Unless somebody starts a new thread this must be the place for this post.
WTF are the hockey gods doing? Now we can add Guy Lafleur to the list of the hockey legends they are taking away from us this year.
Bossy was my favorite NHL player the entire time he was playing for the Isles, who were my favorite NHL team from the first game they played with Eddie Westfall as their Captain. (They were the first NY based team in any sport that I became a fan of. I think it was the incredible underdog status they started out with.) The man was a scoring machine while being one of the finest gentleman ever to play the game. Damned back robbed us of him way too soon. His shot was like that out of a rocket and it was gone seemingly before it hit his stick. What a fantastic lightning release he possessed. He only put up 50 goals in 9 straight seasons, 5 of which were in the 60s, from his rookie season forward! His 10th and last season his bad back limited him to a measly 38. 573 Goals total accompanied with 553 Assists for 1,126 points in 752 GP. Add another 85/75/160 in 129 Playoff games and 4 consecutive Cups.
Gone at 65.
Guy was one of the most exciting players ever to take to the ice. A prolific scorer who brought the crowd to their feet every time he picked up the puck both at the Forum and on the road. He was a puck handling wizard and his speed added to it made him unstoppable. You can't hit what you can't catch. His flow, untethered without a helmet, always flying behind him was legendary in itself. The pressure on him coming into the league was immense as the spoiled hockey fans in Montreal expected instant success following his final Jr season with the Quebec Ramparts in which he scored 130 regular season goals and led them to the Memorial Cup. He was to immediately become their next super hero following in the skate strides of the "Rocket" and Beliveau. Once the Flower came into full bloom more than met expectations. After 3 20+ goal seasons he recorded 50 or more goals 6 straight seasons. The first to do such until Bossy put up his 9. The total 560G/793A/1,353Pts/1,126GP + 58/76/134/128GP in the playoffs and 5 Stanley Cups with Les Canadiens locked him into not only the Canadiens but also the NHL's legendary status. I watched almost all of it during the Montreal reign during the 70's because Ken Dryden was my idol. The Canadiens won Lord Stanley's Stanley's Cup 4 straight years at the end of the 70's and passed the torch onto my fav Islanders, who won it the next 4.
Gone at 70.
Great tribute and summary, hockey obit for one of the finest ever to play the game.
Those were incredible teams Lafleur played on. The style, the beautiful game but also the balance they had. Not only the flash of a Lafleur but the responsible defensive play of folks like Bob Gainey and Rejean Houle, added to players like our Jacques Lemaire, Claude Larose and a D corps that had Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, idk who else. The two Mahovolich brothers. Jean Beliveau (who also passed in the last couple of years) too.
Dryden was an extraordinary netminder. I remember he came up (had he been with Cornell?) for the playoffs and it must have been maybe 1971. (Unsure if Lafleur was in that series?). Their series was with the Orr-Esposito Bruins, opening at Boston, who took a multi goal lead into the 3d period of game 2 (leading the series after taking game one), when the Habs just exploded for 4 or more goals to steal the game and take over the series as Dryden - the rookie, and the first of the really tall and athletic goalies, the first of a certain modern type - shut down the Bruins in stunning fashion.
The game was changing. Orr had fundamentally altered the idea of what a defenseman could do and Lafleur also did that for a new fashion of wing man. Faster and a more fluid skater than Hull; bigger and more powerful than Cournoyer (as I recall - I have not double checked the details), it seems to me now difficult to imagine an Ovechkin without a Lafleur blazing the way.
Some hyperbole here perhaps but the guy warrants it.
