Meeting The Pocket Rocket

This past weekend, I had a nice surprise at the grocery store. On Saturday morning I popped into my local Sav-On Foods to pick up some capocoli and provolone and low and behold, there sitting at a table at the end of the dairy aisle was Hockey Hall of Famer Henri Richard. He and fellow ex-Montreal Canadien Yvon Lambert were in town for that evenings' Vancouver Giants game and were signing free autographs in the store.

Now, I am far from a Habs fan, but I can appreciate and respect the presence of fifteen Stanley Cup rings in front of me. (not actually all the rings were there, but Lambert did have two of his four rings on his fingers). Henri Richard, the man who has won the most Cups as a player in history was not wearing any of his eleven rings. Both gentleman were cordial as I tried some of my grade 12 French. I told Henri it was a pleasure to meet a winner of "onze Coupe de Stanley".

I was somewhat surprised when I checked Yvon Lambert's stats later and saw he had back-to-back seasons of 32 goals. He was a valuable member of four straight Cup winners and was a team mate of Richard's in his first two seasons. In the consecutive 32 goal years (74/75 & 75/76) he also tallied 35 assists each season as well as playing in 80 games in each. His plus/minus rating did drop from 26 to 10 and his penalty minutes from 74 to 28. I'd like to say these are the two most similar consecutive seasons for any player in history, but confirming that one may take a while.

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