Dale Tallon

You know, I have followed, because for people who don't know, the Canucks came in in 1970, and I was growing up, I was born out in BC, but I grew up on the prairies, and that was the closest the NHL was ever going to get to me.

You know, Orlan, Curtinback, Andre Boudreaux, Dale Tallon, they were heroes to me, and I always cheered for them.

And the Canucks, even at the beginning of the franchise, they were competitive.

Now, they weren't a playoff team, I don't think, for a couple of years, but they won more games than, say, the California Seals did.

Actually, after the expansion draft, excuse me, after they protected him in the Vegas expansion draft, but yeah.

it's funny, we were joking in our group chat today, me, Jacob Winans, Nick Fairbanks, we were saying maybe Dale Talon was right with protecting Alexander Petrovich, but we say that jokingly, but good to see that there wasn't really the big mistake that we saw from Alexander Petrovich as we sometimes grew frustrated with Alexander Petrovich at times just getting beat, but his ability to also set up offensively, like we mentioned the Hunter St. Martin goal, and the ability to just create space and also giving Cooper Black just a lot of time and not taking his eyes away.

That was the really great thing that I saw from Cooper Black.

And as a humongous goaltender for Cooper Black, I think he's 6'8", if I'm not mistaken.

But Prongs was right.

So I was fortunate when I worked in Florida that I was wor- with Prongs and, and Brian McCabe, and even Dale Tallon.

And, and Dale Tallon would, would always say that a defenseman, it, he needs about 250 games in the league to become the best version of himself.

Well, Matthew Shafer is an outlier.

[laughs]

He, uh, he talked to me about this.

He said he signed his big deal with Florida and Dale Tallon told him, "You know, hey, we signed you for who you are.

Don't think about the money.

Just do what you do." And Campbell said he couldn't get it out of his head.

Uh, it was a few weeks ago actually.

I did, um, I helped out the Blackhawks with, like, a season ticket holder event, and, uh, I interviewed Dale Tallon in front of some, uh, it was some sponsors.

And, uh, I, I mentioned to Dale, I asked him, I said, "Your first..." It was, "When you were a member of the Florida Panthers, he brought in Jaromir Jagr on a two-year deal when Jagr was 43 years old-

[laughs]

I know Huberdeau wasn't part of it.

He went, he gets traded.

But Dale Tallon was saying, like, "I, I needed someone to come help them, but also be a big-time producer." I mean, it just, it feels like this is exactly what Patrick Kane is brought in to do, to be a high-level producer offensively, but also to show them, hey, when things aren't going right, we gotta pause this and we gotta y- Like, to show them off the ice as well.

And so they really helped Florida, and, uh, hopefully it helps this Chic- young Chicago team too.

way back when now we mentioned the vancouver canucks as well gourd 57 years ago today the national hockey league approved two new expansion franchises in vancouver and eventually in buffalo they were set to join the league for the 1970-71 campaign and as they say the rest is history

Yeah, Gilbert Perrault, the first ever pick by Buffalo, then Dale Tallon in that amateur draft.

I don't even remember who the expansion players were.

I mean, they did not get the expansion list like, say, the Vegas Golden Knights and the Seattle Kraken got, but...

"Buff, are you light enough? Can you play?" All this.

And Dale Tallon actually did a great job at coming into the trainers and just saying, "Manage everyone else's weight, make sure they're in shape, and leave Buff alone.

What we need is happy Buff.

We don't need rattled, pissed-off Buff in the gym, right? We need him to be comfortable coming to the rink.