1971 NHL Intra-League Draft

The 1971 Intra-League Draft was known more for the antics of Punch Imlach than the transactions themselves.

The draft was held June 8. Each team protected 18 skaters and two goalies. When a goalie was lost another could be added to the protected list as a fill-in. The draft price was $40,000.

Overall	Player Chosen	By	From	Player Removed From Protected List	Claim player or cash
Round 1
1	Wayne Carleton	California Golden Seals	Boston Bruins	Gerry Ehman	cash
2	Al Smith	Detroit Red Wings	Pittsburgh Penguins	Jim Rutherford	claim
3	Dennis Kearns	Vancouver Canucks	Chicago Black Hawks	Murray Hall	cash
4	Dave Burrows	Pittsburgh Penguins	Chicago Black Hawks	Dean Prentice	cash
5	Ray McKay	Buffalo Sabres	Chicago Black Hawks	Jean-Guy Talbot	cash
6	Gary Edwards	Los Angeles Kings	Buffalo Sabres	Bruce Landon	cash
	pass	Minnesota North Stars
7	Larry Brown	Philadelphia Flyers	New York Rangers	Larry Hillman	cash
8	Don Marshall	Toronto Maple Leafs	Buffalo Sabres	Brian Marchinko	cash
9	Mike Parizeau	St. Louis Blues	New York Rangers	Claude Laforge	cash
	pass	Montreal Canadiens
	pass	Chicago Black Hawks
	pass	New York Rangers
	pass	Boston Bruins
Round 2
10	Frank Hughes	California Golden Seals	Toronto Maple Leafs	Doug Roberts	cash
11	Fred Speck	Vancouver Canucks	Detroit Red Wings	Ron Ward	cash
12	Tim Horton	Pittsburgh Penguins	New York Rangers	Bob Blackburn	cash
13	Rene Robert	Buffalo Sabres	Toronto Maple Leafs	Floyd Smith	cash
14	Frank Spring	Philadelphia Flyers	Boston Bruins	Garry Peters	claim
Round 3
15	Stan Gilbertson	California Golden Seals	Boston Bruins	Bill Hicke	cash
16	Rey Comeau	Vancouver Canucks	Montreal Canadiens	Jim Wiste	cash
17	Hugh Harris	Buffalo Sabres	Montreal Canadiens	Paul Andrea	cash
18	Brian Lavender	Minnesota North Stars	Montreal Canadiens	Bob Murdoch	claim
Round 4
	Dick Duff	Buffalo Sabres	Buffalo Sabres	Rene Robert
19	Rene Robert	Pittsburgh Penguins	Buffalo Sabres	Wally Boyer	cash
Round 5
	Reg Fleming	Buffalo Sabres	Buffalo Sabres	Hugh Harris
Round 6
20	Danny Lawson	Buffalo Sabres	Minnesota North Stars	Reg Fleming	cash
Round 7
	Reg Fleming	Buffalo Sabres	Buffalo Sabres	Dick Duff
Round 8
21	Rod Zaine	Buffalo Sabres	Pittsburgh Penguins	Reg Fleming	cash
Round 9
	Reg Fleming	Buffalo Sabres	Buffalo Sabres	Rod Zaine
Round 10
22	Tom Miller	Buffalo Sabres	Detroit Red Wings	Reg Fleming	cash
Round 11
	Reg Fleming	Buffalo Sabres	Buffalo Sabres	Tom Miller
Round 12
23	Ken Murray	Buffalo Sabres	Toronto Maple Leafs	Reg Fleming	cash
Round 13
	Reg Fleming	Buffalo Sabres	Buffalo Sabres	Ken Murrary

(Note: After goalies Al Smith and Gary Edwards were drafted the Penguins and Sabres filled in their protected lists with Paul Hoganson and Rocky Farr, respectively.)

As you can see from the results the Sabres had no problem bending the rules a bit to get what they wanted. You see, there was nothing that said a team couldn't draft one of its own unprotected players. Punch Imlach used 35-year-old Reg Fleming, who because of his age and his salary was not likely to be picked by another team anyway, as a pawn. Fleming was 'drafted' and 'dropped' nine times, and in the process the Sabres acquired four players well after the rest of the teams were done drafting. As Imlach drafted a player from another team he'd drop Fleming, who wasn't claimed, and then reclaim him in the next round by dropping the player he'd just drafted. If the drafted player was claimed by another team the Sabres didn't really stand to lose anything: they'd get the $40,000 back from having drafted the player in the first place and they were right back were they started. If they lost Fleming to another team, so what? He was 35; he never played another game in the NHL after this anyway.

Trivia for you: Rene Robert was drafted from the Maple Leafs by the Sabres in the second round but was lost to the Penguins in the fourth round as Punch Imlach was reshuffling his list of players. Imlach wanted to have Robert on his team but ended up having to trade Eddie Shack to the Penguins in 1972 to finally get him.

←1970 Intra-League Draft

1972 Intra-League Draft→

NHL Draft Results

1970 NHL Intra-League Draft

The 1970 NHL Intra-League Draft was held the morning of June 9, 1970, a day before the expansion draft.

Overall	Player Chosen	By	From	Player Removed From Protected List	Claim player or cash
Round 1
1	Paul Curtis	Los Angeles Kings	Montreal Canadiens	Bill Inglis	claim
2	Guy Trottier	Toronto Maple Leafs	New York Rangers		cash
3	Bill Lesuk	Philadelphia Flyers	Boston Bruins	Dick Cherry	claim
4	Bob McCord	Montreal Canadiens	Minnesota North Stars	Ted Harris	claim
5	Gary Croteau	Oakland Seals	Detroit Red Wings		cash
6	John Gofton	Minnesota North Stars	Rochester Americans (AHL)		cash
7	Lowell MacDonald	Pittsburgh Penguins	Los Angeles Kings	Craig Cameron	claim
8	Steve Atkinson	St. Louis Blues	Hershey Bears (AHL)		cash
9	Gerry Lemire	New York Rangers	St. Louis Blues		cash
10	Tom Martin	Detroit Red Wings	Phoenix Roadrunners (WHL)		cash
Round 2
11	Paul Andrea	Oakland Seals	Vancouver Canucks (WHL)		cash
12	Jean-Guy Lagace	Minnesota North Stars	Pittsburgh Penguins		cash
13	Chris Evans	St. Louis Blues	Phoenix Roadrunners (WHL)		cash

You'll notice several of the players were nominally taken from minor league teams. These players were still eligible to be chosen, even though they'd been traded to minor league teams, because of arcane rules about how many games they'd played in the NHL.

←1969 Intra-League Draft

1971 Intra-League Draft→

NHL Draft Results

1970 NHL Inter-League Draft

The 1970 Inter-League Draft was held June 9, just after the intra-league draft. The Buffalo Sabres were the only team to participate. The Canucks were excluded because they had been a WHL team themselves, thus they already had a few minor league players under contract. The rest of the league was excluded in order to give the expansion Sabres the best pick of the minor league players. This was a relatively small concession as of the four picks only Bill Inglis had any NHL experience up to that point.

Overall	Player Chosen	By	From
1	Kevin O'Shea	Buffalo Sabres	San Diego Gulls (WHL)
2	Cliff Schmautz	Buffalo Sabres	Portland Buckaroos (WHL)
3	Brian McDonald	Buffalo Sabres	Denver Spurs (WHL)
4	Bill Inglis	Buffalo Sabres	Montreal Voyageurs (AHL)1 (Montreal Canadiens)

1. Bill Inglis was claimed by the Montreal Canadiens from the Los Angeles Kings in the Intra-League Draft earlier in the day. He never played for the Montreal Canadiens or their affiliate in the AHL.

A tidbit of trivia for you: Kevin O'Shea and Cliff Schmautz each had more famous brothers playing in the NHL. Kevin's older brother Danny played 370 games, mostly with the North Stars. Cliff's younger brother Bobby played 764 games, mostly with the Bruins.

1970 NHL Expansion Draft

As promised here follows the results of the 1970 Expansion Draft that occurred June 10, 1970.

The protected lists:

Boston Bruins	Chicago Black Hawks	Detroit Red Wings	Los Angeles Kings	Minnesota North Stars	Montreal Canadiens
Goaltenders
Gerry Cheevers	Gerry Desjardins	Roger Crozier	Denis Dejordy	Cesare Maniago	Phil Myre
Eddie Johnston	Tony Esposito	Roy Edwards	Jack Norris	Gump Worsley	Rogie Vachon
Skaters
Don Awrey	Bryan Campbell	Gary Bergman	Paul Curtis	Charlie Burns	Ralph Backstrom
Johnny Bucyk	Dennis Hull	Carl Brewer	Dick Duff	Bill Collins	Jean Beliveau
Wayne Carleton	Bobby Hull	Wayne Connelly	Bill Flett	Jude Drouin	Pierre Bouchard
Wayne Cashman	Doug Jarrett	Alex Delvecchio	Ray Fortin	Barry Gibbs	Yvan Cournoyer
Phil Esposito	Cliff Koroll	Ron Harris	Lucien Grenier	John Gofton	John Ferguson
Ted Green	Chico Maki	Gerry Hart	Eddie Joyal	Bill Goldsworthy	Terry Harper
Ken Hodge	Pit Martin	Gordie Howe	Real Lemieux	Danny Grant	Jacques Laperriere
Don Marcotte	Ray McKay	Nick Libett	Ross Lonsberry	Ted Harris	Guy Lapointe
Bobby Orr	Stan Mikita	Bruce MacGregor	Gilles Marotte	Claude Larose	Jacques Lemaire
John McKenzie	Doug Mohns	Frank Mahovlich	Larry Mickey	Danny Lawson	Peter Mahovlich
Derek Sanderson	Eric Nesterenko	Hank Monteith	Garry Monahan	Murray Oliver	Mickey Redmond
Dallas Smith	Jim Pappin	Dale Rolfe	Jim Peters	Danny O'Shea	Henri Richard
Rick Smith	Paul Shmyr	Fred Speck	Matt Ravlich	J. P. Parisé	Bobby Rousseau
Fred Stanfield	Pat Stapleton	Pete Stemkowski	Eddie Shack	Tom Reid	Serge Savard
Ed Westfall	Bill White	Garry Unger	Juha Widing	Tom Williams	J. C. Tremblay
New York Rangers	Oakland Seals	Philadelphia Flyers	Pittsburgh Penguins	St. Louis Blues	Toronto Maple Leafs
Goaltenders
Ed Giacomin	Gary Smith	Doug Favell	Les Binkley	Glenn Hall	Bruce Gamble
Gilles Villemure	Chris Worthy	Bernie Parent	Al Smith	Ernie Wakely	Jacques Plante
Skaters
Dave Balon	Paul Andrea	Barry Ashbee	John Arbour	Ron Anderson	Jim Dorey
Arnie Brown	Gary Croteau	Serge Bernier	Wally Boyer	Steve Atkinson	Ron Ellis
Larry Brown	Norm Ferguson	Gary Dornhoefer	Nick Harbaruk	Red Berenson	Brian Glennie
Bill Fairbairn	Ted Hampson	Jean-Guy Gendron	Bryan Hextall	Christian Bordeleau	Jim Harrison
Rod Gilbert	Dennis Hextall	Larry Hale	Dunc McCallum	Tim Ecclestone	Paul Henderson
Vic Hadfield	Ernie Hicke	Earl Heiskala	Keith McCreary	Jim Lorentz	Dave Keon
Ted Irvine	Bill Hicke	Larry Hillman	Jim Morrison	Ab McDonald	Rick Ley
Jim Krulicki	Harry Howell	Wayne Hillman	Dean Prentice	Noel Picard	Jim McKenny
Don Luce	Earl Ingarfield	Jim Johnson	Jean Pronovost	Barclay Plager	Mike Pelyk
Jim Neilson	Gary Jarrett	Andre Lacroix	Dwayne Rupp	Bob Plager	Bob Pulford
Bob Nevin	Mike Laughton	Bill Lesuk	Glen Sather	Bill Plager	Brit Selby
Brad Park	Bert Marshall	Lew Morrison	Ken Schinkel	Jim Roberts	Brad Selwood
Jean Ratelle	Wayne Muloin	Simon Nolet	Ron Schock	Gary Sabourin	Guy Trottier
Rod Seiling	Doug Roberts	Ed Van Impe	Bryan Watson	Frank St. Marseille	Norm Ullman
Walt Tkaczuk	Carol Vadnais	Joe Watson	Bob Woytowich	Bob Wall	Mike Walton

The draft results:

Overall	Player Chosen	By	From	Fill-In
1	Tom Webster	Buffalo Sabres	Boston Bruins	Garnet Bailey
2	Gary Doak	Vancouver Canucks	Boston Bruins	Dan Schock
3	Al Hamilton	Buffalo Sabres	New York Rangers	Mike Robitaille
4	Orland Kurtenbach	Vancouver Canucks	New York Rangers	Ron Stewart
5	Don Marshall	Buffalo Sabres	New York Rangers
6	Ray Cullen	Vancouver Canucks	Minnesota North Stars	Dan Seguin
7	Tracy Pratt	Buffalo Sabres	Pittsburgh Penguins	Lowell MacDonald
8	Pat Quinn	Vancouver Canucks	Toronto Maple Leafs	Rene Robert
9	Jim Watson	Buffalo Sabres	Detroit Red Wings	Bobby Baun
10	Rosie Paiement	Vancouver Canucks	Philadelphia Flyers	Garry Peters
11	François Lacombe	Buffalo Sabres	Montreal Canadiens	Leon Rochefort
12	Darryl Sly	Vancouver Canucks	Minnesota North Stars	Walt McKechnie
13	Phil Goyette	Buffalo Sabres	St. Louis Blues	Larry Keenan
14	Jim Wiste	Vancouver Canucks	Chicago Black Hawks	Jean-Paul LeBlanc
15	Reg Fleming	Buffalo Sabres	Philadelphia Flyers	Brent Hughes
16	Danny Johnson	Vancouver Canucks	Toronto Maple Leafs	Gord Nelson
17	Mike McMahon	Buffalo Sabres	Pittsburgh Penguins	Bob Blackburn
18	Barry Wilkins	Vancouver Canucks	Boston Bruins
19	Skip Krake	Buffalo Sabres	Los Angeles Kings	Jim Stanfield
20	Ralph Stewart	Vancouver Canucks	Montreal Canadiens	Claude Provost
21	Jean-Guy Lagace	Buffalo Sabres	Minnesota North Stars
22	Mike Corrigan	Vancouver Canucks	Los Angeles Kings	Noel Price
23	Craig Cameron	Buffalo Sabres	Los Angeles Kings
24	Wayne Maki	Vancouver Canucks	St. Louis Blues	Terry Crisp
25	Chris Evans	Buffalo Sabres	St. Louis Blues
26	Ed Hatoum	Vancouver Canucks	Detroit Red Wings	Tom Martin
27	Doug Barrie	Buffalo Sabres	Pittsburgh Penguins
28	Poul Popeil	Vancouver Canucks	Detroit Red Wings
29	Gerry Meehan	Buffalo Sabres	Philadelphia Flyers
30	Ron Ward	Vancouver Canucks	Toronto Maple Leafs
31	Paul Terbenche	Buffalo Sabres	Chicago Black Hawks	Lou Angotti
32	John Schella	Vancouver Canucks	Montreal Canadiens
33	Brian Perry	Buffalo Sabres	Oakland Seals	Gerry Ehman
34	Bob Dillabough	Vancouver Canucks	Oakland Seals	Dick Mattiussi
35	Howie Menard	Buffalo Sabres	Oakland Seals
36	Garth Rizzuto	Vancouver Canucks	Chicago Black Hawks
Goaltenders
37	Dunc Wilson	Vancouver Canucks	Philadelphia Flyers
38	Rocky Farr	Buffalo Sabres	Montreal Canadiens
39	Charlie Hodge	Vancouver Canucks	Oakland Seals
40	Gary Edwards	Buffalo Sabres	St. Louis Blues

As mentioned in my previous post about the 1972 Expansion Draft the draft order was determined by a game of chance, a wheel akin to that of roulette. 36 numbers were on the wheel: one 2, two 3s, three 4s, four 5s, five 6s, six 7s, five 8s, four 9s, three 10s, two 11s and one 12, corresponding to the 36 possible combinations of the roll of two six-sided playing dice. The GMs had a choice of numbers over 7 or under 7; if the pointer landed on one of the 7s it was considered a 'draw' and the wheel was to be spun again. Sabres' GM Punch Imlach won a coin toss to have his choice of numbers "over 7" or "under 7". Anecdotal stories say he picked "over 7" because 11 was his favourite number. I'm not entirely sure that's true. Punch was known to be a little melodramatic and I suspect this is all just an urban legend as it relates to Gilbert Perreault's uniform number.

Note that many modern sources state Imlach had numbers 11-20 while the Canucks' Bud Poile was left with numbers 1-10. This totally false, a complete fabrication: I have a copy of a picture of Ron Andrews standing with the wheel clearly showing the wheel's construction, with the six 7s prominently bolded and 36 spots on the wheel. I would share this picture with you but I do not hold the copyright. (edit: found a copy on Google news, see http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=04syAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IbkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=892%2C2407891)

On the first spin of the wheel it landed on 8, giving Imlach his choice of first goalie or first skater (or first overall, as skaters were chosen before goalies) in the expansion draft. He chose the latter. A second spin of the wheel determined who had first choice in the amateur draft. The story goes that when the wheel stopped Clarence Campbell believed it had landed on '1', giving the Canucks first overall. Dramatic retellings of the story state that the Canucks management team erupted in joy at having won the right to first overall in the draft of amateurs, universally believed beforehand to be Gilbert Perreault no matter who won the right to the pick. There's only one problem with this story: there were no '1's on the wheel! Well, except in '10', '11' and '12', all of which gave Imlach and the Sabres the pick. As it turned out it had landed on 11 and the Sabres had first pick in the amateur and expansion drafts.

With the first overall pick Imlach took Tom Webster of the Bruins, which reportedly greatly angered Bruins' GM Milt Schmidt. It was rumoured that Schmidt and Imlach had a back-room deal in which Imlach would take Garnet Bailey, allowing the Bruins to protect Webster, and in return Schmidt would give Imlach some 'considerations'. Instead Imlach took Webster (Schmidt protected Bailey) and traded him after the draft to the Red Wings for Roger Crozier, arguably a better goalie than any of the four taken in the draft.

Needless to say Punch Imlach was not the most popular man at the draft proceedings in 1970. He wasn't any more popular in 1971, but that's another story...