Talbot reflects on anniversary of Canadiens' fifth straight championship

MONTREAL --Jean-Guy Talbot played eight games for the Montreal Canadiens in the 1959-60 Stanley Cup Playoffs, scoring one goal with one assist, taking 13 shots and eight penalty minutes.

If the statistics for the defenseman don't carry great weight, the memory of the Canadiens' historic championship that was won 60 years ago today still burns like a bonfire in Talbot's heart.
The Stanley Cup triumph was the product of a four-game sweep of the Chicago Black Hawks in the Semifinals and a four-game dusting of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Final. It was the Canadiens' fifth consecutive title, a record streak that remains unmatched.
Only once previously -- the 1952 Detroit Red Wings -- had a team gone undefeated through two playoff rounds to win the Cup.

"Our five straight is a record that will never be broken, and that's a very good feeling," Talbot, 87, said from his home in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, about 85 miles northeast of Montreal.
Indeed.
Talbot, forwards Henri Richard and Claude Provost and defenseman Bob Turner each won the championship with Montreal in their first five NHL seasons. In total, 12 players were members of each of those teams from 1955-60, as were Toe Blake, who won the Cup in each of his first five seasons as an NHL coach, and general manager Frank Selke.
Two of those 14 are still alive: Talbot and forward Don Marshall, who is 88.
Eight players on the 1960 team were bound for the Hall of Fame: forwards Jean Beliveau, Bernie Geoffrion, Dickie Moore, and brothers Maurice and Henri Richard, defensemen Doug Harvey and Tom Johnson, and goalie Jacques Plante. Add former player Ken Reardon, who was Canadiens vice president that season, as well as Selke and team president Hartland Molson, both in the builders category, and Blake as others enshrined.

Harvey would win the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman in 1959-60, his fifth in six seasons, while Plante was awarded his fifth straight Vezina Trophy as the goalie whose team allowed the fewest goals (178, two fewer than Glenn Hall of Chicago).
The championship would be the crowning achievement for a remarkable dynasty that before puck drop the following season would see the retirement of captain Maurice Richard, who had won eight titles and scored a then-NHL record 544 goals during his 18-season, injury-riddled career.
Talbot fondly remembers a five-year band of brothers, a roster that stuck together on and off the ice.
"We were a family," he said. "After every game we'd go out together for something to eat, with our wives, have a couple drinks, go home and return to the rink the next day. It was pretty good.
"We'd travel by train to games on the road. We'd talk a lot because we had lots of time. 'Tonight I played bad, next time I'll be better,' and another guy would say, 'You should give me the puck more.' We were always talking about the games.

1959-60 Montreal Canadiens, winner of the Stanley Cup and Prince of Wales Trophy. Back row, from left: trainer Larry Aubut, Henri Richard, Bill Hicke, Claude Provost, Don Marshall, Ralph Backstrom, Andre Pronovost, Marcel Bonin, trainer Hec Dubois. Middle row, from left: publicity director Camil Desroches, Dickie Moore, Jean-Guy Talbot, Al Langlois, Jean Beliveau, Ab McDonald, Bob Turner, Phil Goyette, Bernie Geoffrion, publicist Frank Selke Jr. Front row, from left: Charlie Hodge, Doug Harvey, president Hartland Molson, GM Frank Selke, Maurice Richard, assistant GM Ken Reardon, coach Toe Blake, Tom Johnson, Jacques Plante.
"My berth on the train was in front of Jean (Beliveau). Some trips, there wasn't a dining car, so we'd bring our own food. Jean and I would eat our sandwiches, talk and go to sleep, and wake up in the next city."
No matter how dominant those Canadiens were, Talbot remembers them being driven by a constant fear of failure, in their own eyes and those of their fans to whom a Stanley Cup parade was a rite of spring.
"We worked for those championships, don't you worry," Talbot said. "Before every game, we were afraid of losing. We worked so hard and the harder we worked, the more we won. We had a super team, all the players were like brothers, OK? Everybody went everywhere together, we never had a fight.
"The money we made wasn't much, but it was better than lots of people. I was happy, going to the NHL and winning beyond that. Lots of good players never won the Stanley Cup -- Gilbert Perreault, Marcel Dionne, Rod Gilbert, Jean Ratelle, Bill Gadsby … all good players. You have to be in the right place at the right moment."

A first-year coach in 1955-56, Blake had arrived with a player's mentality, a gritty forward who had won a championship in 1935 with the Montreal Maroons and two more with the Canadiens in 1944 and 1946. Blake, won coached the Canadiens to eight Stanley Cup championships in 13 seasons from 1955-68, had played left wing with center Elmer Lach and right wing Maurice Richard on the Canadiens' Punch Line, the most fearsome trio of the 1940s.
"Toe was the best coach I played for," Talbot said. "We practiced the way we played in a game. He'd have 3-on-2 drills, so in practice I'm on defense playing against the best forwards in the League. It was easier when I played the opposition. When you have Henri, the Rocket and Dickie Moore coming in on you in practice, well, they're better than the guys on the other teams. We worked really hard in practice. Not long, but hard."
Marshall, a smooth-skating center with a nose for the net in junior, had been slotted between Maurice Richard and Bert Olmstead for the 1954-55 season but lost his spot when he broke an ankle during training camp. Blake would ultimately deploy him as a penalty-killer, checker and utility forward, roles that Marshall filled with distinction.

In 1956, Dickie Moore (left) and Don Marshall (right) flank teammate Marcel Bonin.
Talbot was left unprotected in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft after having played 801 games for the Canadiens, including winning two more championships in 1965 and 1966. He was claimed by the Minnesota North Stars, who he played four games with before being traded to Detroit. The Red Wings then put him on waivers in January 1968, and Talbot was picked up by the St. Louis Blues, who he played 172 games with through 1970, including advancing to the Cup Final three times.
If Noel Picard is remembered as the Blues defenseman who pitchforked Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins into the air for the latter's historic Cup-winning overtime goal in 1970, Talbot had maybe the best view of it, standing directly behind goalie Glenn Hall.
"We never won the Cup in St. Louis," Talbot said. "But I'd tell the guys, 'We're not supposed to win it. The other guys are the ones who'll be stressed, not us.' But we had lots of fun and we didn't go to the Final for nothing."
Talbot's career ended with the Buffalo Sabres in 1970-71, having played 1,066 games over 17 seasons. He scored 285 points (43 goals, 242 assists) but was most valuable to his team for his physical play and ability to move the puck.

Coaching stints took Talbot to St. Louis, from 1972-74, and the New York Rangers, in 1977-78, before he retired to his home in Trois-Rivieres, across the St. Maurice River from his birthplace in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, on property bought during his playing days so that he and his wife, Pierrette, could raise their three children in farm country away from Montreal.
The couple has mostly stayed indoors during the coronavirus pandemic, with Talbot in good health but mindful of two health crises in recent years "that brought me close to death. At my age, I'm lucky to be alive, but I'm still here. Hard work does good for you."
Today, Talbot will think again of the 1959-60 Canadiens, and of the four championship teams that came before them.
"I always wanted to play in the NHL," he said. "I made it. And then I won five Stanley Cups in my first five years. I want to tell you, that was really a thrill."
Photos: HHoF Images