Changing the Game

by Stephen Laroche

  Lesuk was a member of the team when they returned to the NHL but was used only on a limited basis. His lone assist came on a goal by Lyle Moffat when the Jets faced Edmonton on December 7, 1979. There were many nights where he was left off the lineup, but he never complained.

  “Of all the guys in hockey, I respect him the most,” said Jude Drouin. “He inspires the team. How many times have I seen him go through the pre-game warmup and come off the ice only to find that he isn’t playing? Some guys would turn sour over that. But not Billy. As he would be taking his equipment off, he would be telling the guys to work hard, reminding them that they could win.”

  Because Lesuk appeared in only 49 games, he was excluded from being the team’s nominee for the Masterton Trophy by just a single contest. Regardless, he was still positive about the team and the game itself.

  “This team has a lot of character. We get paid to play 80 games a season and just because we’re out of the playoffs doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put out,” he remarked at the time. “Pride makes you play well. If we give anything less than our best, then we’re not being fair to our fans.”

  Lesuk retired soon after and went on to have great success as a scout.

  Lindsay Middlebrook

  A rising prospect, Middlebrook was property of the New York Rangers and spent the 1978–79 season with their AHL farm club in New Haven, where he won 29 games. The Jets took the former St. Louis University standout with their second pick in the expansion draft, and he battled seven other goaltenders at training camp for a spot with the team.

  For most of the 1979–80 campaign, Middlebrook bounced between Winnipeg and Tulsa, but after sitting on the bench during one of his call-ups, he petitioned coach Tom McVie for an opportunity to finally get into his first NHL game. McVie responded to the inquiry when they were getting ready to take on the Quebec Nordiques.

  “Have your parents ever been to Quebec City? No? Well, you better tell them to be there tomorrow night,” he said.

  Middlebrook was more than pleased to step into the crease even if he ended up being on the wrong end of a 5–0 shutout.

  “It’s something you grew up with in Canada, and it almost becomes unreal in some ways,” he recalled. “The Nordiques were hard to play against at home. I was disappointed to let in five, but at the time, it didn’t seem like a bad game.”

  Four days later, he got a second chance to see some action and was strong in a 4–3 win over the Edmonton Oilers. He admits to thoroughly enjoying his first season with the Jets and has many great memories.

  “For me, every building I went into was the first time,” he said. “I remember some of the goofy stuff like being able to go into a hotel room instead of waiting in line for a key.”

  Although he was sent back down to the minors toward the end of the year, Middlebrook had a strong finish with the Tulsa Oilers.

  Gary Smith

  A veteran netminder who earned the nickname “Suitcase” for the number of times he switched teams during his career, Smith had split the 1978–79 campaign between Indianapolis and Winnipeg in the WHA and led the Jets to the final AVCO Cup championship that spring. The Jets retained his rights before the 1979 NHL Expansion Draft, and he was in net to make 18 saves during their first win against the Colorado Rockies on October 14.

  The wins were few and far between after that, and the team had to make the difficult decision to send him down to Tulsa when the younger netminders under contract were all proving a bit more reliable in the crease. Smith discussed the demotion with the press at the time and expressed no anger.

  “I’m not disappointed or bitter at all,” he said. “The team isn’t going anywhere right now and even if I was playing great, I wouldn’t really be helping. Besides, now they’ve got the two goalies who should have been here all along.”

  Always one to march to a slightly different beat on the ice, he surprised fans and teammates by playing his last minor league game as a defenceman rather than staying in the familiar confines of the cage. While he sat on the bench most of the night, the crowd knew that he was dressed as a skater and the cheers grew louder throughout the game for him to take a shift. With 57 seconds left, he took to the ice but never fulfilled his dream of scoring a goal during a professional hockey game.

  “Gary was a great guy,” recalled fellow goalie Lindsay Middlebrook. “But off the ice he would strip down between periods and take a shower. He also wore about seven or eight pairs of socks at a time. We had some great times together in Tulsa.”

  Markus Mattsson

  Mattsson saw most of the regular-season action with the Jets during their final WHA campaign in 1978–79, but after the arrival of Gary Smith as the hot hand he spent his time on the bench during the team’s run to the AVCO Cup. After selecting him in the 1977 NHL Amateur Draft, the New York Islanders held his NHL rights, but Winnipeg decided to make him a priority selection and retained his services for the 1979–80 season.

  Following training camp, management made the tough decision to send Mattsson down to Tulsa to regain his confidence. He didn’t let the demotion get him down.

  “It was a bit disappointing to be sent to Tulsa at the start, but I’m happy with the way it ended,” he said.

  Team general manager John Ferguson also offered his thoughts at the time.

  “We knew he would be exposed to a tremendous amount of work in Winnipeg. We thought he would lose his confidence if he stayed.”

  With the CHL’s Oilers, Mattson ended up going 10–7–2 over 20 appearances, and his return allowed him to earn the first shutout in club history in a 0–0 tie with the Islanders on February 12, 1979. Another blanking followed on March 26 when Winnipeg let the shots fly during a 7–0 trouncing of the Hartford Whalers.

  A NEW ERA OF EXPANSION AND RELOCATION

  Once the Colorado Rockies became the New Jersey Devils in 1982–83, the NHL experienced the calmest era of its post-expansion years, and there was no team movement of any kind for nearly a decade. It was a time that saw the end of the four-year stranglehold on the Stanley Cup by the New York Islanders and the rise of the Edmonton Oilers, who won five championships over a seven-season span.

  Not long after the end of the 1987–88 season, the most significant trade in hockey history took place when Wayne Gretzky was sent to the Los Angeles Kings on August 9, 1988. The deal was regarded as the best thing for the NHL’s hopes of expanding, as the Great One was exposed to a whole new audience in California and the game began to garner interest in non-traditional markets.

  At the time, the NHL was drafting up some long-term plans to expand its membership from 21 teams to 30 by the end of the 1990s. While specific locations were not named, there were certainly hopes that some of these new clubs would come from warmer locales.

  The first of these teams came out of a convoluted situation with the ownership of the Minnesota North Stars. The Gund brothers wanted to relocate the team to northern California, but there was a lot of pressure to keep the team in a traditional hockey market. As a result, an expansion team was set to start play in San Jose during the 1991–92 season and it drafted several players from the North Stars. Both teams then got some leftover players from the other 20 teams in the only NHL Expansion Draft to bolster an existing club. The team, which became known as the Sharks, was a huge hit in the Bay Area, in stark contrast to the failure of the California Golden Seals 15 years earlier.

  Around this time, the league decided to bring in two more clubs that hit the ice in 1992–93. Although many of the applicants seemed as if they were more financially stable, ownership groups in Ottawa and Tampa Bay were the only ones who did not balk at the $50-million entry fee required for a new franchise. Both clubs suffered a variety of problems from the start and were given their pick of the worst players available. On the ice, the Senators and Lightning were total disasters during their early years, and even a supplemental draft after their inaugural years provided little help.

  Undaunted, the NHL was determined to get some se
rious corporate power behind its next round of expansion teams, but no one expected to see new clubs just one year later. Once Disney was on board with their Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Florida businessman Wayne Huizenga was heavily courted and the Florida Panthers became a reality. The 1993–94 season also saw the Minnesota North Stars head south to become the Dallas Stars, much to the chagrin of fervent fans.

  The shifting of franchises suddenly became a rather disturbing trend over the rest of the decade, as small-market owners were tempted by greater earning potential and in some cases, a stronger American dollar. The Quebec Nordiques were the next casualty. It was a bitter experience for their fans when a team that was finally on the rise found Stanley Cup glory as the Colorado Avalanche in 1995–96. One year later, the Winnipeg Jets were on the move to the desert climes of Phoenix and became the Coyotes. The fourth, and final, franchise shift of the decade belonged to the Hartford Whalers, who found new fans as the Carolina Hurricanes.

  Even with such instability, the league made the rash decision to add four more teams over a three-year period from 1998–99 to 2000–01. The first of these new clubs was the Nashville Predators, and they were followed by the Atlanta Thrashers a year later in 1999–00. As strange as it was to see the NHL back in a city that two decades earlier could not support a team, it was believed at the time that strong ownership translated into long-term success.

  The final two additions to the league hit the ice in 2000–01. The Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild were big hits from the start, at least from a box office perspective. While hockey-mad Minnesotans were ready to support their team for the long haul, the same could not be said for the Blue Jackets, and their attendance has been in a steady decline, as the team is rarely seen as a contender.

  With the league at 30 member clubs, a decade of franchise stability followed. Occasionally, there were rumours of teams being candidates for relocation and new ownership, but the league did its best to help its membership remain intact. When the 2004–05 season was cancelled, absence made the hearts of fans grow fonder, and the teams and players all benefited financially when action started up again the next year.

  During the 2010–11 season, some serious stories were spreading about the financial troubles of the Coyotes and Thrashers while at the same time fans in Winnipeg were making noise about wanting a team back in their city. Although some fans preferred a return by the team that left, they really were not picky, and the former Atlanta team headed north. Called the Winnipeg Jets once again, they look to have a bright future and play in front of sold-out crowds.

  The future for NHL expansion does not look tremendously bright at this time, and the league has no official plans to grow beyond 30 clubs. Relocation is a more realistic idea for several troubled teams. The New York Islanders will relocate to Brooklyn for the start of the 2015–16 season. There are plenty of markets interested in having an NHL team call their city home, including Kansas City, Quebec City, Seattle and Hamilton. In time, the league will certainly change one way or another, but the game itself will continue to be strong.

  EXPANSION YEAR RECORD: 17–58–5

  (39 points — sixth in Smythe Division)

  COACH: George Kingston

  GENERAL MANAGER: Jack Ferreira

  FIRST GAME: October 4, 1991 —

  4–3 loss vs. Vancouver Canucks

  FIRST GOAL: October 4, 1991 by Craig Coxe

  SAN JOSE

  SHARKS

  While it is safe to say that the NHL’s first experiment in the Bay Area proved quite a flop, the old California Golden Seals can be connected to the San Jose Sharks — a team that hit the ice a little more than 15 years later.

  The ill-fated Golden Seals moved to Cleveland before the 1976–77 season, and after two disastrous years, they merged with another troubled franchise in the Minnesota North Stars. That fortified team rose from the bottom of the standings almost immediately, but toward the end of the next decade, there were rumours circulating that owners Gordon and George Gund III wanted to bring their team back to sunny California. In fact, they were once minority owners of the Seals and had a big part in their move to Cleveland, so the league wasn’t too happy about the idea but changed its tune soon after as former Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin and his associates were making a push to bring the NHL to San Jose.

  In order to keep everyone happy, the NHL hammered out a compromise that saw the Gund brothers sell their North Stars shares to Baldwin and his group, and they received a Bay Area expansion team for their troubles. Interestingly, they were also allowed to take some members of the Minnesota club along with them, and the North Stars got a sweet deal as well by being allowed to participate in the 1991 NHL Expansion Draft.

  After the deal was made official on May 5, 1990, a contest was held to determine the new team’s name and more 5,000 entries were received. The winner was “Blades,” but the Gunds vetoed that idea due to its association with weapons and went with “Sharks” instead. An interesting colour scheme for the uniforms was later unveiled along with an eye-catching logo of a shark biting into a hockey stick. It was a hit from the start throughout the hockey world, and their merchandise sales ranked among the top in the league before they even played a game.

  The assembly of the Sharks began with the dispersal draft on May 30, 1991. There they focused a lot on younger prospects like Arturs Irbe, Neil Wilkinson and Rob Zettler, along with tough guys such as Link Gaetz and Kevin Evans. Later that day, they made their picks in the expansion draft and acquired more muscle in Bob McGill and Craig Coxe. If anything, the new team in San Jose was going to be tough, but it was not apparent that they would be scoring many goals.

  At the 1991 NHL Entry Draft, they had the second overall pick and took promising Pat Falloon from the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs, pegging him to be the face of the franchise. Perhaps an even better selection, though, was his junior teammate, Ray Whitney, who went on to have a lengthy career.

  After signing a few more free agents, the Sharks got a leader in Doug Wilson in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks. One of the best defencemen of the 1980s, Wilson was San Jose’s first captain as they headed into training camp. Based out of the Cow Palace in Daly City near San Francisco, the team made its debut on the road against Vancouver on October 4, 1991, and lost by a 4–3 margin. The next night saw their home debut in a rematch with the Canucks and they were beaten soundly by a score of 5–2.

  On October 8, the team won for the first time when the Calgary Flames came into town, but the honeymoon wasn’t going to last long. They lost their next 13 outings, which included seven straight road defeats. That was fortunately their worst stretch during their expansion year, and they even managed back-to-back wins on a handful of occasions. With a weak offensive and porous defensive record that put them last in the league, there was little doubt that they were destined to finish in the basement, but there was no consolation prize in the form of the first overall pick in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft since that privilege was reserved for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

  Things didn’t improve at all in 1992–93 when the team went through its worst year to date with a dismal 24 points. But they enjoyed a dramatic turnaround in 1993–94 and finished at .500, making it to the second round of the playoffs after defeating the top-seeded Detroit Red Wings. Since 1997–98, the Sharks have missed the postseason on only one occasion and have had consistent regular-season success, especially with Wilson as their general manager. Since they have yet to make the Stanley Cup Final, some fans and media members tend to feel that the team typically chokes under pressure, but there are many NHL cities that envy that kind of record.

  Pat Falloon

  For decades, the sport of hockey has had its fair share of hyped prospects who don’t necessarily meet the lofty expectations set out for them in the eyes of scouts, fans or team management. Falloon often gets unfairly placed in that group. After three seasons with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs where he won a Memorial Cup along with a gold medal at the 1991 IIHF World Ju
nior Championship, the buzz around the young star was heavy, but it paled in comparison to the consensus first overall pick for the 1991 NHL Entry Draft — Eric Lindros.

  Instead of going with a promising young defender like Scott Niedermayer, the Sharks made Falloon their first-ever amateur draftee. The results weren’t so bad when you consider that he led the team in goals, assists and points during their expansion season. He registered his first career point with an assist during his NHL debut against the Vancouver Canucks on October 5, 1991, and followed it up with a goal and assist while playing the Calgary Flames three days later. His best outing as a rookie was part of a five-game point streak when he scored once and added three helpers in a battle with the Quebec Nordiques on February 26, 1992.

  Pat Falloon

  Brian Mullen

  Mullen was heading into his 10th NHL season in 1991–92 and he was one of the first players the Sharks ever traded for when they gave up aging power-play specialist Tim Kerr to get Mullen from the New York Rangers.

  Often used as a penalty killer, Mullen was coming off three straight seasons of more than 60 points and had a strong start with 11 points in the month of October. His best single-game output of the year saw him earn three points in a win over the Quebec Nordiques on December 21, 1991, and he had a pair of two-goal games in February. At the end of the year, he was second on the team in scoring and shared the lead in shorthanded goals with Kelly Kisio.

  Doug Wilson

  One of hockey’s greatest defencemen in the 1980s, Wilson was approaching the twilight of his NHL career when the Chicago Blackhawks traded the dependable blueliner to San Jose for rough-and-tumble prospect Kerry Toporowski and a draft pick on September 6, 1991.

  Wilson was named the first captain of the Sharks before the 1991–92 campaign. His leadership was sorely needed in the club’s infancy and he represented the team at the 1992 NHL All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Among his best efforts that season were a two-goal outing against Los Angeles on January 14, 1992, and a three-assist night against Buffalo a month later.