The Forgotten Montreal Canadiens Great: Bill Durnan

Bill Durnan's story is one of burning short and bright. When you think of great Montreal Canadiens goalies, one name is at the front of everyone's mind: Ken Dryden. And for good reason. Dryden won the Conn Smythe as Stanley Cup playoff MVP before winning the Calder for Rookie of the Year the next season, along with 5 Vezinas and 6 Stanley Cups.

But no one needs to be told how great Dryden is. Same with other big names like Jacques Plante, Patrick Roy, and Georges Vezina, but Durnan is not usually placed in the same conversation. He is a bit older than Dryden, doesn't have a trophy named after him like Vezina, or changed the game like Plante, but that didn't make him any less great.

Nonetheless, Durnan was cool. Durnan made his NHL debut in 1943, at the age of 27, after playing several years in the Quebec Senior Hockey League. This was following a disappointing 1942-43 season, where Paul Bibeault finished with a less than stellar 19-19-13 season, and the Canadiens fell to the Boston Bruins in the first round.

It was a fantastic decision, as Durnan had a fantastic rookie season, posting a 38-5-7 record with a 2.18 GAA. The Canadiens would cruise through the playoffs, losing just one game to the Leafs en route to winning the Cup.

His next year was almost identical at 38-8-4, but the team fell in the first round to the Toronto Maple Leafs. But the year later, Durnan and the Canadiens went all the way to win the Cup for the second time in three years.

The next year, the Canadiens lost in the Final, and never made it that far again with Durnan in goal. That is partially because Durnan only played 7 years total in the NHL, before retiring due to mental health.

But, it's more what happened off the scoresheet that made Bill Durnan one of the more special goalies in NHL history.

Behold, above is the most unique goalie gear setups in hockey history. Check out those mitts, and complete lack of a blocker glove. That's not due to the time frame he was playing, more due to the fact that Durnan was ambidexterous. He could catch and play the puck with his stick equally well with either hand, and Durnan would switch hands depending on the situation.

Maybe other goalies in the NHL were ambidextrous, but none have switched hands during the game like Durnan had.

He was also one of the rare goalie captains. In the 1947-48 season, Durnan was named the captain of the Canadiens, and to call it a disaster, would be pretty apt. Long-time captain Toe Blake had a career-ending leg injury, so the rock-solid Durnan was named captain.

However, the rule is that the captain must talk to the referees for any reason, and the length of time it took Durnan to get out from the net, with all of his gear on, and make it back, many teams complained that this was a free timeout whenever he went to talk to the refs. And we are still feeling that way today, when as recently as Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks were denied the captaincy.

Durnan was the first goalie to win the Vezina trophy three times in a row and won it 6 times in 7 years. He would have undoubtedly kept setting and breaking more records, but his mental health was declining in the high-pressure situation that is professional hockey forced him to retire early, still as one of the better NHL goalies of all time.