Old Farts Thread

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Maggie3and Me

Agree they were all good set-up men and good players.

Oates had 1079 assists
Yzerman 1063
Lemiuex 1033
Trottier 901
Clarke 852
Bernie 761

I had just looked up the assist numbers to do a post and had this handy.

BJ, Dennis Hextall was a LW wasn't he?

No Hextall was a center.
With Minnesota it was himself, Jude Drouin, and Murray Oliver at center and later Fred Stanfield when Boston needed a goalie and dealt for Gillies Gilbert in 1973.
When Dennis Hextall was a Ranger, guys like Tkazcuk, Kurtenbach, Luce, Widing were some of his competition at center before the Rangers traded him the Kings and Red Berenson who couldn't make the Rangers and got his big break with the Blues.
Of course the Rangers also had guys named Ratelle and Goyette entrenched at the center position.

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Maggie3and Me

I thought Bryan Hextall was a center. I checked two other sources and they have Dennis listed as Left Wing on the 1973-74 North Stars.

I could be wrong, but that's what I remember.

Bryan was actually a right wing and Ron's Dad. Dennis was a center and the old man Bryan Sr was a HOF Ranger!

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Flyer_Frank

Dennis Hextall played center. At his peak he centered a terrific line with Danny Grant and Bill Goldsworthy on the wings in Minnesota. Very good hockey player . . . and dirty as hell with the stick.

I've often moaned and groaned here about Francis and all the gritty players that he had and gave away!
Bob and Barclay Plager
Dennis Hextall and Bryan Hextall jr.
Paul Shmyr
Moose Dupont
Steve Durbano
Battleship Kelly
Reg Fleming
Orland Kurtenbach
Bert Wilson
just to name a few and had as the muscle Ted Irvine and Glen Sather!
Brutal!

[Maggie3and Me]

According to Hockey DB. Com, this is the positions for the 1973-74 and 1974-75 North Stars.

Dennis Hextall LW
Bill Goldsworthy RW
Murray Oliver C

I am not saying that anybody is right or wrong. I did check the old rosters of the North Stars and the above site, as well as at this site (HF), before I posted. That is how they have Hextall listed, LW

Did he come up as a center then move to left wing? LW is the position I remember him at when I watched him play against the Hawks. According to most sites, he is listed as a LW.

I am not looking to argue with anyone about this, but that is why I asked the question to begin with.

[Maggie3and Me]

Big Jack,

With the toughness Kurtenbach had and what he brought to the game, the Rangers would have been hard club for teams to handle. I always liked the way he played, even though he hurt the Hawks more than once.

[fansince65]

Originally Posted by Killah_punk

The task has been accomplished 13 times in NHL history. 11 of those 13 seasons were contributed by Wayne Gretzky. Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr each did it once. Oates came close in 92-93 when he had 97, also got 90 during the 90-91 season. Other players to come close to the 100 Assist milestone were, Steve Yzerman, Paul Coffey, Ron Francis, Peter Stastny, Doug Gilmour, Pat LaFontaine and Joe Thornton.

Only three players have ever accomplished 100 assists seasons , remarkable when you think about it , even more remarkable was the fact one of them was a "DEFENSE MAN"!!!

Bobby Orr had 139 points in the 1970/71 season and 102 assists !!
He played for the Bruins in 10 seasons (75/76 he only played 10 games and had 18 points ) , 74/75 was the only season he played all 80 games and put up over 130 points for the second time , 46 goals 89 assists 135 points , he had 102 assists 139 points in 70/71 , he would have 6 seasons were he recorded over 100 points ..
NOT BAD FOR A ONE LEGED PLAYER !!!!

[peacemaker]

Joe Thornton's 92 assists in 2006 is very, very impressive if you consider the type of game that was being played.

The 'trapping', all defence style still dominated the game, and scoring was way, way, way down from the era when many of the other 100+ assist season were had...

Not a fan of his, but I take my hat off to him for that accomplishment.

[Killah_punk]

Originally Posted by peacemaker

Joe Thornton's 92 assists in 2006 is very, very impressive if you consider the type of game that was being played.

The 'trapping', all defence style still dominated the game, and scoring was way, way, way down from the era when many of the other 100+ assist season were had...

Not a fan of his, but I take my hat off to him for that accomplishment.

Thornton also had 96 assists in 2005-06 season the year Boston traded him. He had 24 assists in 23 games with the Bruins then after the trade he put up an impressive 72 assists in only 58 games with the Sharks. To put that in prespective Malkin the leading scorer last season and league leader in Assist last season had 78 in 82 games.

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Maggie3and Me

According to Hockey DB. Com, this is the positions for the 1973-74 and 1974-75 North Stars.

Dennis Hextall LW
Bill Goldsworthy RW
Murray Oliver C

I am not saying that anybody is right or wrong. I did check the old rosters of the North Stars and the above site, as well as at this site (HF), before I posted. That is how they have Hextall listed, LW

Did he come up as a center then move to left wing? LW is the position I remember him at when I watched him play against the Hawks. According to most sites, he is listed as a LW.

I am not looking to argue with anyone about this, but that is why I asked the question to begin with.

Yeah I'd be surprised if anyone took any offense to what you are writing. I always knew him as a center and I looked and all my hockey media guides today and they all have him as a center.
I can only speak for myself but I don't think it's a big deal either way. The point was that he had alot of assists to goals and FF was right about him being a nasty stick man!
Ruskowski was another true playmaker as a center! Not alot of goals and many more assists!

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Maggie3and Me

Big Jack,

With the toughness Kurtenbach had and what he brought to the game, the Rangers would have been hard club for teams to handle. I always liked the way he played, even though he hurt the Hawks more than once.

I agree and what happened is Francis figured that at age 34, Kurt's back was so so and he was getting older and left him unprotect in the 1970 expansion draft! Francis also had young centers like Luce and Apps ready to be promoted and deemed Big Kurt expendable.
What happened early in 1970 was Harkness had a fire sale in Detroit and Francis dealt Luce and acquired Stemkowski as his 3rd line center. It was a quid pro quo as Stemmer was dealt on October 31 to NY and Luce was dealt to Detroit a few days later. Later with Ratelle, Tkaczuk, and Stemkowski manning the top 3 lines, Francis deemed Syl Apps jr expendable and sent him to Pittsburgh in a brutal deal for Slats Sather.

[Maggie3and Me]

Bj,

You mentioned a guy near and dear with Walt Tkaczuk.

I always thought he was a credit to the Rangers in his 13 season career, plus 2 games in 1967,with them. I also think that he is one of the most under rated players ever to play in the NHL.

Tkaczuk did not have blinding speed or a deadly slap shot. He scored 227 Goals, with 451 Assists, for 678 Points and had 556 PIM, in 945 games. However, this is a player whose numbers do not tell the whole story about how he played the game.

He was one of the best defensive forward to play the game. He was a very good stick on faceoffs. He was tough as nails and played the hard minutes with no problems. He was not afraid to dig and go into the corners.

I remember him centering the “Bulldog Line”, between Billy Fairbarin and Dave Balon. For a guy who was sometimes overlooked because of the bigger name guys like Gilbert and Ratelle, Hadfield and Park, in the early 70’s, Walt did a good job of playing his kind of hockey.

I disliked having to play against him back then, but always thought he gave it everything he had. He always seemed to make his opponents have to pay a big price for what ever victories they might achieve going against him.

[mike56]

Originally Posted by bigjack

I've often moaned and groaned here about Francis and all the gritty players that he had and gave away!
Bob and Barclay Plager
Dennis Hextall and Bryan Hextall jr.
Paul Shmyr
Moose Dupont
Steve Durbano
Battleship Kelly
Reg Fleming
Orland Kurtenbach
Bert Wilson
just to name a few and had as the muscle Ted Irvine and Glen Sather!
Brutal!

he sent away more tough guys than gretzky.

[Deadman]

Originally Posted by bigjack

I've often moaned and groaned here about Francis and all the gritty players that he had and gave away!
Bob and Barclay Plager
Dennis Hextall and Bryan Hextall jr.
Paul Shmyr
Moose Dupont
Steve Durbano
Battleship Kelly
Reg Fleming
Orland Kurtenbach
Bert Wilson
just to name a few and had as the muscle Ted Irvine and Glen Sather!
Brutal!

I complain about the Hawks trading Maloney & Korab, but this long list that Francis sent away is unbelievable! And from what I understand from your older posts, they didn't get much back in return. If you replace Sather and Irvine with Bert Wilson and Battleship Kelly, that would have made a huge difference.

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Maggie3and Me

Bj,

You mentioned a guy near and dear with Walt Tkaczuk.

I always thought he was a credit to the Rangers in his 13 season career, plus 2 games in 1967,with them. I also think that he is one of the most under rated players ever to play in the NHL.

Tkaczuk did not have blinding speed or a deadly slap shot. He scored 227 Goals, with 451 Assists, for 678 Points and had 556 PIM, in 945 games. However, this is a player whose numbers do not tell the whole story about how he played the game.

He was one of the best defensive forward to play the game. He was a very good stick on faceoffs. He was tough as nails and played the hard minutes with no problems. He was not afraid to dig and go into the corners.

I remember him centering the “Bulldog Line”, between Billy Fairbarin and Dave Balon. For a guy who was sometimes overlooked because of the bigger name guys like Gilbert and Ratelle, Hadfield and Park, in the early 70’s, Walt did a good job of playing his kind of hockey.

I disliked having to play against him back then, but always thought he gave it everything he had. He always seemed to make his opponents have to pay a big price for what ever victories they might achieve going against him.

His rookie year (before my time) they were calling him Walt Taychuk instead of Kachook. Tkaczuk led the Rangers in points in both his second and 3rd years with Dave Balon and Fairbairn starting the origional BullDog Line. Then Balon was dealt to the Canucks and Tkaczuk never again scored in the 75 point range.
He was more of a 65 point man with Vickers and Fairbairn in BullDog 2 and then Vickers was promoted to the top line as the new Gag Line2 with Ratelle and Gilbert in 1974. Later, Vickers was back with Tkaczuk in the late 1970's under Fergie and then Shero.
Billy Fairbairn and Tkaczuk formed one of the alltime great penalty killing duo's and both were solid and strong on their skates and almost impossible to knock down. I watch Callahan now and was thinking the other night that if he can just finish better and get his points up in the 60 range, he'd be another Billy Fairbairn! It was a damn shame that Fairbairn had a bad back that prematurely ended his career!
Lastly Tkaczuk had his career ended prematurely in 1980 when he was hit in the eye with a puck and lost sight in one eye. I remember thinking that ole Walter was gonna break Harry Howell's game record and then he suffered the eye injury and that was that!
Then I thought that Greschner would pass Howell and he had the bad back and fell just short and lastly I was sure that Leetch would pass Howell and he was dealt to Toronto and Harry still has the record of playing the most games as a Ranger.

[bigjack]

Originally Posted by Deadman

I complain about the Hawks trading Maloney & Korab, but this long list that Francis sent away is unbelievable! And from what I understand from your older posts, they didn't get much back in return. If you replace Sather and Irvine with Bert Wilson and Battleship Kelly, that would have made a huge difference.

I would of taken my chances against the Flyers in the 1974 playoffs with Wilson and Kelly. We would of never seen a Rolfe mugging or Park being spit on by Schultz that is damn sure!
Emile Francis blew it plain and simple!