Canadiens Hall of Famer Jacques Lemaire turns 65

OK so now we can say he’s officially retired! Happy 65th to Jacques LeMaire.

The Hall of Fame centre with the Canadiens, and current coach of the New Jersey Devils, was born on this day in 1945.

When you look at Lemaire’s statistics during his twelve-year career with the Montreal Canadiens, one thing that gets overshadowed was his defensive ability.

He was once referred to as Guy Lafleur’s defensive conscience during the Canadiens run of four Stanley Cups to close out the ‘70s.

His speed, anticipation and determination allowed Lafleur and linemate Steve Shutt to excel more offensively. Lemaire was the workhorse, winning the faceoffs, and digging pucks out of the scrums and getting the puck to his sharpshooting wingers.

In an interview with the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2007, Lemaire gave insight into the importance of a good defensive forward.

"We talked more about defence than offence. It was always there. I remember my first year playing for Toe Blake -- he was always talking about it.

On the bench, he'd be telling us if this guy or that guy didn't come back on defence and he would bench them. You hear people say their team needs more offence and forget defence.

That's crap! Defence is what we talked about. Somebody has to get back and help the defense. We knew we could score enough goals. We didn't want to give goals to the opponent because if they got a goal, we had to get two."

Lemaire’s defensive capabilities made the Canadiens top scoring line even harder to play against, and he never went a season, since his rookie debut in 1967, without scoring less than twenty goals in a season. He’s finish with 365 goals (7th in Habs history) and 469 assists (5th) for 835 points (7th) in 853 regular season games. Lemaire had a career plus/minus of +349.

During the playoffs, Lemaire brought it up another notch. His 139 career playoff points put him second behind Jean Beliveau. He played on eight Stanley Cup winners with the Canadiens.

He had three overtime playoff goals in his career including Cup clinchers in 1977 and 1979. Only five other players have scored more than one overtime Cup winner.

Not positive, but could be Lemaire’s Cup winner in the 1977 Finals.

His 1979 Cup winning goal would be his last in the NHL.

Lemaire retired from the NHL and spent two seasons as a player-coach in Switzerland. He later returned to become head coach with Montreal at the end of the 1983-84 season, taking the team to the Wales Conference Finals. The following season, Montreal finished first in their division, but lost in the second round of the playoffs.

That summer, Lemaire became a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player.

The pressure of coaching in Montreal grew too hard for Lemaire and the following season he moved to the front office to become the Assistant to the Managing Director for eight seasons. The Canadiens would claim two more Stanley Cups (1986, 1993) over that span.

He then took a position as head coach with the New Jersey Devils in 1993 and developed what is now known as the “Trap" System”. He would win the Jack Adams award as coach of the year that season.

Coupled with the goaltending of Martin Brodeur, the Devils won the Stanley Cup in 1995 and Lemaire remained with New Jersey until 1998.

He was hired as the first coach of the Minnesota Wild in 2000, winning a second Adams Award in 2003, remaining there until he stepped down until the spring of 2009, returning to New Jersey.

After one final season with the Devils, he retired as an NHL coach in April of 2010 with 588 wins and a .561 win percentage.

Pat Burns is not ready to quit his battle yet

"As your life gets closer to the end, you realize that your body gets weaker, you mind works harder but your heart gets softer. You get closer to family, you get closer to God, and there are things that you realize along the way.” -  Pat Burns March 26, 2010

As we all know, former Montreal Canadiens coach Pat burns is in his third battle with cancer. He announced in January of 2009 that he had incurable lung cancer. Burns had been treated for colon cancer in 2004 and liver cancer in 2005.

I recently talked to a contact, who had been in touch with the Burns family in recently, and got an update on his health.

Burns continues to battle the incurable disease, but by opting not to seek treatment his health is rapidly declining. “He’s not doing well,” I was told.

It’s also reported that the three-time Adams Trophy winner, and his wife Lynne, have also sold their home in New Hampshire and are spending the summer in Quebec. The Burns family spent the past winter in Tampa.

The fact that he was healthy enough to travel back to Canada could be a positive sign that his fight with cancer is far from over. “With that kind of mobility, it sounds like he's still got some time with us,” my source added.

Then again, is anyone surprised that Pat Burns was going to take this on without a fight?

Burns last public appearance was on March 26, for the arena naming ceremony in his hometown of Stanstead, Quebec. A frail Burns spoke with a weak voice, far from the bellowing one that got players and referees attention on the ice.

There was concern the end was indeed near back in April, when the  58-year-old was rushed to hospital with pneumonia. He was released a few days later.

A grass roots movement, and several of his former NHL colleagues pushed to get Burns into the Hockey Hall of Fame this summer, before he passed away.

“Pat’s been stricken with a terrible disease,” said former coach Mike Keenan, when I spoke to him earlier this month. “It was an honest attempt, and a very nice gesture for other members of the Hall to bring up his name.”

Unfortunately their public calls did not factor in with the selection committee enough, leading to criticism of the Hall of Fame by fans and media alike.

Three days later, the NHL and his former teams (the Canadiens, the Boston Bruins, The Toronto Maple Leafs, and the New Jersey Devils) donated $50K to the construction of the Pat Burns Arena.

photo: Canadian Press

Captain Kirk’s days with the C were short in Montreal

On August 30,1994, the Montreal Canadiens named Kirk Muller as their captain.

The Kingston native, and former New Jersey Devils captain, was chosen to take over after former captain, Guy Carbonneau, was traded to the St. Louis Blues eleven days earlier.

“This is Kirk Muller’s team now,” said coach Jacques Demers.

Unfortunately, timing is everything and for Muller his time as captain would be short.

A players strike would shorten the 1994-95 NHL season to just 48 games. The season would start on January 21, 1995.

Muller and then captain Guy Carbonneau celebrate their ‘93 Cup victory

The Canadiens struggled offensively that season, and Muller’s numbers were down.

Despite a trade made by Serge Savard to acquire Mark Recchi, the Canadiens were still desperate to make the playoffs.

Savard then made another deal, this one involved Muller, Mathieu Schneider and Craig Darby going to the New York Islanders for Pierre Turgeon and Vladimir Malakhov on April 5, 1995.

Although excited to be getting a scorer in Turgeon, fans were shocked and outraged that their captain had be sacrificed to get him.

Teammate Denis Savard said Muller was in near tears eyes when he faced the scrum of reporters and categorized his friend as being "devastated."

Muller, being the classy and professional man he was, kept his composure.

"I'm shocked, but it's a business," said he said. "I enjoyed it here, but life goes on."

In an October 2007 article, by the Montreal Gazette’s Red Fisher, Muller talked more on the trade.

"I was more shocked being traded from here than when I was in New Jersey," Muller said.

"First, I loved it here and I didn't want to go anywhere. I was learning French. We were settled here. I was just named captain. The style was for me. The numbers were there. I was happy. There were no problems. Zero."

Muller retired eight seasons later. After a season as head coach with his hometown Queen’s Golden Gaels (OUA), he became an assistant coach with the Canadiens.

Muller playing in the Legends Classic game in Montreal

More on Kirk Muller

My interview with him from this past July at Wayne Gretzky’s golf tournament.

Habs Eyes on the Prize looks at the revolving door of Canadiens captains in the mid to late ‘90s.

Muller also does regular speaking engagements and recently joined Montreal-based Luxury Rentals as a promotional associate.

Red Fisher’s afore-mentioned article citing the trade to get Kirk Muller was the tenth best in Canadiens History.