Changing the Game

by Stephen Laroche

  Eddie Shack

  The man known to millions of hockey fans as “The Entertainer,” Shack was a part of four Stanley Cup victories with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1960s. At the beginning of the expansion era, he moved to the Boston Bruins and then ended up with the Los Angeles Kings for the 1969–70 season. He started the following year out west as well, but the Kings sent him and Dick Duff to Buffalo as part of a deal to get Mike McMahon.

  Shack debuted with his new club when they hosted the California Golden Seals on November 29, 1970, and in his second outing four days later he registered two points against the Bruins. While some may have wondered if there were going to be problems between him and Imlach once again, Shack downplayed any sort of feud.

  “I played for him for eight years and never had any more trouble with him than any other coach I’ve played for. When he traded me away to Boston for Murray Oliver, the Leafs also got $100,000. Punch made a lot of money for the club. That’s all part of this business. I hated to leave my nice home in Los Angeles, but other than that, I’m happy to be in Buffalo and back with Punch.”

  Teammates also noticed the interesting dynamic between Shack and his coach.

  “He was a funny guy,” said Paul Andrea. “He’d be the first guy in the dressing room and the last one dressed. Punch would give him hell, and he’d say he could get dressed in six minutes — and wouldn’t you know it, he’d be ready!”

  From a goal-scoring perspective, the 1970–71 season was the best of Shack’s career. Four of his tallies with the Sabres gave the first-year team much-needed wins. On February 4, 1971, he had a hat trick against the Kings, and one of those goals secured the victory. He had another three-goal night on March 21 as well, this time in a surprising 7–5 win over the Bruins.

  “He wasn’t a bad hockey player, but the way he skated and buffooned on the ice, he got a reputation as an entertainer,” said Phil Goyette. “He did his job.”

  Floyd Smith

  Smith had spent a little more than two seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs and was coming off a rough year in 1969–70 when the team decided to dispatch him, along with Brent Imlach, to the Sabres in exchange for cash. Punch Imlach’s decision to obtain his son’s rights demonstrated nepotism at its finest, but the acquisition of Smith was something of a formality.

  “I had known Punch for a long time and he asked me to come over to help put the first Sabres team together,” said Smith.

  Even though Smith’s offensive production was waning, the Sabres looked upon him as a leader and named him their first captain. The team certainly had its share of growing pains, but he felt there was steady improvement throughout the year.

  “For the first while, every guy was trying to find their way. It got much better toward the end of the season. We had a lot of good nights and a lot of bad nights.”

  There was probably no better night for a lot of the team than the battle with Toronto on November 18, 1970, and Smith had two assists in Imlach’s heavily hyped return to Maple Leaf Gardens.

  “There was no love lost between Stafford and Punch. They were in a continual fight. They weren’t against having fun with each other. That was a huge, huge win for him.”

  Smith also had a great game when he scored twice against another one of his old clubs, the Detroit Red Wings, on December 12.

  Dave Dryden

  Dryden spent the first two years of the expansion era as a backup to Denis DeJordy in Chicago, but the rise of Tony Esposito with that organization made him the odd man out in the Windy City. For a few months, Dryden stepped away from the game to get into teaching, but he was sold to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who then turned him around to the Sabres just before the 1970–71 season was set to begin.

  Buffalo was in an interesting situation at the time, because the starting role was firmly held by Roger Crozier, but the backup job was going to be a contest between Joe Daley and Dryden.

  “Punch was in the position of wanting to keep me around in case anything happened,” he said. “He always showed a lot of confidence in me.”

  Since he saw little work in net, Dryden went to Imlach and requested a demotion to the minors to get some playing time. He played eight games with the Salt Lake Golden Eagles before being called back up. On March 14, 1971, the Sabres faced the Minnesota North Stars and he made 35 saves for a shutout victory.

  Just six days later, he made NHL history when the Montreal Canadiens hosted Buffalo. The hockey world was buzzing about the possibility that he might face his younger brother, Ken, on the ice that night.

  “Punch told me that he wanted to start me and was hoping that Al MacNeil would start Ken. I was out there for the opening faceoff, and Rogie Vachon started, so I got to sit on the bench. Ken and I had actually met the night before, which was unusual for me. He said that he didn’t think he was going to start. We joked that if we were going to play against each other that we were going to meet at centre ice and shake hands. As soon as Ken got out there, my teammates were excited and got Punch to get me out there, too.”

  The Habs wound up winning the game by a score of 5–2, and Ken went on to lead the club to a Stanley Cup championship later that year. Dave remained with the Sabres until the end of the 1973–74 campaign.

  Joe Daley

  Even though Pittsburgh claimed him from Detroit in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft, Daley did not debut with the Penguins until the 1968–69 season. He spent a good chunk of the following year in the minors, and the Sabres seized the opportunity to pick him up on waivers before their first season was set to begin.

  While it was nice for the Winnipeg native to get another shot at regular NHL work, he found himself in a three-way battle with Roger Crozier and Dave Dryden, both goalies who had more pro experience. Undaunted, he benefited from the tutelage of Crozier and ended up serving as the number two man in the crease over the course of the season.

  One of the greatest tests of his career came on December 10, 1970, when he was sent out to protect the net from the Boston Bruins — a team arguably at its peak with big shooters like Phil Esposito and the incomparable Bobby Orr on the blue line. In all, he faced an incredible 72 shots, 30 of them in the third period! The final stanza was a goaltender’s nightmare on many levels, but Daley remains proud of the game to this day.

  “I played that game and it was tied after two periods,” he said. “I thought we might have a shot at winning. I think Esposito had an offside goal and it just fell apart from there. There’s not too many nights where you get beat that bad and have some positive memories about it.”

  Daley earned his third career shutout when the Sabres faced the California Golden Seals on February 12, 1971, and finished the season as the team’s leader in wins with 12 triumphs. At the end of the year Buffalo dealt him away so they could bring in Don Luce and Mike Robitaille, young talent who helped them quickly rise to contention.

  Roger Crozier

  Crozier was the number one goalie for the Red Wings from 1964–65 to 1969–70. Although he helped the club to great success in the years before expansion, his success diminished after that because of an overall decline in Detroit that began in the late 1960s. He also battled pancreatitis during his last three seasons there.

  After the Sabres made their picks from the established NHL teams, Detroit wanted to get Tom Webster back. When they offered up the veteran goaltender Crozier in exchange, Punch Imlach had no reservations about making the deal and was sure to let the press know about it.

  “I want a major league goaltender … a guy with major league credentials who has proved he can do the job up here … and Crozier is just that man. For us to win, we must get superior goaltending.”

  One of Buffalo’s major strengths going into their first year was the men they had to protect the crease, and Crozier became the clear-cut number one from the start. He was in net for their opening game with Pittsburgh and turned back 35 shots in the 2–1 victory.

  “Any time we get the kind of goalkeeping Roger gave us in Pittsburg
h, we’ve got a chance no matter who we’re playing,” said Imlach. “Let’s face it, we’re an expansion team and it will take us time to come together. Goaltending can turn around a lot of games for us. Crozier was just great. A big save lifts any club and his big saves lifted us.”

  Over the first few weeks, he performed admirably despite the deluge of rubber being shot his way. He earned the first shutout in franchise history on December 6, 1970, in a 1–0 triumph over the Minnesota North Stars.

  “Roger and I got along well, even though he was an elite goaltender,” said Joe Daley. “We had a lot of conversations about all aspects of the game. There were nights early in the season when we should have lost by double digits, and he kept us in there.”

  Crozier’s stomach woes popped up again around Christmas and he was out for a few weeks. By the end of the season, he was clearly one of the top acquisitions for the Sabres and he remained with them for several years after. In 1976–77, he made his final NHL appearance as a member of the Washington Capitals.

  Crozier died on January 11, 1996. The league honours his memory with the Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award, which is given annually to the goaltender who registers the best save percentage.

  “Roger was a guy with experience from Detroit. As a young kid, it was really exciting to watch him,” said Gilbert Perreault. “He had a very spectacular style and was a great goalie. It’s too bad his health wasn’t 100 percent and I guess he was really nervous. He was a great goaltender to watch and in our first year he was our key player. You needed a key goaltender and he was one of them. We had a pretty good season because of him.”

  Roger Crozier

  EXPANSION YEAR RECORD: 24–46–8

  (56 points — sixth in East Division)

  COACH: Hal Laycoe

  GENERAL MANAGER: Bud Poile

  FIRST GAME: October 9, 1970 —

  3–1 loss vs. Los Angeles Kings

  FIRST GOAL: October 9, 1970 by Barry Wilkins

  VANCOUVER

  CANUCKS

  Vancouver’s rich pro hockey history dates back to 1911–12, when Lester and Frank Patrick created the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and made the Millionaires one of the new loop’s marquee clubs. The team’s success had a lot to do with the presence of the legendary Cyclone Taylor, and in 1914–15, they won the city’s only Stanley Cup championship. The team was a perennial contender and eventually changed its name to the Maroons in 1922–23. They played their last two seasons in the WCHL and WHL before the death of western pro hockey.

  For nearly 50 years, save for a rare exhibition contest, the highest level of pro hockey disappeared from British Columbia, but that did not mean the sport went away for locals. Senior hockey was always popular in smaller towns, and the Western Hockey League featured teams in Victoria and Vancouver. The Vancouver club was called the Canucks and began in the Pacific Coast Hockey League (PCHL) in 1945 before it merged with the Western Canada Senior Hockey League seven years later. The team lasted for 25 seasons and won six league championships between 1946 and 1970.

  When the NHL first announced its plans for expansion in 1965, the citizens of Vancouver were chomping at the bit to finally become a part of the biggest league around. Even though they put their best foot forward during the application process, team owner Fred Hume and his group were turned down by the NHL. Speculators believe they were blocked by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens, who did not want to share television revenues. They also did not have an NHL-level arena to play in, and some reported that their overconfidence resulted in a weak proposal that made a poor impression on NHL owners.

  The winds began to change during the 1967–68 season, and there was a movement afoot to transfer the financially troubled Oakland Seals north to Vancouver. Since the league wanted to avoid embarrassment, they chose to keep the team in California and made a promise that Vancouver was going to get a team the next time the NHL wished to expand. A group headed by Tom Scallen pitched the league and paid a whopping six million dollars for the right to join in 1970. They also had to first purchase the WHL club. A new era was set to begin — but not until after the Canucks won their final Lester Patrick Cup.

  The Canucks had several WHL vets from the championship team already under contract and added some prime talent through the 1970 NHL Expansion Draft. Their first selection was rock-hard defender Gary Doak from the Boston Bruins, and they followed that by taking tough Orland Kurtenbach from the Rangers. From there, they picked some prime talents like Rosaire Paiement, Pat Quinn and the versatile Poul Popiel, and they also got some good goaltenders in young Dunc Wilson and former Vezina Trophy recipient Charlie Hodge. In the amateur draft, they used the second overall pick to get a promising blueliner in Dale Tallon. Kurtenbach was named their first captain and was to be assisted by Doak and veteran Ray Cullen. Overall, the Canucks drew praise from many before their first NHL season.

  “This team has a lot more potential than the one I started with in Oakland,” commented former Seals coach and general manager Bert Olmstead. “Not only that, it has a chance to be better right now. On paper, we looked like a pretty good club our first year in Oakland. Some of the veterans we had didn’t come through for us, and by the time we got around to making some trades it was too late; and perhaps most important of all, the Canucks will play their first season in Vancouver. We had to play ours in Oakland.”

  The Canucks made their NHL debut against the visiting Los Angeles Kings on October 9, 1970, and the crowd roared when Cyclone Taylor made a pre-game appearance. Their first goal was scored by Barry Wilkins, but they lost the opener by a 3–1 margin. Even though they narrowly missed tallying twice in the first period when shots hit the posts, coach Hal Laycoe was not happy with the results.

  “You can’t really say we deserved to win, but if one of those first period shots had hit the net instead of the post, it would have given us a tremendous lift… . Then, who knows what might have happened?”

  They didn’t need to wait long for their first victory, though, as they beat the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs two days later. Although the wins were infrequent over the first month, they did get a lot of scoring from the line of Kurtenbach, Wayne Maki and Murray Hall. From November 20 to 24, they won three straight games, but the losses piled up, especially after their captain went down with torn knee ligaments, and they were out of playoff contention rather early.

  After the loss of Kurtenbach, several other players tried to pick up the slack. Paiement started putting the puck in the net, and Tallon, who was often the target of jeers at home, managed to establish a new NHL rookie scoring record for defencemen. In January, GM Bud Poile lashed out at Laycoe for being too soft and at several players for not carrying their weight. Tensions began to run high and, following a 6–1 loss to Buffalo on January 31, 1971, Laycoe almost seemed resigned to what his team’s fate was.

  “Coaching an expansion club has to be the toughest job in the world,” he said. “Because when the going gets tough, the tough don’t always get going.”

  Sabres coach Punch Imlach also fuelled the fires by referring to the Canucks as a 4F team — fumbling, frustrated, futile and folding.

  Kurtenbach’s return to the lineup was a case of too little, too late. Vancouver ended the year with a strong 3–1–1 finish, in sixth place in the East Division and just a point ahead of the Detroit Red Wings in the standings. At the box office, they were a smash; 98 percent of tickets were sold. They even showed some games on closed-circuit television when there was not a seat to be had in the house. But their often insane travel schedule certainly took a toll on players throughout the year.

  With one season under their belt, it was apparent the Canucks had a long road ahead to become contenders. Over the next three years they experienced seventh-place finishes. But after they acquired Gary Smith and developed some key prospects, they enjoyed a first-place finish in the Smythe Division in 1974–75. That initial success was somewhat short lived, but eventually the club bounced back and mad
e the postseason six straight years from 1978–79 to 1983–84. Naturally, the highlight of that period was their run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1981–82, but they were swept in four straight by the New York Islanders.

  For the rest of the 1980s, Vancouver was perennially on the bubble when it came to making the playoffs. In the early part of the next decade, they finally became a powerhouse with talents like Trevor Linden, Kirk McLean and Pavel Bure leading the way. In 1993–94, they were back in the Stanley Cup Final once again but lost a close seven-game series to the New York Rangers.

  Soon after, the Canucks went through a disappointing four-season playoff drought, but they rose up again in 2000–01 and have remained competitive since then thanks to stars like Todd Bertuzzi, Roberto Luongo and the Sedin brothers. In 2010–11, the Canucks came close to tasting champagne from Lord Stanley’s Mug for the first time but lost to the Boston Bruins in a thrilling seven-game matchup. They took the frustration of that loss and turned it into a league championship the next year but were eliminated in the first round by the Los Angeles Kings, their quest for their first Cup once again placed on hold.

  Andre Boudrias

  The 1969–70 season was one of the most frustrating of Boudrias’s career, as he had an uncharacteristic 17 points over 50 games with St. Louis and was sent down to the minors. Instead of letting it get him down, though, he averaged more than a point per game on the farm and was back in time for a run to the Stanley Cup Final. Soon after, the Blues traded him to the new Vancouver Canucks for a pair of draft picks, giving Vancouver a potential first-line playmaker on the roster.

  With the change of scenery, he became an instant hit and had a goal and two assists in an early-season battle with Toronto on October 11, 1970. Four days later, he was the author of the first power-play tally for the Canucks as they took on Philadelphia. As the 1970–71 campaign moved on, he had winning goals against the Golden Seals and Kings, but he was particularly impressive in a battle with Montreal on February 22, 1971, when he scored twice in a 3–3 tie.