1984–85 NHL season

League business

Entry draft

The 1984 NHL entry draft was held on June 9, at the Montreal Forum in Montreal, Quebec. Mario Lemieux was selected first overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ice officials begin wearing helmets

Referee Andy Van Hellemond becomes the first on ice official in league history to wear a helmet. Soon, several officials would follow his lead and wear helmets before it became mandatory for all officials for the 2006–07 season.

Regular season

The Philadelphia Flyers had the best record in the NHL, four points ahead of second place Edmonton Oilers. Flyers goaltender Pelle Lindbergh went on to become the first European to win the Vezina Trophy. Oilers' star Wayne Gretzky once again won the Art Ross Trophy by reaching the 200 point plateau for the third time in four years. He also set a new record for assists in a season with 135 and won his sixth straight Hart Memorial Trophy. Mario Lemieux made his NHL debut by scoring 100 points and winning the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year. On October 26, 1984, Paul Coffey of the Edmonton Oilers would be the last defenceman in the 20th century to score four goals in one game. It occurred in a game versus the Detroit Red Wings.

The last two players active in the 1960s, Butch Goring and Brad Park, retired after the playoffs. Goring was the last active, playing his last playoff game three days after Park's last game.

Final standings

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF= Goals For, GA = Goals Against, Pts = Points, PIM = Penalties in minutes. Teams qualifying for the playoffs shown in bold.

Prince of Wales Conference

Clarence Campbell Conference

Playoffs

Main article: 1985 Stanley Cup playoffs

Bracket

The top four teams in each division qualified for the playoffs. In the division semifinals, the fourth seeded team in each division played against the division winner from their division. The other series matched the second and third place teams from the divisions. The two winning teams from each division's semifinals then met in the division finals. The two division winners of each conference then played in the conference finals. The two conference winners then advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals.

In the division semifinals, teams competed in a best-of-five series. In the other three rounds, teams competed in a best-of-seven series (scores in the bracket indicate the number of games won in each series).

Awards

All-Star teams

Player statistics

Scoring leaders

Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points

Source: NHL.

Leading goaltenders

Note: GP = Games played; W = Won; L = Lost; T = Tied; GA = Goals allowed; GAA = Goals against average; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage

Coaches

Patrick Division

• New Jersey Devils: Doug Carpenter
• New York Islanders: Al Arbour
• New York Rangers: Herb Brooks and Craig Patrick
• Philadelphia Flyers: Mike Keenan
• Pittsburgh Penguins: Bob Berry
• Washington Capitals: Bryan Murray

Adams Division

• Boston Bruins: Gerry Cheevers and Harry Sinden
• Buffalo Sabres: Scotty Bowman
• Hartford Whalers: Jack Evans
• Montreal Canadiens: Jacques Lemaire
• Quebec Nordiques: Michel Bergeron

Norris Division

• Chicago Black Hawks: Orval Tessier and Bob Pulford
• Detroit Red Wings: Nick Polano
• Minnesota North Stars: Glen Sonmor
• St. Louis Blues: Jacques Demers
• Toronto Maple Leafs: Dan Maloney

Smythe Division

• Calgary Flames: Bob Johnson
• Edmonton Oilers: Glen Sather
• Los Angeles Kings: Pat Quinn
• Vancouver Canucks: Bill LaForge and Harry Neale
• Winnipeg Jets: Barry Long

Milestones

Debuts

The following is a list of players of note who played their first NHL game in 1984–85 (listed with their first team, asterisk(*) marks debut in playoffs):

• Gino Cavallini, Calgary Flames
• Joel Otto, Calgary Flames
• Ed Olczyk, Chicago Black Hawks
• Marc Bergevin, Chicago Black Hawks
• Gerard Gallant, Detroit Red Wings
• Esa Tikkanen*, Edmonton Oilers
• Steve Smith, Edmonton Oilers
• Kevin Dineen, Hartford Whalers
• Ray Ferraro, Hartford Whalers
• Sylvain Cote, Hartford Whalers
• Ulf Samuelsson, Hartford Whalers
• Garry Galley, Los Angeles Kings
• Patrick Roy, Montreal Canadiens
• Petr Svoboda, Montreal Canadiens
• Stephane Richer, Montreal Canadiens
• Greg Adams, New Jersey Devils
• Kirk Muller, New Jersey Devils
• Dave Gagner, New York Rangers
• Grant Ledyard, New York Rangers
• Kelly Miller, New York Rangers
• Tomas Sandstrom, New York Rangers
• Rick Tocchet, Philadelphia Flyers
• Doug Bodger, Pittsburgh Penguins
• Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh Penguins
• Steve Thomas, Toronto Maple Leafs
• Todd Gill, Toronto Maple Leafs
• Al Iafrate, Toronto Maple Leafs
• Petri Skriko, Vancouver Canucks
• Kevin Hatcher, Washington Capitals
• Dave Ellett, Winnipeg Jets

Last games

The following is a list of players of note that played their last game in the NHL in 1984–85 (listed with their last team):

• Terry O'Reilly, Boston Bruins
• Butch Goring, Boston Bruins
• Craig Ramsay, Buffalo Sabres
• Jerry Korab, Buffalo Sabres
• Jim Schoenfeld, Buffalo Sabres
• Real Cloutier, Buffalo Sabres
• Bob MacMillan, Chicago Black Hawks
• Brad Park, Detroit Red Wings
• Colin Campbell, Detroit Red Wings
• Darryl Sittler, Detroit Red Wings
• Ivan Boldirev, Detroit Red Wings
• Steve Shutt, Los Angeles Kings
• Paul Holmgren, Minnesota North Stars
• Pierre Mondou, Montreal Canadiens
• Anders Hedberg, New York Rangers
• Robbie Ftorek, New York Rangers
• Rick Kehoe, Pittsburgh Penguins
• John Garrett, Vancouver Canucks

Note: Goring and Park were the last two players to have played in the NHL in the 1960s.

Broadcasting

This was the first season in more than a decade that CBC was not the lone Canadian national broadcaster. While Molson continued to present Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights, rival brewery Carling O'Keefe began airing Friday night games on CTV. The two networks also split the playoffs and finals. CTV had previously aired HNIC-produced telecasts in the 1960s.

This was the third and final season of the league's U.S. national broadcast rights deal with USA, covering a slate of regular season games and selected playoff games. ESPN then signed a three-year agreement with the league after bidding about twice as much as USA had been paying. USA would not televise the NHL again until after the network was acquired by NBCUniversal in the early 2000s, airing selected playoff games as part of NBC Sports' overall NHL coverage between 2015 and 2021.

References

• {{cite book |last1=Fischler |first1=Stan |last2=Fischler |first2=Shirley ;Notes

References

1. Hockey's Book of Firsts, p. 27, James Duplacey, JG Press, {{ISBN. 978-1-57215-037-9.
2. [http://www.databasehockey.com DataBase Hockey] {{webarchive. link. (2008-09-13)
3. Warren, Kelly. (September 25, 1984). "Great hockey/beer war takes to the ice in Chicago". Chicago Tribune.
4. (July 30, 1985). "ESPN acquires NHL games Backroom bickering in TV deal". The Globe and Mail.
5. (July 26, 1985). "NHL Finds a Home at ESPN". Philadelphia Daily News.