Chris Nilan likes to joke about how he has only one Stanley Cup ring.
When the 13 living players who were part of the Canadiens’ 1970s dynasty team that won four straight Stanley Cups, starting in 1976, got together recently for a golf tournament, combined they have 75 Stanley Cup rings, led by Yvan Cournoyer with 10.
The other players from that dynasty team who took part in the fifth edition of the Serge Savard Invitational tournament on Aug. 13 at Le Mirage Golf Club (with Stanley Cup rings in parentheses) were Savard (8), Jacques Lemaire (8), Larry Robinson (6), Guy Lapointe (6), Ken Dryden (6), Bob Gainey (5), Steve Shutt (5), Mario Tremblay (5), Yvon Lambert (4), Doug Risebrough (4), Doug Jarvis (4) and Rick Chartraw (4). Former coach Scotty Bowman, who won nine Stanley Cups (including five with the Canadiens), also took part in the tournament.
Guy Lafleur and Michel (Bunny) Larocque, the two players from that 1970s dynasty team who have passed away, won five and four Stanley Cups, respectively.
Nilan also took part in the golf tournament at Le Mirage, along with former Canadiens Guy Carbonneau, Vincent Damphousse, Patrice Brisebois, Stéphan Lebeau, Peter Mahovlich, Pierre Mondou, Pierre Bouchard, Lucien DeBlois, Gilbert Delorme, Rick Green, Sergio Momesso and José Theodore.
The Canadiens selected Nilan with the 231st of 234 overall picks at the 1978 NHL Draft. He made his NHL debut two years later and was part of the Canadiens’ 1986 Stanley Cup team.
Nilan still remembers walking into the Canadiens’ Forum locker room for the first time at training camp.
“I didn’t like any of them because they beat the Bruins all the time,” said Nilan, who grew up in Boston. “It was just weird … it was a weird feeling. The year before I’m in college (playing for Northeastern University) in the locker room at Boston Arena and the next year I’m in the Canadiens locker room and Guy Lafleur is looking at me. And then he finally says: ‘Tabarnak, it’s you! The kid from Boston who gave us a ride.’ I said: ‘I told you I was going to be here.’”
When the Canadiens played the Bruins in the 1979 Stanley Cup semifinals, Nilan and a friend spotted Lafleur and teammates Lemaire and Gilles Lupien standing outside of the Boston Garden waiting for a taxi after an off-day practice. They offered the players a ride back to their hotel and Nilan told them in the car that the Canadiens had drafted him and that he would soon be playing alongside them. When Nilan told the players what round he was drafted in (the 19th) they started to laugh, thinking he was joking.
“It was somewhat intimidating,” Nilan recalled about entering the Canadiens locker room for the first time. “It’s hard to explain, but the feeling of walking into that locker room … just the feeling of success and greatness, you could feel it when you were in there. They were the benchmark when it came to winning the Stanley Cup. When you walked in the room you just knew it.
“I played with a lot of those guys because I came when they were going for (Stanley Cup) No. 5,” Nilan recalled. “Dryden left (after the 1978-79 season). Cournoyer came to camp that year, but had to retire (because of a back injury). But I played with Riser (Risebrough), I played with Guy, I played with Charty (Chartraw), I played with Serge, I played with Larry. Lemaire had left. So Lemaire and Dryden were the only two guys, I think, that I didn’t play with. And I didn’t play for Scotty.”
Bowman started coaching the Canadiens in 1971-72 after four seasons as head coach of the expansion St. Louis Blues, losing to Montreal in the Stanley Cup final in 1968 and 1969. Bowman, who left the Canadiens for the Buffalo Sabres after the 1979 championship, won his first Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1973.
“It was important as young players that they always had people to look up to who had won and that meant a lot to them coming into the NHL,” Bowman said about the Canadiens winning six Stanley Cups in the 1970s, including 1971 with Al MacNeil as head coach.
Bowman noted that when he started coaching the Canadiens Henri Richard — who won a record 11 Stanley Cups, including five in the 1960s — and Frank Mahovlich — who won four Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1960s and two more with the Canadiens in the 1970s — were still with the team. Savard, Lapointe and Lemaire all broke in with the Canadiens when Bowman was in St. Louis.
“They all said that when you broke in with a team that had a core of players who had won you want to fit in,” Bowman said. “And then Lafleur came in in 1971, with Larry Robinson and Murray Wilson and Steve Shutt the next year and Bunny Larocque the year after and then Bob Gainey came in the next year.”
During their run of four straight Stanley Cups, starting in 1976, the Canadiens posted an overall regular-season record of 229-46-45. They lost only one home game in 1976-77 while posting a regular-season record of 60-8-12 and outscoring opponents 387-171 for a plus-216 goal differential.
“We lost eight games out of 80 and we lost two out of 14 in the playoffs,” Bowman recalled about the 1976-77 season. “Eight losses is pretty tough to do in any sport when you play 80 games. But they just kept winning and rolling along.”
Nilan said the golf tournament was a day when Lafleur’s presence was really missed after his former teammate and great friend passed away two years ago at age 70 from lung cancer.
“Guy sucked at golf,” Nilan said with a chuckle. “He hated golf, but he would have been there. He hated golf and fishing … two things I love.”