Bucyk enjoying Bruins’ success on 70th anniversary of 1st NHL goal 

Johnny Bucyk doesn’t remember the finest details of his first NHL goal, scored Dec. 11, 1955.

But on this 70th anniversary, the Boston Bruins legend remembers what’s important:

“I was a rookie with the Detroit Red Wings, it was against the New York Rangers, I scored it on Gump Worsley and we won 2-0,” Bucyk said with a laugh, turning back the clock to his first of 556 regular-season NHL goals.

Seven decades later, the hugely popular man affectionately known as “Chief” holds court every home game in the Bruins alumni suite at TD Garden, an endless stream of guests and star-struck fans appearing at his side for photos and autographs and perhaps to share a special memory.

They’re happier nights this season than they were last, when the Bruins failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs after eight consecutive trips to the postseason. Today, Boston (18-13-0) is flirting with top spot in the Atlantic Division, riding a three-game winning streak after a 5-2 win at the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, and Bucyk is enjoying every minute of it.

Johnny Bucyk skates between Toronto goalie Johnny Bower and defenseman Allan Stanley during a 1967-68 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

“I think they’re starting to jell,” he said Monday. “There are so many new players. They’re starting to work together, the chemistry is good, they care for each other and the goaltenders have had some strong games.

“They weren’t great at the beginning of the year (three season-opening wins followed by a six-game losing streak). But goalie Jeremy Swayman was under a lot of pressure. Right now he’s playing excellent hockey (having won four of his last five games) and he gives the team a chance to win every night.

“Marco (Sturm) is doing a great job as coach and he’s got the players listening to him, so that means a lot. They’re working, playing together. (Forward) Morgan Geekie is unreal (a team-leading 22 goals in 31 games, his 32 points tied for the lead with David Pastrnak). He knows what to do and he’s in the right place at the right time.”

Bucyk chuckles at the sepia memories of his first NHL goal, coming in one of those games that Worsley surely considered when he replied “the Rangers” upon being asked, while with New York, which team gave him the most trouble.

Johnny Bucyk signs his name on a Bruins Centennial Game souvenir frame; and with fellow Bruins legend Willie O’Ree at TD Garden on Nov. 29, 2024.

The Red Wings outshot the Rangers 47-9 that night at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium, the Gumper standing on his head with 45 saves in a 2-0 defeat.

Glenn Hall faced three shots in each period to record his fourth of 12 shutouts that season, probably the easiest of the 84 he would earn with Detroit, the Chicago Black Hawks and the Blues.

Shots on goal weren’t an official NHL statistic in the day, but the League’s Dec. 11, 1955, scoresheet gave Bucyk four shots on Worsley. Red Wings legend Alex Delvecchio, who assisted on Bucyk’s second-period power-play game-winning goal, was credited with five.

Defenseman Red Kelly, who scored Detroit’s second goal early in the third period, fired 11, outshooting the entire Rangers roster by two.

It was the only goal Bucyk scored during his 38-game rookie season, coming in his 16th NHL game. He would add eight assists, then score 10 goals with 11 assists in his second year before his June 10, 1957, trade, with cash, sent him to the Bruins in exchange for future Hall of Fame goalie Terry Sawchuk.

Johnny Bucyk in a Detroit Red Wings rookie-season portrait taken in 1955 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

Bucyk’s economical output with Detroit wasn’t indicative of his talent; it was more a reflection of the fact he was parked on the end of coach Jimmy Skinner’s bench, the Red Wings’ Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Delvecchio skating miles with barely the time to catch their breath between shifts.

“My first two NHL years with Detroit, I usually got on the ice if we were up five goals or down five goals,” Bucyk said, laughing again. “I used to sit on the end of the bench, catch cold and watch Gordie Howe.

“Growing up, Gordie was always my idol. I watched him all the time, even when I was sitting on the end of the bench. I could tell you some stories that no one else ever knew.

“I remember Gord Hannigan of the Maple Leafs once checking Gordie for the entire game. When the play was at the other end of the ice, he’d grab Gordie and hold him so he couldn’t get back into the play.

Johnny Bucyk in a portrait during his 1955-56 rookie season with the Detroit Red Wings, and the NHL scoresheet of Detroit’s 2-0 win against the visiting New York Rangers, in which Bucyk scored the first of his 556 regular-season goals.

“I kept watching Gordie to see what he was going to do. The play went down to their end, and wham-o! Gordie nailed Hannigan flat on his butt. No whistle, no penalty, no nothing. Everybody was trying to figure out why the guy was lying in the corner. I knew because I saw it and I’ll never forget it.”

Bucyk would see much more ice and score many more goals during his 21 seasons with the Bruins, the team that has been his family for nearing seven decades. He is the unofficial mayor of Boston’s TD Garden, the star attraction in the team’s alumni suite and far beyond.

At age 90, the Edmonton-born icon remains one of the Bruins’ busiest alumni, adored at every stop by fans who remember him from the club’s 1970 and 1972 Stanley Cup championships or simply know of his legend.

From his late-1950s reunion in Boston with Edmonton minor-pro linemates Vic Stasiuk and Bronco Horvath, dubbed the “Uke Line” for their common Ukrainian heritage, Bucyk would go on to captain the Bruins in 1966-67 and from 1973-77, twice win the Stanley Cup and register 1,339 points (545 goals, 794 assists) for the spoked-B through his retirement in 1978.

Bruins forward Johnny Bucyk on his team’s Boston Garden bench during a 1967-68 game.

To this day, he remains Boston's all-time leader in goals, 86 ahead of second-ranked Phil Esposito’s 459, and ranks second to fellow Hall of Famer Ray Bourque in assists (1,111-794) and points (1,506-1,339).

Even with that rough edge on his six-foot, 215-pound frame, his crushing hip checks often putting opponents into low orbit, Bucyk spent only 493 minutes in NHL penalty boxes, winning the 1971 and 1974 Lady Byng Trophy as the NHL’s most gentlemanly player.

His No. 9 retired by the team on March 13, 1980, he was voted among the 100 Greatest NHL Players as part of the League’s 2017 Centennial Celebration, and in October 2023 was voted among 20 players on the Bruins’ All-Centennial team.

For a half-century, Bucyk held the record as the oldest NHL player to score 50 goals in a season, 35 years and 308 days when he scored his 50th of the 1970-71 season. Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin was 36 years, 215 days when he scored his 50th of the 2020-21 season.

“Chief” is often asked about his 500th career goal, which came Oct. 30, 1975, on Blues goalie Yves Belanger in a 3-2 Boston Garden win. By coincidence, Belanger faced 47 shots and faced four of Bucyk’s in that milestone game, just as Worsley had 20 years earlier in 1955.

Johnny Bucyk in an early 1950s portrait with his Edmonton Oil Kings junior team, and with the Boston Bruins during the 1970s.

It's not often that he revisits that maiden goal, his performance that night even more impressive for his physical presence.

“The thundering play of John Bucyk is encouraging for the Wings,” wrote Lewis H. Walter in the Detroit Free Press. “Even more inspiring than Bucyk’s goal was his body checking. He steamrollered several Rangers, his bashing one of the reasons the Wings were able to hold the Rangers in check.”

Bucyk can still feel the effects of his rugged style of play, having had his left hip replaced and both shoulders surgically repaired.

“I used both hips to check,” he joked. “The secret was timing. That was very important. If players today were using the hip check the way I did, they’d be spending a lot of time in the penalty box.

“One night in Toronto, (Maple Leafs captain) George Armstrong was coming around the net with Bronco (Horvath) chasing him. Just as George came around, boom! It felt so good. But when I looked, I realized that I’d missed George and hit Bronco.

“They took him to the dressing room on a stretcher. He came back out but during the intermission he asked me, ‘What the (heck) were you doing, hitting me?’ ”

Johnny Bucyk in a 1960s Boston Bruins portrait; and a Stanley Cup miniature, his 1967-68 Topps hockey card and a coin he had made in the approximate likeness of his retired No. 9 jersey banner, placed on the Bruins’ just-unveiled Centennial season statue outside TD Garden on Dec. 1, 2024.

In fact, Bucyk recalls with mischief, he hit Horvath so hard that his teammate needed to change some of his equipment.

Shoulder surgeries were the result of freak collisions with Maurice “Rocket” Richard and Pierre Pilote, legends with the Montreal Canadiens and Black Hawks.

“All the Rocket did was take me into the boards very politely and my shoulder got stuck on the top of the boards,” Bucyk recalled. “I went down and my shoulder stayed up. Same thing happened when Pilote did the other one.”

Seventy years later, Bucyk remembers his first goal with his focus sharply on this year’s Bruins, hoping his team builds momentum and will be a factor come the playoffs.

“I never imagined I’d be part of the Bruins family for going on 70 years. The Jacobs family, especially Charlie, have been so good to me,” he said, speaking of owner Jeremy Jacobs and his son, Charlie, the team’s chief executive officer. “I don’t know how to explain it. I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done. And Cam (Neely, the Bruins’ president) for keeping me on.

“I’ve been wonderfully treated for all of these years by the Bruins ownership and its management and the fans,” he said, already looking forward to the Bruins’ return from the road and a five-game homestand that begins Dec. 16 against the Utah Mammoth.

“I’ll be there,” Bucyk said brightly. “I’ve never stopped working. Why stop now?”

Top photo: Boston Bruins legend Johnny Bucyk speaks with reporters before his team’s Centennial Game at TD Garden on Dec. 1, 2024.