Stastny joined the Nordiques, along with his brother Anton, after defecting from his native Czechoslovakia. They were joined the following year by their brother Marian, Making them the third trio of brothers to play on the same NHL team, following the Bentley brothers, Doug, Max and Reg, of the 1940's Blackhawks and the Plager brothers of the 1970's St. Louis Blues.
Peter would become the first rookie to ever score over 100 points in his first season when he netted 39 goals and accumulated 70 assists, also a rookie record, for 109 points in 1980-81, all while adapting to life in the West, including living in French-speaking Canada. He would be awarded the Calder Trophy for his efforts.
Stastny would extend his streak of 100 or more points to six consecutive seasons, one of only seven players to ever do so, averaging 119 points during that time period, topped by his 139 points during the 1981-82 season. He would be named team captain in 1985 and remain so until being traded to the New Jersey Devils in 1990.
When he scored his 1000th point, he became the first European-trained player to ever reach that milestone.
After his trade to the New Jersey Devils late in the 1989-90 season he would go on to play three full seasons with the Devils before signing with the St. Louis Blues as a free agent for the final two abbreviated seasons of his career, as he would only skate for the Blues for a total of 23 games.
His final career totals are 450 goals and 789 assists for 1239 points in 977 games, a 1.27 points per game average over his entire NHL career. He still currently ranks second in all-time franchise scoring, behind only Joe Sakic. In addition, he would score 33 goals and 72 assists for 105 points in 93 playoff games, unfortunately never reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in 15 seasons.
He would appear in six NHL All-Star Games in 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986 and 1988.
Internationally, he would play for Czechoslovakia in the World Championships in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979, a streak obviously stopped by his defection. Additionally, he would also compete in the 1976 Canada Cup and 1980 Winter Olympics for Czechoslovakia.
In an unusual twist, he would also participate in the 1984 Canada Cup, only this time for Canada, having become a Canadian citizen by then.
Later in his career, he would play in the 1995 World Championships, where he was named Best Forward, and the 1994 Winter Olympics, only now for the newly created country of Slovakia.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998, the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Slovak Hall of Fame in 2002. In addition, his #26 was retired by the Quebec Nordiques. While all the numbers retired by the Nordiques were put back into circulation after the team relocated to Denver, Colorado and became the Avalanche, Peter's #26 is now fittingly being worn by his son Paul.
Today's featured jersey is a 1996-97 Quebec Nordiques Peter Stastny jersey which features the Rendez-vous 87 patch on the right sleeve.
Rendez-vous 87 was a two game series held in Quebec City that pitted a team of NHL All-Stars against the Soviet National Team rather than the traditional NHL All-Star Game that season.
This jersey is customized with the bold, single color white numbers used by the Nordiques from the time they adopted this jersey style in 1975, while then members of the World Hockey Association, until the conclusion of the 1990-91 season before going to two color numbers, white trimmed in red, for the 1991-92 season.
First up for today's videos, another of the excellent "Legends of Hockey" biographies on Stastny.
Check out this find, a 21 year old Peter Stastny playing for HC Kladno of Czechoslovakia scoring two goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Maple Leaf Gardens, more than three years before he would defect and join the NHL. Cool Stuff! The quality is amazing for how old the footage is.
Finally, no mention of the Nordiques would be complete without mentioning their famed rivalry with their Quebec neighbors the Montreal Canadiens, and here is Stastny scoring a dramatic goal in overtime of Game 7 to eliminate the Canadiens from the 1985 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
When I was a kid, basically, my hometown Red Wings stunk. All of my friends that were hockey fans had a "second" team that they rooted for. Mine was the Nordiques, and Peter Stastny was my favorite player of the bunch. What an amazing player he was. I got to meet him when a local memorabilia shop that my sister worked at brought in many Hall of Fame players to sign autographs. It was a real treat.
ReplyDeleteI have a home authentic of the Nords from their last season in Quebec. I also have both a home and away replicas that I used to wear all the time when I was younger.