Remembering five of history’s weirdest draft classes

The NHL draft starts tomorrow, and I can’t tell you what’s going to happen, because Cory Pronman already did. But I can make two predictions with confidence: Every team is going to tell us that they’re thrilled with their 2020 draft class, and the whole thing is going to be weird.

The weirdness will come from the setting, as the league ditches the big everyone-in-one-building draft floor (for obvious reasons) and shifts to a virtual setup. And the teams will say they love their draft classes because teams always do that. The next GM who walks out of a draft saying “Man, we messed up, these guys are a bunch of bums” will be the first, and also my new hero.

So today, let’s get ready for a weird draft full of great classes by mashing those two concepts together into one: Weird draft classes from NHL history. We’ll revisit five times that a team went into a draft and came out with something that, in hindsight, was kind of remarkable.

There aren’t the best classes ever, or the worst, or the most important. It’s just five interesting stories to kill some time on a Monday before your team drafts a new franchise player and/or screws up everything forever. Let’s remember some NHL draft oddities.

1977 Montreal Canadians, aka In Crease Increase

Imagine you’re a scout for the 1977 Montreal Canadiens. You’ve just come off what might very well have been the greatest season in NHL history, a 60-8-12 masterpiece that ended with your second of what will turn out to be four straight Cups. You have the best coach ever (Scotty Bowman), the best GM ever (Sam Pollock), and an absolutely stacked lineup. Oh, and your goaltender is Ken Dryden, who was just a first-team all-star for the third time in four years. And he’s only 29.

What’s your draft plan? Apparently, it’s “draft all the goalies”, because the 1977 Canadiens took seven of them.

Seven! In one draft. I’m all for having a strategy and sticking to it, but that seems extreme.

It’s not quite as crazy as it might seem to modern eyes – remember, this was back when the draft could go on forever. The Canadiens used 27 picks that year, stretching out to a 15th round, so it’s not like they only took goalies. But still… seven? When you only have one net, which is currently occupied by a legend in his prime? (And in case you’re wondering, their backup goalie was Bunny Larocque, who’d led the league in GAA that season.)

So how’d they do with all those goalies? Not great. Their first goalie pick, fourth-rounder Robert Holland, only played two NHL seasons, neither with the Canadiens. They did a little better with seventh-rounder Richard Sevigny, who was a part-time starter in Montreal for five seasons in the 80s. Mark Holden played eight NHL games. And the other four goalies they took never made the big leagues at all.

It was all part of a decidedly mixed bag for that 1977 Habs draft. They found a future Hall-of-Famer at the end of the second round in Rod Langway. But they also spent a third-round pick on Moe Robinson, the younger brother of Larry, who lasted one game. And they used the 10th overall pick on Mark Napier, passing on a fellow right-winger who was a hometown kid from Montreal. Some guy named Mike Bossy.

1983 Detroit Red Wings, aka Toughen Up

The most famous Red Wings draft of all time came in 1989. That was the year they found two Hall-of-Famers who’d form the core of a Cup team (Nicklas Lidstrom and Sergei Federov), plus two more 1,000-game NHLers (Mike Sillinger and Dallas Drake), plus Soviet star Vladimir Konstantinov in the 11th round. Not bad. But not my favorite Wings draft.

No, that would be 1983. It’s a draft every Detroit fan remembers fondly, because it saw the Wings land Steve Yzerman with the fourth overall pick. That took a bit of luck – the North Stars spent the first overall pick on Brian Lawton and the Whalers took Sylvain Turgeon, leaving both Yzerman and Pat LaFontaine on the board for the Sabres and Wings at three and four. That’s the draft, though. You do your homework, and hope a franchise player drops to your pick.

And what do you do when it all breaks right and you get that franchise player? Well, if it’s 1983 and you play in the Norris Division, you make sure you protect him. And you do that by drafting three of the most legendary tough guys in hockey history.

The Wings got started in round three, grabbing big winger Bob Probert from the Soo Greyhounds. Probie would go on to become the NHL’s all-time heavyweight champ, but the Wings apparently figured he could use some backup, so they used a fifth-round pick on Saskatoon Blades’ wrecking ball Joey Kocur. And just to make sure nobody got any ideas when both those guys were in the box, the Wings added some insurance in the 10th round, taking Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson from the Regina Pats.

To be clear, none of those guys were one-dimensional enforcers coming out of junior. (Probert in particular was really good, with 72 points in 44 games for the Hounds.) And as it turned out, Grimson never signed and went back in the 1985 draft, where he was taken by the Flames. He’d eventually end up in Detroit for a few years in the mid-90s, but by that point Kocur was winning Cups in New York and Probert was on his way to Chicago.

So no, Yzerman never got to suit up for a game knowing all three guys were behind him, although I’m guessing that the Bruise Brothers provided enough protection on their own. But the effort was there. To this day, only 44 players in NHL history have racked up more than 2,100 PIM over their careers, and at the rate the game is going that list might not grow. It’s an exclusive club. And three of them were picked by the same team in the same draft.

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1993 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, aka This Guy Looks Familiar

This was the first draft in Anaheim franchise history. And they got off to a strong start, managing to pick the leading scorer in the draft.

Any Ducks fan knows how the team spent its first ever draft pick. The Ducks had the fourth overall pick, and after watching Alexandre Daigle, Chris Pronger and Chris Gratton go off the board, they grabbed the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner. That would be Paul Kariya, and while his career was shortened by injuries, he was easily the best forward in the draft, and his 989 points in 989 games was the most by any player taken that day.

But he’s not the leading scorer I was referring to.

Kariya was the leading scorer from the 1993 draft. But I said the Ducks took the leading scorer in the draft. Which they did.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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The end of enforcers

When I was growing up as a hockey fan in the ’80s, I knew every enforcer on every team. I could rattle off 30 or 40 names if you asked me to, and quite possibly even if you didn’t. I had them listed in order of ability on a page tucked away in the back of a notebook, and when I got bored during class, I’d update the rankings based on the most recent fights.

I got the latest release of Don Cherry’s Rock’em Sock’em Hockey for Christmas every year, and still do to this day. I own a custom-made Craig Berube no. 16 Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, quite possibly the only one still in existence. I can remember going into the bank with my allowance to figure out how to buy a money order so I could mail away for the Wayne Gretzky Hockey fight disc. In college, without easy access to cable TV and long before the days of YouTube, I learned how to connect with VHS tape traders so my friends and I could get caught up on the latest bouts.

I tell you all of this not out of pride or embarrassment or even because I think it’s all that interesting, but because I want you to know that when it comes to hockey fights, as George Carlin would say, my credentials are in good order. That’s important, because I loved enforcers back then, and even more, I hated lectures from snobby anti-fighting sportswriters who clearly had never enjoyed a good honest scrap in their life and had no right to talk down their noses to those of us who did.

All of which makes it a very strange experience to write these words: The NHL’s enforcer era is coming to an end, and I’m happy about that. I don’t want those guys in the game anymore.

Let’s start with some recent background for those getting caught up with the shift in the landscape. The NHL has always been a copycat league, and these days the trend is toward teams that can roll four lines that can all be trusted with meaningful ice time. That doesn’t leave much room for designated fighters, and teams have begun dropping them from the lineup. And because the tough guys are there at least part to neutralize other tough guys, each one that loses a job makes it tougher for the next guy to justify his. This summer seemed be the tipping point. The Bruins moved on from Shawn Thornton, the Maple Leafs demoted Colton Orr, and longtime tough guys like Krys Barch, Paul Bissonnette, and Kevin Westgarth all find themselves out of the NHL.

We’re not talking about the end of fighting altogether — at least not yet — but rather of the one-note heavyweight, the guy who’s there to drop the gloves and maybe throw a hit or two, and not much else. The job hasn’t been entirely eliminated; a handful of teams are still holdouts, especially in the Western Conference, and there are more than a few dissenting voices. But when even longtime advocates like Mike Milbury are jumping ship, it’s hard not to see this as less of a temporary trend and more of a permanent change.

All of which takes me back to those days of worshiping the game’s heavyweights, when we’d devour the highlights of the latest matchups and wage impassioned debates over whether Kocur could really hold his own against Kordic. Back then, I couldn’t have imagined a world in which I wouldn’t want those guys in the league.

Not everyone agreed; even then, there were always plenty of media voices railing against the NHL’s culture of violence. But most fans didn’t listen and most of the league’s decision-makers didn’t seem to care. The game needed its enforcers, the thinking went; they kept the rest of the players honest. Hockey was a dangerous game, but you were more likely to keep your stick down and your elbows in if you knew there was a monster at the end of the other bench waiting to hold you accountable.

That was most people’s arguments, but it was never mine. I didn’t doubt it, since it was everywhere, but it wasn’t my case to make, because I never played at a high enough level to know whether it was true of false. And it didn’t really matter, because I had a better reason to cheer on the enforcers and the chaos they caused: It was fun. It made the game more entertaining.

Some people recoil at that sort of argument, as if enjoying a fight just for the sake of it was unseemly. I never really understood why that was. The NHL, like all pro leagues, is an entertainment product; as much as we’d like to assign a higher purpose to our sports, the fact is that as soon as people stop enjoying them and wanting to pay to see them, they go away. If something makes the game more entertaining to enough people, then by definition it has value.

And as a fan, I always thought the enforcers were just about the most entertaining guys. I loved the whole package: the debates over who was the heavyweight champ, and who was next in line in the top contender’s spot; the quick scan of the lineup cards in an attempt to figure out who might pair off; the buzz in an arena when two tough guys lined up next to each other on a faceoff. The third period of a 6-1 blowout could be boring and unwatchable, but mix in a little bad blood and the possibility of a score to settle and it became can’t-miss TV.

That the enforcers were often the smartest guy on the team, and inevitably seemed to be the most active in the community, only added to the appeal. They’d serve up those patented death glares on the ice, but big smiles off of it. They loved their jobs, which is how you knew everything was OK.

When fighting started to drop, the game’s entertainment value dropped in my eyes. I know I wasn’t alone — find any classic scrap on YouTube and check the comments for disaffected fans bemoaning the loss of what the NHL used to be — but it quickly became apparent it wasn’t the sort of thing you were supposed to say out loud. So we argued about safety and rats and “policing the game” instead.

That stuff was important, but it wasn’t really the point. Fighting was just fun, and that was all that mattered. And I felt that way, and I made that case whenever I could, right up until it wasn’t fun anymore.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Get In The Ring: Probie, the Wings, and the unforgettable madness of the Norris Division

It seems like an odd thing to say about a franchise that came of age with Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, and Alex Delvecchio, and later went on to 23 straight playoff appearances and four Stanley Cups, but my favorite Red Wings team of all time was the 1988-89 edition.

That was the year a 23-year-old Steve Yzerman made the leap from very good player to unquestioned superstar, posting a remarkable 65 goals and 155 points, both Red Wing records. This was in the middle of the Gretzky/Lemieux era, so Yzerman didn’t even make a postseason all-star team, but his fellow players named him best player in the league.

Gerard Gallant scored 93 points, his best total from a nine-year run in Detroit that ended when he was 29 (even though I could swear he’s in his late thirties in every single memory I have of him in a Wings uniform). Two future NHL coaches, Adam Oates and Paul MacLean, both topped 70 points. The goalies were Greg Stefan and Glen Hanlon, whom I could never tell apart.

It was a good team, good enough to end the regular season in first place in its division with … well, with 80 points. Yes, they won a division title by finishing .500. That’s because the ’88-’89 Red Wings were part of the greatest collection of misfits and madmen the NHL has ever known: the Norris Division.

♦♦♦

It’s hard to explain the Norris to hockey fans who weren’t around to appreciate it. You can try to piece it together with old newspaper clips and YouTube videos, but it doesn’t quite work. You can talk about the brawls and the crazy stories and riffle through the old names, but that takes you only so far.

Or you could just put it this way: For a time, the Norris Division was hockey’s answer to Guns N’ Roses. Stay with me here.

The Norris wasn’t the best division we’d ever seen, just like GNR was never quite the greatest band. Neither won many awards. And with both, there was never any shortage of very earnest people who wanted you to understand that the whole deal was completely ridiculous and maybe even a little bit embarrassing, and those people were almost certainly right.

But the Norris and GNR were fun, dammit. And they offered an element of danger, or at least could give off the illusion of it. And, in both cases, we haven’t seen anything remotely like them since.

So here goes: The St. Louis Blues were Duff, so steady and dependable that you could sometimes forget they were there. The Minnesota North Stars were Steve Adler, hanging around as long as they could until there was no choice but to replace them. The Tampa Bay Lightning were Dizzy Reed, because they joined in the early ’90s and nobody counts them. And the Toronto Maple Leafs were Izzy, the dysfunctional mess and cautionary example that somehow served as the heart and soul of the whole thing.

The Blackhawks were Axl — the loudest and craziest of the bunch, still kicking around to this day. OK, the Blackhawks are still kicking around successfully to this day. I never said the metaphor was perfect. But any team that was built around Eddie Belfour and Mike Keenan and J.R. and the Grim Reaper and a young Dominik Hasek and The Stadium — that team gets to be Axl.

And the Detroit Red Wings? The Red Wings were Slash. They were the cool one.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

The story behind the Wendel Clark/Kevin Maguire fight in practice

We recently named Kevin Maguire our worst Leaf goon of all-time, based largely on his inexplicable decision to fight Wendel Clark during a practice.

What was he thinking? Why would you ever want to fight Clark if he was your teammate? Did Clark hit him so hard that he suffered retroactive brain damage to 30 seconds before?

Well, thanks to a wonderful thread over at Rough House Hockey of old Wendel Clark newspaper articles, now we know the background.

Push comes to punch for the Leafs tough-guy; Clark has first 'battle' of training camp

Rick Matsumoto Toronto Star. Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Sep 16, 1986.

The hockey season officially got under way yesterday for Wendel Clark.

He got into his first punch-up of the season and, as has come to be expected in National Hockey League circles, he scored a decisive victory.

The Toronto Maple Leafs' prize rookie of last season accepted a challenge from another tough, young competitor, Kevin Maguire, and left the right winger, who spent the past two seasons with St. Catharines Saints, with a dandy black eye, a cut on the bridge of his nose and a severely-bruised ego.

He also left several ounces of blood on his sweater, as well as that of defenceman Bob McGill, who stepped in to break up the combatants.

The two clashed during the afternoon scrimmage at the Gardens. Clark took Maguire, who earned 273 penalty minutes in two seasons with the Saints, into the boards at Maguire's end of the ice. They exchanged shoves and glares as they shadowed each other back to Clark's end of the ice.

Suddenly, push turned to shove and the gloves came off. But, as many others found out the hard way last year, Maguire failed to get in the first punch.

Clark landed a haymaker flush on Maguire's right eye and, for all intents and purposes, the fight was over. Clark rained several more blows on Maguire's face and helmeted head and the latter swung back gamely, but the judges scored it a TKO for the Kelvington Crusher.

"That first one was the hardest punch I've ever been hit with," Maguire admitted later. "That was it. It was no contest after that. By the time I got my balance it was done."

Maguire, however, wasn't done. After being patched up, Maguire pulled on a clean jersey, returned to the scrimmage and immediately went after Clark.

"You don't let anyone get three or four clean shots at you and not want to even the score," said Maguire. "I was a bit off balance the first time. I'd have liked to have squared off with him, again, toe-to-toe."

However, Clark, who was nursing sore knuckles on his right hand, refused to drop his gloves the second time.

"I don't need to fight you, again," he could be heard shouting at Maguire as teammates interceded.

For the next few shifts the two combatants were prevented from being on the ice at the same time. Eventually, however, they found themselves face-to-face, again.

This time, the incident turned slightly ugly as Clark slapped at Maguire's menacingly raised stick with his own and Maguire reacted by jabbing Clark in the chest with his stick.

That's when Russ Courtnall jumped into the fray, put a head-lock on Maguire and wrestled him to the ice.

"First of all, Wendel had beaten him cleanly the first time, so there was no need to fight again," said Courtnall. "When you see guys with their sticks in the air you get a little scared. We can't afford to lose Clarkie to a stick."

Clark, who has shown he can play hockey as well as fight, shrugged off the incident as a natural occurrence in the annual battle to gain a big-league job.

The 19-year-old left winger, who scored 34 goals as a rookie, said he's not interested in prolonging the incident. That is, of course, unless Maguire renews hostilities the next time they meet on the ice.

"It's up to him," said Clark. "If he feels he has to do that to make the club, that's fine. I don't hold that against him. But if he takes a poke at me he's going to get poked back."

Maguire also emphasized that there were no personal feelings involved in the pugilistic exhibition.

"There was no intent behind the fight," he said. "It was just the way it happened. I'm not going to try to carve his eyes out or anything. His job is secure. Mine isn't. I've got to make my way onto the team. I've got to do what I can to do that."

While the combatants might not harbor deep animosity towards each another - and could possibly even become good friends if Maguire managed to make the Leafs - one thing is certain: They didn't go out to dinner together last night.

So on the one hand, now we know that the fight happened in Maguire's first stint with the Leafs, when he was a rookie trying to make a name for himself. That makes it a lot easier to understand.

On the other hand, we also know that:

• Maguire got all his blood punched out
  
• He actually returned to the ice and tried to fight Clark again, which has to be about the dumbest thing I've ever heard
  
• He got taken down to the ice by Russ Courtnall.

So I'm going to go ahead and say that Maguire retains his crown as Worst Leaf Goon.

Now head over to the Rough House Hockey thread and start reading. Trust me, it's a goldmine for Clark fans.

I'm still reeling from finding out that Clark and Joey Kocur weren't really cousins.

Top 10 Norris Division Tough Guys

The Leafs opening week schedule felt like a blast from the past, a link back to the old glory days when hockey was truly at its best.

No, no, not the Habs game. Screw those guys. I'm talking about the matchups against the Red Wings and Blues. With rare games against both teams in the same week, Leaf fans could be excused for feeling like for a few short days they were back where they belong: in the Norris Division.

Ah, the Norris. Perhaps the greatest division in hockey history, at least as long as you don't count meaningless stats like wins. While the rest of the league was busy winning championships, the Norris squads were pounding the crap out of each other for a solid decade. And fans loved it.

So before we go back to playing the Northeast division every single game for three months, let's take a moment to look back fondly at those Norris days. Let's tip our caps and bang our sticks on the ice for ten guys who made the division what it was. Let's honor the 10 Greatest Norris Division Tough Guys.

First things first
For sake of history, the Norris Division technically existed from 1974 to 1993, when Gary Bettman realized that hockey fans really loved the division names and wisely decided to change them to something non-fans in Alabama would like instead.

However, everyone knows that the real Norris Division was the 1982-1992 version that features the Leafs, Wings, Hawks, Blue and North Stars. That's the version we're talking about here. Sorry Lightning, you never counted.

Tough guys who played in the division outside of those dates aren't eligible, which is why you don't see guys like Tie Domi or Tony Twist. I've also focused on enforcers who were primarily there to fight, which is why you don't see power forwards like the Sutters, Gerard Gallant, and especially Wendel Clark who would have occupied all ten spots of the list if I'd included him and for the record could (and did) punch all the blood out of any guy listed below.

On to the list...

10. Kelly Chase
Norris team: Blues

Chase had two runs with the Blues, one Norris and one post-Norris. He was a classic Norris enforcer: always willing to drop the gloves to protect a teammate, to avenge a wrong, or just because the game was getting a little bit boring. This old Saskatchewan farm boy was fixture in St. Louis in the early 90s.

On a side note, Chase recently made news when he announced that he's been diagnosed with a brain lesion. Get well, Kelly.

Here's Chase standing tall with Ken Daneyko:

9. Mike Peluso
Norris team: Blackhawks

Peluso's best year as a Norris slugger was 1991-92, when he managed an impressive 408 PIM. Of course, Peluso rarely won his fights, but he makes the list based on sheer volume.

True fact: Peluso is one of the two best Mike Pelusos to ever play for the Blackhawks. (Editor's note: Pelusoes? Pelusi?)

Here's Peluso trading haymakers with the Missing Link:

8. Ken Baumgartner
Norris team: Maple Leafs

The Bomber only played parts of two seasons in the real Norris, although he had a lengthy run in Toronto -- first as the undisputed heavyweight, and later as Tie Domi's wingman. But he makes the list by virtue of being arguably the best technical fighter of his generation -- he was one of the few guys who could switch hands easily, and his ability to hold off an opponent meant he virtually never suffered a clean loss.

He was also the first enforcer to intentionally remove his jersey before a fight, making him largely responsible for the league mandating tie-downs. I'll leave it to the reader as to whether that's a plus or a minus.

Here's a classic bout with Cam Russell with a unique ending:

7. Stu Grimson
Norris team: Blackhawks

Like Baumgartner, Grimson would be higher on the list if he had played more than two years in the real Norris. Still, he gets in by virtue of his nickname ("The Grim Reaper"), and his general level of insanity.

Here's Grimson going looney tunes against the Maple Leafs:

6. Dave Manson
Norris team: Blackhawks

Manson comes close to being disqualified due to an under-rated level of skill. He was a solid defenceman. But he was also a scary guy (especially later in his career when his shattered voicebox made him talk like a movie villain) and had a memorable running feud with Scott Stevens.

Like most Blackhawk tough guys, Manson did his best work against the Leafs. Here's the best thing he ever did, breaking up the Leeman/Savard debacle and earning the rare triple-game misconduct in the process:

5. John Kordic
Norris team: Maple Leafs

First, the bad news. Kordic was nuts, was a heavy drug-user, and eventually died during a struggle with police.

The good news, at least as far as this list goes, is that he was a top-ranked heavyweight who brought desperately needed toughness to the Maple Leafs. Long-time readers already know why Courtnall-for-Kordic was a good trade, but here's the quick summary: at the time, the Leafs were a wimpy team who were getting killed in the Norris, and Kordic changed that in a hurry.

Here's the classic Kordic-McRae scrap. God I miss the Norris.

4. Shane Churla
Norris team: North Stars

Churla was the Stars policeman from the late 80s through the end of the Norris era, before he was tragically murdered by Pavel Bure.

Here's Sugar Shane in a classic with Darren Kimble:

3. Basil McRae
Norris team: All of them

Yes, McRae gets a special mention for playing for all five Norris teams at some point in his career. But his best work came with the North Stars from 1987-1992, a string that included three straight years of 350+ PIM.

He was never one of the most feared fighters in the league, and was rarely the biggest guy in a fight. But he was the prototypical grizzled veteran who never backed down from a chance to defend a team mate. If you don't respect Basil McRae, you don't like fighting.

Here's a classic playoff bout against The Reaper:

2. Joey Kocur
Norris team: Red Wings

Kocur is the smallest guy on the list at barely 6'0, but may be the downright nastiest. He wasn't even the toughest guy in his family (that would be cousin Wendel), but he was the toughest guy in just about every fight he ever had. Like Wendel, Kocur didn't have a jab. It was all haymakers, just like starting up the lawn mower in Kelvington, and Kocur sure knew how to land them.

Here's Joey's infamous destruction of Jim Kite:

1. Bob Probert
Norris team: Red Wings

We have some fun with Probert around here because of his many losses against Wendel Clark. But if losing to Wendel Clark meant you weren't tough then this list would have zero names on it, and besides Probert at least managed to skate away from all of his Wendel scraps which is more than most guys can say.

Beyond that, all you need to know about Probert is that he was so fearsome that when he did lose (Tie Domi, Troy Crowder) it was front page news. And he always took care of business in the rematch.

Here's Probert's all-time classic against Craig Coxe of the Canucks:

Agree? Disagree? Who did I leave out? Square off in the comments section, but don't forget to wait until a half-second after the puck drop.