Nevin dies at 82, was two-time Stanley Cup champion with Maple Leafs

Bob Nevin
, a two-way forward who played 18 seasons in the NHL and won Stanley Cup championships with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1962 and 1963, died Monday. He was 82.

In 1,128 NHL games, Nevin scored 726 points (307 goals, 419 assists) and had 34 points (16 goals, 18 assists) in 84 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
The native of South Porcupine, Ontario excelled in junior hockey with the Toronto Marlboros and was 19 when he made his NHL debut with the Maple Leafs against the New York Rangers on Dec. 8, 1957. Nevin played four games with the Maple Leafs in 1957-58 and two the following season before making the team for good in 1960-61, scoring 21 goals and 58 points. He finished second to Maple Leafs forward Dave Keon in voting for the Calder Trophy as the top rookie in the NHL.
Keon got to know Nevin when they played against each other in major-junior, Nevin with the Marlboros, Keon with Toronto St. Michael's, before becoming teammates with the Maple Leafs.

"[Nevin] was a 200-foot player," Keon said. "When Frank Mahovlich scored 48 goals (in 1960-61), Nevy was the right winger on his line. He was very creative as a winger who made great plays to Frank and he was very responsible in his own end."
Keon remembers Game 6 of the 1962 Stanley Cup Final against the Chicago Black Hawks with the Maple Leafs one win from the Stanley Cup.
"We were leading 2-1 when (defenseman) Tim Horton took a penalty with a minute or so to go and (coach) Punch Imlach sent out [Nevin] and me and Bobby Baun and Carl Brewer on defense, with Don Simmons in goal. That's the way the game ended. And I think that now only two of those five (Baun and himself) are still alive."
From 21 goals in his rookie season, Nevin dropped to 15 in 1961-62 and 12 in 1962-63 but was a key part of those back-to-back Maple Leafs championships. Toronto made it three in a row in 1964, but Nevin was part of a seven-player trade on Feb. 22, 1964 that saw him dealt to the Rangers with forwards Dick Duff and Bill Collins, and defensemen Rod Seiling and Arnie Brown, for forwards Andy Bathgate and Don McKenney.
"I was shocked by that trade," Keon said. "It was the beginning of the end of the Leafs dynasty, if you want to call it that. They left, the next year Brewer retired, and we were never able to replace them."
Nevin was crushed by the trade, leaving a top team and heading to one that had qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs only once in the previous six seasons. He moved into the two-bedroom midtown New York apartment of Rangers forward Rod Gilbert.

"He was only 25, living in New York, but he really upset about the move," said Gilbert, who was 23. "I had to inspire him to play. But here were two single guys living together, and to Bob living was just as important as hockey. We had the best time you can imagine."
Nevin was given more offensive freedom, serving as captain from 1965-71 after replacing one-season captain Camille Henry upon Bathgate's departure.
"If Jean Ratelle wasn't going to be captain after Bathgate, I didn't want to be," Gilbert said. "So I told the Cat (Rangers coach Emile Francis) to give my roommate some inspiration to lead us."
As captain, Nevin scored 29 goals in 1965-66, 20 in 1966-67 (when the Rangers returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1962) and 31 in 1968-69. In the 1971 playoffs, his overtime goal in Game 6 of the quarterfinals against Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens gave the Rangers their first playoff series victory since 1950.
"Bob was a player like Bob Gainey," Gilbert said, comparing Nevin to the great Montreal Canadiens checking forward. "He could score and he could play defense. He always checked (Chicago's) Bobby Hull and the top players on every team. Bob and Donnie Marshall and Phil Goyette had a great line. He's one of the reasons the Rangers became respectable."
The Rangers traded Nevin, then 33, to the Minnesota North Stars on June 8, 1971 for future considerations, ultimately forward Bobby Rousseau. After scoring 21 goals for New York in 1970-71, Nevin scored 20 in two seasons in Minnesota, who lost him to the Los Angeles Kings in the Reverse Draft during the summer of 1973.

Bob Pulford, a former teammate of Nevin's in Toronto, was coaching the Kings and believed the versatile forward still had something left. Nevin proved him right, scoring 20 goals and 50 points in 1973-74 before matching his NHL career high with 31 goals and finishing with a career-best 72 points in 1974-75, helping the Kings set a team record with 105 points.
Nevin had 13 goals and 55 points in 1975-76, then played 13 games with the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association in 1976-77 before retiring.
In recent years, Keon and his wife, Jane, would meet Nevin and his wife, Linda, for a wintertime lunch in Florida. They last met this past March shortly before the latter couple returned to Toronto, Nevin taking ill in recent months.
"We would catch up on our lives, thinking back on what we'd done together in Toronto and Bob's success in New York," Keon said of their conversations. "It was a really good ride and a lot of fun. He was a great player, a great teammate and a great friend."