B’s give Nifty honor to 16
Middleton proud of his career in Boston
Rick Middleton had a standard line he sometimes used to describe his game.
“I’m just a specialist,” he’d deadpan. “I score goals.”
That bit of self-deprecation, of course, did not aptly or fully describe Middleton’s career. Not only did he amass 448 career goals (988 points), the spectacular and timely nature of many of those tallies made the raising of his No. 16 to the Garden rafters — happening in a ceremony tonight at 6:30 before the Bruins-Islanders game — a given, albeit one that seemed for many a little late in coming.
Not that you’d find a man more appreciative of the honor.
“I’m more concerned with going over the time (in his speech) than anything else,” said a laughing Middleton, whose excitement came through loud and clear yesterday. “They’ll have to shut me off because they have to play a game.”
“Nifty” as he was — and is — known came to Boston as many Bruins stars did back in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s — through a gift of a trade. With then-Rangers general manager John Ferguson looking to reunite Phil Esposito with Ken Hodge, he shipped the talented kid with a worrisome wild side to Boston. Hodge played 96 games and scored 23 goals for the Rangers. Middleton played 881 games with 402 goals for the B’s. Not a bad little win for then-GM Harry Sinden.
Had Middleton stayed in New York, he very well might have been part of that Rangers renaissance that saw them go to the Stanley Cup finals in 1979. He might have been the piece that broke the 1940 curse before the 1994 Blueshirts did. But it would not have been the same.
“Would I have been part of the resurgence of the team? Yeah, maybe. Would my career have taken off the way that it did in Boston? Never,” Middleton said. “Because once Gerry Cheevers became the coach in the ’80s, I was kind of his go-to guy. They put me with Barry (Pederson), and we clicked right away. We put up some unbelievable numbers that I don’ think I would have ever attained without him as my centerman and Mike Krushelnyski on the left side for a couple of years.”
The five seasons between 1979 and 1984 were Middleton’s salad days. During that time, 231 pucks found the back of the net off his stick, though he didn’t exactly fire them home. Coaxed was more like it, often after a drop-of-the-shoulder move pretzeled a would-be defender. Middleton’s game wasn’t about quantity of shots, but quality. According to hockey-reference.com, he’s sixth in history with a shooting percentage of 19.72, and tops among players who played 1,000 games. When he scored his career-best 51 goals in 1981-82, he connected on an astounding 25.2 percent.
“I never had the big shot from the outside, so I wasn’t always shooting,” Middleton said. “I would hold the puck, make a play with it or try to beat a defenseman inside and then make the play. So the number of shots per game was cut because when I tried to go around the defenseman, half the time he’d knock me on my butt. The other half I’d make it around or I’d pass it to somebody. My shot totals weren’t all that high, but luckily I was able to put enough goals in to make that percentage look good.”
Middleton counts those early 1980s as his career high points. He also fondly recalls being able to play on Don Cherry’s teams of the late 1970s in the “no-helmet” era, though the transition under the flamboyant coach wasn’t always easy. First there was no obvious place to play him — the B’s had Wayne Cashman, Terry O’Reilly and Bobby Schmautz ahead of him on the right side when he first arrived. Then came the matter of getting him acquainted with the defensive zone. He went from being a minus-38 player his last year in New York to garnering Selke Trophy votes during his time in Boston. He’s still the Bruins career leader in shorthanded goals with 25 (Brad Marchand is creeping up with 23).
“I was proud to say that, after I got to Boston, I never had a minus year in my 12 years. I was always a plus player,” Middleton said. “Don had an effect on me, obviously.”
Though he never won a Stanley Cup, his clutch credentials are intact. He had 100 points in 111 playoff games (45 goals) and, in 1982-83 when the B’s were stopped in the semis by the Islanders, Middleton notched a stunning 11 goals and 22 assists in 17 games.
The toughest year of his career was 1985-86, when he took a puck off his head in practice and developed a blood clot. When that cleared, he suffered from hyperventilation, which turned out to be caused by the medication he was taking. He could have played more, but he was limited to 49 games. Had he been allowed to stop the medication and return to action, he probably would have gotten those 12 points he needed to get to 1,000.
He did return the next season and scored 31 goals while playing with the B’s newest star, current team president Cam Neely. The next year would be his last in the NHL and, as is often the case, it wasn’t always a happy one as his playing time began to dwindle. But there was a nice treat at the end of it. After 45 years, the B’s finally beat the Canadiens in a playoff series.
“That was my Cup, really,” Middleton said. “I was the only guy left on the team from all those years from the ’70s that we lost the Cup to Montreal. Terry was coaching, but I was the only player left. That was special for me to do that.”
Tonight, Middleton will have plenty of family on hand for the event — his wife Liz; children Claudine, Jarrett, and Brett; stepchildren Evan and Sara; his sister Carol and nephew Ryan.
And while there’s still a worthy debate on whether he should get into the Hockey Hall of Fame, his number retirement is a fitting bow on a great career.
“I’ve always said I think it’s the greatest honor an athlete can get,” Middleton said. “Cam knocked me off my chair when he told me. It’s not like I never thought about it, but you certainly don’t know when, and there’s no rhyme or reason to these things. I honestly can’t wait to get the ceremony underway and finally watch my family help raise it to the rafters forever. It’s going to be awesome.”