Maple Leafs Magazine Project #8


                                       
These two covers pretty much bookend the career of Maple Leafs goaltender Mike Palmateer. The first one is from Action Sports Hockey, April 1978 and The Popcorn Kid shares the cover with Mr. Hockey. The article on Palmateer declares him "The Best Young Goalie In The World" and shows him making one of his characteristic, unorthadox saves.
The title of the article was a bit of a misleading though. Sure, Palmateer was 24 years old and finishing up his second NHL season, but there really just weren't that many young goalies in the NHL at that time. The only other one who could be argued for this title would have been 22 year old Don Edwards of the Sabres. Amongst the 24 goalies who played at least 30 games in 1977/78, the only ones under 25 years of age were Palmateer, Edwards, the Rangers John Davidson and Jim Bedard of the Capitals. Palmateer finished the season third in the NHL with 34 Wins, 4th in Save Pct and 2nd in Shutouts. The next season he would finish 5th in Hart Trophy voting before knee issues began hindering his career.

By the time of the Hockey Illustrated cover in January 1984, Palmateer was in the final few months of his career. After being traded to Washington prior to the 1980/81 campaign, Palmateer returned two seasons later to indeed be Toronto's MVP of the 82/83 season. Sure, Rick Vaive had scored 50 goals for the second straight year, but without Palmateer the Leafs would have been even worse than they actually were. On a team that was 12 games under .500 and collected only 68 points, Palmateer was only two games under .500 and posted a respectable (for the 1980's) 3.99 GAA.
 By the time this magazine came out, Palmateer was in his last season, his GAA ballooned to 4.91 over 34 games as his knees finally forced him into retirement at age 30.


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