Lafleur, Canadiens legend, remembered by NHL teammates, opponents

Some of hockey’s greats shared their insights with NHL.com into being teammates, opponents and friends with Lafleur:  

Marcel Dionne, Hall of Fame center, selected with the No. 2 pick in the 1971 NHL Draft behind No. 1 Lafleur, opponent 1971-85 with Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings; teammate 1988-89 with New York Rangers:

“It’s a very, very sad day. I’ve known Guy since I was 9 years old — minor hockey, junior hockey, the NHL, the Legends alumni tours. There’s no more to say for me. People don’t know how closely I’ve stayed in touch with him. … I was at the Hockey Hall of Fame a few days before Mike Bossy died. I told them that Mike and Guy Lafleur, both suffering from cancer at the time, were always going to be remembered in the Great Hall. Great players die, but they’ll be in the Hall forever. 

“I was more of the playmaker, Guy was more of the sniper. I joked with him that with the defensemen he had — Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson — he should have scored 1,000 goals. We were great, great friends. I admired very much what he did with the public, he really took care of them, was very respectful. Many times on the Legends tour I had to stop the people who had gathered around him because we had to catch a plane or jump on the bus to another town. They were very enjoyable days, really a lot of fun. Guy and I both really enjoyed playing the game.

“Since last October, every morning that I woke up, I thought about both Guy and Mike. Guy was the last one alive holding the Cup with Jean Beliveau and Maurice Richard, the Rocket, for the famous photo on the ice at the Montreal Forum. There’s so much out there. Canada Cup 1981, the photo of Lafleur, Bossy and Wayne Gretzky leaning over the boards. Unbelievable. 

“Guy lived well. He had a great life. He really enjoyed it and he made a lot of people very happy. And I often thought, was it better for Guy to go as he did, or to go suddenly without any chance to say goodbye to the people he loved? I’d choose to go the way Guy did. It’s one more thing he accomplished. It was the nicest farewell he could have had.”

Larry Robinson, Hall of Fame defenseman, Montreal Canadiens teammate 1972-85:

“He was a guy who showed up and you’d ask him, ‘What did you do during the offseason?’ Naturally, he’d been everywhere. He’d say, ‘I went here and here and here …’ and I’d ask him, ‘Did you work out at all?’ and he’d say, ‘I jogged a little bit.’ Next thing you know, he’s on the ice and he’s going around everybody. We worked our tails off to get in shape for training camp but for him, everything came so natural.

“That was the one thing that was so amazing about him. Look at photos and pictures of him and you say, ‘He doesn’t look that big,’ then you meet him and shake his hand and yours is swallowed in that big mitt of his. He’s got Popeye forearms. He was just a big, strong man. 

“He went out there and shot 100 or 200 pucks before practice even started. If we were doing a new drill that he hadn’t done, Scotty [Bowman] would choose ‘Flower’ as the last guy to do it because he’d be the first guy to [mess] it up. But if you made a pass to Lafleur, if he could get his stick on it, he’d get it. He had a great way of cushioning the pass, it didn’t matter if it was on his forehand, backhand or in his feet, he’d get it. That’s probably why he was such a great player.

“He took his helmet off (to start his fourth season) and scored a couple of goals (53). The hair got longer as he started getting used to the switch from junior to the NHL. Everybody knows there aren’t many who can make that transition right away, especially having all that pressure on him. … He’d get death threats, the Bruins’ Mike Milbury saying that he was going to take his head off, that he wouldn’t get out of Boston, so what does he do? We’d win 2-1 and Guy would score both of our goals.

“Flower wasn’t a rah-rah guy. We had so many guys who never shut up. Flower would be sitting there and he’d come up with something stupid. ‘C’mon guys, let’s get going! You know why we’re playing hockey? Because we didn’t want to go to school!’ Ask me the first player I’d put on my team, it would be Guy Lafleur. He was a winner. That’s what made him special.”

Phil Esposito, Hall of Fame center, opponent 1971-81 with Bruins, Rangers; as New York general manager in 1988, talked Lafleur out of retirement to play with Rangers in 1988-89:

“I feel terrible about Guy, really sad. Every time one of the guys dies — Mike (Bossy), ‘Clarkie’ (Clark Gillies), Rod Gilbert, my brother (Tony) — it makes me feel my own mortality. 

“In his prime with the Canadiens, Guy had great speed and he played with good players. His line with Jacques Lemaire at center and Steve Shutt on left wing was very hard to calm down and stop. When Peter Mahovlich centered him, too. 

“Guy had a very good shot. It was probably harder than people thought, and it was definitely a heck of a lot more accurate than they thought. I really liked Guy. He was a nice guy, like his teammates Yvan Cournoyer and Larry Robinson. As opponents, the respect factor was always there for them. For Guy, it was way up there. 

“He liked his hair flowing in the wind, I’m sure that’s why he got rid of his helmet. What I loved most about Guy is that nothing bothered him. He just went out there and played.

“As Rangers GM, I never thought he was finished. Never. I thought he had lots left. And he did. I wasn’t sure if he’d come out of retirement. (Coach) Michel Bergeron and I talked about it at length. I remember saying to Michel, ‘I’d like to see if he wants to play. Why not? The Big Apple. I think he’s still got it. He’s got something left.’ We went to Montreal, met with him and talked him into it, I guess. I don’t even know how much money we paid him. In those days, it didn’t matter. 

“I don’t remember it being a hard sell. I think he still had it in him, that he wanted to play. I put myself in his shoes. He was what, 37 years old? If the Bruins had come back to me and asked me to go back to play for them, or if a team like Montreal had … I think we had a nice discussion, a couple beers and that was it. He came to camp and was terrific (45 points; 18 goals, 27 assists in 67 games). He just went out there and played.”

Yvan Cournoyer, Hall of Fame forward, Canadiens teammate 1971-79, Lafleur’s captain 1975-79, fellow team ambassador:

“The people liked Guy so much, he was so active, making appearances all the time. At the end he had to stay home, confined to his bed. We’d walk down the street and we’d think we were still playing, it’s amazing. I feel very bad … every day I think about him. 

“The first practice I saw Guy in training camp after he’d signed in 1971, I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be a good hockey player, I’m glad he’s with us. He’s going to help us win more Stanley Cups, that’s for sure.’ With Jean Beliveau having just retired, I thought we really needed a player like this.

“If you were a rookie in those days, you had to wait a bit to get your ice time. I know. My first couple of seasons I played on the power play and maybe a shift now and then. I knew one day I’d play regularly but we were winning Stanley Cups. You’re going to feel sorry for yourself when you win the Cup? I don’t think so. 

“We had won in 1971, then Guy started with us. In time he’d get his ice, but not right away. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I knew his time would come. He was too good. He had to play more, which he did after he moved from center to right wing.

“I tried to help him quite a bit. He was asked who was the greatest help to him when he arrived and he said Henri Richard (captain from 1971-75) and me. Guy played to win. He was playing to score goals and do his job. Everyone on our team was important. All of us.”

Jacques Lemaire, Hall of Fame forward, Canadiens teammate 1971-79:

“What made Guy a terrific hockey player is that he was born to be a player. Guys like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, it was meant to be because of the skill they had and their love of the game. Some players think hockey is a good job, it’s fun, you have a good time with it, but these guys, it’s never been a job one day in their lives. 

“Guy Lafleur was always the first one in the dressing room on game day, practices, first one on the ice in practice. It meant everything to him. That’s why he was an elite player. Among other things, Guy could skate all day. We’d come to training camp, which wasn’t like camp is today. Now guys are 90 percent ready to play. We were 90 percent ready not to play. Guy would go on the ice, first day, I’d ask him, ‘Did you train this summer?’ 

“He was faster than anyone, no fatigue … it’s like his DNA was different than other guys. He didn’t do anything in the offseason. He never lifted weights, he was a naturally muscular guy. It looked so easy for him. You see guys take a shift, get caught out there too long, they come to the bench, their head to their knees, out of breath. Guy? Never. Not once. His ability, well, he was the guy who saw everything on the ice. 

“But he couldn’t be part of a system! (laughs) He didn’t want to be part of that, he just wanted to skate and play. Just go. He’d jump in front of me for drills and I’d tell him to get back in line so he’d know what to do. He had no idea what we were doing; the guys were always joking about that.

“I thought there was too much pressure on the kid when he arrived. They wanted him to replace Jean Beliveau and he wasn’t ready. It took him a few years because of the pressure. Twenty-nine goals his first year and some fans thought the Canadiens had drafted the wrong guy. I know he felt a lot of pressure, I was there. Because of the expectations. 

“He finally took off his helmet for his fourth season, trying to be what the people wanted him to be. He settled down in his fourth year. He said it’s because he took his helmet off. It wasn’t the helmet, but what was inside it.

“Guy Lafleur was one of the really top players, natural, individual skills, who has ever played the game. He could make something out of nothing. When I played with him, the only thing I wanted to do was back him up and get open. If we got open, we got the puck, that’s how we worked. Many times I asked him, ‘How the heck did you see me there?’ and he’d say, ‘Well, that’s where you should have been.’ “

Bob Gainey, Hall of Fame forward, Montreal Canadiens teammate 1973-85:

“For a window of time, Guy was THE player in the game. He carried his team and in some respects he carried the League. He was very skilled and flamboyant and fun to watch, so he brought all of those assets that would attract people to come to see the sport, the team and the player.

“My first year (1973-74) was Guy’s third season. He was still having a difficult time, not that I really recognized that at the time because I was having a difficult time of my own. He was still struggling, trying to find this place that suited him. He had not really ‘married’ with another player that made them seem like a tandem that knew and assumed and instinctively were in the right place for the other player. He was still being moved around to different trios.

“Once he found some peace and found a place, his status went up and his aura was bright. Then he started to look for quiet places to do the things that were going on in his head, without the structure. That was an hour or 90 minutes before a practice would begin. He could have freedom to run through these different scenarios that played through his head, where there wasn’t the structure of the other players and coach’s demands. When the regular practice began, he was kind of locked in like everybody else.

“That group of people we had together for seven, eight, nine years, when he was at his very best, we had a great place from which to watch him perform. Ninety-nine percent of the time when he was on the ice, I was on the bench. I got to watch him. He used to shock us, stun everybody who watching, that he could move from the situation he was in and turn it into something else. We had a lot of those nights at different places.

“This has happened to me in Ontario, where I’ll be at a kids tournament, and someone will say to me, ‘Guy Lafleur was here last year and man, he was great.’ That’s happened to me a few times in different places, where he’s gone out to do what he does as an ambassador and left a very positive impression.”