Changing the Game

by Stephen Laroche

  With their grand plan for expansion derailed somewhat by the presence of the WHA, the NHL had to face the reality that their once-strong talent pool had been diluted. Regardless, they soldiered on with the plan to bring their membership up to 18 clubs, and the Kansas City Scouts and Washington Capitals arrived in time for the 1974–75 season. The 1974 NHL Expansion Draft was one of the worst in league history because of the lack of top-flight talent available for the picking. Existing teams scoffed at the idea that they faced any sort of challenge from the Scouts and Capitals, and most games were tough to watch. By the end of the year, Washington had set an incredible record for futility, as they won just eight games and only one of those victories came on the road. The Scouts fared slightly better, but darker times were ahead.

  Around this time, the WHA began to fall into the trap of moving and shifting franchises, and some of those moves even came during the regular schedule. Their 14 teams were not all on solid ground, but some NHL teams also began experiencing difficulties of their own. The Pittsburgh Penguins, California Golden Seals and the Scouts were having trouble drawing crowds and all three were rumoured to be candidates for relocation during the 1975–76 campaign.

  The NHL had actually planned another round of expansion for the fall of 1976, and the new teams were expected to play out of Denver and Seattle. Instead of giving those cities new teams, the league changed its mind and offered to move established clubs instead. Seattle Totems owner Vince Abbey struggled to secure financing in time, though, and the NHL pulled the franchise. Lawsuits were filed, but the league prevailed in court a little more than a decade later. The Penguins ended up staying in Pittsburgh, but the Golden Seals were transferred to Cleveland to become the Barons, and the Scouts headed west to Denver to begin play as the Colorado Rockies. The moves did not pan out in the long run for a variety of reasons, and Cleveland was the first to go after just two seasons, while Colorado stayed around for six campaigns.

  EXPANSION YEAR RECORD: 24–39–15

  (63 points — fifth in East Division)

  COACH: Punch Imlach

  GENERAL MANAGER: Punch Imlach

  FIRST GAME: October 10, 1970 —

  2–1 win vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

  FIRST GOAL: October 10, 1970 by Jim Watson

  BUFFALO

  SABRES

  Since Buffalo is so close to the Canadian border, it is only natural that hockey has been appreciated by its citizens for decades. The sport has a long history there that pre-dates the NHL’s Sabres. The AHL’s Buffalo Bisons were rated one of the most successful teams around and began play 30 years before big-league hockey came to town. An earlier club with the same name primarily played out of nearby Fort Erie, Ontario, as part of the International Hockey League and disbanded during the 1936–37 season.

  The AHL Bisons were the first pro team to actually play out of the city, and they had lengthy affiliations with NHL clubs. The local Pepsi-Cola franchise owned the team and their colours and logo tied in with their brand. On five occasions, including their final season in 1969–70, the Bisons won the Calder Cup.

  Buffalo originally sought an NHL franchise for the league’s first modern expansion in 1967 but were turned down. Brothers Northrup and Seymour Knox III, who generated the bid, were not discouraged at all, and the two sportsmen even attempted to buy the troubled Oakland Seals before they were finally given a club of their own to start play in 1970–71.

  The Knox brothers sought out one of the best hockey men at the time in Punch Imlach, who had already taken the Toronto Maple Leafs to four Stanley Cup championships as a coach and general manager. At the time, Imlach formed part of an ownership group for the WHL’s Vancouver Canucks, and once that team was sold to a company called Medicor, he walked away with a tidy profit and was able to come to Buffalo to get the Sabres up and running.

  Unlike their expansion cousins in Vancouver, the Sabres did not start amassing talent through the purchase of minor league clubs. They began to throw together a solid group of players through the 1970 NHL Expansion Draft. Imlach picked a good mix of veterans and youngsters that included recognizable names such as Don Marshall, Phil Goyette and Reggie Fleming to go along with promising talents like Gerry Meehan and Al Hamilton. They traded Tom Webster to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for the acrobatic Roger Crozier, but their biggest acquisition came a couple of days later.

  The NHL decided to determine which expansion club was going to get the first overall pick in the 1970 NHL Amateur Draft through a spin of a roulette wheel. Imlach chose to take numbers 11–20 and, while it was initially thought that it had landed on number one, the crafty GM quietly pointed out that it had in fact landed on his lucky number, 11, just as the Canucks were celebrating. The prize pick that year was Gilbert Perreault and the Sabres built their team around him.

  In the weeks leading up to the debut of the Sabres, Imlach boasted about his team’s chances to the press.

  “You can forget about Toronto and Vancouver. And the Red Wings didn’t look like any ball of fire to me. We’ll be there and you can bet on it… . Sure, we’re a long way from being a good hockey club, but we’ll get better. We made some mistakes we’ll correct before camp breaks and we’ll play as a unit. We’ll need superior goaltending to win, and I feel we’ll get it. Don’t be a non-believer and count us out. We’ll be there.”

  There was one major problem in training camp, though, because both Marshall and Goyette chose to retire. They eventually returned once the season began, but their presence was certainly missed in the early games. Defenceman Moose Vasko also announced his second retirement in camp.

  The Sabres opened their first NHL season on the road and got a 2–1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on October 10, 1970, but their home debut was a rough one when they were shut out by the visiting Montreal Canadiens.

  Perhaps the best moment for Buffalo in their first season came during their first visit to Toronto. Fans at Maple Leaf Gardens gave Imlach a standing ovation and the Sabres came through with a big 7–3 win. With a minute left in the game, there were chants of “We Want Punch!” He appreciated the efforts of his team.

  “I have nothing to say. My players said it all for me and said it the way it counts. They knew how much this game meant to me… . This is wonderful … just wonderful… . No man ever managed and coached a team to four Stanley Cups, three in a row, and I can’t see anyone topping that. I don’t think I can spoil that. But I’ve done that. I’d like to go on winning Cups, but winning them with teams a lot of guys could win with wouldn’t be so much. But, starting from scratch, taking a new team to the top, well, there’s the challenge, there’s something that would be worth all the sweating and cursing and suffering that comes with this job. Someone has to be the first to win a Stanley Cup with an expansion team. I say it’ll be me.”

  Undaunted by a slow start with just four wins over 18 games, Imlach figured that he needed to make some trades to further motivate his men.

  “If we can get one or two people who can do the job, we’re in business. We haven’t been sharp because we’re going with a group of players that haven’t been together before. This is par for the course with an expansion club. We’re improving every time out and we’ll keep getting better as we start playing as a unit.”

  The Sabres tried to wrangle away the rights to retired defenceman Leo Boivin from the Minnesota North Stars, but Imlach had more success in getting some of his former Maple Leafs charges through deals. Eddie Shack and Dick Duff arrived from the Los Angeles Kings, and with the return to action by Goyette and Marshall, Buffalo had the veteran leadership it was seeking.

  “These guys will lend us the touch of class we need. You have to have a certain amount of experience, and these fellows have the know-how to get a club out of trouble.”

  At the time, Imlach was also pulling double-duty, as he wrote a weekly column for the Toronto Telegram. Stafford Smythe complained to NHL headquarters about a column that suggested, among other claims, that the Maple Lea
fs were planning to dump Bruce Gamble and acquire another goalie.

  “It is unfair when he can use a newspaper column to upset our team and hurt our morale when we are a club he is trying to beat out for a spot in the playoffs…. Punch always has to have a feud going. It’s part of his nature and I don’t object to it. I’m fair game. But I think he’s wrong in attacking our club in this particular way.”

  NHL president Clarence Campbell was ready to put some limitations on what Imlach could say in the column in the future.

  “I have had two objections to Mr. Imlach’s writing. In view of the contents of the articles brought to my attention, I feel the protests were completely justified. As the general manager and coach of a team in the NHL, it is my feeling that Mr. Imlach should not comment on other general managers and coaches. That is, he should not comment in column form. If he is asked a question, he should answer it, but to comment as he has done in column form is clearly improper.”

  Naturally, Imlach voiced his displeasure at the decision.

  “Anything I have ever put on my column is the truth. Furthermore, in no way have I ever hurt hockey, and if the time comes where I might, I would quit writing. I’m not trying to please everyone. I’m not trying to make everyone happy, and that includes the people who lodged the objections to my column.”

  As the season moved into its second half, the on-ice fortune of the team began to improve. Perreault began to ascend into superstardom when it looked as if he was going to set new scoring standards for a rookie performer.

  “This club is coming together as a unit and that takes time,” said captain Floyd Smith. “Remember, any expansion team is made up of players from a dozen different clubs. It takes time to build togetherness, and I can see where we will win a lot more games in the second half. And I’d like to think we’ll be a healthier club, too.”

  During the final stretch of the season, the Sabres continued to compete despite being far out of a playoff spot. They ended the year with a 6–2–2 record over the last 10 games to finish in fifth place.

  “I remember one guy who wrote we’d be lucky to finish the season,” said Imlach. “Another said we wouldn’t win 15 games. Well, with three to play, we’ve won 23, and we’re going to finish ahead of teams which have been in this league from four to 40 years… But I’ll tell you this, we’re in business now, and nobody, but nobody, handles us easily, anywhere. We’re as established as any team in this league.”

  It did not take long for the Sabres to assert themselves as a contender. Once they added more talent with Richard Martin and Rene Robert to form the French Connection line with Perreault, they made the playoffs for the first time in 1972–73. Two years later, Buffalo reached the Stanley Cup Final, but lost in six games to Philadelphia. They remained a postseason regular until the mid-1980s and were a force in the following decade thanks in part to the fantastic goaltending of Dominik Hasek. In 1998–99, they made it to the final once again but lost to the Dallas Stars through a controversial overtime goal by Brett Hull that should not have counted because his skate was in the crease.

  Over the past decade, the Sabres have at times dealt with uncertain ownership problems and have often struggled on the ice. Yet they have built a solid group of prospects and have loyal fans who were happy to see Terry Pegula purchase the club in 2011.

  Don Marshall

  Gilbert Perreault

  Perreault was an absolute phenomenon at the junior level with the Montreal Junior Canadiens and there was little doubt that he was going to be a high pick in the 1970 NHL Amateur Draft — especially after he scored 36 points over 12 games at the Memorial Cup that year. A spin of a wheel chose his fate before the draft; while the Vancouver Canucks thought they had won, Punch Imlach quickly pointed out that they were incorrect and walked away with the top selection.

  When Perreault made his debut in Buffalo’s opening game against Pittsburgh, he scored on Les Binkley at 11:36 of the first period and ensured victory for the Sabres.

  “I made a move on the defenceman and was in the middle of their zone,” he recalls today. “The goalie came out to get the puck and I took it and deked and made a quick move to the right side. You want to score your first goal as soon as possible and you want to prove that there was no mistake in drafting me.”

  After his strong start, Imlach began comparing the young star to some of the game’s greatest players.

  “I’ve been around the National Hockey League for a few years and I never saw anybody move as fast as Perreault did back of our net one shift. He can do it all… . It’ll take a couple of years because the young man has a lot to learn, but right now at a comparable stage of his development, Perreault belongs at the same level of Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull and Jean Beliveau.”

  For Perreault, the respect for the boss was mutual.

  “To me, the man had a big name in the NHL. I knew that he had won four Stanley Cups in Toronto. I had no problems with Punch. I believe we had good communication with each other. I was 20 years old and had a lot to learn… . When you look at Buffalo, it didn’t take us long. In 1973, we made the playoffs and faced Montreal, and in 1975, we made the finals. Punch Imlach did a great job with the draft picks and the trades.”

  Many of Perreault’s teammates were also impressed early on, including veteran Floyd Smith.

  “We had the opportunity to watch him in practice. Imlach used to say to us, ‘Get him the puck and get out of his way!’ He was a really unselfish player and you knew he could have scored more than 500 goals.”

  For his return to the Montreal Forum, Perreault scored twice against the Canadiens on November 7, 1970, and he repeated the feat on December 26.

  “I was really excited to play against the Canadiens. I knew a lot of the players and had been watching them for a couple years when I was in Montreal,” he said. “You put the same effort in every city, but I was playing in front of my parents and friends. I had two goals, but we got beat. For every team, it’s always special to play in Montreal.”

  When Perreault was selected to represent Buffalo at the 1971 NHL All-Star Game, he had a strong showing among the game’s best, and he went on to play in many more over the course of his career.

  “It was a big thrill for me. I was very excited and I was trying to do my best to prove that I wasn’t a mistake as the first pick.”

  On January 29, 1971, Perreault recorded the first hat trick of his career in a victory over the California Golden Seals. His second tally of the night was the winning goal, and the final one went into an empty net with less than 30 seconds left in the game. As the season wound down, it became obvious that he was about to set new NHL records for most goals and points in a rookie year. He had no problem accomplishing such feats, and at the end of the year, he earned the Calder Trophy and also picked up some votes for the Hart Trophy.

  Gilbert Perreault

  Phil Goyette

  Goyette, who had been a part of four straight Stanley Cup championships with Montreal between 1956–57 and 1959–60, joined St. Louis for the 1969–70 season. He set a new career high that year with 29 goals and 78 points, and his gentlemanly play allowed him to win the Lady Byng Trophy. Strangely, the Blues let him go through the expansion draft, and the Sabres added another veteran to their roster.

  “I finished fourth in the league in scoring and was 37 years old,” Goyette said. “I found it a little hard to take, because I had my best year and we went to the finals. Sometimes they don’t protect you because they want to protect the young guns. I was a little perturbed, but I went to training camp. They didn’t want to sign us to a contract, so Donnie Marshall and I quit. I sat out for a while, doubled my salary and came back.”

  He missed the first 16 games of the season, but it did not take him long to get back into form and he had three assists in a 4–4 tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins on November 25, 1970. He also had a huge night against Detroit on January 7, 1971, with a goal and four assists. A week later, he exacted some revenge on the Blues by scoring
a pair that included the game-winner.

  “We had a good veteran team, but a lot of the young guys had to learn,” Goyette said. “With the veterans, Punch was a little different with us. He knew our capabilities, and we knew what we had to do. He was fair with me. At my age, I wasn’t going to take guff from him or anyone else.”

  Gerry Meehan

  After splitting his first NHL season between Toronto and Philadelphia in 1968–69, Meehan spent the following year in the minors with the WHL’s Seattle Totems. He fell far enough off the radar with the Flyers organization that they barely noticed that the Sabres grabbed him in the expansion draft. That turned out to be a move that burned them later on.

  “I’m sure Imlach knew about him,” said Gilbert Perreault. “He was in the Toronto organization before Buffalo. He was a major part of the team. A great stickhandler and had a lot of talent.”

  Meehan had a great start with Buffalo that included a pair of assists in the season opener, and he also scored the first home-ice goal in franchise history in a rematch with the Pittsburgh Penguins on October 18, 1970. Four days later, he earned a pair of assists in a 4–2 loss to the Flyers, and on November 18, he was on fire in the big win over Toronto when he earned four points.

  “Meehan is vastly improved from the time he was in Toronto,” said Punch Imlach. “When I traded him, I felt his future in the National Hockey League was clouded. Now, he’s found a natural position at centre and is playing extremely well. He is a much more aggressive player than he was, and this is the major thing. He’s getting to the puck first and making big plays.”

  On February 20, 1971, he had a hat trick in a tight 6–5 loss to the Detroit Red Wings. At the end of the year, fans named Meehan the team’s unsung hero. He spent several years with the Sabres, and his vengeance against the Flyers came during the final game of the 1971–72 campaign, when he scored with just four seconds on the clock to eliminate them from playoff contention.