Guy Lafleur, the dynamic, free-right winger who helped the dynastic Montreal Canadiens lead to five Stanley Cup championships in the 1970s, including four in a row, died Friday in a Montreal suburb. He was 70.
The National Hockey League said the cause was cancer and that Lafleur had died at a palliative care center. A longtime cigarette smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and had quadruple bypass surgery in 2019.
Lafleur, known to fans as The Flower, was an ice wizard, a creative force that could deftly divide defenses, and whose offensive incursions caused Montreal fans to chant, “Boy! Boy!” Guy! Person!”
He was the first player in NHL history to score at least 50 goals and 100 points in six consecutive seasons – a series that surpassed the 136 points (56 goals and 80 assists) he collected in the 1976-77 season.
“He loved to shoot high in the glove and it was a dangerous shot, downright scary,” said John Davidson, a former New York Rangers goalkeeper, in a telephone interview Friday. “When he grabbed the puck on the blue line of the old Montreal Forum and headed for the ice, you could feel the speed. You will feel people making noise and this noise will get louder and louder and people will stand still, whether he makes it or not. ”
Lafleur has scored 560 goals and 793 assists in 17 seasons, 14 of them with the Canadiens, one with the Rangers and two with the Quebec Nordics. In the playoffs, he scored another 58 goals and 76 assists.
He won the Art Ross trophy for league leadership three times and the Hart Memorial Trophy twice, as the most valuable player in the NHL. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on Twitter that Lafleur “is like no one else on the ice”, adding: “His speed, skills and results were hard to believe.”
Lafleur’s death comes a week after that of another great goal scorer, Mike Bossi of the New York Islanders.
Guy Damien Lafleur was born on September 20, 1951 in Thurso, Quebec, to Rejean and Pieret Lafleur. He was so obsessed with hockey as a boy that he snuck into a local arena on weekday mornings and early Sundays to get ice when no one else was, according to his biography at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“When I was a kid, all we watched on TV was Canadiens, and all I wanted to be was Beliveau,” he told Hall, referring to longtime Canadian star Jean Beliveau. He dreamed that the Canadians would hire him.
He was spectacular in top-level youth hockey, scoring 103 and 130 goals for Quebec Ramparts in the 1969-70 and 1970-71 seasons, and the Canadians named him No. 1 overall in the NHL amateur draft. Lafleur said that if he had not been elected, he would have signed with the Nordiques, who were then members of the rival World Hockey Association.
Lafleur joined the Montreal team, which won the Stanley Cup last season, but lost Belivo due to retirement and had hired a new coach, Scotty Bowman. Lafleur started relatively slowly, scoring 29, 28 and 21 goals in his first three seasons before breaking out with 53 in the 1974-75 season.
With his blond hair released in the days before players routinely wore helmets, Lafleur became the star of the legendary Montreal franchise, an innovator with a stick in his hand.
“He’s not the easiest player to play because he’s all over the ice,” his teammate Steve Shutt once said. “He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, so how do I know?”
Lafleur’s strongest seasons as a goal scorer, from 1974-75 to 1979-80, almost paralleled the four consecutive years in which the Canadians won the Stanley Cup, from 1976 to 1979. During the playoffs in 1976, he was the subject of alleged threat of kidnapping and protected by security.
In the Stanley Cup final in 1978, Boston Bruins head coach Don Cherry ordered his players to raise their wands against Lafleur in an attempt to deter him. They cut him up, making him play with his head covered in bandages, according to an article on The Hockey Writers’ website. However, Lafleur scored three goals and two assists, and the Canadians won six games.
After Lafleur scored 125 points in the 1979-80 season, his output began to fall. Nineteen games in the 1984-85 season, he abruptly retired after scoring just two goals and three assists. He did not get along with coach Jacques Lemerre, who regularly put him on the bench, or with general manager Serge Savar.
Lafleur remained retired until the end of this season and three more, but just weeks after being inducted into the Hall of Fame in September 1988, he signed to play for the Rangers. He told The New York Times at the time that his last days with the Canadians were “the worst time of my life.”
“I had a choice between 33 ulcers or retirement,” he said.
After a season in New York, he signed with the Nordiques, who joined the NHL in 1979.
“It was a pleasant year in exile in New York,” Lafleur told reporters when announcing his move to Nordiques. “But now I would like to finish my career in Quebec, where I started.”
He played for Nordiques for two years, with modest results, before retiring forever. He later returned to the Canadiens as the team’s ambassador.
He is survived by his wife Liz; his mom; his sons Martin and Mark; four sisters; and granddaughter.
In 2008, four bronze statues of great Canadians – Lafleur, Belivo, Howie Morenz and Maurice (Rocket) Richard – were unveiled at the Bell Center, the team’s home.
“I’d rather still play,” Lafleur said with a laugh, “than have a statue.”
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