Bobby Lalonde (NHL 1971-1982, Canucks 1971-1977) | 20 | C

[Kevin Biestra]

I wanted to take a minute to talk about our original Cliff Ronning...but Bobby Lalonde was even smaller at 5'5" tall.  Like Cliff, he was small, skilled and spirited and what seems to have been forgotten in Vancouver is that Lalonde was a three-time winner of the Most Exciting Player award back in the 1970s, a trophy now named for Pavel Bure.

 

As a Canuck, Lalonde peaked with 20 goals and 50 points, and jumped up to 24 and 56 when he moved on to the Atlanta Flames.  Lalonde was a consistent 15-20 goal scorer for the Canucks year after year and was a central piece of the 1974-75 team that won the only regular season division championship in Vancouver's first 20 years in the NHL.  This led to winning the first playoff game in history that year as well, against the mighty dynasty Canadiens no less.

 

He finished his NHL career with 124 goals and 334 points in 641 games.

 

[Reg]

To me Bobby Lalonde was Butch Goring lite.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

2 hours ago, Kevin Biestra said:

This led to winning the first playoff game in history that year as well, against the mighty dynasty Canadiens no less.

 

Not the whole game (and not the game we won) but I never get tired of hearing Danny Gallivin call the play:

 

 

[Sophomore Jinx]

"The Flea".... 5'5", 150 pounds of pure excitement, while playing in the rough and tumble 70's.

 

As a kid I remember thinking he was our version of the Habs' Cournoyer, a "Roadrunner" lite.......even though the latter obviously put up much bigger numbers on the dominant Mtl. teams of the 70's.

[Zimmyparttwo]

I’ve watched that game 5 against Montreal on YouTube. Amazing footage for a Canuck fan and a valuable resource for anyone interested in how much the game has changed these past five decades. 
Seeing the Canucks send out the line of Andre Boudrias between Gerry O’Flaherty and Bobby Lalonde was almost comical with the barely 5’10 O’Flaherty providing the size element. The three looked like bugs up against the giants on the Habs defence. I have to say they played with a fearless drive, never backing down 

[Kevin Biestra]

18 hours ago, Zimmyparttwo said:

I’ve watched that game 5 against Montreal on YouTube. Amazing footage for a Canuck fan and a valuable resource for anyone interested in how much the game has changed these past five decades. 
Seeing the Canucks send out the line of Andre Boudrias between Gerry O’Flaherty and Bobby Lalonde was almost comical with the barely 5’10 O’Flaherty providing the size element. The three looked like bugs up against the giants on the Habs defence. I have to say they played with a fearless drive, never backing down 

 

 

Yeah in what I saw of that series I remember Lalonde getting bounced around and knocked down all over the place by those giants like the computerized version of Cliff Ronning in EA NHL 93.  Richard Brodeur took the same kind of beating / pinball treatment from the Islanders forwards in Game 1 of the 1982 final.  They ran him worse than Gary Roberts on Kirk McLean in 1994.

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Kevin Biestra