BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – For just the second time in his post-playing career, and the first time at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, Blaine Stoughton was back to Hart City, a place he still holds many fond memories of.
Dunkin’ Donuts Park is the home of the Eastern League Hartford Yard Goats, the affiliate of the Colorado Rockies,
Stoughton’s first visit was the infamous Whale Bowl outdoor game on a frigid Saturday in 2011.
“(His time in Hartford) was the biggest and most successful part of my career. Our kids were born here, and the fans were great to me, and I love coming back here,” Stoughton said.
STASH
Before arriving in Hartford, he was the first seventh overall pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the early 1970s. He was known as ‘Stash’ in his playing days for his well-manicured hair above his lip. He came out of one of the time’s great junior franchises, the Flin Flon (Manitoba) Bombers (WCHL now WHL). His teammates included Bob Clarke and Reggie Leach, whom he played with in his first junior year.
“Some of the young guys here don’t know my nickname, but my old teammates sure do. I always knew I could score since I was ten years old. I always knew I could score, and you never acted like you were better than everybody else. You can learn from everybody you watch in practice. You can’t be jealous of others. To have a Reggie (Leach) there my first year – he had 60 goals (65) – I learned a lot,” Stoughton said on a sultry Saturday night.
A SPEARING LESSON
An ill-advised spear in his second season of juniors cost him a 29-game league suspension. The length and severity of the suspension in the early 1970s hockey taught Stoughton an early and valuable lesson about his stick.
He would cross the century mark only once more in his entire hockey career after that.
Stoughton blossomed in his third year of junior. He led the league in goals (60) and points (126) and came on also the scout’s radars as a WCHL First Team All-Star.
In his last year of juniors, he tallied 54 markers and 115 points. He was not only selected by the Penguins but also the Quebec Nordiques of the rabble-rousing, upstart-league, the WHA, in their draft on June 12, 1973. They took him in the second round (#14). That year the league had only twelve teams.
His first year in the NHL didn’t go as well as expected, and he was sent down to the Hershey Bears (AHL).
Stoughton responded to the demotion and answered back quickly.
RESPONDING TO A DEMOTION
“I was young. We had like only five married guys on the team. I enjoyed the night life, a little too much my first year. We had fun. I learned a lot in those three years though. I promised I would change when I got another crack.”
And he did.
Stoughton was shipped off to the Toronto Maple Leafs just before training camp on September 13, 1974, with future considerations for Rick Kehoe.
“I knew this was a business about money and results.”
Stoughton, who approached his career as a business, got a Ph.D. in mid-70s hockey economics from Maple Leafs’ owner Harold Ballard, who was known for his unwillingness to spend money.
“He was…” as Stoughton calculated his response, “tough to deal with,. (He was) very controlling, kinds like George Steinbrenner was, but at least he would pay you,” quipped the one-time right winger.
Ballard’s treatment of players and his general business practices were instrumental in creating a need for a player’s union.
POST BALLARD
After two years, Stoughton was low-balled by Ballard and was re-sent to the minors to Oklahoma City in the old Central League. Stoughton responded by taking his talents to the WHA’s Cincinnati Stingers. They acquired his rights in the 1976 WHA Expansion Draft, and a memorable bee logo and their yellow uniforms.
“It was an easy call. They (Cincinnati) offered me $75,000, and in those days, that was a lot of money and the length of the deal (three years) and no way Ballard was gonna pay me that much to stay or even try to match it and I found the right spot.”
The junior ‘Stash came out in his now hometown his first year. He produced 52 goals and led a hot, young scoring team that featured Richie Leduc, current Florida senior advisor and former Nighthawks coach Rick Dudley, former junior opponent and scorer Dennis Sobchuk, and another WCHL product, Dennis Abgrall.
“Off the ice was the biggest change, on the ice I got put with the right people when we were down by a goal, we could put our line out there and score two or three,” remarked the former 50-goal scorer who played with Leduc and fellow WHA-NHL draftee, who later played for the Nighthawks and Rangers as well, Claude Larose.
Another trio was sometimes formed with Rick Dudley with the humorous line tag-the LSD line.
THE LSD LINE
He became a financial casualty and frustrated by new coach Jacques Demers’s defense-first philosophy in Cincy. He was sent to the Indianapolis Racers with Gilles Marrotte for Byron Baltimore and Hugh Harris in December 1977.
He lasted a year in Indy, and in another cash move the Racers dealt him to the Whalers for Dave Inkpen and the cash they badly needed just before the team folded.
Stoughton arrived for the last season of the WHA in Hartford. First, he played in the iconic kelly-green uniforms emblazoned with the harpoon Whaler logo. He was living every Canadian boy’s dream. He took the ice with legends Dave Keon, Johnny McKenzie (#19), who’s retired to the XL Center rafters, Andre Lacroix, the all-time WHA points leader, Bobby Hull, and “Mr. Hockey,” Gordie Howe.
Three important things happened to him in Hartford. The first was he met his wife, Cindy. The second was being taken in the expansion draft away from the hated Toronto Maple Leafs, who still owned his NHL rights, by the Whalers as part of the terms of the merger. He also got hooked up with a former WCHL top scorer and centerman, Mike Rogers (Calgary).
It was a match made for him as the Whaler duo proved the NHL thinking of the day that WHA players couldn’t hack it in the NHL was wrong.
SECOND CHANCES
In his second crack in the NHL, Stoughton collected 100 points, second to Rogers 105 that first year. Rogers equaled the mark the following year, and Stoughton, two years later, eclipsed the 50-goal mark again and led the team in scoring.
“The biggest thing? That was meeting Cindy. It changed my lifestyle. We’re still together and had two great kids. (I) stopped going out as much and now have four grandchildren, and hooking up with Mike and then Ronnie (Francis) were two very important elements of my success.”
He had his secret formula.
“I always kept my secret to myself, didn’t tell anyone, even my teammates. I drove some of my coaches crazy, but I could weave my game to what the coaches wanted. The secret was to get open, and somebody feeds you the puck. Mike could do that.
“We developed some good chemistry together.” Stoughton, Rogers, and Pat Boutette formed the Dash, Bash, and Stash line in an era where line nicknames were common.
Stoughton led the NHL along with Danny Gare (Buffalo) and Charlie Simmer (Los Angeles) from its famed “Kings Triple Crown Line” with 56 goals and won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the NHL’s top goal scorer.
He’s in the record books with Hull as the ONLY two players to score 50 goals in the NHL and WHA.
Nope, not even Gretzky did that.
ROGERS-STOUGHTON
As a pair, Rogers-Stoughton was right up there with Gretzky-Kurri, Trottier-Bossy, and Lemaire-Lafleur as one of the premier dynamic duos of the NHL in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
He started a four-year run of 40-plus goals as he would lead the Whalers in goal scoring and be in the top five in points. He went to his only NHL All-Star game in LA in the 1981-82 season.
In the entire Whaler time of 25 years, the mark of Rogers 105 and Stoughton’s 56 still stand as team records. Mark Howe set the WHA—NHL mark of 107 in the last year of the WHA.
Only two other players in the WHA surpassed 100 points for the Whalers. They are all-time WHA Whalers points leader, the late Tom “Hawkeye” Webster (103) and Terry Caffrey (100) in the first season in Boston.
The only other player to come close in points was NHL Hall of Famer Seattle GM Ron Francis (101) in his last full season in Hartford before his infamous trade to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Eric Staal had 100 in Carolina’s 2005 Stanley Cup win with the Hurricanes.
In his only season in Hartford, Toronto Maple Leafs’ Team President Brendan Shanahan came the closest to Stoughton’s mark with 44 in 1995-96. Geoff Sanderson came close twice with 46 and 41.
REUNITED WITH ROGERS
When the magic was leaving Stoughton’s stick, and with the Whalers fading, he was traded to the New York Rangers for Scot Kleinendorst. There he was reunited with Rogers at MSG.
“I never complained. I had some back issues at that time that impacted my game, and it wasn’t an operational situation. The Rangers were very good to me and my wife, and we realized we were at the end of the line.”
It was a short-lived ride, and when his NHL career ended after 546 games with nearly a point-a-game average (449), Stoughton proved he could play in the NHL.
He ended the North American portion of his playing career with the New Haven Nighthawks. He played sixty games at the old New Haven Coliseum, potting 20 goals.
He took off a year and finished overseas with then HC Asiago in Italy.
After his career ended, he was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.
“We had so much fun over there (Italy). It was a lot of fun. The hockey was very different over there.”
LAWLESS
He dabbled in coaching in his post-playing career. Stoughton was an assistant coach for the Cincinnati Cyclones (IHL) in the league’s first year and during the last two years in the ECHL. That tenure saw the memorable signing of a former teammate in Hartford, Paul Lawless, from the woe begotten New Haven Senators (AHL).
Lawless basically released himself by getting tossed in his last game of a 20-game PTO. The ejection came just 37 seconds into that game. Lawless called the referee every name in the book and skedaddled to Cincinnati, where Stoughton had an excellent IHL deal waiting for him.
The pair went into ownership and management for five years in the old independent minor league WPHL along the I-5 corridor in the American Southwest with the first edition of hockey in the Texas capital with the remarkable logo of the Austin (TX) Ice Bats. They were co-owners, GM, and the coach at various times.
