Punch Imlach

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Punch Imlach bigraphy, stories - Canadian ice hockey coach

Punch Imlach : biography

March 15, 1918 – December 1, 1987

George "Punch" Imlach (March 15, 1918 – December 1, 1987), was an NHL coach and general manager. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Coaching record

Team Year Regular season Post season
G W L T OTL Pts Finish Result
TOR 1958–59 50 22 20 8 (65) 4th in NHL Lost in Stanley Cup Finals
TOR 1959–60 70 35 26 9 79 2nd in NHL Lost in Stanley Cup Finals
TOR 1960–61 70 39 19 12 90 2nd in NHL Lost in first round
TOR 1961–62 70 37 22 11 85 2nd in NHL Won Stanley Cup
TOR 1962–63 70 35 23 12 82 1st in NHL Won Stanley Cup
TOR 1963–64 70 33 25 12 78 3rd in NHL Won Stanley Cup
TOR 1964–65 70 30 26 14 74 4th in NHL Lost in first round
TOR 1965–66 70 34 25 11 79 3rd in NHL Lost in first round
TOR 1966–67 70 32 27 11 75 3rd in NHL Won Stanley Cup
TOR 1967–68 74 33 31 10 76 5th in East Did not qualify
TOR 1968–69 76 35 26 15 85 4th in East Lost in first round
BUF 1970–71 78 24 39 15 63 5th in East Did not qualify
BUF 1971–72 41 8 23 10 (51) 6th in East (resigned)
TOR 1979–80 10 5 5 0 (75) 4th in Adams Lost in first round

Building the Sabres

After being fired by the Leafs, it was expected that Imlach would join the NHL’s new Vancouver franchise. Imlach, Joe Crozier, and Foster Hewitt had become partners in the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Hockey League and were in line to become owners of the Vancouver NHL team. But they didn’t have the financial resources to buy the team, which went to Medical Investment Corporation (Medicor). Medicor bought the WHL Canucks for $2.8 million, with Imlach making a reported gain of more than $250,000. He was offered a job with the NHL Canucks, but instead accepted an offer from the NHL’s other expansion team, the Buffalo Sabres, as their first coach and general manager in 1970.

In the team’s first draft, it was a foregone conclusion that the first selection would be junior phenom Gilbert Perreault. The first pick would go to the team that won the spin of a roulette wheel. Imlach opted to take numbers 11–20 on the wheel, since 11 was his favorite number. When league president Clarence Campbell spun the wheel, he initially thought the pointer landed on 1. However, while Campbell was congratulating the Vancouver delegation, Imlach asked Campbell to check again. As it turned out, the pointer was actually on 11. Imlach promptly selected Perreault, who would go on to play 17 years with the Sabres and still holds every major offensive record in Sabres history. (Perreault, incidentally, would himself be assigned the number 11 for his entire career in Buffalo, a number that has since been retired by the Sabres organization.)