Changing the Game

by Stephen Laroche

  Dave Kryskow

  After getting a small taste of NHL action in 1972–73 with Chicago during their run to the Stanley Cup Final, Kryskow was a full-fledged rookie with the Black Hawks the following year and was extremely happy to be playing for a contender — even if it was in a somewhat limited role. That happiness was taken away at the 1974 NHL Expansion Draft when he was sent to hockey purgatory in Washington.

  “I was disappointed at first,” he recalled. “Chicago was a great organization and I was surprised that I was picked. I came from organizations that were well structured and I was disappointed with there being no structure or plan [in Washington]… . I never had a meeting with management. The whole concept of the team was building around their draft choices and that was wrong. That’s all in hindsight, though.

  “It was tough, especially if you came from a winning team. Here, after 20 games you were wondering how much time was left in the season. The money was immaterial. I just wanted to play, but I also wanted to win… . We were just happy to keep it down to a touchdown. We still scored a few goals but they were scoring seven or eight against us.”

  Placed on the team’s top line with Tommy Williams and Denis Dupere, Kryskow had a handful of multi-point games early in the season and he also scored the first shorthanded goal in franchise history against the Los Angeles Kings on December 19, 1974. While out on the west coast, he had a conversation with coach Jim Anderson and expressed his concerns.

  “We were in California and he asked my opinion and I said he should send these young bastards down to the minors and get some guys who knew how to play the game.”

  The frustration continually built through the season and it was only going to get worse, as he was traded to Detroit for Jack Lynch.

  “I just couldn’t take this shit anymore,” he said. “To go to a situation in Detroit that was even worse. I wish I could have approached it differently and they should have too… . The first practice in Detroit, Alex Delvecchio came up to me and said they weren’t going to play me much because they wanted to give the younger guys more time. I was only 23!”

  Kryskow later went on to win an AVCO Cup with the WHA’s Winnipeg Jets before he retired. He summed up his time with Washington.

  “It was one of those times in your life that you wish you could have changed and have input in how things were done. Milt [Schmidt] was old school and it was his way or the highway.”

  Doug Mohns

  Mohns was a veteran set to retire at the end of the 1973–74 season because of his back woes when he received a phone call that convinced him to spend one more year in the NHL.

  “I got a call from Milt in the spring and he wanted to know if I would be interested in playing for the Washington Capitals. His offer had me thinking, and I said I will give it some thought and call him back. My wife finally agreed and the rest is history… . I started in the fall of 1953 when Milt was playing in his last year in Boston, and ironically we ended up on the same team 22 years later in Washington when it was my turn to retire as a player.”

  The Capitals purchased his contract from the Atlanta Flames and he was installed as a leader in the dressing room for a club that was not exactly brimming with NHL experience. When the team was mired in a 17-game losing streak and sliding toward a league low, Mohns called a meeting among the players early in the new year and they ended up naming him their first captain.

  “Tommy Williams suggested it, and I think most of the players, if not all the players, gave me the nod. We had played a number of games at that point and I was in favour of having someone to represent the team and hold meetings among the players. I thought it would enable the players to speak their mind and share their thoughts behind closed doors. There would be no criticism allowed, only helpful suggestions that could be passed on to the coach.”

  The team reacted positively to their new leader and snapped the skid by defeating the Detroit Red Wings 6–3 on January 26, 1975. Throughout the year, Mohns remained in regular contact with Schmidt and, even though the club’s fortunes were not good, it had no impact on the friendship they had built.

  “Nothing changed. We respected one another on and off the ice,” he said. “And, although we didn’t express our frustrations and misery to one another, it was there. I tried to stay away from any negativism in the hope that other players would follow my example. I think it helped to some degree.”

  Under his leadership, the Caps won five games and benefited from the addition of some new players to the roster. At the end of the year, he retired after 22 seasons. Mohns remains one of the most underrated players from his era.

  “He was by far the most respected individual on the team,” said Bill Mikkelson. “Here was a guy who had so much experience and there was nobody who could come close.”

  Doug Mohns

  Bill Lesuk

  Before he was sold to the Capitals, Lesuk had been with the Los Angeles Kings since the 1971–72 season and he had an inkling he might be on the way out after refusing a three-year contract offer from general manager Larry Regan. After missing a good chunk of the 1973–74 campaign, he was ready to get some regular ice time — even with an expansion club that had limited chance for success.

  “As I look back on it, you can’t really fault anyone for wanting to play, which I wasn’t doing on a regular basis,” he said. “I remember management in Washington letting the players know from the start that there was going to be a lot of turnover and many of us weren’t going to be there next year. Knowing what I know now, that’s a normal occurrence, but sometimes as a player, you don’t want to hear that.”

  Used primarily as a checker against the best players in the league, Lesuk was out there every night plugging away. His first goal of the season came while the Caps were shorthanded during a battle with the California Golden Seals on December 20, 1974. Although some of his former teammates can be rather bitter about the 1974–75 season, Lesuk took it as a learning experience.

  “In Washington, the management did the absolute best they could have done. I have a lot of respect for Milt Schmidt and his assistant, Lefty McFadden. In that turmoil, you learned a lot about your teammates. We had a meeting to find out what the problem was with the team. One player said there was a lack of talent, but that shouldn’t affect how you play the game.

  “Some of the players would take the games a lot more seriously than others. Some people would say things to lighten things up. It’s pretty hard to remain positive through all that. I go to see my grandchildren play today and I can tell them that I’ve been there.”

  Stan Gilbertson

  Gilbertson was in his fourth NHL season in 1974–75 when he went from the California Golden Seals to the St. Louis Blues in an early-season deal. His stint with the Blues lasted a mere 25 games before he was shipped off to Washington with Garnet Bailey in a shocking trade for All-Star Denis Dupere.

  Even though he had scored only two goals over his first 37 games, he picked up his production in his new surroundings. Less than a week after his arrival, he scored the game-winning goal and added an assist in a battle with Washington’s expansion cousins, the Kansas City Scouts. He was also dangerous during a loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 1, 1975, where he scored two goals in the 5–4 loss. His best performance of the year, however, came when he scored four goals and earned an assist in the season-ending 8–4 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

  Traded to the Penguins the following year, Gilbertson was forced to retire after the 1976–77 campaign when he lost part of his leg in an auto accident.

  Steve Atkinson

  His declining production with the Buffalo Sabres after their inaugural season made Atkinson fodder for the 1974 NHL Expansion Draft, but he almost didn’t make it out of training camp after he hurt himself while choking on a piece of meat.

  “I was too damned excited to get going,” he said to the press.

  Regardless, coach Jim Anderson had praise for his defensive abilities.

  “He’s an as
set. He can play the point. At least he doesn’t give up the puck,” he said.

  Atkinson recovered in time to start the regular season but was demoted at the end of October. Recalled from Richmond a few weeks later, he had his first goal in a Capitals uniform against Minnesota’s Pete LoPresti on November 24, 1974. Over the course of the year, he was sent up and down but managed to register a pair of two-goal games against the New York Rangers.

  On February 1, 1975, he scored the team’s first penalty shot goal on Vancouver’s Ken Lockett and the veteran winger casually joked about the big moment.

  “They’ll have to speed that up to play in slow motion!”

  Bill Mikkelson

  Mikkelson spent the 1972–73 season with the first-year New York Islanders, but he was not on their roster the next year and skated for the AHL’s Baltimore Clippers. Following a 22-point effort, he was taken by the Capitals in the expansion draft and was able to tell his new teammates about the crazy experience of playing on Long Island.

  What he got was an even more horrifying year from a hockey perspective, as the Caps put together the worst record in league history. He saw a ton of action on the blue line and his first goal came on the power play when they took on the powerful Philadelphia Flyers on November 9, 1974. A little more than two weeks later, he had a two-point effort against the California Golden Seals. It was a difficult time for him as he had recently lost his brother, Warren, in an auto accident.

  “That year was far less pleasant for me than the first expansion season. The death of my brother was the foremost thing on my mind. I had to be at the top of my game just to be there. There’s a fine line between being a bottom-six player in the NHL and a top-four player in the AHL.”

  The 1974–75 season also saw the assistant captain establish a place in hockey history. For every NHL record, there is usually an opposite one. In the case of Bobby Orr’s plus-minus rating of +124 in 1970–71, there is Mikkelson’s standard of -82 that was established four years later with the woeful first-year Capitals. While some observers of the game do not put a lot of stock in the statistic, he offered some explanation of how the standard was achieved.

  “We only really played four defencemen at the time, and that allowed us to play against the other team’s top lines. When I look back on it, I was too respectful of players like Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito when I shouldn’t have been. You’ve got to go out there and treat them like anybody else. When we went into Montreal or Boston, there was no hope. It wasn’t who was going to win, but by how much. If you could get out of it at -1, that was a good night.

  “Its only value may be among players on the same team for comparison, and even then, it’s flawed. If I had been Bobby Orr’s partner that year, I would probably have been +50. It’s very much a team statistic.”

  Late in the season, Mikkelson was assigned to the Richmond Robins and he played in only one more NHL game. Although plus-minus records were not a big topic of discussion by fans in the 1970s, his record took on a life of its own in subsequent years.

  “It started showing up as an odd blurb in the newspaper, and I would see it more and more each year. When I worked at IBM, some of my co-workers had fun with it. I told my kids that if any of the other kids gave them trouble about the record, to ask what their dad’s plus-minus was. That shut them up pretty quickly! Would I trade my record for anything in the world? I would not.”

  His daughter, Meaghan, has had great success playing for Canada during international competitions and won a gold medal at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. His son Brendan has also followed him into the NHL and has played for Anaheim, Calgary and Tampa Bay.

  Bill Mikkelson

  Jim Hrycuik

  A second-year pro with the AHL’s Hershey Bears in 1973–74, Hrycuik made a solid impression with 75 points during the regular season and was part of a Calder Cup–winning squad as well. The Capitals took notice of the undrafted youngster’s efforts and grabbed him during the intra-league draft.

  “I was obviously excited,” said Hrycuik. “I had gone to Boston’s camp as a free agent a couple of years earlier. They had too many guys under contract and I had other plans.”

  He knew that he was going to play on a weak team. He was responsible for their earliest highlight, scoring the first goal for Washington in their season opener against Ed Giacomin of the New York Rangers at 5:06 of the first period. He also had an assist that night.

  “You never forget your first goal. I had the puck in the corner and I snuck it backhanded into the net.”

  Despite his decent two-point performance during a loss to the Kansas City Scouts on November 3, 1974, Hrycuik was sent down to the AHL again to play for the Richmond Robins. After he earned seven points over seven games, he was quickly brought back up and had the game-tying goal when the Caps faced the Rangers again on December 12. When the team hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs three days later, he had a goal and an assist.

  Misfortune struck just three days before Christmas in a game with the Buffalo Sabres when he blew out his knee when he ran into the goalpost. That injury essentially ended his career, and Hrycuik remains critical of the management team that served during his time with Washington.

  “My opinion is if we would have had a good coach, we would have won more games. We had no system. We weren’t a serious hockey team and that upset me a bit. My goal was to play in the NHL and we were a bit of a party team.”

  Greg Joly

  Regarded as one of the biggest-ever busts in the history of the NHL draft, the Capitals placed a lot of faith in Joly after he had a phenomenal Memorial Cup tournament in 1974 while playing for the WHL’s Regina Pats. In fact, he was not even rated as the top prospect coming out of the junior ranks that year, but Washington wanted to build their franchise around a defenceman — much like the Boston Bruins had less than a decade earlier with Bobby Orr.

  The reality was that no matter how much general manager Milt Schmidt wanted Joly to be the next Orr, he might have had more success with other available talent such as Wilf Paiement, Clark Gillies or Pierre Larouche — all first-round picks taken in the top 10 that year who had long and productive careers.

  Joly was in Washington’s lineup during their opening game against the New York Rangers and recorded his first assist on a goal by Ron Anderson. He was used on the power play extensively during the early part of the season. His first career goal came against Peter McDuffe of the Kansas City Scouts on November 3, 1974, but he injured his right knee about a month later in a tilt with the Buffalo Sabres.

  Team captain Doug Mohns offered an honest appraisal of the young star.

  “Greg had a lot of potential and it was easy to see that he had a lot of natural talent. He was the one player I felt sorry for,” he said. “Had he been on a winning team, starting out, I have no doubt that he would have had a lengthy career in the National Hockey League barring injuries. He was only 20 years old and had very little support.”

  Greg Joly

  Jack Egers

  After he recorded two 20-goal efforts for the St. Louis Blues, Egers was reacquired by the New York Rangers early in the 1973–74 season, but he missed time because of injury. The Rangers had originally drafted him in 1966, but he figured that his second term with the team was not going to last long with another expansion draft coming up.

  His expectations proved true when the Capitals took him with their final pick. On October 17, 1974, Egers scored the goal that secured the first victory in franchise history against Mike Veisor of the Chicago Black Hawks. While that first win was an early high point for the club, many rough games followed — including an 11–1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on November 10.

  “It’s hard to go into Boston or Philadelphia and know that you’re not going to win,” he reflected. “I have a lot of empathy for expansion teams, but I think it’s fairer since then. We knew early on that we couldn’t compete.”

  He scored their only goal in the Montreal massacre. Soon after, he began to feel a gradual
shooting pain down his leg but kept on playing. A ruptured disc was the root cause, and he was expected to be out of action for three months.

  After he was out for eight weeks, he came back and ruptured it again in practice and his year was over. There was at least one fringe benefit, however, as Doug Mohns let him take his place to go to Bermuda as the team’s NHLPA representative. He tried to come back again the following year but did not want to head to the minors. Egers feels bitter about his time with Washington.

  “You were treated like a piece of meat,” he said. “I wonder if I had been given that year off if I would have had three or four more years.”

  Michel Belhumeur

  Belhumeur got his first shot at NHL action with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1972–73, but the return of Bernie Parent to the organization sent him back to the minors. He had just finished a rough season with the AHL’s Richmond Robins when the Capitals claimed him during the 1974 NHL Expansion Draft.

  With a fresh opportunity to establish himself as an NHL-calibre goalie, he faced a tremendous challenge stepping into the crease for Washington. In fact, he did not win a single game for the club and ended up setting a record for most appearances in a season without a victory. The lone highlight of the team’s first season was that he became the first Capitals goaltender to earn an assist after passing the puck to Mike Marson before Marson scored against the California Golden Seals on February 5, 1975.

  Ron Low

  The year after his 1972–73 rookie season with the Maple Leafs, Low was one of the best goaltenders in the minors, winning 23 games for the CHL’s Tulsa Oilers and earning eight shutouts along the way. He was on the cusp of becoming a regular NHLer, but a glut of goaltenders in Toronto meant that he went unprotected in the expansion draft. The Capitals took him with their first pick.

  Low was in the crease for the club’s first outing against the New York Rangers and he earned their first victory on October 17, 1974, when they defeated the Chicago Black Hawks. The wins were infrequent after that, but he managed to maintain his status as the number one netminder. There were certainly many bleak nights over the course of the season, but he was credited with all eight of Washington’s wins in 1974–75, including the first shutout in franchise history on February 16, 1975, when he blanked the Kansas City Scouts.