BEST TRADE NO. 2: KEN DRYDEN
Habs nabbed goalie from Bruins
This week we're looking at the five best trades in Canadiens history. Today, No. 2:
How much would the history of the Canadiens have changed if goaltender Ken Dryden had been playing for the Boston Bruins during the 1970s?
The Canadiens and Dryden dominated the decade with six Stanley Cups. Dryden, whose Hall of Fame career lasted only eight seasons, was between the pipes for all of those Cup victories and, along the way, he beat the Bruins in four series, including the Cup finals in 1977 and 1978.
The Bruins' frustration was compounded by the fact that, for about two hours on June 28, 1964, Dryden's rights belonged to Boston.
Before the NHL instituted the entry draft in 1979, teams started scouting players as young as peewees and signed them to A, B and C forms, which bound them to a team. Each of the six NHL teams had affiliated junior teams, which served as the gateway to a professional career.
Dryden's older brother, Dave, took the traditional route to the NHL, playing junior for the St. Mike's Majors and progressed through the OHA Senior League to the NHL. Ken Dryden had his sights set on playing U.S. college hockey and never signed a form. That meant he wasn't bound to an NHL team.
That changed when the NHL introduced what it called the amateur draft in 1963. In its second year of operation, the Bruins selected Dryden, a 16-year-old playing for the Junior B Humber Valley Packers, with the 14th overall pick.
Two hours later, the Bruins traded Dryden's rights to the Canadiens. Because the amateur draft attracted little attention from the media and fans, the deal flew under the radar. In fact, it was years and, in one case, decades, later that the players involved learned they had been traded.
The details of the trade are lost in history, but the Bruins were reportedly interested in Guy Allen, a Junior B defenceman. When the draft came to a close, the Canadiens sent Allen and winger Paul Reid to Boston in return for Dryden and winger Alex Campbell.
That 1964 draft produced a handful of NHL players, including Tim Ecclestone, Mike Pelyk, Jim Dorey and Syl Apps Jr., but Dryden was the first prize.
None of the other players in the trade came close to the NHL.
Campbell played at St. Lawrence University, where his teammates included future NHL head coach Mike Keenan. Campbell was among the leading scorers on the team and played one season in the International Hockey League after graduation.
Allen played four seasons of junior hockey with the Bruins-affiliated Niagara Falls Flyers, the Toronto Marlies and the London Knights followed by four seasons in the minors.
Reid never played beyond junior, but he did get a chance to play a part of one season as Bobby Orr's teammate with the Oshawa Generals. He didn't learn that he had originally been drafted by the Canadiens until 38 years later.
Dryden was playing for the Canadiens when he learned about the trade from team scout Ron Caron.
The Canadiens had to wait for this trade to pay off. Dryden went to Cornell University where he compiled a 76-4-1 record and one NCAA championship. (One interesting bit of trivia: The year after Dryden left, Cornell compiled the only undefeated season in NCAA history, going 29-0 with 5-foot-6 Brian Cropper replacing the 6-foot-4 Dryden.)
Dryden spent a year with Canada's national team before agreeing to turn pro with a deal that allowed him to attend law school at Mcgill University.
Dryden skated away from the game in 1979 after winning his fourth consecutive Stanley Cup. He appeared in 397 regular-season games with a 258-57-74 record, 2.24 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage. He won a Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP (1971), the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year (1972) and the Vézina Trophy as the top goaltender five times (1973, '76, '77, '78 and '79).