In 1989–90, the Oilers made some changes in the lineup. Grant Fuhr missed the first ten games with appendicitis, then hurt his shoulder. That opened the door for Bill Ranford. Glen Sather traded Jimmy Carson, who had come to Edmonton in my trade, to Detroit along with Kevin McClelland for Peter Klima, Adam Graves, Joe Murphy, and Jeff Sharples. The Oilers finished fifth overall and Mess was second in scoring in the league with 129 points.
In the playoffs, the Oilers fell behind against the Jets but won three in a row to move on. They swept us and knocked off Chicago, and then met the Bruins in the final. Game One of that series was the longest in the history of the Stanley Cup finals. Peter Klima had been benched most of the game, so by the third overtime, he was about the only player on either side not exhausted. He scored and the Oilers took the series four games to one for their fifth Cup. Bill Ranford won the Conn Smythe for his outstanding goaltending through the playoffs.
In 1990–91, the Oilers started to slip just a bit. Jari Kurri couldn’t get the contract he wanted from Edmonton, so he played for HC Devils Milano in Italy for a year, and Grant Fuhr was out for fifty-nine games. They were still good enough to beat the Flames in seven games and us in six, but then they lost to Minnesota. Minnesota had a great Cinderella run that year until they ran into Mario, Jagr, and Ron Francis with the Penguins.
Prior to the next season, 1991–92, the Oilers traded Glenn Anderson and Grant Fuhr to Toronto. Steve Smith was traded to Chicago. Jari’s rights were traded to Philadelphia. Charlie Huddy was claimed by Minnesota in the expansion draft. And Mess was traded to the Rangers, where he would eventually lead them to their first Stanley Cup in fifty-four years. The days of the Oilers’ dynasty were over.
Thirty-Five
YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW
I don’t know if we will ever see another dynasty like those Oilers teams. That’s not boasting. I just think it is harder to build a roster like that today than it was in 1979. There have definitely been some special teams since then, and the Detroit Red Wings came close, but the league is different now. It is harder to win in today’s NHL, if only because it’s harder to make the playoffs. You see teams win the Cup one year, then not even qualify the next. And when you have finally put together a winner, it’s so much harder to keep that team together.
The team that may be closest to dynasty status today is the Chicago Blackhawks. The Hawks have won three Cups in six years, and even though they were out of the 2016 playoffs in the first round, they still have potential for more. Every time they lose a veteran due to salary cap pressures, they seem to find new stars. They lose goaltender Antti Niemi, they find Corey Crawford. They lose Patrick Sharp, they find Artemi Panarin. They lose Brandon Saad, they trade for Artem Anisimov and Andrew Ladd. With one of the strongest core groups ever—Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook—they just keep winning, and all this under a salary cap.
Chicago’s general manager, Stan Bowman, is Scotty’s son. He was always intrigued by Scotty’s work, and when he was a kid he’d sit close by and listen when Scotty was on the phone. Afterward he’d say, “Why is this happening? What did that mean? Why did you say this?” Even before he went to college at Notre Dame to study finance and computer applications, he had a summer job as an assistant stock analyst. He’d sit in a room all day analyzing stuff.
Stan really wanted a job in sports. So he sent his résumé around to teams and players and got a response from the Blackhawks. GM Mike Smith had been a computer guy himself, and so in 2001 he brought Stan in to learn the ropes. Stan ran around getting coffee, doing anything he could for Mike.
Mike was fired in 2003 and replaced by Dale Tallon, who came to the team as a player in the 70s and had worked in the front office for years. Stan started working for Dale, advising him on regulations and bylaws. In July 2009, Dale was fired and Stan was promoted to GM.
Some people want to get to the chase right away, but Stan likes to take his time. Knee-jerk mid-season trades aren’t his style. But in February 2015, Chicago’s star right-winger, Patrick Kane, had sixty-four points in sixty-one games and then broke his clavicle after Florida’s Alex Petrovic cross-checked him into the boards. It put him out for the rest of the season. Stan put Patrick on the long-term reserve list, which doesn’t count against the cap. That gave him a couple of million dollars. Then he made a trade with the Coyotes: first-round draft pick and defenseman Klas Dahlbeck for center Antoine Vermette. Vermette helped the Hawks win a Cup and then went back to Arizona as a free agent. It was a win-win deal and a lot like something Sam Pollock might do.
• • •
There’s so much more parity now because of the salary cap. The cap was the result of the 2004–05 NHL lockout: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman—and this is what I admire about him—wanted every team, whether it’s Ottawa or Arizona, to be able to compete with Philadelphia, the Rangers, and Toronto. If you had thirty teams but only sixteen of them could make a lot of money, that would eliminate fourteen teams. How would that grow the game? But now, thanks to the cap, you’ve got a chance to win a Stanley Cup no matter how big your market is.
Before the cap, teams could spend as much as they wanted to keep a dynasty franchise together forever, but obviously that didn’t happen. Going all the way back to the glory days of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 60s, great teams were torn apart not necessarily over money but over personalities. The Leafs had great players like Dave Keon, Tim Horton, Carl Brewer, and Johnny Bower in net. They also had Frank Mahovlich, one of the most gifted players of that era. Mahovlich was good enough to beat out Bobby Hull for rookie of the year. He scored forty-eight goals in his fourth season—the most ever for a Leaf at that time—and a record that stood for twenty-one years. The Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1962, and then before training camp that fall, Mahovlich’s contract came up for renewal. But he and Punch Imlach couldn’t come to terms, and so Mahovlich walked out of training camp.
The Chicago Blackhawks heard about the dispute and offered the Leafs a million dollars for Mahovlich, which made headlines. At first, Leafs co-owner Harold Ballard accepted the deal and ten one-hundred-dollar bills as a deposit. But the next morning ownership had second thoughts and Ballard canceled it. The Leafs gave Mahovlich the contract he was looking for.
But Punch Imlach never forgot what he saw as Mahovlich’s act of disloyalty and disobedience. Imlach would constantly rag on him, telling him that he wasn’t playing up to his potential. He’d mispronounce “Mahovlich” and put him down. He made Mahovlich’s life miserable. Things got so bad that in 1964 Mahovlich missed a month due to depression. His doctor told him that his depression had a name: it was called Punch Imlach.
Mahovlich led the Leafs in playoff scoring when they won the Cup in 1964, and he was among the scoring leaders when they won again in 1967, but just before playoffs, on March 3, 1968, Imlach traded him to Detroit along with Peter Stemkowski and Garry Unger for Norm Ullman, Paul Henderson, and Floyd Smith. The deal also included rights to defenseman Carl Brewer, who didn’t get along with Imlach either. He had been sitting out since 1965.
In 1968–69 Mahovlich played on a line with Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio and scored forty-nine goals. He played a year and a half more in Detroit, and then was traded to Montreal, where he won two more Stanley Cups.
Stafford Smythe fired Imlach at the end of the 1968–69 season, blaming him for depleting the team of player strength. Imlach said that someday he’d make Smythe eat his words. The next year, 1970, when Buffalo and Vancouver finally got expansion teams, Imlach was hired as the Sabres’ coach and GM. His first draft pick was future superstar Gil Perreault. In 1975, Buffalo won the Prince of Wales Conference in their final game of the season—by beating the Leafs.
• • •
The Calgary Flames had a similar scenario in the 1980s. They were an incredibly strong team. GM Cliff Fletcher had started signing U.S. college players who’d slipped past the draf
t. He used some of those players to trade for Joey Mullen and Doug Gilmour out of St. Louis. Then he made some excellent draft picks—Joe Nieuwendyk, Gary Roberts, Hakan Loob, Mike Vernon, defensemen Al MacInnis and Gary Suter, and Theo Fleury, who was 166th overall. They were so loaded that they traded Brett Hull for depth on defense. With size, toughness, and character, Calgary went to the Cup final in ’86 and won the Cup in ’89.
If that team had stayed together they would have continued to be contenders, maybe even a dynasty. But just like Frank Mahovlich in the 60s, Dougie Gilmour’s contract was up and he was looking for fair compensation. Even though Al MacInnis had won the Conn Smythe in their Stanley Cup year using his slap shot from the point to score thirty-one points, Dougie had made huge contributions as well. He scored two goals in the third period of the deciding game in the ’89 final, helping the Flames become the first opposing team ever to win the Cup in the Montreal Forum against the Canadiens.
But Cliff Fletcher didn’t want a big pay gap between players: he thought it was divisive. In the mid-1980s the Flames’ payroll was $5 million. It didn’t matter if you were Kent Nilsson or Tim Hunter. Fletcher’s philosophy was, “I don’t want to pay my top guys too high, and I don’t want to pay my bottom guys too low.” Then, in 1991, Fletcher moved to the Leafs and Doug Risebrough replaced him as Calgary’s GM. Risebrough had played with Yvan Cournoyer through four Stanley Cups, 1976–79, and so he kept telling Dougie Gilmour that he wanted him to be his Cournoyer. Gilmour told him that that was fine as long as he paid him like Cournoyer. Negotiations were stalled. They were fighting over a $100,000 difference. After scoring a goal and an assist in an overtime win on New Year’s Eve against Montreal, Dougie walked out the next day, January 1, 1992.
Risebrough had grown up in the Montreal Canadiens organization, and he was all about team loyalty. So he got on the phone with Cliff, and in the heat of the moment they worked out a deal—Doug Gilmour, experienced defensemen Jamie Macoun and Ric Nattress, goaltender Rick Wamsley, and prospect Kent Manderville would be traded for Gary Leeman, Craig Berube, defensemen Alexander Godynyuk and Michel Petit, and goalie Jeff Reese.
Leeman, who’d scored fifty-one goals two seasons earlier with the Leafs, struggled in Calgary. He scored just two goals in the rest of the ’92 season and then only nine before being dealt to Montreal in January 1993. Eleven goals in two seasons—for Doug Gilmour, who had back-to-back hundred-point seasons for the Leafs.
That trade marked the beginning of a long decline for the Flames. Risebrough continued having trouble coming to terms with many of his players, including Al MacInnis, who went on to several great years in St. Louis and won an Olympic gold medal; Gary Suter, who was on the World Cup of Hockey winning team in 1996 and two U.S. Olympic teams; and Mike Vernon, who won another Stanley Cup with Detroit in 1997. Risebrough’s estimation of their market value was very low. It got so bad negotiating with Vernon that the coach at the time, Dave King, went up to Doug’s office and said, “Leave him alone. This is going to affect his play.”
The Flames didn’t really turn it around until their 2004 Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup finals. Meanwhile, Gilmour’s arrival in Toronto had moved them from a team that missed the playoffs to a legitimate Cup contender right away.
• • •
One or two guys like Gilmour, the character guys, can change a franchise. Chicago found that in Jonathan Toews. Toews is the leader, the glue. Everyone knows his history and reputation for taking responsibility, how he plays, and what a good team guy he is. When he became captain of the Hawks at twenty years old, he was the third-youngest captain in NHL history behind the Penguins’ Sid Crosby and Tampa Bay’s Vincent Lecavalier, who were both nineteen.
Around Toews are guys like Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith, who’s a horse. He reminds me so much of Brian Leetch, who was one of the best players I ever played with. Brian was a guy who had the heart of a champion, and that’s how Duncan plays. There’s also Patrick Kane. We play in an era where everyone says you have to be big and fast. It’s not that Kane isn’t fast, but he’s not the fastest guy out there and he’s not the biggest. What he’s got is unique hockey sense. It’s very special—I don’t know if there’s anything comparable. He’s his own man. He can slow the game down to his pace, with all five opposing players skating his game, and then he’ll shift to another gear. He’s also got possibly the softest hands in the game. He does things with the puck I’ve never seen anybody do.
Edmonton has Connor McDavid. He’s already started to drive the bus and take all the pressure off the other guys. Teams can be great only if they have guys who allow them to be great. A great player can pioneer the trail—Orr, Howe, Béliveau, Richard, and hopefully McDavid.
If you look at the Oilers trying to find their way, as they have for the last number of years, you see a lot of changes—change the coach, change this, change that—all because there hasn’t been growth. But I think we’ll see more success now with McDavid at the center, along with guys like Darnell Nurse, who’s a Kevin Lowe type; Oscar Klefbom, a solid d-man, their Charlie Huddy; and Jordan Eberle, who might be like Craig Simpson. In terms of his role and importance on the team, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins would be like any of our era’s third-line centers, Mark Lamb or Kenny Linseman.
McDavid makes everybody around him better. He’s a really bright kid. I’m told that players already look to him and that he deflects it in a humble way, which is all the more reason for his team to want to follow him. Players around a guy like that will evolve. A core player won’t make them—after all, people are who they are—but that player’s strengths will come out in those around him, and you build on that.
• • •
The draft really is everything, it really is. It’s so important—that’s how you build the foundation of the team. Look at the 1980s Oilers’ draft picks: Messier, Anderson, Kurri, Fuhr, Coffey. Montreal’s 1975–76 Stanley Cup–winning team was pretty much all developed within the Habs’ system. They were so deep they basically had two teams.
Today, because of the cap, a player’s true value as a draft pick is maximized during development. That way a team can supplement their roster with players on entry-level contracts. If they’re drafted high, your top six players have to be part of your overall roster because the veteran guys who are carrying the majority of the baggage are seven-, eight-, or nine-million-dollar players.
Drafting Patrick Kane, Connor McDavid, Steven Stamkos, and Taylor Hall—those aren’t the hard picks. You know what you’re getting. What really becomes important for a franchise is your second-, third-, and fourth-round picks. Chris Chelios was a 1981 Montreal second-rounder; Chicago picked up Duncan Keith second round in 2002; and Colorado picked up Paul Stastny second round in 2005. Third-rounders include Kris Letang (2005) and Brad Marchand (2006). Fourth- and fifth-rounders like Braden Holtby (2008) and Kevin Biekesa (2001) have to be able to jump in and be a big part of the success of their team.
And then of course you get your steals. Dougie Gilmour was 134th in 1982; Luc Robitaille was 171st overall when Los Angeles picked him up in 1984; Jamie Benn was 129th for Dallas in 2007; Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau was 104th in 2011; and in the same year Chicago’s Andrew Shaw was 139th.
I’ll tell you a funny story about the draft. Pittsburgh Penguins GM Craig Patrick drafted Jaromir Jagr fifth overall at the 1990 draft in Vancouver. Four teams had passed on him before Patrick grabbed him because Jagr had said he wasn’t going to leave Czechoslovakia. He’d told the four teams who picked ahead that he was playing for his father’s team in Kladno and didn’t want to play in the NHL. But when the Penguins interviewed him he said, “If you draft me, I’ll come tomorrow.” That was because he idolized Mario Lemieux and secretly wanted to play with him.
That’s another reason it’s hard to build a dynasty today. Pittsburgh picked Jagr, but Jagr also picked Pittsburgh. And that is even more true with free agency. Guys want to go where they are goin
g to have the most success, and who can blame them? Some teams just know how to win, and if I were a developing player I would want to go where my hard work was going to be maximized. But the other side of that is some franchises are going to find it hard to hold on to guys they have drafted and developed if they can’t convince them it’s in their best interest to stay.
Thirty-Six
“I JUST LOVE TO PLAY”
In my early years in the NHL I’d often sit with Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Phil Esposito, Guy Lafleur, and Jean Béliveau. They were very good to me. And I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them—socially, at the rink, in a restaurant, anywhere—so that they could pass on to me their beliefs about the road to personal success and to winning as a team.
As a leader, Jean Béliveau was calm and focused, and he preached by example. A couple of years before he died in 2014, someone asked him how he wanted to be remembered and he said, “I want to be remembered as a team player.” That tells you a lot. He didn’t say, “I want to be remembered as the guy who scored over five hundred goals.” There was no mention of his records. He wanted to be thought of as a team player. That’s who he was.
When I was in New York in ’98, I got a message saying that the Rocket wanted to come see me before the game that night. At around four-thirty that afternoon the trainer came in the room and said, “The Rocket’s here.”
When I went out to meet him, he handed me a replica of the beautiful Maurice Richard Trophy, which features a gold figure of the Rocket with his stick on the ice. That year the NHL had donated the trophy to be awarded annually to the leading scorer. Maurice said, “Wayne, I know you’re never going to win this trophy, but I want you to have one. You should have won it.”
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