1973 NHL Intra-League Draft

The 1973 NHL Intra-League Draft took place June 12 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. The draft price was $40,000, and each team protected 18 skaters and a pair of goalies. It was a short affair this year, lasting only about half an hour with only a half-dozen players taken in a single round of drafting. Montreal Gazette sports editor Ted Blackman's article about the draft was titled "NHL draft strictly dullsville". He went on to describe the atmosphere at these meetings as very quiet:

"With the amateur draft moved ahead three weeks to beat the WHA to the punch, the NHL meetings have lost all excitement. Most of the governors' meetings are hush-hush secret sessions on war strategy, the halls are quiet and not one decent rumor has been started."

The WHA had arrived, baby.

Overall	Player Chosen	By	From	Player Removed From Protected List	Claim player or cash
1	Bert Marshall	New York Islanders	New York Rangers	Dave Pulkkinen	cash
2	Ray McKay	California Golden Seals	Buffalo Sabres	Danny Helm	cash
3	Doug Mohns	Atlanta Flames	Minnesota North Stars	Bill Plager	claim
4	Ron Jones	Pittsburgh Penguins	Boston Bruins	Jim Shires	cash
5	Lou Angotti	St. Louis Blues	Chicago Black Hawks	Kevin O'Shea	cash
6	Joe Noris	Buffalo Sabres	St. Louis Blues	Murray Kuntz	cash

←1972 Intra-League Draft

1974 Intra-League Draft→

NHL Draft Results

1973 NHL Inter-League Draft

I thought I'd follow up today's earlier post about the Inter-League and Reserve Drafts with the results of the 1973 Inter-League Draft. Why that draft? An interesting piece of trivia: only one player was taken.


That's right, only one. Hartland Monahan, son-in-law of Bernie Geoffrion, was picked by the California Golden Seals from their WHL affiliate in Salt Lake City.


Monahan was an Amateur Draft pick of the Golden Seals in 1971. Why he had to be reacquired from the WHL farm team I don't know; at some point in 1972 his rights must have been transferred to the Golden Eagles. In 1971-72 he split his time between the AHL's Baltimore Clippers (who had an affiliation agreement with the Golden Seals) and the IHL's Columbus Golden Seals (who were another Golden Seals farm club). The Golden Seals added the Salt Lake Golden Eagles as an affiliate in 1972. I presume they acquired Monahan's rights as part of the affiliation agreement.


The reason for only one player being selected? Floyd Curry, then the Assistant General Manager of the Canadiens, was quoted saying, " ... with the price tag set at $30,000 I don't think anybody was too interested in making a move."


Source:
Gilbert, Doug. (June 12, 1973). "Monahan lone pick". Montreal Gazette. p. 35. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=85guAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r6EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2024%2C3310883