Canadiens at Oilers, G8 2025-26

Whenever I read a text or tweet from someone angry at the Florida Panthers or Vegas Golden Knights for sins real or imagined, I smile. It’s a rueful smile, built with the knowledge that The National Hockey League treats its rules and regulations like motel matches. Fans are left to fumble and guess, like a garage band learning King Crimson’s Fracture. What you really need to know is this: the men who own hockey treat it like a vending machine.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN OCTOBER

• At home to: Calgary, Vancouver (Expected 2-0) (Actual 1-0-1)
• Road: Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Detroit, Ottawa (Expected 2-2-1) Actual 2-3-0
• At home to: Montreal (1-0)
• On the road to: Seattle, Vanouver (1-1)
• At home to: Mammoth, Rangers (1-0-1)
• Expected Record: 7-3-2, 16 points in 12 games
• Actual Record: 3-3-1, seven points in seven games

Canadiens are 6-2-0 and I have the Oilers winning tonight. Why? Well, Montreal played last night and despite winning I think the btb will bite them this evening. The Habs are a fun team again though, so hold on to your ass. I hope we see Jakub Dobes tonight.

Now back to my ranting, which is fueled endlessly by the 1967 expansion draft. In Brian McFarlane’s 50 years of hockey (1967), he wrote the following: Hockey men were amazed that the Canadiens were able to retain Claude LaRose, Dick Duff and Claude Provost, as well as promising youngsters like Carol Vadnais, Serge Savard and Danny Grant. Boston was openly angry at the way they’d been stripped of young prospects.

It looks to me as though the Boston Bruins were in love with the $2M expansion fee, the Leafs were in love with protecting everyone with a crew cut, and the Canadiens were interested in the future. The result of the expansion draft was obvious afterward, but the foresight required from Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Toronto didn’t exist. They were already in the counting room and couldn’t be bothered with the minutiae of the draft rules. Putting the fox in charge of the henhouse is a bad idea no matter the year, and the 1967 NHL expansion draft is an excellent example.

The draft rules looked innocuous enough, established teams protecting 11 skaters and a goalie and then pulling back in all but three rounds. The added items protected both junior age players and then taking the extra step of allowing the original 6 to pullback first year pro’s until after round 10 made it unfair for the new teams. Adding in that final line: “the established clubs would not have to expose first year pro’s until they had selected two goalies and 18 skaters” was written for the Montreal Canadiens.

Sam Pollock was General Manager of the Montreal Canadiens on expansion draft day. The 1967 NHL Expansion Draft was a thing of beauty, rigged not only for the original 6 clubs but designed specifically for the Montreal Canadiens in order to protect their very best young players.

The first modern NHL Expansion Draft consisted of 20 rounds, and took place on June 6, 1967. Pollock was the man in charge of putting together the draft rules and set about putting together a plan that would be approved by the board of governors and allow Montreal to retain all of the top flight talent procured over years of painstaking procurement.

At first each of the established teams were going to be permitted to protect 8 skaters and 1 goalie, but the original 6 teams felt it was too harsh and they moved the bar to 11 skaters, 1 goalie, and any junior aged players signed the previous season. ALL of the NHL teams benefited from the junior age rule, Boston didn’t need to protect Derek Sanderson or Bobby Orr, Toronto had no need to protect Jim McKenny, New York didn’t have to find a slot for Billy Fairbairn or Walt Tkaczuk.

Montreal was still very vulnerable though, owing to the rich junior and minor league system they had built up over time (the Habs had two AHL teams and a couple in the old WHL they would send extra prospects to like the Seattle Totems) and Pollock came up with a plan that went like this (courtesy Montreal Gazette, June 5, 1967): those who played pro hockey for the first time in 66-67 are exempt from being drafted until the eastern (established) clubs have 2 goalies and 18 other players on their list. Hence the Canadiens do not have to protect rookie Rogie Vachon until they’ve lost a goalie, or players such as Bob Lemieux, Carol Vadnais, Serge Savard and Danny Grant until they are nearing completion of the 18-man roster. 

This may be one of the smartest moves by a General Manager in the game’s history, and here’s why: Because the Habs had such a deep and rich system, they were losing more than one player per round. So, whereas a team like Boston was unable to protect a HHOF goalie like Bernie Parent because the rules made it so, and Chicago was unable to pull back any of their kids because no one was drafting any of their players, Montreal was able to protect all of their veterans and all but one of their first year pro’s.

It took me years–over a decade to figure this out. It was not until newspapers like the Montreal Gazette came available online that I could piece it all together.

Some of the very best players available in the expansion draft were in this little corridor of talent and were on the Habs list. The Pollock rule allowed Montreal to protect all of their blue chip prospects before they were exposed to the draft after selecting 18 skaters and 2 goalies (specifically designed to keep Vachon).

Did other teams benefit? Yes. I’ll give you the list for each team as we look at their draft strategy. However, no team benefited like Montreal, the team Sam Pollock represented in the draft transaction.

I don’t believe there’s a reasonable argument against the following statement: faced with the prospect of losing some of his quality NHL veterans (Provost, Duff) and exceptional youth (Larose, Vachon, Vadnais, Savard, Grant, Lemaire), Pollock created a scenario where he could keep most or all and stay within the rules by making his own rules. NONE of the other NHL teams needed that kind of protection–none of them had the same level of talent available from the first year pro’s.

The NHL–through its entire history–has left itself open to this kind of criticism simply because there are no checks and balances. Pollock was given the job of creating the expansion rules because the 6 original six owners agreed he was the best man available. Not a board of six men–one from each team–but someone who could benefit directly from tinkering with the original framework (1 goalie and 8 skaters) and steer the course of the league from the desk in his office.

So, when the Oilers have to send a draft pick for fired Peter Chiarelli, or the league decides the Milan Lucic trade needs to involve a better pick, or the Vegas Golden Knights and other teams use LTIR to their advantage, or tax advantages are not addressed, it’s a continuation of what has always been.

The NHL is incapable of doing things properly. Why? The owners don’t care about the integrity of the product. So tonight, when you’re watching the Canadiens and the Oilers, and someone mentions Montreal’s 24 Stanley Cups, maybe mention that in 1967 Montreal and Toronto owned 14 and 13, respectively. The Stanleys won by the Canadiens in 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979—eight in all—are the fruit of a poisonous tree. Thanks for reading.

On the Lowdown today, we’ll be joined by Bagged Milk from Oilers Nation to talk about the game tonight. We’ll spend time on the lore of the Canadiens and talk about the World Series, Thursday Night Football and more. Sports 1440 radio and You Tube, noon to 2pm.