Nitzy's Hockey Den

Time to open a 1987/88 O-Pee-Chee hockey wax pack. I picked this up a few months ago and have had it displayed on a shelf in my den next to the 1984/85 OPC wax pack. I'll open that one soon. In this set, the big card is the Luc Robitaille rookie card. Other nice cards are rookies of Adam Oates, Ron Hextall, Mike Vernon, Vincent Damphousse and Rick Tocchet. There are many more rookies in this set, just not many more desirable ones. First card in the pack is future Hall of Fame, Dino Ciccarelli. Unfortunately, it's attached to the piece of gum and it is not going to pried off any time soon. Next card is a rookie! A rookie Michael Thelvan, with his last name spelled wrong. He played two more years with the Bruins and represented Sweden in the 1987 Canada Cup. Yay, another rookie! Another Bruin rookie! It's Greg Johnston. He would play parts of two more seasons with Boston, then have a few stints with Toronto before going to Germany to play for ten years. Well, at least I got a...

Recently, upon announcement that the 2019 Hall of Fame class would have to wait an extra year for their induction ceremony, Chairman of the Selection Committee Lanny McDonald was quoted; "Whether you wait three or four years or more, it really doesn't matter. If you're a Hall of Fame, you're going to go in at one point." He's referring to the class of 2019 being bumped a year, but one can also take his statement as referring to some long-retired players from hockey's past that may finally receive their due.  Herb Cain is one of these forgotten players and he should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Cain is a deserving player who has been passed over or simply missed by the Hall of Fame selection committees through the years. Herb Cain played 13 NHL in the 1930s and 1940s and totalled 206 goals and 400 points over 571 games. He helped his teams win two Stanley Cups and was named a 2nd team All-Star in 1943/44 when he topped the NHL with 82 points to set a sing...

Recently on Vancouver sports radio, I heard TSN analyst/scout Craig Button mention that TSN would soon be selecting their all-time World Junior Tournament Team. This would obviously be in conjunction with the upcoming World Juniors tournament, which at this point is the most highly anticipated event on the hockey calendar what with no NHL action at the moment. I figured I'd jump in and select my own all-time World Junior Tournament squad. I started at the official recognition by the IIHF in 1977 until present day. This will be an especially difficult task seeing as no player ever plays more than two, possibly three different years in the Under-20 tournament. I've tried to select the squad by looking at as much multi-year dominance as well as team success. Here's what I came up with. Many, many familiar and obvious names on the All-time team. A few lesser-lights and near unknowns sprinkled in. The fact is, these were the players who performed the best at the World Juniors ov...

                                                                                                                             Pep Kelly This has been a helluva Qualifying Round for the Toronto Maple Leafs. One day after they blew a 3-0 lead to Columbus, the Leafs, on the brink of elimination, turned the tables. Starting the comeback with under four minutes remaining, this was the latest a team had ever erased a 3-0 deficit in an elimination game since 1936. The previous record was when the very same Maple Leafs came back from 3-0 with just under seven minutes left in their season. On April 9, 19...

Let's concentrate on the positives of the Maple Leafs Game 3 of the Qualifying Round. Rookie, Nick Robertson scored his first NHL goal, as an 18-year old...in the Playoffs. Amazingly, it was over 76 years ago since a Maple Leaf did that.  On March 28, 1944 in Game Four of the Semi-Finals at Maple Leaf Gardens, 18-year old future captain, Teeder Kennedy scored his first NHL goal. The goal was assisted by George Boothman and Babe Pratt and proved to be the final Maple Leafs goal scored that season. The 4-1 loss in Game Four was followed by an 11-0 drubbing at the Forum to give Montreal a 4-1 series win. Incidentally, this was also the series in which Maurice Richard scored all five goals in a 5-1 Game Two victory which garnered him all three star selections. Below is a photo from the following day's Toronto Daily Star of the rookie Kennedy. Unlike young Robertson's first goal, it appears that Kennedy was not a thing of beauty. The Star stated (below) that Canadiens winger Phi...

Two penalty shots in one playoff game. In the first game of the Qualifying Round between Montreal and Pittsburgh, there were indeed two penalty shots awarded, both Brandon Rust and Jonathan Drouin missing miserably. It doesn't seem like this should be such a rare occurrence, but apparently it happens about once every one hundred years. The last time two penalty shots were awarded in an NHL playoff game (these Qualifying Round games are being considered as playoff stats by the NHL) was in 1923. On March 29, 1923 in game one of the Stanley Cup final between the original NHL Ottawa Senators and the Edmonton Eskimos of the Western Canada Hockey League there were actually THREE penalty shots awarded in the game. The Cup final took place at Vancouver's Denman Street Arena, and this first game was witnessed by 7,000 spectators. Bill Steadman of the Vancouver Sun described the affair thusly, "The Ottawa Senators carried the issue into overtime and then drew first blood at the...

My buddy Greg sent me this great shot of the Winnipeg Jets playing the Czechoslovakian National team. His dad is Norm Beaudin, pictured in the foreground. The game was during the Jets 1975 training camp which took place in Europe that season. The Czech National squad would beat the Jets by scores of 6-1 (on Sept. 25) and 3-1 (on Sept. 26). Both Jets goals were scored by Anders Hedberg. Also pictured are Jets #19 Mats Lindh and #17 Bill Lesuk. I'm not positive on the Czechoslovakian players shown, but #9 is likely Miroslav Dvorak who would go on to play three seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers in the early 1980's. The goaltender is probably either Vladimir Dzurilla or Jiri Holocek. Despite not fairing well against the Czechs, Winnipeg would go on to have a terrific season in the WHA. They finished first in the Canadian Division with 106 points (52-27-2) and romp through the playoffs with a record of 12-1 on the way to the Avco Cup. For Beaudin himself, it was his final ...

Here we go. I found out this afternoon that TSN will be publishing their All-Time Team Canada after they did the seven Canadian NHL teams recently. According to Craig Button they are using players from Olympics, Canada Cups, World Cups and World Championships. I'm not certain if TSN will be considering the Summit Series, but I am. Also, Button says there is no positional requirements on this squad as is usual in international team selection. This is also a 23-man roster, same as international play. Goalies I gave the nod to Bill Ranford on the strength of a 17-1 record and 1.61 average in the '91 Canada Cup and '93 and '94 World Championships. He backstopped Canada to it's first World Championship Gold in 33 years and was also stellar in the Canada Cup. Speaking of that, Grant Fuhr almost single-handedly kept Canada in games against the Soviets in the '87 Canada Cup. He also played in the '84 tourney and Rendezvous '87 putting up an 8-2-3 record over...

 Last week the good folks at TSN released the last of their All-Time teams for each Canadian franchise. When they did the Winnipeg Jets, they fudged the rules a little by not including the Atlanta Thrashers part of the current franchise. They did of course include the WHA Winnipeg Jets. Along the same line of thinking, I decided to create a Quebec Nordiques All-Time team using the WHA an NHL seasons, but not the Colorado Avalanche portion of the franchise. Lots of WHA content, as there should be, Quebec was one of the strongest teams over the 7-year existence of the league. The top goalie in Nordiques history is Richard Brodeur who played all seven WHA seasons with Quebec and his 165 career wins rank only two behind Joe Daley for most in league history. In addition his WHA career goals against average was 3.64. Dan Bouchard ranks as Quebec's second best goalie who posted a 3.59 GAA over his five NHL seasons in Quebec. The top defenceman in Quebec history is easily J.C. Trembl...

Last week when I chatted with Steve Dryden (Senior Managing Editor of Hockey at TSN) on the phone, we talked mainly about the Maple Leafs All-Time team. We also discussed the fact that as a Toronto native, I have lived in the Vancouver area for over a quarter century and have seen a lot in this market. In fact, the second ever game I attended in Vancouver was on May 24, 1994; Game 5 of the Campbell Conference Finals, the one where Greg Adams scored in double overtime to knock the Maple Leafs out and send the Canucks to the Stanley Cup Final. I've seen enough of the Canucks over the years, I figured I'd create my own Canucks All-Time team too. So here it is. The All-Time top line is probably the easiest of any Canadian NHL team. Sedins and Bure, done. As well, the top two goalies in Canucks franchise history is about as straight forward as can be. All due respect to Richard Brodeur, but he gets the nod as Foundational Player.  The Canucks all-time to defencemen is loade...

Earlier in the week, I created a Maple Leafs All-Time team that was split from pre and post 1960. A team with over 100 years of history really should be broken up into two squads. Obviously, I would have to do the same thing with the Montreal Canadiens. So here we go. First, the original overall squad as picked by TSN. Now, my split squads with the 1959/60 season being the dividing point. A few things. As I did with the Maple Leafs split teams, I removed the caveat of requiring a current-day player seeing as the pre-1960 team would not have one. This allows room to rightfully place Patrick Roy on the post-1960 team, sorry Carey Price. The Canadiens are perhaps weakest at LW over the last 60 years, Tomas Plekanec grabs a spot on the strength of his 15 fairly productive seasons. His 984 games played for the Habs are the 4th most since 1960, just behind Andrei Markov. Markov played all of his 990 career games for Montreal and was a productive defenceman producing 572 points. S...

Yesterday TSN revealed their All-Time Maple Leafs franchise team. They had three major stipulations; one player had to be from the current roster, one line had be a checking line and one defence pair had to be shutdown. They also allowed for a Foundational Player as a sort of wildcard slot. TSN's team was selected by a combination of Bob McKenzie, Craig Button and Steve Dryden, Senior Managing Hockey Editor of TSN.  Naturally, the day before TSN released their list, I did mine. It turns out great minds think alike. The first team below is from TSN, the second was mine chosen the day before. We had the EXACT same 13 forwards, both opting to not include Darryl Sittler or Doug Gilmour. The goalies were obvious matches. We only differed on two defencemen. Not bad at all.  Soon after I tweeted my squad, I received a direct message from TSN hockey guru Craig Button and began chatting with him. He was relaying to me the comments from his boss Steve Dryden. Dryden was ama...