If several members of the Quebec Nordiques remember the evening of February 22, 1981 in Washington very well, this is also the case for former defender Pierre Bouchard who, for his part, was in the enemy camp, with the Capitals. from Washington.
“It went through there, left and right, we all looked like the Statue of Liberty on the defensive, just imaged Bouchard, who had previously worn the colors of the Montreal Canadiens from 1970 to 1978. We laughed about it. afterwards, but it wasn’t funny at the time. “
Bouchard would have liked the Nordiques to decide that night to spare Peter and Anton Statsny a little, who had finally collected eight points each in an 11-7 victory.
“I remember that Pierre passed in front of our bench and that he told me in French:” you have not enough? “, Says for his part Michel Bergeron, head coach of the Nordiques at the time. We had several Quebeckers in the team, like Jacques Richard, Marc Tardif and Michel Goulet, and they all had a good laugh. ”
“As a coach, there was no question of me slowing down, I had no intention of moderating the Stastnys,” Bergeron continued, in response to Bouchard’s question 40 years later. They wouldn’t have liked it because they were having a blast on the ice. ”
Breaststroke
Bouchard has another special memory of this game which was very emotional. He remembers that his teammate Paul Mulvey had lost his temper before being kicked out of the match by the referees.
“Our coach Gary Green didn’t like it and Paul got kicked into the minors after that game,” recalls Bouchard.
Mulvey, who had thrown his hockey stick in the face of Kim Clackson when he was already in the penalty box at the end of the second period, did not actually play with the Capitals before mid-March.
“Nobody wanted to fight with Kim Clackson, for his part noted Peter Stastny. He had a ‘baby face’, but no one wanted to mess with him. ”
The game was punctuated by 176 minutes of penalties in total. Four Nordiques players took the opportunity to score on the power play, including Peter and Anton Stastny, once each.
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