wins, another 223 victories in the playoffs, and nine Stanley Cups—all records.

  Lynn Patrick’s son Craig had played junior in Montreal for Scotty Bowman in the 60s. So he asked him what he thought of his former coach. Craig liked the fact that Bowman taught solid defense and that he was an innovator. He had the players keep notebooks on every game they played and rate themselves. And then he’d rate each player and compare. Bowman taught accountability, and Craig thought that would translate to the NHL. He was right.

  Bowman lived with the Patricks that first year, so his boss could see that he was all business. He was also methodical. He worked hard on preparation and would labor all through the night on matchups. He wanted to see how certain coaches would put people out against certain guys so that he could match his lines and defense against the opponent’s. No one could beat Bowman as a bench coach.

  Bowman also continued a tradition started by Lester Patrick and other coaches like Dick Irvin. Before the morning skate, Lester would have the players study the rules for half an hour. He made it mandatory that you had a rule book on you at all times. And in those morning meetings he’d call out a rule and then call on a player—and that player had better know it. Lester felt that if you’re going to go to the referee you’ve got to know what you’re talking about, because then he’ll listen to you. But if you aren’t sure, he’ll blow you off.

  That’s why you’d see players from certain teams, like Lester Patrick’s old New York Rangers and Lynn Patrick’s Blues, grow into management and coaching. That culture has been passed down through their players, like Emile Francis. Even today, look at the St. Louis team’s management legacy: Jim Nill, Paul MacLean, Mark Reeds (who recently passed away). They all played in St. Louis.

  For Scotty Bowman, on the other hand, it wasn’t so much about rules. He wanted his players to think like he did as much as possible because a lot of players don’t worry about who they’re playing next. So Bowman would put a board up in the room to show his team what the opposition was doing with the power play, with the penalty kill, with breakouts and positioning.

  Now and again he’d also do a pop quiz. He’d call a team meeting and single out different players. “Who do we play next week?” or “What’s our goals-against?” or “What’s our objective for the rest of the season? We’ve got twenty games left. How many goals can each guy get?” Scotty would have his players verbalize things just to keep them on their toes. He learned that from broadcaster Dick Irvin Jr., who’d told him that his dad would do it.

  Bowman wasn’t personable or warm, but he was good at getting the players motivated. During the 1968–69 season the Blues had a two-day break, but they hadn’t been playing well. So for those two days, Bowman scheduled nine a.m. and four p.m. practices. Most of the guys lived in the suburbs. That meant they had to drive back and forth to the rink with the rest of the commuter traffic. Before their next game, Bowman asked them, “H
ow’d you enjoy the drive over the past few days?” And they all grumbled about it. He said, “All that traffic coming in in the morning—it wasn’t fun, was it?” “Nope.” “And the traffic going home wasn’t fun either, was it?” “Nope.” Scotty said, “Yeah, well, welcome to the world of the people who sit in the stands and pay your salary.” It got their attention. The team went on a winning streak, taking five in a row.

  • • •

  In 1968, goaltender Jacques Plante had been working for the Molson’s brewery. He’d announced his retirement in 1965, so he sat out three years until the Blues obtained his rights from the Rangers and Bowman convinced him to come to St. Louis. Jacques and Glenn Hall, both in their mid- to late thirties, shared a Vezina Trophy that season. They split the season and were a terrific team, thirteen shutouts between them and twenty-two games of one-goal losses.

  Like most goalies, Jacques was eccentric. He was the cheapest guy in the whole world. He wouldn’t buy a newspaper. He’d wait until someone was finished and then he’d grab it. When he was younger, he started knitting his own hockey socks and toques to keep his ears warm in those freezing cold outdoor games in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec. When he got into the NHL, he kept on knitting to calm his nerves.

  In the 1940s, the Canadiens had one of the great goaltenders of all time, Bill Durnan, a six-time Vezina winner. Montreal GM Tommy Gorman described him as being “as big as a horse and as nimble as a cat.” But in 1950, three games into the Stanley Cup semifinal against the Rangers and a year into Jacques Plante’s contract with Canadiens affiliate the Montreal Royals, Durnan quit. When he told his coach, Dick Irvin, that he had to leave or he was going to crack up, he was crying.

  Goaltender Gerry McNeil was called up from the minors and Plante became McNeil’s backup. Plante got his chance when McNeil struggled in the 1953 playoffs against Chicago. They were down three games to two and so coach Tommy Ivan took a gamble, throwing Plante, a rookie, in there. Plante won his first NHL playoff game with a shutout and then won Game Seven too. He played the first two games of the final against Boston, and then McNeil took over. The Canadiens went on to win the series, and in 1953 Plante had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup for the first time. He was in net for the Canadiens five Cups in a row, from 1955–56 to 1959–60. And his name was spelled four different ways.

  Bowman would dress only one of his big goalies, Glenn Hall or Jacques Plante. Whichever guy wasn’t playing would sit in the stands and rest and relax. But if either Hall or Plante got hurt or was having a bad game, the team would stall and stall and stall while the other would come down from the stands and get dressed. So the NHL changed the rules. Now only dressed goalies can play, unless they’re both injured, and then you can dress a third.

  • • •

  The final piece of the puzzle was the character of the team. The Blues had character in spades. The Plager brothers, Barclay, Bill, and Bob, were the original Hanson brothers from Slap Shot, very tough and very colorful. You didn’t want to turn your back on any of them because you never knew what would happen. And it didn’t matter who you were. When owner Sid Salomon fell asleep on a flight home, Bob cut his tie—just as the players did to each other. Not to be outdone, Salomon cut the leg off Bob’s suit pants during the game. Bob, being who he was, wore the suit anyway.

  A team like that needs a leader, and Patrick and Fletcher found another future Hall of Famer to wear the C. Al Arbour played on the Blues from 1967–68 through to 1970–71 as a veteran player. He was one of the very, very few players who wore glasses. In those days you didn’t see many helmets and very few goalies wore face masks. He was thirty-four years old when he arrived and the captain during the Blues’ three-year run to the finals. He wasn’t a great offensive player, but he was a warrior, in the best sense of the word. In the days of the six-team league, Arbour was always on the bubble. He started with Detroit in 1953–54, but he didn’t play much on that Cup-winning team. Then he went to Chicago, where he won a Cup in ’61. He won another in ’62 with the Leafs. But he also spent time in the minors and never broke through as a top regular. So he knew about winning, and he knew what a player had to do to make it.

  When he was nearing the end of his playing career with St. Louis, he was playing part-time. Scotty Bowman used him as an assistant coach. (Today everyone has assistant coaches, but in those days you had only a head coach.) When Arbour coached, the guys weren’t going to fool him because he’d seen everything, and if a guy wasn’t playing a lot, Arbour could relate because he’d been there. A lot of great coaches were players who got by as players not on natural talent but on hard work and willpower. And Arbour was certainly a great coach. He was behind the bench of one of the great dynasties in NHL history, the 1979–83 New York Islanders.

  On January 6, 1972, St. Louis was in Philadelphia. The Flyers were leading 2–0. Arbour, now the Blues’ head coach, and referee John Ashley were standing at the top of the ramp leading to the tunnel at the end of the second period arguing over a two-minute penalty call. Philadelphia fans started throwing garbage, and one guy dumped a beer on Arbour. Barclay Plager jumped the railing and went after the fan.

  That led to a brawl, with fans starting to come onto the ice. The Philadelphia police got involved, and there was some back and forth. Al and defenseman John Arbour (no relation to Al) were hit over the head with nightsticks—John needed thirty stitches. A couple of fans and two officers were injured. The police went into the St. Louis locker room and tried to arrest the whole team but settled for Al, wingers Phil Roberto and Floyd Thomson, and John Arbour. The game was delayed while the four were taken to the police station. Each of them posted a $500 bond, and forty-five minutes later, Al was behind the bench without a shirt and tie on. St. Louis won the game 3–2.

  • • •

  Hockey was getting rougher, and expansion was a big reason for it. There were six more teams to fill a roster of twenty players and two goalies. That meant 132 new slots for players. The league basically increased the demand for talent on the ice by 100 percent in one year. Not every team could keep up with the league’s best, so that brought on more clutching, grabbing, stick work, and fighting to slow things down. When you look back at the bear hugs and the hooking, it’s incredible that players got away with that.

  But we should not lose sight of the fact that there was some truly beautiful hockey played in those days too. You could clutch and grab all you liked, you weren’t going to stop the Bruins when Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr were battling each other for the scoring title. Or the Habs when Béliveau, Cournoyer, and Lemaire were on their game. It was far from just goonery out there, and the fact that the Blues could compete with teams like that from day one just shows that if you get the right people in an organization, it’s going to succeed.

  Twenty

  THE MINNESOTA NORTH STARS

  Mike Modano’s last NHL contract made him an employee of the Dallas Stars for one day in 2011. He used that day to retire. When he did, the last active player from the 1980s was gone from the league, and the last connection to one of the most exciting of the 1967 expansion teams was gone. Modano was also the last of the Minnesota North Stars.

  When Mike was drafted, everyone expected him to mature into a pretty special player, and that is a lot of pressure, especially for an American kid drafted first overall into a market that knows hockey. Mike was only the second American ever taken first overall. The fact that the first was Brian Lawton, who was also taken by the North Stars, only made the challenge more daunting. Lawton scored his first goal only nineteen seconds into his first shift but never did manage to silence the critics who thought Minnesota should have taken Steve Yzerman, Cam Neely, or Pat LaFontaine, who were all available in that same draft year. That couldn’t have been easy for Lawton, and it only made Mike’s career harder.

  But Mike exceeded every expectation. He was very similar to someone like Connor McDavid. He was a big boy, but he could skate as we
ll as anyone I’ve ever seen out there. He could absolutely fly, and he had incredible vision. The thing about Mike was that he could do everything at full speed. He could shoot from mid-stride, thread a pass in full flight, and get three head fakes in after a goalie had already bit on the first one. Sometimes a defenseman wouldn’t even react as Mike blew by. He literally would have no idea which way to go.

  No American player has ever scored more goals or total points. He led the Dallas Stars to the 1999 Stanley Cup, and he is now in the Hall of Fame. He was just a special player.

  The thing is, if you live in Minnesota, you probably wish a player like that had retired playing for the city that drafted him.

  When it was announced that Minnesota was getting a team, a lot of people thought it was a sure thing to succeed. Detroit has become known as Hockeytown, but Minnesota is definitely the State of Hockey. You could fill an NHL rink with the fans who come out to high school hockey tournaments there, and NCAA hockey is huge. They love hockey, and they know hockey. We all thought of Minnesota as a lot like Canada.

  And over the years, there were a lot of great teams there. They had some phenomenal players, and a lot of success. They made it to the Stanley Cup final twice over the course of their twenty-six years, and drafted some players who more than made their mark on the game. Bobby Smith, Craig Hartsburg, Brian Bellows, Derian Hatcher.

  One of their most exciting players was a guy who started with the team in their first season, Bill Goldsworthy. He played junior in the Bruins’ system with Derek Sanderson and Bernie Parent, but never established himself as a regular in Boston even when they were a last-place team. When he got his chance in Minnesota, he became the team’s offensive star, scoring more than a point a game in the team’s first post-season and coming within one game of making it to the Stanley Cup final. He turned out to be good enough to be named to that legendary 1972 Summit Series team. The fans in Minnesota loved him.