Changing the Game
Page 23
“I wasn’t happy with the way I played. I think I should have had a couple of them, but it’s a game of mistakes.”
His first victory with the Islanders came on November 1, 1972, when they defeated the California Golden Seals 6–2. A week later, he stopped a penalty shot by Pit Martin in a battle with his old team in Chicago, but the Black Hawks blew them away in a 6–1 game.
Desjardins saw most of the action in the crease for the Islanders, but he earned only five of the 12 victories they had in 1972–73. He missed some time late in the season as a result of strained knee ligaments and ended the season with 35 losses, the most in the league.
Billy Smith
After completing his junior career with the Cornwall Royals of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), Smith turned pro with the Springfield Kings in 1970–71 and helped the club to a Calder Cup championship. The following season he enjoyed a five-game stint with the Los Angeles Kings, but since the club wanted to protect Rogie Vachon and Gary Edwards in the 1972 NHL Expansion Draft, he was made available. He was the second goaltender taken by the Islanders.
When Denis DeJordy did not meet expectations in training camp, New York knew they had a very capable backup in Smith for their first season. His debut with the club was a memorable one. He stepped into the crease in the team’s second outing on October 12, 1972, as they faced the Kings. Determined to win, he outduelled Rogie Vachon and made 28 saves in a 3–2 victory.
From the start, it appeared that the young goalie was also a bit of a spitfire. He was not afraid to do whatever it took to make sure the crease was clear, and his 42 penalty minutes were a record for a player in his position during that era. Even outside of game situations, he took a serious approach to the game. Teammate Terry Crisp shared one memorable example.
“Billy Smith was amazing. He even scared me! I remember in our first couple of practices and Ed Westfall puts one up near his head and he said, ‘Keep it down, boys!’ After the third time, he chased Eddie around that ice and the stick was going around like a helicopter!”
Billy Smith
EXPANSION YEAR RECORD: 15–54–11
(41 points — fifth in Smythe Division)
COACH: Bep Guidolin
GENERAL MANAGER: Sid Abel
FIRST GAME: October 9, 1974 —
6-2 loss vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
FIRST GOAL: October 9, 1974 by Simon Nolet
KANSAS CITY
SCOUTS
Kansas City, Missouri, has long been a hotbed for minor league hockey action and the city has been the location of many different NHL farm clubs over the years. Whether it was the Greyhounds or Pla-Mors from the early days or the affiliate of the St. Louis Blues in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a small but rabid local fan base for the sport.
When the WHA began making waves, the NHL decided it needed to get into new markets before the rival league could make inroads with hockey fans. The league announced two new teams on June 8, 1972, one of them to be based out of Kansas City and run by a group headed by Edwin G. Thompson.
The original plan for the team’s name was to dust off the old Mohawks nickname used by minor league clubs in previous years, but the Chicago Black Hawks voiced their displeasure at league meetings and the idea was put aside. Gunzo’s, a Chicago jersey and equipment supplier that worked extensively with the Black Hawks for many years, actually created a proposed sweater and it essentially looked like the Scouts final multi-coloured jersey but with the Indian head logo, which would have been an obvious trademark infringement. That potential debacle avoided, the team called themselves the Scouts after a famous statue in a Kansas City park that was represented in their final logo.
The team was set to play the 1974–75 season out of the soon-to-be-constructed Kemper Arena.
Hall of Famer Sid Abel became their general manager and he hired Bep Guidolin to act as coach. Guidolin had taken the Boston Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final in 1973–74 and was in for a shock when he went from guiding Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito to coaching a ragtag group of castoffs from every NHL team. Kansas City added their first players through the 1974 NHL Amateur Draft and got an amazing prospect in Wilf Paiement with the second overall pick.
Later on, they made their selections in the 1974 NHL Expansion Draft and started with goalies Michel Plasse and Peter McDuffe before getting their first captain in Simon Nolet, who had just won a Stanley Cup with Philadelphia. Unlike the expansion teams from two years earlier, the Scouts got many players who ended up skating for them instead of going to the WHA. Compared to other teams in the league, it was not the most skilled set of players, but Guidolin seemed pleased with what he saw in training camp.
“These guys have been around, they know what they have to do,” he said. “It’s just a matter of them getting used to my methods. It is pleasing to see them play it so fast. We can’t get too excited, but when I see some players it makes me feel good. I know now we can skate with anybody. Once we get our lines set, we can play with anybody in the league. We’re going to be inexperienced around the net, but things will come together. But we have to skate, there’s no excuse for us not to skate… . They’re going to surprise somebody, but they’re going to have to believe in themselves like I believe in them. All they’ve got to do is work their butts off, and they’ll do it.”
Unfortunately for the Scouts, a bricklayer’s strike delayed construction of their home rink and they had to play their first eight games on the road. They debuted at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens and lost to the home team. The road trip was a true disaster, as they scraped together only one tie against seven losses, and their home debut on November 2, 1974, against Chicago was another heartbreaking defeat.
The Scouts finally got a win the next day against their expansion cousins, the Washington Capitals, and over the next two weeks got back-to-back victories against St. Louis and the New York Islanders. Many losses followed but they had a good 5–6–2 run in January 1975. One of those wins was the biggest of their expansion season, when they beat the Boston Bruins 3–2 and got a phenomenal performance in net from recent acquisition Denis Herron.
“We deserved to win,” said Guidolin. “We worked our heads off out there. We have to learn how to play under that kind of pressure and we did. A victory. A moral victory.”
Attendance was a big problem in Kansas City throughout their existence. NHLPA head Alan Eagleson was quoted saying there were only two teams where he had concerns about his clients getting paid, the Scouts and the Pittsburgh Penguins. This was not surprising to the players themselves, since the club was very cost-conscious and even violated league bylaws about travelling to certain cities on game days.
In the final quarter of the season, the Scouts had a brutal 17-game winless streak. Even though their record was bad, at least they were not as bad as the Capitals. Their last win of the year came against Los Angeles on April 1 and it ensured that the Kings would not be able to clinch a Norris Division title. Guidolin was pleased by how the team performed and offered an appraisal at the end of the year.
“There have been some nights when it’s been discouraging. But you look at it all in all, you’ve got to be pretty proud of them, really. Most of the time, 95 percent of it, they’ve given me all they had. Look, there’s a lot of clubs that have flat nights. They don’t work real hard, but they have the power and depth to overcome it and win and tie on bad nights. Really, I can’t complain.”
The second season for the Scouts was not much better than their first, and they again finished near the bottom of the league with just 36 points. Once more, only the Capitals were worse than them, but by a mere four points. During the first half of the year, they went 11–25–4, but from that point on, won only a single game (against Washington, naturally). It looked as if NHL hockey was doomed in Kansas City.
Since the team had been playing to a barely half-full arena, and they owed a lot of money to the league and to the St. Louis Blues for territorial rights, the ownership group needed to
scrape up the money to finish the season. They held a ticket drive and even attempted to bring in bigger crowds by offering free post-game concerts from popular artists like Freddie Fender and Tanya Tucker, but the plan did not stop the financial bleeding at all. By late March 1976, it was rumoured that the NBA’s Kansas City Kings might purchase the team, but there was much more interest from out of town.
At the end of the 1975–76 season, the Scouts and Capitals saw a little more action despite missing the playoffs. They enjoyed a four-game exhibition series in Japan, where Washington won three of them, and that was it for Kansas City.
Although the NHL had planned to expand to 20 teams for the 1976–77 season with new clubs in Seattle and Denver, that idea was placed on hold because of the financial problems that several clubs were experiencing. The former Scouts became the Colorado Rockies and spent six years in Denver, making the playoffs only once. Team management made mistakes when it came to trading away young prospects for washed-up veterans, but at least they managed to grab some headlines once in a while. Owner Arthur Imperatore Sr. had originally planned to move the team to New Jersey in 1978, but the league turned him down because there wasn’t a large enough facility there at the time. In 1979–80, they hired Don Cherry to coach the club, but he butted heads with general manager Ray Miron and was finished after a year. The Rockies could not get much momentum after that.
John McMullen purchased the Rockies in 1982 and finally moved them to the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The New Jersey Devils began play in 1982–83 and, after the club shook its reputation as doormats in the Patrick Division, went on to win three Stanley Cup championships. Today, after moving to Newark and drawing smaller crowds, the team is often the subject of speculation regarding its future.
In recent years, rumours have circulated that Kansas City could still be a viable relocation site for a troubled NHL franchise. The city has a perfect location for a team in the Sprint Center and could very well have more box office success than the Scouts ever did during their dismal two-year run.
Robin Burns
Simon Nolet
A member of the Philadelphia Flyers’ first Stanley Cup–winning squad in 1973–74, Nolet became the first skater selected by the Scouts in the expansion draft. In the past, he had hit the 20-goal mark on two occasions and also skated in the 1972 NHL All-Star Game. The WHA’s Quebec Nordiques were also interested in bringing him in, but he chose to remain in the NHL.
Named club captain by Bep Guidolin, Nolet made an immediate impact both on the ice and in the dressing room.
“Simon was great in camp, working with the younger players, and it is obvious that he gave the whole team a lift,” remarked the coach to the press.
He recorded the first goal in franchise history in the season opener against Toronto when he shot the puck past Doug Favell less than a minute into the second period. Four days later, he returned to Philadelphia and enjoyed the rare experience of being greeted by cheers from the fans as a visiting player. Buoyed by that support, he registered the team’s first shorthanded goal in a close 3–2 loss.
As the season progressed, it became obvious that Nolet was also Kansas City’s offensive leader. He had a big four-point night when they tied the Pittsburgh Penguins on December 19, 1974. After getting the game-winner against Detroit on January 4, 1975, he came up with three assists while playing the Minnesota North Stars two days later.
The points were piling up at the best pace of his career, so naturally he represented the Scouts at the 1975 NHL All-Star Game and suited up for the Campbell Conference. At the end of the season, he led the club in points, tying with Wilf Paiement for the most goals and Dave Hudson for most assists. He missed only a few games due to a bad bruise on his calf and was the team’s nominee for the Masterton Trophy.
“Simon Nolet was the best player on our team,” said Lynn Powis. “We wouldn’t have won a game without him. Whatever we got was due to him.”
Simon Nolet
Guy Charron
The Scouts may have started the season as a mostly ragtag bunch of players, but they added some interesting talent to their roster over the 1974–75 campaign that gave them a glimmer of hope for the future. Charron was certainly among the brightest of the acquisitions. After a slow start to the year, he was packaged off to Kansas City by the Detroit Red Wings.
He rebounded quickly and was given a greater offensive role in his new surroundings, putting up three points against the Pittsburgh Penguins on December 19, 1974, and chipping in a pair of two-point efforts against St. Louis and Montreal before the new year. On January 16, 1975, he got his chance to prove the Red Wings gave up on him too quickly and scored two first-period goals in a 7–4 loss. At the end of Kansas City’s inaugural campaign, he placed second among the team’s scorers despite appearing in just 51 games.
Wilf Paiement
The youngest of 16 children, Paiement starred for the St. Catharines Black Hawks of the OHA in 1973–74, where he broke out with 123 points. As a result, there was a lot of buzz about him heading into the 1974 NHL Amateur Draft, so the Scouts took him with the second overall pick.
At the time, Paiement was the highest-paid rookie in league history thanks to agent Alan Eagleson. He quickly became one of the franchise’s top talents. His first big-league point came on a goal by Randy Rota when Kansas City faced the New York Islanders on October 12, 1974, and he had his first goal six days later when he beat Phil Myre of the Atlanta Flames. Over his first 10 games, he managed an impressive six goals, but the team was not as fortunate and had a 1–8–1 record.
Although he was playing on a weak club, Paiement gave fans many glimpses of his potential with a pair of game-winning goals against California and Washington in February and in consecutive two-goal outings against Los Angeles and Pittsburgh in early March.
By the end of the season, he had tied with Simon Nolet for the team lead in goals. Paiement remained with the Scouts when they moved to Colorado. He scored 356 goals during his career and was also respected for his toughness, as attested to by his 1,757 penalty minutes.
Wilf Paiement
Ed Gilbert
Gilbert played his junior hockey for his hometown Hamilton Red Wings in the early 1970s, and the Montreal Canadiens took him in the third round of the 1972 NHL Amateur Draft. He had a decent rookie pro season with the AHL’s Nova Scotia Voyageurs but had an even better sophomore year in 1973–74 when he scored 74 points.
“I had a pretty good minor league stint in Montreal, and Al McNeil told me to get in touch with an agent. My agent at the time told me to have a good second year and I had a good chance to get in with Washington or Kansas City.”
The Scouts made him their second-last pick in the expansion draft, but there was also some interest from the WHA’s Chicago Cougars. He was in the lineup to make his NHL debut in the season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Our first game was in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens. I grew up in Hamilton and my mom and dad were there,” he recalled. “It was late in the game and they pulled the goalie and put me on the point and the puck comes back to me and I should have shot the damned thing right away. I tried to make a move and Ron Ellis ended up taking the puck and he broke out down the ice on a breakaway. All of my buddies kidded me at the end of the year about it!”
Regardless of the rough beginning, Gilbert settled in with Kansas City quickly during their first road stretch and scored his first goal and an assist while battling the California Golden Seals on October 23, 1974. In November, he began to hit his stride, putting in a two-assist effort during the team’s first victory against the Washington Capitals and scoring twice on the power play in a 7–6 loss to the Canadiens.
After the unexpected departure of Butch Deadmarsh, Kansas City named Gilbert an assistant captain. One of his most memorable games in the 1974–75 season came when the Scouts defeated the Boston Bruins on January 23, 1975. He scored once that night and also set up Gary Croteau’s winning tally.
Bart Crashley
Crashley was a rushing defender who had some success with the Los Angeles Sharks of the WHA, but he decided to return to NHL action for the 1974–75 season.
“I had resigned with the New York Islanders, who had drafted me two years previously. Los Angeles was moving to Michigan to become the Stags. I signed a nice deal with Bill Torrey and was in training camp when I was traded for Bob Bourne.”
While Bourne went on to become a four-time Stanley Cup champion, Crashley instead reunited with Sid Abel, who had coached him in Detroit nearly a decade earlier. His presence on the blue line provided big help to the team early on, but he felt there were a lot of struggles ahead.
“It was difficult for everyone,” he said. “It was going to be tough. I don’t think there was any sense of stability and it was a situation where we were in flux. It was a long way from what we thought an NHL team should be.”
On October 25, 1974, Crashley had a pair of assists when the Scouts took on the Vancouver Canucks and later scored a goal and another helper when they met again on November 7. He continued to be a thorn in the west coast club’s side when he was the author of a game-winning goal 19 days later as well.
One of his most memorable experiences with the first-year club came early in Boston on October 27. The team was down 4–0 early in the second period when a clever catcall came out of the crowd.
“That was Bep’s return to Boston. A fan called out and said ‘Hey, Bep! What’s that Indian looking for? The first win?’”