Welcome to LWOS’ Summer Hockey Series, Best of the Rest. Plenty of sites do a version of a 30 greats in 30 days series, but this year we are doing something a little bit different. We want to look at the best player from each team who is not in the Hockey Hall Of Fame. In order to do this there are some rules. First the player must have been a significant part of this franchise (franchises include their time in a previous city… see Winnipeg/Atlanta) and must be retired for at least 3 years, making them Hall of Fame eligible. To see all the articles in the series, check out the homepage here.
The Boston Bruins are one of the most historic teams in all of North American pro sports, with a deep 90-year history and earning 6 Stanley Cups in the meantime. There have been also 48 players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame who once donned the black and gold of the famous hockey team.
All of those 48 players deserve a spot in the Hall located in Toronto but there are also many players who were once inside the organization that should have the spot that’s etched in hockey history. In fact, five of their top 10 franchise scorers were never inducted (Rick Middleton-4th, Wayne Cashman-6th, Ken Hodge-7th, Terry O’Reilly-8th and Peter McNab-10th). But now out of all the non-Hall of Famers in Bruins history, who is the most likely or the one who deserves to be inducted soon the most?
Boston Bruins – Wayne Cashman
Cashman played his first ever NHL game for the Bruins in the 1964-1965 season but that turned out to be his only game that year as he played and bounced around between the Oshawa generals of the OHA from 1964-1966, then with the Oklahoma City Blazers of the CHL/CPHL from 1966-1968. He played 12 games for the Bruins in the 1967-1968 season while scoring 4 points, all assists.
His first season as a member of the B’s was the following season in 1968-1969, playing 51 games with 8 goals and 23 assists as a rookie. The following season was his last season with less than 10 goals (9 goals, 26 assists, 70 games) in his name until his final season in 1982-1983, his worst production season in his career (4 goals, 11 assists in 65 games).
Cashman had his best seasons between 1970-1974, all 4 seasons he was a 20 goal scorer and spent over 100 minutes in the penalty box. His stats those 4 years are as follows;
1970-1971: 21 G, 58 A, 79 PTS, 100 PIM (77 GP)
1971-1972: 23 G, 29 A, 52 PTS, 103 PIM (74 GP)
1972-1973: 29 G, 39 A, 68 PTS, 100 PIM (76 GP)
1973-1974: 30 G, 59 A, 89 PTS, 111 PIM (78 GP)
He would have 4 more seasons with over 20 goals, in ’75-76, ’77-78, ’78-79, ’80-81, but never again visited the box for more than 100 minutes in his career and picked up over 35 assists in those 4 seasons, at least 60 points each year during that stretch.
Cashman was also instrumental in the Bruins Stanley Cup wins in 1970 and 1972, their most recent championships before they won in 2011. As a notorious tough guy, he was an important role in installing fear into the opponents during their runs. He was a perfect playoff performer as he got down and dirty in the corners, to set up his linemates Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge for important goals. In the 1970 run, he scored 5 goals, 4 assists with 50 penalty minutes in just 14 games. Then in 1972 he scored 4 goals with 7 assists and 42 penalty minutes in 15 games. During the team’s runs to the Cup Finals in 1974, ’77 and ’78, he scored just 10 times but spent 77 total minutes in the sin bin over a span of 45 games.
At the end of his career, Cashman had played 15 seasons with the Boston Bruins, over a 19 year stretch since he played game one. Between 1977-1983, he was the captain for 6 seasons. His careers totals during the regular season were 1027 games played, 277 goals, 516 assists, 793 points with 1041 penalty minutes while in 145 playoff games (the Bruins never missed the playoffs during his career) he scored 31 times, set up 57 goals for a total of 88 points while sitting in the box for 250 minutes.
Cashman also represented Canada during the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union, playing two out of the eight games, collecting 2 assists and 14 penalty minutes. This guy is just on the score sheet no matter what.
Wayne was clearly valuable to the Big Bad Bruins of the 1970’s, he helped the Bruins become the rightful owners of that nickname. Him, Stan Jonathan, Terry O’Reilly and Mike Milbury along with others on the Bruins gave the opposing team fear night in and night out (see Stan Johnathan-Pierre Bouchard fight). Cashman along changed the typical left or right winger from a skating, scoring machine, into someone who could battle along the boards and use muscle.
His style of play is seen in top class players today like Milan Lucic, Evgeni Malkin, Dustin Brown, Corey Perry, Max Pacioretty etc. The new brand of a wingers is now called a “power forward”, a must-need for virtually every team searching for Lord Stanley’s Shrine. Players like this use their physical power to drive the net, get the puck out of the corners, blow past defenceman on odd-man rushes to score and every so often they fight too. Consider Cashman as the Godfather of the big, strong, point-producing wingers.
After changing a style of play in hockey for certain positions, always appearing in the score sheet whether it be scoring, passing or getting penalties, Cashman was an important role for the Boston Bruins during his playing time. With two Stanley Cups to his name, it is undoubtedly time to inscribe Cashman’s name into the Hockey Hall of Fame. 2015, maybe?
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