Remembering Gerry Meehan
Gerry Meehan, forward for six NHL teams and long-time NHL front office jack-of-all-trades, died earlier this month at age 79. Meehan was perhaps most famous as "the man who built the Buffalo Sabres twice" and destroyed the Philadelphia Flyers once. The second captain in Sabres history, Meehan scored one of their most famous goals and led Buffalo to their first ever playoff appearance. As Sabres general manager Meehan got Alex Mogilny out of the Soviet Union, drafted Pierre Turgeon, traded him for Pat LaFontaine, probably lost a trade for Dale Hawerchuk, but made up for every imaginable sin by acquiring Dominik Hasek for a scrub and a fourth-round pick: if that's not the best trade in NHL history I'd very much like to know what is. Meehan's time as GM was relatively short, but few general managers can say they acquired the two best players in franchise history in such a span.
As a player, Meehan was destined for an awkward epoch: the immediate expansion era. Meehan was never considered a star prospect, as a kid he played well for good teams but didn't stand out. He was drafted by the Leafs, but it was the first ever amateur draft, for the few players who hadn't signed with an NHL team already; Meehan went last overall. Although the format was so weird you have to put an asterisk beside this, Meehan was probably the best last overall pick until Patric Hornqvist 42 years later.
Had he been ten years older, Meehan would been lost in the deep dark sea of the Original Six. Had he been ten years younger, he would have benefited from the highest-scoring era in NHL history, for Meehan was a premature '80s Guy if ever there was one. He had good size and skill, was respected, played a versatile attacking game, and got the puck on goal. He was smart on the ice and smarter off it. But he had a rep as a soft player, which when his most famous teammate was Gilbert Perreault took some doing. Despite, or maybe because of this, he played in 672 big league games. Though he wasn't a regular in a big-league lineup until he was 24, he was basically never hurt; he had two eighty-game seasons, a 78, three 77s, a 74, and a 72. He played for one of the worst teams in NHL history, the 1975–76 Washington Capitals, and may have been the reason they weren't the worst team in NHL history. He never came close to leading an NHL team in scoring. His teams always traded him, usually for not much; the team that got him usually improved. Not a great player, and better remembered in the front office, but a man before his time, a Volkswagen Golf during a Buick age, who showed how far you can get with brains and a work ethic.
