Phil Esposito

Esposito signed with the Chicago Black Hawks as a teenager and was assigned to the Sarnia Legionnaires Jr. 'B' hockey team for the 1960–61 season. In just 32 games with the Legionnaires, he scored 47 goals and 61 assists, for 108 points - a scoring pace of 3.3 points per game. In a playoff game, he scored 12 points in one game as the Legionnaires advanced to the Western Ontario final before being eliminated. After a sparkling junior season with the St. Catharines Teepees of the Ontario Hockey Association in 1962, Esposito spent two seasons with Chicago's minor league affiliate, the St. Louis Braves, scoring 90 points in his first season and 80 points in only 46 games in his second.

Midway through the 1964 season, Esposito was called up to the parent Black Hawks to make his NHL debut. Centreing for the great Bobby Hull beginning in the 1965 season, he proved himself a quality playmaker, twice finishing amongst the League-leading scorers over the next three seasons.

Esposito with the Boston Bruins in 1969.

In 1967, Esposito was dealt with Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield to the Boston Bruins in a blockbuster trade. While Hodge and Stanfield rose to become stars in Boston, Esposito blossomed into the greatest scorer of his day. In 1969, he became the first NHL player to score 100 points in a season, far eclipsing the "century" mark with a record 126. He would fall a single point shy in 1970, then reached triple digits again the next five years running. Along the way, he captured the Art Ross Trophy as the top regular-season scorer in 1969 and 1971 to 1974, and led the League in goals six straight seasons between 1969–70 and 1974–75.

Esposito was named to the NHL's first All-Star team six consecutive times (from 1969 to 1974), and won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player in 1969 and 1974. His Boston fans, celebrating his scoring touch during his heyday, displayed bumper stickers that read, "Jesus saves, Espo scores on the rebound." Esposito, while not a fast or graceful skater, was best known for his unmovable presence in front of the opposition net from which he could score from all angles. Esposito has said, "Scoring is easy. You simply stand in the slot, take your beating and shoot the puck into the net."[4] He also possessed a combination of skating and stickhandling ability, strength, and long reach that enabled him to "rag the puck," holding onto it for long periods of time in the face of opponents' checks and thus enabling his team to kill off penalties.

During his prime, Esposito centred one of the most renowned forward lines in history, featuring Ken Hodge on his right wing and Wayne Cashman on his left. Esposito and fellow superstar Bobby Orr led the Bruins to Stanley Cup victories in 1970 and 1972, and first-place finishes in the League in 1971, 1972 and 1974.

During 1970–71, Esposito shattered the record for most goals in a season, finishing with 76. The mark stood until 1982, when Wayne Gretzky scored his 77th, 78th and 79th goals against the Buffalo Sabres on February 24, 1982, at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Esposito was on hand to present the game puck to Gretzky. Esposito also set the single-season point-scoring record in 1971 with 152, a mark later raised by Gretzky to 215. Only four others have reached the 150 point plateau — Mario Lemieux (4 times), Steve Yzerman , Bernie Nicholls and Connor McDavid — and only Gretzky, Lemieux, Brett Hull, Teemu Selänne and Alexander Mogilny have matched or bettered Esposito's 76 goals in a season. The 1970 season also saw Esposito shatter the single-season mark for shots on goal, tallying 550. Only one other player has come within 100 shots of this record, Alexander Ovechkin in 2008–09, in a season that was four games longer than when it was set.

As of May 31, 2021, Esposito ranked second in all-time regular-season goals for Boston with 459 (behind only Johnny Bucyk's 545). As of 2022, Esposito third behind Cam Neely and Patrice Bergeron in all-time Bruins playoff goals with 46. Esposito holds the Boston record for most playoff hat-tricks with four, one of which was a four-goal game versus Toronto in 1969. Often used to kill penalties, Esposito scored 20 shorthanded goals for Boston over his career.

After his performance in the Summit Series, where he was the Captain and inspirational leader for Canada and its leading scorer in the series, Esposito won the 1972 Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's outstanding male athlete of the year and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He also scored the first goal of the series and he scored or assisted four times in the deciding game. During that series, his scolding of Canadian fans, who booed the national team after a 5–3 loss to the Soviet Union in Game Four, was credited with firing up his teammates:[5]

"If the Russian fans boo their players in Moscow like you people are booing us, I'll come back and apologize personally to every one of you, but I really don't think that will happen. We gave it and are doing our best. All of us guys are really disheartened. . . We came out here because we love Canada. They're a good hockey team, and we don't know what we could do better, but I promise we will figure it out. But it's totally ridiculous – I don't think it is fair that we should be booed."[6]

Esposito also played for Canada in the inaugural Canada Cup in 1976, on a line with Hall-of-Famers Bobby Hull and Marcel Dionne. The following year, he would represent Canada once more in the 1977 World Championships in Vienna.

In 1975–76, Esposito was traded because he did not want to relinquish his playing time, even with his age.[7] He and Carol Vadnais were traded to the New York Rangers on November 7[8] in exchange for Brad Park, Joe Zanussi and Jean Ratelle. This trade was monumental, as Esposito was still a great scorer, but Ratelle was a skilled centre and Park was arguably the second best defenceman in the NHL, behind Bobby Orr.[7]

While not as glittering an offensive force as in his glory days, as captain of the Rangers, Esposito led the team in points each of his full seasons with the club and remained an effective scorer until his final season. The highlight of his years in New York was leading the Rangers to the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals where, at 37 years of age, he finished third in postseason scoring.[9][10]

On November 4, 1977, Esposito scored his 600th NHL goal, against the Vancouver Canucks in Vancouver, becoming the first player to reach that milestone in a Rangers uniform.

Esposito retired in 1981, behind only Gordie Howe in career goals and total points, and third in assists to Howe and Stan Mikita.

Esposito served as general manager and head coach of the Rangers for three years in the mid-1980s, during which he earned the nickname "Trader Phil" for the numerous transactions he made.[11][12] During his tenure as GM, he made more trades than the Vancouver Canucks had made in the entire 1980s.[13][14] While serving as GM, two of his most famous trades included the trade for the legendary Marcel Dionne[15] and one in which he sent a first-round pick to the Quebec Nordiques as compensation for signing Michel Bergeron to be the Rangers' head coach.[16]

When the NHL announced its expansion plans in the late 1980s, Phil Esposito, along with his brother Tony, sought to place a franchise in Tampa Bay, Florida. They faced competition from the Compuware Group, which wanted to place a team in nearby St. Petersburg, Florida. It was proposed to Esposito that he merge his bid with the Compuware Group, which he refused.[17] His reputation and force of personality was widely credited with winning the expansion bid for Tampa Bay on December 6, 1990. The Tampa Bay Lightning would start play in the 1992–93 NHL season, with the elder Esposito as the team's first president and general manager.[18]

For the Lightning's inaugural season, Esposito hired many of his former teammates from the Bruins, including Cashman as an assistant coach and former Bruins trainer John "Frosty" Forristal as trainer. He also made hockey history by signing Manon Rhéaume, making her the first woman to sign with and play for an NHL team.

However, one of the Esposito group's key backers, the Pritzker family, had backed out a few months before the bid, to be replaced by a Japanese consortium headed by Kokusai Green, a golf course and resort operator.[19] Though Kokusai Green had helped the Esposito's secure the initial bid, the team languished under their ownership; financed almost entirely by loans, the Lightning were constantly short of cash, hampering Esposito's ability to function as GM.[20] Kokusai Green's owner, Takashi Okubo, never met with the Espositos (or with any other NHL officials), and it was rumored that the consortium was a criminal front for the yakuza.[21] The Lightning quickly fell to the bottom of the league and Esposito fired head coach Terry Crisp in 1997. Even with interim coach Jacques Demers, who had enjoyed successful tenures with the Red Wings and Canadiens, the Lightning lost 55 games for a franchise-worst .268 winning percentage.

Kokusai Green sold the Lightning to insurance tycoon Art Williams in 1998. Shortly after taking control, Williams fired both Esposito brothers two games into the 1998–99 season.

After he retired with the Rangers in 1981, he joined MSG Network/WWOR-TV for the 1981–82 season as a TV color commentator replacing Bill Chadwick. He called games alongside first with Jim Gordon and later Sam Rosen. In 1988, the pair called Eastern Conference playoff games for ESPN.[22][23]

After his firing, Esposito returned to the Lightning organization for the 1999–2000 season as a radio colour commentator. He still calls home games on WHPT (and previously, on WFLA), along with play-by-play commentator Dave Mishkin, with Bobby Taylor replacing him for away games. Esposito also co-hosts a daily call-in show on SiriusXM's SiriusXM NHL Network Radio channel.

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