Mickey Redmond

[Davenport]

Mickey Redmond – at the age of 20 – joined the Montreal Canadiens after a terrific junior career with the Peterborough Petes. The Habs – in 1967-68 – were in the midst of their 60's dynasty, and were well stocked at right wing – Redmond's position. Bobby Rousseau, Yvan Cournoyer, Claude Provost and Claude Larose were ahead of him. Even with the trade of Larose after that season, there wasn't a lot of ice time for Mickey. In 1969-70 – Provost's last season – Redmond played enough to be able to score 27 goals, and in 1970-71 – in 40 games before he was traded to the Detroit Red Wings – he had 14 goals and 30 points (and added goals and 13 points in 21 games after the trade). With the Wings, he enjoyed lots of ice time, and – most importantly – power play minutes. Mickey scored 42 goals in 1971-72, 52 goals in 1972-73 (to go with 93 points), and 51 goals in 1973-74. Serious back problems resulted in Redmond playing only 29 games in 1974-75 (and – yet – scored 15 goals), and 37 games in 1975-76. Then he hung up his skates.

Without his back problems – and with all the ice time he would have enjoyed with the poor Wings team of the 1970's – you have to assume that Mickey Redmond would have put up numbers impressive enough to earn himself induction in to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

 

[K Fleur]

“You have to assume”

Nah I’m good.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Mickey Redmond – at the age of 20 – joined the Montreal Canadiens after a terrific junior career with the Peterborough Petes. The Habs – in 1967-68 – were in the midst of their 60's dynasty, and were well stocked at right wing – Redmond's position. Bobby Rousseau, Yvan Cournoyer, Claude Provost and Claude Larose were ahead of him. Even with the trade of Larose after that season, there wasn't a lot of ice time for Mickey. In 1969-70 – Provost's last season – Redmond played enough to be able to score 27 goals, and in 1970-71 – in 40 games before he was traded to the Detroit Red Wings – he had 14 goals and 30 points (and added goals and 13 points in 21 games after the trade). With the Wings, he enjoyed lots of ice time, and – most importantly – power play minutes. Mickey scored 42 goals in 1971-72, 52 goals in 1972-73 (to go with 93 points), and 51 goals in 1973-74. Serious back problems resulted in Redmond playing only 29 games in 1974-75 (and – yet – scored 15 goals), and 37 games in 1975-76. Then he hung up his skates.

Without his back problems – and with all the ice time he would have enjoyed with the poor Wings team of the 1970's – you have to assume that Mickey Redmond would have put up numbers impressive enough to earn himself induction in to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

My dad moved from California to Detroit in the 1970s for work and learned to love the dead things after the move because of Redmond, Nick Libett, and Alex Delvecchio. He used to tell me that Mickey Redmond was one of the best Wings players he'd ever seen. The guy was famous for his great speed and being able to wire a slapshot to the net while skating at full speed. Even compared him to a poor man's Lafleur.

HHOF career as a player? Debatable. He was very clearly the 1st or 2nd best player on those awful 70s Detroit teams. I'd have expected he would have been in a conversation with guys like Danny Gare, Rick Martin, Bill Barber, Rick MacLeish and Steve Shutt. Even with Redmond those Wings teams didn't have anything approaching a defense or goaltending that could help them into the postseason.

Here's a list of 1970s scoring forwards.

Mickey Redmond is #87 on that list with 357 games, 191 goals and 339 points between 1970 and 1980. 143 of those goals came in a 3 year stretch in Detroit! 4 or 5 more healthy years and at a conservative estimate of 35 goals average per season and there's another 175 goals. It's too bad that his back issues did in what could have been a great career. Maybe not HHOF because Detroit's lack of success, but pretty close.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Careers were pretty short during that time period. Redmond's productive years happened from 24-27... I don't know if he had enough candle remaining for a HHOF career at that point.

That said, being on track for several consecutive years of 40-50 goals is nothing to sneeze at. He was on track for HOVG status for sure, and you're right that there's some alternate universe where he keeps that pace going and makes an argument for HHOF.

 

[Bluesguru]

Yeah, I got his last hockey card where he played those 37 games his last year. His stats were eye popping but he never played again so I never saw him. And you really can’t find any footage of him on YouTube playing either. I do enjoy listening to him on those Wing broadcasts.

 

[Big Phil]

You never know, he was flourishing on a bad team in Detroit. But putting up good numbers and had his last good year in 1974. Still was young too. Also, in 1972 he sort of lost his temper near the end of Game 1 in the Summit Series and never got back into action again. When I say lost his temper I mean he got a bit of a roughing penalty in front of the net out of frustration or something. Either way, Sinden never puts him back in. Who knows, if he plays more in 1972 and then has a full career we could be looking at a different version of Redmond.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Sorry to be that guy. But how much of Redmonds output was helped with a guy like Dionne on his line.

 

[hanshin44]

He's worthy of induction into the HOF in my eyes, but not as a player. I can't imagine Wings broadcasts without him.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Sorry to be that guy. But how much of Redmonds output was helped with a guy like Dionne on his line.

He scored with and without Dionne. I don’t know the percentage but I know it wasn’t a Cheechoo/Thornton situation.

 

[The Panther]

He's worthy of induction into the HOF in my eyes, but not as a player. I can't imagine Wings broadcasts without him.

Yeah, he's been doing it since -- what? -- 1985 or something?

To be honest, his style of broadcasting is not to my taste. He's always talking over the play-by-play guy with random interjections.

That said, he's a million miles better than the old-school guy who did Red Wings color-commentating in the early-80s -- I don't know who he was or when he started (1920s maybe?) but he was brutal...

 

[Sentinel]

My favorite commentator of all time. He actually makes broadcastings INTERESTING.