Welcome to NHL99, The Athletic’s countdown of the best 100 players in modern NHL history. We’re ranking 100 players but calling it 99 because we all know who’s No. 1 — it’s the 99 spots behind No. 99 we have to figure out. Every Monday through Saturday until February we’ll unveil new members of the list.
The walk was short, but a young Denis Savard could feel every step he took in his skates over the concrete as he made his way to the outdoor ice rink half a block away from his home in Verdun, Que.
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Ice skates then just didn’t provide the same cushion they do now. But it wasn’t about comfort then. It was about convenience and playing hockey as quickly as he and his friends could when they met at the rink. They would spend hours upon hours on that ice playing hockey whenever the weather permitted.
The best way to describe what occurred on that outdoor rink was chaos. The rink would be occupied by kids of various ages from the neighborhood who devised a way for four games to go on at once. Two games on corners of the ice. Another intersecting the middle of the ice. And the one being played the way the rink was designed to be played.
Just imagine that scene. Pucks flying everywhere. Players skating everywhere. Sticks swinging everywhere. The possibility to be impeded in one harmful way or another at all times.
“So, we had to keep our head up,” Savard said.
It was the only way to survive, and Savard survived better than most. He was small. He could skate. He could see the ice and read his own game, but he also had a sense of the other games happening around him.
Now take that image of an 8-year-old Savard avoiding anything and everything in the outdoor rink and place it alongside the image of Savard eluding defenders in every which way in arenas all across the NHL. For anyone who witnessed Savard play in person or on video for the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1980s, his playing style should make complete sense now.
That’s the only way Savard can explain why he played the way he did. Oddly enough, he had never really had to think much about it before.
“You know, I tell you, that’s a great question,” he said. “Nobody’s really asked me that question.”
And like with nearly any question served to Savard, he comes back with an enthusiastic and extensive response. He enjoys telling a story.
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“We had all different jerseys as kids, whether we had a jersey or not, so you have to recognize who you’re playing with, who you’re playing against, and there are other games going on at the same time, so you really had to keep your head up,” said Savard, who is now 61 and lives in the Chicago suburb of Willow Springs. “For us, we barely ran into each other because we were able to move sideways, dodge hits coming across from other guys. The key thing about that was to keep your head up. I think where everything started for me is right there. It helped me. I didn’t have to slow down because I could see everything in front of me.”
Seeing what was ahead of him was step one. The second step was finding ways around that obstacle.
He had the vision and skill alone that would have probably made him a pretty good NHL player, but what elevated him to be alongside the great players of that generation was his knack for improvisation. In the 1980s, only three players produced more points than Savard. Of course, Wayne Gretzky is atop of that list with 1,842 points from the 1979-80 season to the 1989-90 season. Peter Stastny is second with 1,059 points and Jari Kurri is third with 1,043 points. Savard, No. 85 on The Athletic’s list of the 100 greatest NHL players of the post-expansion era, falls in fourth with 1,043 points and actually had the same amount of points per game (1.38) as Kurri.
Savard didn’t need Second City classes to learn improv. It just came naturally.
When he took the ice, no one, including himself, knew what would happen when he touched the puck. From his spin-o-rama that Hall of Fame broadcaster Pat Foley loved calling, to his most famous goal of all — a short-hander against the Edmonton Oilers in which he weaved through the opposition for 10 seconds, put the puck through defenseman Kevin Lowe’s legs and scored on Grant Fuhr from the slot — Savard was just reacting.
“When I started in the NHL, I felt my speed was my strength, and in our day guys were good skaters, but there were not really any great, great skaters, and I guess I was born to have that gift to escape and turn,” Savard said. “Some of the stuff that I did, I just ad-libbed a lot. I wasn’t predicting this is what I’m going to do. Whatever situation I faced, I just did it. Like the spin-o-rama, people always ask me that question, and I said, well, I was gonna get killed across the blue line one day, and I just spun out and the guys disappeared. It was like, where did they go? I didn’t even know. The next thing I know, I’m right by the goalie myself.”
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For Savard, his teammates, the fans and Foley and other announcers, that unknown was exciting.
As Foley put it, “This guy could sell tickets.”
Steve Larmer was on the ice for that legendary goal against the Oilers. After five seconds of Savard skating through the neutral zone, Larmer faded to the wall and gave Savard all the room to himself. Larmer knew he was only going to get in the way.
“He didn’t do the same things over and over and over,” Larmer said. “He changed up all the time to keep people off guard. You found yourself sometimes out there on the ice playing with him and actually standing still and watching the last 10 or 15 seconds of what he was up to. It was entertaining. They still show that short-handed goal he scored against Edmonton all the time. It’s one of the top goals of all time.”
As for the opposition, that same unknown was terrifying. No one wanted to be embarrassed.
“He put a lot of people on posters,” said Curt Giles, who went up against Savard for much of the 1980s while playing for the Minnesota North Stars. “He was that shifty and that talented. … Extremely, extremely hard to defend. Our focus on him was just to isolate on him and stop his progress. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, hit him as hard as you possibly can, if you can catch him.”
Important too to Savard’s eventual success was his coaches never pushed him to play in a different way as he was coming up in Verdun or later on with the Montreal Juniors in the QMJHL. He understands now he could have easily been told to play more simply because someone feared for his well-being. His 5-foot-10, 170-pound frame may be more common in the NHL these days, but there weren’t many players who resembled how he looked or played in the league then.
Don’t get it wrong, though: Savard wasn’t soft.
He may have been limited in how much he could push around the opposition, but he knew two important elements of playing in the NHL. For one, he wasn’t going to back down from anyone. He had his own tricks of the trade when it came to retaliation.
“It depends on the situation and where they’re at in the play and you’re not trying to get a penalty, but you know, in the back of the calf pretty hard hurts with the stick, especially if you had a heavier stick,” Savard said. “Closer to the net, a cross-check to the ribs, that hurts. There are ways I’d try to get back to them. I didn’t want them to be hurt because that’s not the way that I think. But if I can let them know, you tried to hurt me before, well, here I am, I’m going to get something back.”
The second part was playing through the middle of the ice regardless of the amount of hooking, grabbing and hitting that would come his way. The middle may have been a gantlet, but it was where the points were created. He knew that. The opposition did too, but stopping him was easier said than done.
There were a lot of people who assumed his size would deter him, but it didn’t.
“He was so quick and shifty and fast and very competitive, too,” said Craig Hartsburg, who also played for the North Stars against him. “He was a smaller player, but he played really hard. He was feisty and played with a lot of fire. … It was an era where everyone wanted to get bigger, stronger. That’s probably why he didn’t end up at Montreal to start because they wanted bigger players.”
Where and when Savard was drafted — or where he wasn’t drafted — had an impact on his future.
His hometown Montreal Canadiens had the No. 1 pick in 1980, followed by the Winnipeg Jets, Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings. After meeting with all four teams, Savard’s father had a feeling the Canadiens weren’t going to select him.
“The thing my dad used to tell me too, ‘You know how many times they saw you play?’” Savard said. “I said, ‘Every game, Dad.’ He said, ‘Yeah, every game. Every game, they saw your flaws. They saw your skill. They saw the good stuff.’ But he says, ‘They probably think more of the bad stuff, the flaws… And Montreal was one of the teams we talked about structure. They were the team that was probably the most structured of any team. That’s why they won so many championships in those years, so they probably felt I didn’t fit the system.”
Savard would agree with them, too. He wasn’t a structure player. He was always, in some way, that kid playing on the outdoor rink in Verdun. He needed a coach who would give him the freedom to explore the ice.
His first NHL coach, the late Keith Magnuson, did that. That’s also why Savard never held a grudge against the Canadiens for not taking him. It all worked out. Years later, when Savard coached Patrick Kane as an NHL rookie, Savard treated Kane in some ways the same as Magnuson treated him.
Cliff Koroll was a first-year assistant under Magnuson in 1980. Koroll recalled what the coaching staff was thinking when Savard came in.
“You could tell right off the bat that he had great talent and a big heart and had that desire to win,” Koroll said. “It was my first year as assistant coach and it was Denis’ rookie year, so we both had one thing in common, that’s being new to what we were expected to do. You could see right away that Savy had the talent to lead the team. He was a hard worker. So we just let him go.”
Off he went.
Savard had a productive rookie season, putting up 28 goals and 47 assists in 76 games. Although his game was good, his English wasn’t. He had to get creative in the ways he communicated early on, but he picked up English over his first few seasons. Now, there isn’t much of a trace of his French accent. He does still speak French with his wife and daughter.
During Savard’s second and third years in the NHL, he displayed even more of his offensive flash. Also notable about his third season: It was the beginning of Al Secord and Larmer being Savard’s consistent linemates. All three produced at high rates in their time together. Secord had seasons of 40, 44 and 54 goals while playing together. Larmer had four 40-goal seasons with Savard.
“Savard’s line was as good as any line in the NHL,” said Troy Murray, who played with Savard on the Blackhawks. “You had the toughness of Secord to make sure no one was taking advantage of Savard, and Larmer was such an underrated player. It blended really well, and the chemistry between those three was incredible.”
The chemistry was undeniable, but they also weren’t afraid to dish it out to each other. Larmer and Savard especially would get on each other.
“Arguments, big time,” Savard said. “We kept each other accountable, Larms especially. Al was trying to get between us all the time. You know, ‘You’re not even trying tonight.’ ‘Well, you haven’t even touched the puck.’ And stuff like that. After the game, we’d grab a beer together and we didn’t even mention the game.”
In the last year of the 1980s, Savard was still producing more than a point a game, but injuries forced him to miss a number of games. He was also losing some of his joy while Mike Keenan was coaching the Blackhawks. He and Keenan didn’t see eye to eye, and that led to Savard being traded to the Canadiens for Chris Chelios and a second-round pick in June 1990.
Denis Savard as head coach of the Blackhawks in 2008. (Jamie Sabau / NHLI via Getty Images)
As Savard had figured earlier in his career, going home to play in Montreal wasn’t everything he dreamed of.
He won the Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1993, but it came with the price of sacrificing some of his playing style. He was told immediately that the Canadiens needed him to fit inside their structure.
“When I got to Montreal in ’90, that’s the first thing, I went to a meeting with Serge Savard,” Savard said. “He told me, ‘You’re gonna have to play different here.’ I said, ‘OK, what does that mean?’ He goes, ‘Well, you may score 30 goals here; you’re not going to score 40-45 goals. You may get 80 points; you’re not going to get 120 points.’ But he said, ‘I promise you, if you adapt your game, change it, you will win a Stanley Cup.’ And I’ll tell you, it was the hardest thing to do. Some players are just good at it later in their career. It was late in my career, too. I did OK, but I wasn’t the same player after.”
Savard played three seasons with the Canadiens, spent part of one season with the Lightning and returned to the Blackhawks in exchange for a sixth-round draft pick in April 1995.
He played two more seasons in Chicago before retiring in the summer of 1997. The Blackhawks announced immediately his No. 18 would be retired. He joined the organization as a development coach and worked his way up to head coach. He was fired early in the 2008-09 season and was replaced by Joel Quenneville. Savard has remained with the Blackhawks ever since as a team ambassador.
To this day, Savard has no regrets.
“Big time, very happy, very lucky,” Savard said of his career. “I love the game still and very fortunate to work for a great organization and they still get me on board. I look at some of my friends that played around the league and I’m not sure what some of them are doing. But for me, I got to stick with hockey. I get to see this team win three Cups, you know, pretty cool. And I’m looking forward to this (rebuilding) process they’re going through. I think they got the right idea. I think they’re doing a good job of looking to build bigger players. Stronger guys. So it should be interesting, should be fun.”
(Top photo: Denis Brodeur / NHLI via Getty Images)