In an age earlier than hockey gamers grew to become helmeted and nameless — in a rink inhabited by so many ghosts — Man Lafleur would start his flight down the wing, his blond mane flowing in his wake, and everybody within the Discussion board would maintain their breath for simply an immediate.
Hockey for the spectator isn’t a recreation of anticipation. It’s so quick, so fluid, that many of the nice moments arrive with no countdown. You didn’t know Paul Henderson was going to pound in that rebound till a second earlier than he did. You didn’t actually see Sidney Crosby’s golden objective coming. Exterior of breakaways or booming slapshots unloaded with a wind-up from the purpose, all of it goes by in a flash.
However with Lafleur, so usually there was a prelude to the principle occasion. The acceleration. The defencemen skating backwards as quick as they might. The goaltender all of a sudden on excessive alert.
The Montreal crowd chanting, like a pulse: “Man, Man, Man.”
There was, and there’s, nothing else prefer it within the sport.
Man Lafleur, whose dying was introduced by the Canadiens on Friday, was, arguably, the best participant on the best staff in NHL historical past. In the course of the Montreal Canadiens’ final dynasty — within the means of profitable consecutive Stanley Cups from 1976 to 1979, they misplaced a complete of simply 46 regular-season and 10 playoff video games — Lafleur gained the scoring title 3 times and twice gained the Hart Trophy because the NHL’s most respected participant.
He was the Quebecois inheritor to Maurice Richard and Jean Beliveau. (Subsequent got here Patrick Roy, taking part in a really completely different place, and after him got here nobody….) The succession was much less sure than it might sound in hindsight, and it virtually didn’t occur in any respect. However for a flash of managerial genius, Man Lafleur may be remembered as the primary nice California Golden Seal.
He grew up in Thurso, Que., a mill city on the Ottawa River near the Ontario border. Legend has it that he so beloved hockey as a boy that he’d fall asleep at night time carrying his gear, prepared to leap on the yard rink his father had made the second he wakened.
Lafleur first got here to the eye of the hockey world on the now well-known Quebec Pee-Wee Worldwide Match, then in its early years, the place he debuted in 1962 taking part in for a touring staff from close by Rockford, Ont., after which in 1963 and 1964 with groups from Thurso. Lafleur scored 30 of Rockford’s 48 targets that first 12 months, together with seven in a single recreation, and scored a complete of 64 targets by way of the three tournaments.
At age 15, he graduated to the Quebec Jr. Aces, the place he performed three seasons, adopted by two years with the Quebec Remparts. In his first season in main junior hockey, Lafleur set a regular-season scoring report with 103 targets. In his ultimate season, he shattered that mark, scoring 130 in 62 regular-season video games, and main the Remparts to the Memorial Cup.
He was hailed because the province’s subsequent NHL celebrity — however he was not alone. Additionally a part of the identical draft class was the Drummondville-born star of the St. Catharines Black Hawks of the Ontario Hockey League, Marcel Dionne.
There are numerous the explanation why Sam Pollock, the long-time basic supervisor of the Canadiens, was thought of the game’s pre-eminent front-office genius, however his manoeuvering across the 1971 entry draft needs to be close to the highest of the listing. Understanding that each Lafleur and Dionne had been coming, and now not the beneficiary of the age-old apply that allowed the Habs first crack at the perfect French Canadian expertise, he contacted the Golden Seals and advised a commerce to the staff’s proprietor, Charlie Finley. The deal they agreed to was a easy swap of first-round picks – Montreal’s for California’s, with the Canadiens throwing in veteran Ernie Hicke to sweeten the pot.
It was, in fact, freeway theft. (It has additionally lengthy been advised that Pollock shipped Ralph Backstrom to the Los Angeles Kings that very same season in hopes that Backstrom would hold the Kings from tumbling to the underside of the league — and the highest of the draft. If that was certainly the intent, it labored.)
The Habs gained the Stanley Cup in 1971, and Beliveau retired. Now, a method or one other, they’d have his successor.
Pollock deliberated earlier than lastly utilizing the Seals’ choose to take Lafleur over Dionne, and at first it appeared like he had made a horrible mistake. Dionne instantly grew to become an elite scorer with the Detroit Purple Wings whereas Lafleur struggled, burdened by the big expectations and chafing beneath coach Scotty Bowman, who refused to make use of him on his high two strains and energy play.
On the finish of his rookie season, Lafleur didn’t obtain a single vote for the Calder Trophy.
In 1973, he gained his first of 5 Stanley Cups, however it wasn’t till the 1974–75 season that Lafleur blossomed, scoring 50 targets for the primary of what can be six consecutive years.
And that’s when his electrical picture was endlessly etched within the creativeness of Montreal hockey followers, his hair blown again as if by a Hollywood wind machine.
Lafleur’s time in Montreal ended badly, simply as Roy’s would years later. By 1985 the dynasty was a distant reminiscence. Lafleur’s outdated teammate, Jacques Lemaire, was the top coach, and his defensive strategy to the sport was by no means going to be a cushty match. When Lafleur requested to be traded, GM Serge Savard — one other former teammate — knew that he couldn’t accommodate his request with out being run out of city. So he refused, and Lafleur retired 19 video games into the season because the main scorer in Montreal’s lengthy and wonderful historical past.
There was a comeback three years later with the New York Rangers and Quebec Nordiques after Lafleur had already been inducted into the Hockey Corridor of Fame (the one two different gamers to do this: Gordie Howe and Mario Lemieux), however by then he was solely a shadow of the participant he had as soon as been.
Nonetheless, there can be one ultimate, memorable night time, when Lafleur returned to Montreal for the primary time with the Rangers; when the group stood and cheered to welcome him; when, nonetheless taking part in with no helmet (the NHL grandfathered within the rule that made carrying one necessary), he scored two targets and was named the sport’s first star.
And the sound that night time was prefer it had as soon as been, the mantra echoing to the rafters, a celebration, a thanks, a remembrance of glories previous.
“Man, Man, Man….”