Dan Daoust; The Last Maple Leafs Rookie Hat Trick

Four goals in a debut for Auston Matthews. What else can be said about a feat that was the very first of it's kind in National Hockey League history, nothing. However, one of the more interesting things about his four goal game, is the fact it was the first hat trick by a Maple Leafs rookie in well over thirty years. The last Leaf rookie to score three in a game, Dan Daoust in 1983.
February 16, 1983, Toronto beat the visiting St.Louis Blues by a score of 6-3 behind the 24 saves of Rick St. Croix. The Leafs went into the game with a 14-30-10 record, the Blues not much better at 19-29-11. Daoust notched his first at 17:47  of the first beating Mike Liut to make it 2-0 Toronto. The assists went to John Anderson and Gaston Gingras. He made it 3-0 with an unassisted goal at 11:14 of the second. Two and a half minutes later he assisted on Rick Vaive's 38th goal of the year to make it 4-1 Toronto. 
After the Blues made it 5-3, Daoust completed his hatty 6:35 into the third period on assists from Anderson and Jim Benning. The four points for Daoust gave him 30 points in his previous 21 games played.
The win was the first of six straight for Toronto and they went 14-10-2 to finish the season. Daoust finished his rookie campaign with 51 points in 48 games and a spot on the All-Rookie team. Still, Toronto was ousted in the first round of the playoffs by Minnesota by three games to one. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Team Canada 1972, What Might have Been

Image
Guy Lafleur, if he had played in the 72 Summit Series "No way. Can you imagine what our fans would say if we allowed Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito to play for Canada in that series and either...suffered an injury that might prevent them from playing with us for a year or more?" This was the concern of Weston Adams Jr, president of the Boston Bruins as quoted on April 20, 1972. After being speculated and discussed since February 1972 at the Olympics in Sapporo Japan, the series was set to go. Early on however, controversy stirred as to who exactly would be representing Canada. Bruins GM, Milt Schmidt agreed with his boss saying, "My only interest would be to see the Russians play the Bruins for the world championship...or whatever team wins the Stanley Cup." In the Vancouver Sun a few days later, the legendary Jim Coleman responds to the American naysayers suggesting that Team Canada should be made up strictly of players from Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal
Read more

WHA Ottawa Civics, The Two Week Franchise

Image
Tom Earl, Daryl Maggs, Mark Lomenda, Gary MacGregor, Garry Swain "Please let the fans make up their own minds," Henry Feller told a press gathering. "Let them decide if they want pro hockey here. We have to average 7,000 or 8,000 in the remaining 19 home games for a break-even point." Feller was a director of the Founders Club who had interest in buying the WHA's Denver Spurs club. Ivan Mullinex, owner of the Spurs had brought his team to Ottawa in an attempt to drum up interest and save his investment. The date was January 2, 1976 and Mullinex was in debt to a Denver bank to the tune of $1 million dollars. This same day, the newly christened Civics lost their first game under the new moniker by a score of 2-1 at Cincinnati. Star of the team, Ralph Backstrom said after the game, "Our first official notice of the move hit us when we entered the Cincinnati rink and the names on the big scoreboard read: Stingers and Civics. Until that moment we were un
Read more

Denman Arena, Vancouver - "The Pile"

Image
Situated at the corner of Denman and Georgia Streets in Vancouver, sitting on the shore of Coal Harbour, the Denman Arena was once the largest in the world. Built in 1911 by Frank and Lester Patrick at a cost of $300,000 it was the main venue for their newly formed Pacific Coast Hockey Association. Until the Montreal Forum was built in 1926, it was the largest artificial ice arena in the world seating 10,500. Constructed of wood and brick, the large brick facing led Vancouverites to refer to it as The Pile. The Patrick brothers simultaneously built the 3,500 seat Patrick Arena in Victoria to help house their three team league which also included New Westminster. They would proceed to raid the established National Hockey Association of much of it’s top talent to stock their teams. The Pile would host the Vancouver Millionaires Stanley Cup championship in March, 1915, boxing matches featuring Max Baer and “Cinderella Man” James Braddock, movie star Rudolph Valentino as well as bicycle r
Read more