"I saw him in the Central League. The Rangers had the Omaha Knights and Montreal had the Houston team. He and Serge Savard played together for Houston, two big, tall, rangy defensemen. The kind of guys you like playing defense. I liked him from the first and tried to get him from the Oakland Seals. I thought I had a deal, but their GM sent him off to Boston. He could carry the puck, handle the puck, had a good shot and skated with his head up. That first pass out of your own end is so important and he did that really well."

But it was the addition of Vadnais that nearly skewed the whole deal.

"Ten minutes before the deal was official, Harry called me and said he'd made an error, that Carol had a no-trade contract, plus his wife was being operated on," Francis said. "Talk about a bad day for him. Vadnais wouldn't report because of the no-trade contract. I sent a telegram to Boston that said I was going to sue him, but he had a Montreal agent who was a really classy guy. Remember, Phil got hurt in the second game and Vadnais wouldn't report. The Bruins had Ratelle, Park and Zanussi in their lineup and I had nobody.

"I got a letter from a lawyer and flew to Boston," Francis continued. "We were two days talking and we straightened out the deal. He didn't have to go anywhere, and I felt so bad when I found out about his wife."

"I was a little shocked at the time because I had a no-trade contract which I asked for because I felt I played better when I had security and because my wife was very sick," Vadnais recalled. "She had the operation three days after the trade. Emile was very good to me and told me to relax and he would take care of everything.

"I didn't know Emile, but he was a tremendous gentleman," Vadnais continued. "The main guy was Esposito. New York wanted Esposito for Park. Then, one needed a center and one needed a defenseman. I was definitely the throw-in, I thought. I didn't know they were really after me, but Emile said he wanted me when I was in Oakland and said he had offered more than Boston. Hey, you're just a player, in those days you didn't ask questions."

"I loved Boston and I loved the Bruins," Esposito recalled. "We were really a team. We played hard and we hung out together and we won Stanley Cups together. I think if I had stayed we would have won a couple more. The last place I wanted to be traded to was the Rangers because they were our enemies. But they treated me really well in New York and I played hard for them."

Esposito said the years of close but no cigar had affected the Rangers in a negative way. He had two goals and two assists in his first game as a Ranger but they lost, 7-5, to the Golden Seals, the worst team in the League. Esposito said in his recently published autobiography, Thunder and Lightning, that he blew up at his new teammates.

"In Boston, if we lost a game, everybody was (angry). Especially, if we lost to a team that we never should have lost to, like California. Our philosophy was to always beat the teams you're supposed to beat. Especially, the teams that are worse than you -- you have to beat them."

Esposito said one of his new teammates told him, "You can't win them all." Esposito knew he wasn't in Boston anymore.

"Esposito loved Boston and he was shocked," said Francis, who was fired as Rangers GM in early January 1976. "They were all shocked, all the guys in the deal, because nobody thought we'd deal New York-to-Boston. We were dealing with well-established players. I was gone not too long after that and the new GM, John Ferguson, made Espo the captain over Rod Gilbert. I imagine there was concern in the dressing room. When I was there, Espo was fine. The guy was monumental in Boston, but he got hurt in the second game he played for us, after scoring twice and having a good game the first game."

Esposito was injured just two games into his Rangers' career, but recovered quickly and led the team to the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals, a series they lost to Montreal.

The Rangers overhauled the team and Vadnais and Esposito were key to the revival that brought them to the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Canadiens. But Boston got the first return when Ratelle and Park led them to the Finals in 1977 and 1978, only to lose twice to Montreal.

"Jean Ratelle got almost 100 points in both his first two years with us," Sinden recalled. "You know, I've often used his name as players have come along since and pointed out what a great defensive player he was without being an aggressive type of forward. He was a terrific checker. A lot of players who don't have an aggressive nature think you're talking body-checking, but Ratelle is a great example of how you can check so well without necessarily being a body-checker. He brought a lot to this team. He was an excellent faceoff man and more of a creative playmaker than a shooter. He'd get 35 goals while Espo would get around 60, but Jean was able to put a lot of points up there with his playmaking."

It was the second time the Bruins and Esposito had been involved in a blockbuster trade.

"Milt Schmidt was the GM who made the 1967 trade with the Blackhawks for Esposito, Fred Stanfield and Ken Hodge," Sinden said. "Tom Johnson and Westy Adams, the owner's son, got involved too. I was the coach then. Obviously that trade had a dramatic impact: We won two Stanley Cups and were the dominant team until the WHA came along and a bunch of our players left. The trade for Park kept the Bruins at the top level of the League for another six or seven years after Orr was gone. If Bobby had been able to play and stayed with the Bruins and we had Ratelle and Park, which we had the three for only about nine games, you would have seen another Bruins' dynasty. They were among the very best players in the history of this game ... but we anticipated Orr's problems.

"In the beginning, I don't think I realized the significance of Bobby's problems," Sinden said. "He was playing on it, the same thing with Brad. How Park lasted as long as he did with his knees, I don't know. He was taped up for every game. You know, he should have won the (1976) Norris Trophy the first year Potvin won it. He was the outstanding defenseman in the game that year.

"If you didn't see Orr, then you just don't know," Sinden said. "You had to see him to see how far above every other player in the League he was. It wasn't even close. If he dropped four or five levels, he would still be above most everyone else. So, we thought he'd still be a great player. Orr was never the same after the operations and the first one was the worst. He got by and was still good but not the same. In retrospect, the first operation did all the damage."

So, Sinden made a deal that he thought had long-range implications for the Bruins, only to discover it would have to have an immediate impact. It jolted the city of Boston and its rabid sports fans like nothing in sports ever had. It was, literally, the most dramatic thing that had collectively happened to its residents since the assassination of President Kennedy. And, if you remember, it was only a few weeks after the Red Sox had lost the dramatic 1975 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

Veteran Boston sportswriter Bill Kipouras, a Bruins' beat writer, recalls the impact on the Boston fan base.

"Stunning, that's the only word for it," Kipouras said. "Stunning. I don't know if the fans ever got over it. Esposito was an icon surpassed only by Orr. They had a famous bumper sticker, "Jesus saves but Esposito scores on the rebound," on cars all over the Boston area. Jean Ratelle was one of the all-time classiest people to ever come to Boston. No person with more class ever wore the Bruins' uniform than Ratelle, but Esposito was a legend. He was what the Bruins were all about in their salad days."