Los Angeles (AFP) – Boston Bruins hall of famer Milt Schmidt, who won his first Stanley Cup as a player in 1939 and fourth and final one as a general manager in 1972, died on Wednesday. He was 98.
The legendary Schmidt played centre on the Bruins’ famed “Kraut Line” and won the Hart Trophy as the National Hockey League’s MVP in 1951 and the Art Ross Trophy as the league scoring champion in 1940.
The four-time all star was one of the most skilled players of his generation but he was equally adept as a general manager, orchestrating one of the most lopsided trades in NHL history in 1967 when he brought Phil Esposito to Beantown.
The oldest living former NHL player, Schmidt was the key cog in the “Kraut Line” which featured Canadian boyhood chums Bobby Bauer and Woody Dumart. The trio shared German ancestry.
“It would be a challenge to find anyone who took greater pride in being a Boston Bruin than Milt Schmidt did — be it as a player, an executive or an ambassador over the 80-plus years he served the franchise, the City of Boston and the National Hockey League,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said.
“Milt’s respect for the game was matched by his humility and was mirrored by the great respect with which his opponents, and generations of Bruins players, treated him through the years.”
Schmidt is the only person in Bruins’ franchise history to have served as a player, captain, coach and general manager.
He won more Stanley Cup titles with Boston than any other person, capturing his second as a player in 1941 and first as a general manager in 1970.
And it was as a GM in the late 1960s that he helped turn the fortunes of the franchise around by landing future hall of famer Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield in a trade with the Chicago Black Hawks for Gilles Marotte, Pit Martin and Jack Norris.
Schmidt would add a couple more players such as Bobby Orr and Johnny “Chief” Bucyk to form the “Big Bad Bruins” team that instilled fear into their opponents and won those two NHL championships in a four year span.
“I got to know Milt when I arrived in Boston, and I quickly learned that he was an outstanding ambassador for the game of hockey, a true gentleman, and that he epitomized what it means to be a Bruin,” said Bruins’ current president and former player Cam Neely.
After Schmidt retired as a player in December 1954, he immediately stepped onto the bench as a coach for the team’s game against Chicago on December 25.
He served as head coach through the 1960-61 season, then became the club’s assistant general manager for two seasons before returning to the bench for four more seasons in the mid-1960’s. Schmidt became the Bruins’ fourth general manager at the start of the 1967-68 season.
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