Keon talks Maple Leafs taking next step in Q&A with NHL.com

TORONTO -- Dave Keon walks down to the Sunset Grill in downtown Toronto early on a Monday morning and no, he’s not joined by Don Henley, the legendary Eagles drummer and solo artist who co-wrote the classic 1985 song of that name about a Sunset Boulevard burger joint.

But Keon might tell you that he met Bob Dylan at Maple Leaf Gardens about 50 years ago, brought over to say hello to “a small fellow in a hat sitting in the corner. I guess I met him, I said hello but we didn’t shake hands. They told me I wasn’t supposed to look at him.”

In 2016, for the team’s centennial season, Keon was voted by a blue-ribbon panel as the greatest Maple Leafs player of all time. His No. 14 was retired to Scotiabank Arena rafters that October, along with nine other previously “honored” numbers whose retirement he insisted upon should his own be celebrated, his statue among the 10 in Legends Row outside the arena.

Keon played 1,062 regular-season games for Toronto from 1960-75 and was captain from 1969-75, then 301 in the WHA from 1975-79 and 234 more for Hartford in the NHL from 1979-82.

The 83-year-old native of Noranda, Quebec scored 396 goals and had 590 assists in the NHL, assessed just 117 penalty minutes in 18 seasons -- an average of 6½ minutes per season. He won the Stanley Cup in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967 and was awarded the 1961 Calder Trophy as the NHL rookie of the year, Lady Byng in 1962 and 1963 as its most gentlemanly player and Conn Smythe in 1967 as the Stanley Cup Playoffs most valuable player.

Dave Keon at Maple Leaf Gardens on May 3, 1967 with the Conn Smythe Trophy he’d won the night before, and on Nov. 17, 2017 at Montreal’s Bell Centre with his painting celebrating his being among the 100 Greatest NHL Players for the League’s Centennial season.

A man of rigid principles and strong opinions, Keon is very sharply tuned to the game of his day and the modern NHL.

Over breakfast of plain yogurt and granola, an English muffin with cream cheese and a cup of Earl Grey tea, Keon had a chuckle about the October 1967 newspaper advertisement he’d been brought in which he endorsed the Parker Jotter, a $1.98 ballpoint pen that reportedly would be good for 40,000 of his autographs before he’d need a refill.

Even better was the Jotter delivered to him over breakfast from the Parker Pen company, 56 years after his endorsement.

This is the first Hall of Fame class whose induction you’ve attended since 2007, when Ron Francis, your 1981-82 Hartford Whalers teammate, was enshrined. Why this year?

I’m here for the induction of Pierre Turgeon. That makes three of us from Rouyn-Noranda who have been inducted -- Pierre, Jacques Laperriere (1987) and myself (1986). That’s pretty good for a small city in northern Quebec with a population of about 40,000.

Dave Keon, as a St. Michael’s Major junior during the 1957-58 season, and in a 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs portrait.

Before the Stanley Cup Playoffs last April, you spoke of the “baby steps” the Maple Leafs had to take to win their first playoff series since 2004. They beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games, then lost to the Florida Panthers in five games in the Eastern Conference Second Round. What’s the next step?

“Win two series. It was an accumulation of things with Tampa. The Lightning were tired. The three previous seasons they had won the Stanley Cup twice and gone to the Final another time. The Leafs were kind of lucky to beat them. Then they played Florida and the Panthers played very physically. The Maple Leafs just didn’t respond.”

Toronto’s William Nylander said the other day that he’ll take the subway to home games …

“I saw a picture of him on the subway. When I played here, I didn’t take public transit to Maple Leaf Gardens. But when I came back with Hartford, I drove to the subway and took it to the rink. I was recognized, yes. Fans here have been wonderful to me. When I came back with Hartford, that continued. When I come to Toronto now to do something, they’ll come to see me. They’ve always been very supportive.”

Is there anyone in today’s NHL who reminds you of yourself, of the way you played the game?

“I thought Jonathan Toews played that way. He played both ends of the rink very hard, he was bigger than me and more physical. I thought there were similarities there. I guess you could say Patrice Bergeron, too, but he didn’t skate as well as I did.”

If you’re playing today, who would you like as your linemates, even if they’re not actual left and right wings?

“The game today is totally different than how I played, obviously. Let’s say maybe (Boston Bruins forward) Brad Marchand.”

Guaranteed he’ll take more penalty minutes than you …

“(Laughs) Yes, so then I’d be killing his penalties. And I’d like to play with (Toronto forward) Matthew Knies to help with his development. I always believed that it was my responsibility to make my linemates better players, not the other way around.”

When you were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1986, your legendary New England and Hartford Whalers teammate Gordie Howe said: “We all should have been so lucky to know how to play the game as well as Dave.” What was the best part of playing with “Mr. Hockey” for the time that you did?

“Probably to see the enthusiasm that Gordie still had at that age. I played with him until he was [52]. He enjoyed the games. I think he might have been able to do without the practices and the travel. When Gordie came to practice, he worked at it. To have that much enthusiasm at that age, that was pretty impressive. You get to be 40 and it’s really hard. You need the enthusiasm to practice and play and travel. He was doing it and enjoying it at 50. These young guys who were playing with Gordie were in awe, looking at how powerful he still was at that age. That was the thing that awed people, the physique on him. Still going out there at age 50 and whacking guys. Gordie was Gordie and he wasn’t going to change.”

Rookie Dave Keon is chased by Montreal Canadiens defenseman Jean-Guy Talbot behind goalie Jacques Plante during a 1960-61 game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Keon would win the Calder Trophy that season as the NHL’s top rookie.

Broadcaster Foster Hewitt nicknamed you “Mr. Perpetual Motion.” Did you have any others?

“No, I didn’t. I was aware of Foster’s nickname for me. There was nothing I could do about being called ‘Davy’ or ‘Davey’ while I was playing. They weren’t going to change everything they’d printed to call me David. After I retired, I could have some say as to how my name was spelled. And David is how I sign autographs.”

Who should be in the Hall of Fame now, but isn’t?

“Claude Provost (the late Montreal Canadiens checking forward who won the Stanley Cup nine times). It’s kind of mind-boggling how he’s slipped into the cracks and just disappeared. It’s not like he was just sitting, moving up and down the bench for nine Stanley Cups.”

Some would say that you and Claude were cut from the same playing cloth in that your coaches would turn to you when the other team’s best offensive players had to be shut down.

“I don’t know. There’s always been this thing that I was a defensive player. But I was pretty good on offense, too. My production was pretty good. And Claude scored 30 goals (33 in 1961-62) when that was like hitting .400 in baseball.”

Dave Keon fires the puck on Detroit goalie Terry Sawchuk during a 1964 game at Maple Leaf Gardens, the puck seen just past Sawchuk’s left pad.

The St. Michael’s Majors retired your major-junior No. 9 on Dec. 14, 2008. Dick Duff was wearing 9 when you arrived with the Maple Leafs in 1960. Was No. 14 your choice?

“No, when I played my first exhibition game, I wore No. 8. That was Larry Regan’s number, so when he started playing exhibition games, they gave me No. 24. I had a very good training camp, which helped me stay with the big team. I asked if I could keep No. 24 and trainer Bobby Haggart said, ‘No, you’re going to have 14.’ I didn’t want it. That was the number worn by all the guys who were called up from the minors. You’d come up for a week, 10 days, two weeks, then you’d be sent back down. The next guy who came up got 14. I knew what that number meant, but I was told it was mine and I wore it reluctantly at first. I guess things worked out.”

You had a variety of endorsements during your career, including soup, a fitness-salon chain, sports equipment, analgesic rub and power tools. What was the best of the lot?

“(Canadiens star) Henri Richard and I worked together in print, on TV and in person for Skil Tools -- saws, jigsaws, drills, sanders -- in English and French. We’d go to sales meetings, Henri did things in Quebec, and I did some in Ontario and British Columbia. Campbell’s Soup was good, too.”

Any idea how much Parker Pens paid you to endorse the Jotter?

“(Laughs) I have no idea.”

Main photo: Dave Keon photographed at breakfast in Toronto on Nov. 13, 2023 with an October 1967 advertisement of himself endorsing a Parker Jotter, now holding a pen that was a gift from the company; and outside a Tim Hortons restaurant, the chain’s late founder a Keon teammate on four Toronto Maple Leafs championship teams during the 1960s.