The Greatest, Weirdest, Most Amazing NHL Debuts of All Time

The Greatest, Weirdest, Most Amazing NHL Debuts of All Time

ANDREW PODNIEKS

Contents

Introduction

Day One Debuts

The One and Only

Extra, Extra! Read All About It!: Newsy Lalonde

Did He, or Didn’t He?

Lightning Unleashed: Howie Morenz

Naughty, Naughty: Nels Stewart

Best Goalie Debut Ever: Tiny Thompson

Debut Shutouts

Averaging a Goal a Game . . .

Happy Birthday

Goalie Playoff Debuts

Making History: Paul Goodman

Rocket Launch: Maurice Richard

Just a Child: Bep Guidolin

Brothers O’ Mine: Max, Doug, and Reg Bentley

From the Get Go: Gus Bodnar

Just a Sec: Bernie Ruelle

Student Earns A+: Jean Marois

Master Hockey: Gordon Howe

Needle Skates into the Crease: Gil Mayer

Doubleheader Dick: Dick Bittner

The Replacement: Lorne Davis

Playoff Debut Assists

Inauspicious Beginning: Jacques Plante

Dream of Dreams: Wayne Hillman

Stanley Cup Finals Debuts

Hall of Famer Playoff Debuts

Tre Kronor Pioneer: Ulf Sterner

The Day the Game Changed: Bobby Orr

Double Debuts in the Crease

Caught in the Middle: Robbie Irons

First Shift, First Shot, First Goal

Czech Date: Jaroslav Jirik

Butt It Has Its Place in History: Moose Dupont

Can’t Be Beat: Ken Dryden

The Flower Begins to Bloom: Guy Lafleur

Oldest Debut—The Great Debate

Ho, Ho, Ho

The Pioneer: Borje Salming

Almost, Gus!: Danny Gare

Easiest Goals Ever

The First Lion Roars: Matti Hagman

Greatest Debut of All Time: Al Hill

The Sutter Family

Scoring in a Period

Share the Glory: Goran Hogosta

The Penultimate Price: Vaclav Nedomansky

After 60: Mike Meeker

The Great One: Wayne Gretzky

Gretzky Helps Others

Greatest League Debut Nights

Miracle Man: Dave Christian

He Who Helps Others: Peter Stastny

Relatively Speaking

Team Record Debuts

What a Help!: Michel Goulet

Oh, no!

Another and Another: Ron Loustel

Triple Gold Beginnings: Tomas Jonsson

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E: Jim Playfair

Greatest Debut Goal Ever: Mario Lemieux

Never Too Late: Esa Tikkanen

The Debut That Wasn’t (or Was?): Marc D’Amour

Overshadowed: Risto Jalo

The Soviet Pioneer: Sergei Pryakhin

The First Soviet Superstar: Alexander Mogilny

Goalies Facing Penalty Shots

Dream Becomes Nightmare: Andre Racicot

The Dominator: Dominik Hasek

Overtime Stats

First Goal . . . Only Goal

Crazy Post-Debut Slump: Andrew McKim

Debuts Across the Pond

Nothing to See Here, Folks: Christian Soucy

One-Game Wonders Playoff Debuts

21st Century Firsts: Kyle Freadrich

Lots of Rubber

Sid vs. Ovi—Day One

Brotherly Tandems

Goalie Assists

Blinded by the Light: Mikko Lehtonen

The Great Dane: Frans Nielsen

Wonder Brothers

A Japanese First: Yutaka Fukufuji

Debuts Far from Home

Fighting to Make the Show: David Koci

Who Gets the Puck?

Playoff Debut Goalscorers

One Night Hype: Derek Stepan

Spectacular Shorties

Unluckiest Loss Ever: Mike Murphy

Small Start to a Record: Matt Hackett

Tick, Tick, Done: Kellan Lain

79 Seconds Is All: Brian White

Come the Shootout

Fastest Man on Blades: Connor McDavid

Auston, Ontario: Auston Matthews

First Overall Draft Debuts

Most Goals in a Game

Leap Year Debuts

Managing the Crease: Jorge Alves

Goalie Penalties

Debut Highlights, 2018–19

Making History: Ryan Poehling

Dude, Where’s Makar?: Cale Makar

Appendix

Acknowledgements

Photo Credits

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction

It wasn’t easy tracking the dates and statistics for every player’s first NHL game, but it was certainly worth the effort. It’s an area of research that has long fascinated me because for that one specific game, every player is the same.

Whether it’s Gretzky or Crosby or a mid-level player or a small note in the history of the game, every player has a first game. But, of course, those first games come in so many shapes and sizes. Many Hall of Famers had quite unremarkable first games while many obscure players had sensational debuts.

The variety and scope of these games is such that I knew I could fill an entire book with interesting stories. My ambition was to break down the debut into every possible category. The more I looked, the more I found, and the more I found, the more interesting it got (to me, anyway).

The first part of the research was to understand how each player got into that initial game in the first place. For some, the answer is easy. If you’re a first overall draft choice, your debut is likely only a few short months away. For others, it comes because of an injury to a roster player; it comes because of a player’s excellent play in the minors or in junior; it comes in desperation, as an emergency replacement.

But no matter how you slice it, every player who gets into a game is a quality player who has had some combination of skill and luck to get there.

We can laugh at some of the names. We think of Lefty Wilson, longtime Detroit trainer, who is from an era when the game was so archaic the emergency replacement was to be found at the end of the bench—sometimes of the other team. We laugh at a high-school student coming out of the stands to take over for a badly injured, maskless goalie during the days of the Original Six.

And yet, it was only in early 2018 that the Blackhawks had to use Scott Foster, a local shinny goalie, for half a period. And we cheer his incredible success, playing shut out hockey for 14 minutes.

Some players not only get into a game but excel beyond their, or anyone else’s, wildest dreams. The greatest debut of all time? Al Hill of Philadelphia. Three points in a period, a record five points in the game, and a Gordie Howe hat trick, all in his first game. And after? Nothing nearly as accomplished.

Other players got no more than a handful of shifts, and others still just one shift. Some did well and never played again in the NHL. Others played well, yet did little with their other opportunities.

Ask virtually any NHLer about his recollections of that first game, and the first thing that comes to mind is a connection to family. Every player who gets that call to play then in turn calls those he’s closest to. That first game represents a lifetime of preparation, a lifetime of practice and sacrifice, of dedication and determination. For some, it is the very pinnacle of an ambition; for others, it’s the start of a long career.

One of my favourite sections in the book is called First Goal, Only Goal because it looks at players who further enhanced their dream by scoring a goal in their debut—and then never scored again. A magical start, a career full of apparent promise—and then a black void. Not schadenfreude, just a shame.

In the century-long history of the NHL, there have been almost 7,900 players who have appeared in at least one game, and several categories of my research list only one player. The granddaddy of this group is surely Wayne Hillman.

Consider that of those 7,900 players, only 144 made their debuts in the playoffs. Of those 144, only 20 debuted in the Stanley Cup Finals. And then comes Hillman, who not only slots into these categories but one all his own—his debut, one single shift, came during the Cup-clinching game! One shift, a Cup win, and his name stamped on the game’s most prized trophy.

Some players scored on their first shift with their first shot. Two scored in their first game with an empty netter. Several goalies earned assists in their debuts and only 23 earned shutouts. One goalie, Ron Loustel, allowed ten goals and, as one might unfortunately expect, never played in the NHL again.

One player, Kellan Lain, had a debut that lasted but two seconds, and another, David Koci, incurred a record 42 minutes in penalties in his debut (fighting, roughing, fighting, charging major, fighting, game misconduct). One goalie, Marc D’Amour, incurred 12 penalty minutes as the backup, thus earning statistics in a game he didn’t actually play. That was his debut—no minutes, no shots, no goals, but a minor and misconduct.

And so this book sifts through 7,900 debuts to extract the purest, weirdest, most amazing first games ever played. All the records herein are supremely special because any player who wants to break them has one chance, one night, and perhaps only one shift to do so. But on that first night, any player can be as great as Howe or Orr or Lemieux. He just has to be quick about it!

Andrew Podnieks

Toronto, September 2019

Day One Debuts

The First Skaters, 1917–18

The National Hockey Association was founded in 1909 and was the pre-eminent professional league in Canada. Pro hockey of any sort had started only in 1904, but the NHA had the best teams and attracted most of the top players. In fact, NHA teams won the Stanley Cup every year of its existence except 1915 and 1917

But a dispute with Toronto owner Eddie Livingstone incited the other owners to start a new league from which he would be excluded. Thus was born the National Hockey League, on November 26, 1917.

Most of the teams were ostensibly the same during this transition, so although every player who appeared in the NHL during the 1917–18 season was a rookie—i.e., a player in his first year in the NHL—most were not rookies in the spirit of the word as we know it (new to the professional game after playing junior hockey or some significantly lower level).

Of the 45 players to skate in the NHL during its inaugural season, only four players were playing pro for the first time—Jack Adams, Morley Bruce, Gerry Geran, and Raymie Skilton. Interestingly, none of these players recorded a point in their first games.

As well, most of the players who scored in their 1917–18 debuts were in their late twenties or older and had several years of pro experience upon which to rely. Probably the most impressive debut during this year was Reg Noble. He scored four times and was only 22 years old, but even still he had played a full season in the NHA the previous year. In fact, he was the only player to score who had started his pro career as late as 1916.

The upshot is quite simple. Given that the NHL was basically the same league as the NHA, but with a different name, it is more correct to consider a player’s debut as his first NHA game (not NHL), if that was the league he started in prior to playing in the NHL.

Morley Bruce was one of the true rookies on opening night in 1917.

NHL Debut Stats

*the NHL did not award assists in 1917–18

bold=true NHL rookie

The First Goalies, 1917–18

Although the first NHL season can clearly be marked as 1917–18, it came during a time of change and evolution in the game. It was only in 1910 that games went from two 30-minute halves to three periods of 20 minutes; in 1911, the rover was eliminated, reducing on-ice manpower from seven to six players; in 1917, goalies were only now allowed to fall to the ice to make a save.

Harry Hyland scored five goals on the first night of the NHL’s first season.

But in 1917–18, there was still only one centre red line, dividing the rink into two equal zones. Penalties were three minutes and had to be served in full, and the league consisted of only three teams (Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Arenas, Ottawa Senators) after the Montreal Wanderers’ arena burned down and the team decided to withdraw from play after only four games.

The legendary Georges Vezina had a long pre-NHL career.

In all, there were only 24 games played that season, and goalscoring averaged 9.83 a game, almost double what it is today. The Canadiens averaged 5.79 goals a game while the Senators surrendered an average of 5.64 goals a game, both exaggerated totals by today’s standards.

Only six goalies played in 1917–18, producing a wide range of crazy and historic results. The first game ever played featured Toronto in Montreal to play the Wanderers. It was memorable for many reasons: it featured the first goal in NHL history, scored by Dave Ritchie of the Wanderers, and it proved to be the Wanderers’ only win ever. The team lost the next three before its arena burned down.

Each other goalie who made his NHL debut had also had significant experience in the NHA. Georges Vezina was in the middle of perhaps the most special career in hockey history. Clint Benedict, another Hockey Hall of Famer, was just as magical in the goal. Sammy Hebert, Hap Holmes, and Art Brooks all played for Toronto in 1917 but had very limited careers.

The First NHL Game

Two games were on the NHL’s schedule for Wednesday, December 19, 1917: one in Ottawa, with the Sens facing the visiting Montreal Canadiens, and the other at the Westmount Arena in Montreal, where the host Wanderers played the Toronto Arenas.

The Wanderers game started at 8:15 p.m. and as such represents the first game in league history. It was also one of the wildest. The first period alone featured eight goals. After Dave Ritchie opened the scoring, Jack McDonald made it 2–0 for Montreal, but Toronto tied the game 2–2 before the game was six minutes old. Harry Hyland made more history by scoring three goals, the NHL’s first hat trick, in the first period and two more in the second to bring his total to five on the night.

Toronto fell behind 10–6 in the third but scored three in a row, two by Noble who counted four in the game, to make it close. In the end, the hometown Wanderers won, 10–9, before a sparse crowd of about 700.

Interestingly, all the penalties occurred in the first period. Ken Randall had three minors and a major; Art Ross had three minors; and Reg Noble had two minors.

What is amazing about this game is that although it was the first NHL game ever played, it is also to this day one of the highest scoring. Indeed, only four games of the more than 60,000 played from that date to the present have featured more goals than the 19 goals in this one.

Bert Lindsay was the winning goaltender despite giving up nine goals. Even today that represents the most goals surrendered by a winning goalie. Lindsay was the father of the even greater Ted Lindsay and, ironically, signed with Toronto the next year, the final season of his NHL career.

NHL Debut Stats

Clint Benedict was one of six goalies to usher in the new NHL in 1917.

The One and Only

Four Special Players

One of the magical aspects of a player’s NHL debut is imagining the post-game phone call between player and parents. Just as with the call leading up to the game—Mom, I got called up!—there is that special moment when a young man shares and celebrates such a momentous event with the two people who most closely can be credited with the player’s first success.

But in all the century’s-worth of NHL games, only four players can be known to have had the right to call their parents and declare, I got the only goal of the game!

That quartet of heroes includes Bill Cook, Stan Brown, Connie Brown, and Daniel Corso. Each of their debut games ended in a 1–0 score, and in each case the newbie scored the goal. More interestingly, while the first three were achieved in the game’s early years, Corso scored his lone goal in 2000.

// Bill Cook, New York Rangers

November 16, 1926

Sometimes the bare facts obscure a greater reality, and in the case of Bill Cook that obfuscation is easily cleared up. However, it is but a very small number of players who can say that they played their first NHL game as team captain.

Bill Cook is one such player, but it’s not as wild a stretch as it might first sound. The 1926–27 season was the inaugural one for the New York Rangers, and general manager Conn Smythe wanted to build a winner right away. He travelled to Winnipeg to meet Bill and Bun Cook, two brothers who had been playing pro with the Saskatoon Crescents of the Western Canada Hockey League. Smythe signed them on the spot and named Bill, 31 years old, team captain.

The Montreal Maroons, reigning Stanley Cup champions, travelled to Madison Square Garden for both teams’ first game of 1926–27. It was a battle from the get-go, and referee Lou Marsh doled out a total of 18 penalties (11 to the Maroons), but it was the Cook brothers, with linemate Frank Boucher, who accounted for the only goal of the game late in the second period.

Bun saw Bill in front of the Maroons goal and got his brother the puck, and Bill made no mistake in beating Clint Benedict at 18:37, much to the delight of the 13,000 fans. Benedict fell awkwardly on the play, hitting his head on the goalpost and cutting his ear. He had to leave the game for a few minutes for medical attention, during which time play was stopped.

// Stan Brown, New York Rangers

January 6, 1927

Some 9,000 fans at Madison Square Garden witnessed history on this night, when newcomer Stan Brown scored late in the game to give the home side New York Rangers a 1–0 win over the Montreal Canadiens. Lorne Chabot (called Chabotsky by the New York Times) was brilliant in goal for the Blueshirts, stoning the whirlwind play of Howie Morenz and Aurele Joliat from start to finish.

Ironically, it was while Joliat was serving a penalty for roughing that Brown scored, his power-play marker coming with only 1:57 left in the game. It was an unassisted effort, and a sensational one at that. He rushed up ice with the puck, split the defence with great speed, and beat goalie George Hainsworth with a hard drive

Brown was substituting for the great Ching Johnson when he scored.

// Connie Brown, Detroit Red Wings

January 26, 1939

The Detroit Free Press made a banner headline of Brown’s heroics: Rookie’s One-Night Stand Brings Wings 1–0 Victory.

The actual events were somewhat less exemplary, but a goal is a goal.

Brown, a centre, was called up from the farm team in Pittsburgh because the Red Wings’ lineup had been decimated by injuries. He ended up playing on a line with veterans Syd Howe and Charlie Conacher, and it was those two stars who created the play that led to Brown’s goal at 18:48 of the second period.

The trio moved the puck up ice when Brown found himself going down the left boards. When he got near the end red line he simply fired the puck across ice. Goalie Mike Karakas tried to play the puck, but it hit his stick at an odd angle and caromed into the net for what would be the only goal of the game.

The other hero of the night was Detroit goalie Tiny Thompson. He was spectacular in the third period in keeping Chicago, the Stanley Cup champions, at bay and ensuring Brown was the hero on the scoresheet.

// Daniel Corso, St. Louis Blues

December 5, 2000

You get the opportunity, you have to do something with it. St. Louis ran into injury problems—Scott Young and Tyson Nash were unable to play—so coach Joel Quenneville called up Daniel Corso and Pascal Rheaume from the Worcester IceCats, the Blues’s AHL affiliate. Rheaume had played in the NHL previously, but it was Corso’s first game.

Rheaume had made his debut almost four years earlier and scored on his second career shift. He challenged Corso to match that. Corso came up short, but he scored the only goal of the game, which was even more special.

His goal came on the power play at 14:28 of the second period. Michal Handzus took the initial shot, but goalie Guy Hebert couldn’t control the rebound and Corso whacked in the loose puck.

He brings speed and skill, said Quenneville of Corso after the game. It was a chance for him to play, and for us to get a look at him, too. He took advantage of his chance here tonight.

The Blues played their next game four days later. Young and Nash were back in the lineup—and Corso and Rheaume were back in the minors with Worcester. In all, Corso played 77 regular-season games in the NHL and scored 14 goals, but none bigger or more memorable than his first.

Daniel Corso (left) is the most recent first-gamer to score the only goal in a game.

Extra, Extra! Read All About It!

Newsy Lalonde

Montreal Canadiens // December 19, 1917

Of the 36 players to make their debuts on the night of the first games in NHL history, December 19, 1917, an incredible 16 were later inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame—Clint Benedict, George Boucher, Harry Cameron, Rusty Crawford, Jack Darragh, Cy Denneny, Eddie Gerard, Joe Hall, Harry Hyland, Newsy Lalonde, Jack Laviolette, Joe Malone, Reg Noble, Didier Pitre, Art Ross, Georges Vezina.

But if you had to pick one name from that list as the game’s first superstar, it would surely be Lalonde (the name Vezina is perhaps even more famous, but goalies don’t hold the same attraction as skaters).

Lalonde was 29 years old by the time the NHL started operations. He had been a star wherever he played, notably in Cornwall and Renfrew, and later Vancouver, but he had been with the Canadiens most of the time since the club’s inception in 1909. He even scored the franchise’s first goal that year, in the NHA, and led the team to the Stanley Cup in 1916.

Indeed, the Ottawa Citizen started its game report with: ‘Newsy’ Lalonde and his champion Canadiens opened the hockey season at the Arena last night and made up for some of Quebec’s recent disappointments by defeating the Ottawas by a score of 7 to 4.

The Habs started the 1917–18 season on the road, in Ottawa. Lalonde, the team captain, scored the team’s second goal midway through the opening period to give the Habs a 2–0 lead. It was his first of what would turn out to be 23 goals in just 14 games that season, and it was the first of many that would make him the premier player of the NHL’s early days.

The great Newsy Lalonde made a great