The 1970 NHL Amateur Draft was the first for the Buffalo
Sabres and Vancouver Canucks and saw 14 teams select 115 players over 14
rounds. 62 of the 115 players went on to play at least one game in the National
Hockey League. Three of the 115 went on to have stellar NHL careers and
eventually get inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Gilbert Perreault - 1990
Gilbert
Perreault getting chosen first overall by the expansion Buffalo
Sabres came down to a spin of the wheel. In deciding which of the two new
teams would choose first, Buffalo and Vancouver each took a spin of ‘crown and
anchor’ type wheel with Buffalo winning. The Sabres took Perreault and the
Canucks took defenseman Dale Tallon.
Perreault was coming off a dominant junior season in the
OHA, scoring 51 goals and totalling 121 points in 54 games for the Montreal
Junior Canadiens. He finished second in the race for the Eddie Powers Trophy to
Marcel
Dionne of the St. Catherines Black Hawks, who finished with 132 points.
Dionne would go second overall to the Detroit Red Wings in the 1971 draft.
Gilbert played his entire career with the Sabres, from
1970-71 to 1986-87. To this day, he is arguably the franchise’s greatest
player. In his first season, he was awarded the Calder Memorial
Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie while scoring 38 goals and assisting on 34
others. That, coupled with the Lady Byng Trophy he won in 1972-73 would be the
only major individual awards Perreault would win. He finished his career with
512 goals and 1,326 points. Gilbert Perreault was inducted into the Hockey Hall
of Fame in 1990.
Darryl Sittler - 1989
Darryl
Sittler was taken in the eighth position by the Toronto Maple Leafs after
playing three years of junior hockey with the OHA’s London Knights. Although an
immediate regular with Toronto, Sittler was a bit slower to start than his
counterpart in Buffalo. In his first two seasons, Darryl contributed just 50
points in 123 regular season games.
Sittler played nearly 1,100 regular season games in the NHL
between 1970-71 and 1984-85 with the Maple Leafs, Philadelphia Flyers and
Detroit Red Wings. Never a Stanley Cup winner and never the recipient of a
major NHL individual award, Darryl did have two 100+ points seasons with
Toronto and ended his career with 484 goals and 1,121 points. Darryl Sittler
was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989.
Billy Smith - 1993
NHL teams rarely select goaltenders in the early rounds of
the draft. Thus was the case with Billy Smith. The junior star with the
Cornwall Royals of the QMJHL was taken down in the fifth round by the Los
Angeles Kings, 59th overall. Smith played just five games with the Kings
in 1971-72 but became a regular with the New York Islanders in their inaugural
season, 1972-73.
Smith was mostly New York’s number one goalie until he
retired after the 1988-89 season. He viscously guarded between the pipes as the
Islanders won four consecutive Stanley Cup championships from 1979-80 to
1982-83. Billy was awarded the Vezina Trophy in 1981-82 and received the Conn
Smythe Trophy the following season as the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Billy
Smith was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993.
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