Borje Salming performed 16 seasons for the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1973 to 1989. In his greater than 1,000 regular-season video games (1,099 to be precise), he scored 148 objectives and 620 assists for 768 factors. Extra exceptional, he ended his Maple Leafs profession with a plus-minus of plus-155. What makes that top plus-minus so exceptional is that, throughout his final ten seasons with the Maple Leafs, the crew was horrible, seldom near having a successful season.
In the course of the 1976-77 season, Salming set profession highs in assists (66), factors (78), plus-minus (plus-45), and was a finalist for the Norris Trophy (he misplaced to the Montreal Canadiens’ Larry Robinson). Curiously, he was additionally a finalist for the Norris Trophy once more in 1979-80 however once more misplaced to Robinson. After Salming left the Maple Leafs, he performed a remaining NHL season with the Detroit Purple Wings and three extra seasons within the Swedish Elite League earlier than retiring in 1993.
What Salming Means to the Maple Leafs
How a lot does Salming imply to the Maple Leafs? To followers who watched him play, it’s no shock {that a} banner along with his likeness, title, and quantity (21) hangs within the rafters of the Scotiabank Area. He holds the franchise file for all-time assists. In 1996, he grew to become the first Swedish participant inducted into the Corridor of Fame.
Because the story goes, the Maple Leafs didn’t find out about Salming once they went to scout Inge Hammarstrom in Sweden in 1973. However, when scout Gerry McNamara went to see Hammarstrom, he additionally noticed Salming in the identical sport. After the sport, McNamara burst into the crew’s dressing room with one query for Salming: “Do you wish to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs?”
Associated: Maple Leafs Trivia
The remainder is historical past. In his first sport with the crew, Toronto defeated the Buffalo Sabres 7-4 and Salming was voted the primary star. On the finish of his rookie season, he had scored 39 factors, wonderful numbers for a defenseman.
Adjusting to the North American Sport
When Salming joined the Maple Leafs in 1973, there have been few Swedish NHL gamers. The Summit Sequence occurred in 1972, and Canadian gamers had gained a status as being very bodily. Salming, as an NHL trailblazer, took his lumps. Each Salming and Hammarstrom knew what was coming once they signed to play with the Maple Leafs.
In a TSN interview in Nov. 2014, upon revealing that his statue can be the fourth statue within the Maple Leafs’ Legends Row, Salming remembered, “That was a part of the sport. We knew that once I was coming over, me and Inge Hammarstrom.” However, he added, “I don’t assume we knew it was going to be that tough prefer it was at first of the ’70s. That wasn’t the way in which we performed in Europe. However you needed to regulate.”
Nonetheless, Salming remembers fondly enjoying with the Maple Leafs: “Taking part in within the ’70s was incredible, we had such an excellent crew,” he stated of the Leafs. “I performed with Lanny (McDonald) and Darryl (Sittler), and Tiger (Williams). It was nice instances. However within the ’80s too, in fact.” It’s not shocking that Salming handed over the ’80s because it was a tricky time to play in Toronto. The crew had a shedding file in each season Salming performed in that decade.
Salming Led the Crew in Stitches
One virtually disastrous occasion is known in Salming’s profession. In a hockey “melee” in 1986, Purple Wings ahead Gerard Gallant unintentionally stepped on Salming’s face along with his skate. The outcome was a 250-stitch slash and a lingering scar. When Salming returned to the lineup two weeks later, he wore a visor.
Associated: Darryl Sittler – Toronto Maple Leafs Legend
A Sportsnet report famous the irony in Salming’s most outstanding scar being unintended, given all of the malicious intent directed his method. Nonetheless, the report steered that Salming’s “neck by no means suffered underneath the pressure of fixed cheek-turning. The person nicknamed “King” had the power of a horse and the physique fats of a greyhound, and he definitely didn’t hesitate to reciprocate a few of the particular therapy he was receiving.”
Salming Remembers and Is Remembered
When Salming’s statue was positioned within the crew’s Legends Row, he was the fourth former Maple Leaf to be so enshrined. His bronze statue stands alongside Maple Leafs’ luminaries Darryl Sittler, Ted Kennedy, Johnny Bower, George Armstrong, Syl Apps, Mats Sundin, Dave Keon, Turk Broda, Tim Horton, Charlie Conacher, Purple Kelly, Frank Mahovlich, and Wendel Clark.
As Salming stated in a press launch, “Carrying the Toronto Maple Leaf sweater for 16 seasons was an incredible honour, however to be acknowledged amongst a few of the prime gamers with a statue on Legends Row — particularly with my teammate Darryl Sittler — is one thing I couldn’t have imagined.” He added, “I at all times look again on my time in Toronto with fondness and benefit from the likelihood to go to each likelihood I get.”
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On Twitter, Chris Johnston famous that Mike Babcock’s favourite Maple Leaf participant rising up was Salming. Babcock stated, “I assumed he was an unbelievable participant and warrior. Simply unimaginable, truly.”
George Armstrong, a 21-season Maple Leaf participant and the captain of 4 Stanley Cup-winning Maple Leafs groups, stated of Salming: “He was essentially the most proficient participant to ever put on the Toronto Maple Leafs uniform.”
Lastly, fellow Swede Mats Sundin, the previous captain who started his hockey profession in Salming’s hockey faculty in Sweden, notes, “Each Swede respects Borje and pays him tribute for what he has finished. For us – Swedish hockey gamers – he’s the person who confirmed us the fitting method; he’s a trailblazer.”
In Abstract
Salming was one of many first European gamers to affect the NHL. He was one of many prime defensemen of his period and was inducted into the Hockey Corridor of Fame in 1996. In a 2017 ballot, he was named one of many “100 Biggest NHL Gamers” in historical past. That’s his NHL abstract.
Maybe the perfect Maple Leafs abstract was the followers’ appreciation. One of many best recorded standing ovations in sports activities historical past occurred within the Maple Leaf Gardens through the 1976 Canada Cup, simply earlier than Salming’s Crew Sweden performed Crew USA.s’ Nonetheless, it received’t final so long as Salming’s stellar status in Toronto.
