Mike Bossy

On February 25, Bossy scored his 45th goal of the season, to pass the previous rookie record of 44 held by Rick Martin.

Michael Dean Bossy (January 22, 1957April 15, 2022) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player with the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League.

As a youth, Bossy played in the 1969 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a minor ice hockey team from Montreal.

He started his junior career with the Laval National of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League at the age of 15.

Despite scoring 309 goals in five seasons, he was considered "not rugged enough" and defensively weak by NHL scouts.

His total of 532 points remains a QMJHL record, and his 309 goals is the record for all of major junior.

Bossy's #17 is retired by the Acadie–Bathurst Titan, the current incarnation of the former Laval franchise.

He spent his entire NHL career, which lasted from 1977 to 1987, with the Islanders, and was a crucial part of their four consecutive Stanley Cup championships in the early 1980s.

Bossy, who had averaged 77 goals per season in junior with Laval, was passed over by twelve teams in the 1977 NHL amateur draft, including the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs, who each passed over him twice.

Toronto expected him to hold out for more than they wanted to pay, according to Bossy, while the Rangers opted for highly-ranked Lucien DeBlois and Ron Duguay.

Other teams passed for various reasons: the Buffalo Sabres took Ric Seiling, preferring his checking ability, while the Cleveland Barons, who had the fifth overall pick, passed when Bossy's agent Pierre Lacroix gave the Barons inflated salary requirements, prompting them to select Mike Crombeen instead.

Scotty Bowman, coach of the Montreal Canadiens, later regretted that Montreal had passed on Bossy; Bowman and his assistant Claude Ruel had each been impressed with Bossy's play – and scoring – in person, but team scouts questioned his toughness and the Canadiens took Mark Napier with their first pick instead.

He scored against Don Edwards of the Buffalo Sabres in his first career game, a 3–2 loss to Buffalo on October 13, 1977, and by mid-November already had 11 goals.

He won the 1977–78 Calder Memorial Trophy as rookie of the year, and was named a Second Team All-Star, and additionally was named the starting right wing for the Campbell Conference in the 1978 NHL All-Star Game.

Bossy won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 1978 as NHL rookie of the year when he set the then-record for most goals by a rookie with 53.

On February 4, 1978, Bossy collected his first career hat trick in a 6–1 win against the Washington Capitals.

Bossy managed two goals and two assists against Toronto in the quarterfinals of the 1978 Playoffs, a hard-fought series in which the Trio Grande was somewhat neutralized by Toronto's toughness.

In game 6, with the Maple Leafs trailing in the series 3 games to 2, Bossy was hit from behind by Toronto's Jerry Butler and sent to the hospital with a neck sprain; the Leafs won and forced a seventh game.

Bossy returned for game 7 but was held scoreless as Toronto won the game – and the series – in overtime.

He won the Conn Smythe Trophy in the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs as the most valuable player and the Lady Byng Trophy for combining high quality play with sportsmanship three times.

He led the NHL in goals twice and was second three further times.

Bossy was voted to the league's first all-star team as right wing five times, with three further selections to the second all-star team.

He is one of two players (Jack Darragh being the other) to score consecutive Stanley Cup-winning goals (1982 and 1983) and the only player to record four game-winning goals in one playoff series (1983 Conference Final).

Bossy is the NHL's all-time leader in average goals scored per regular season game, holds the NHL's third-highest all-time average points scored per regular season game, and is the second of five players to score 50 goals in 50 games, being the first to accomplish this feat 36 years after Maurice Richard did so.

He tied for the record for most 50-goal seasons with Wayne Gretzky and Alexander Ovechkin with nine, though his were consecutive as opposed to Gretzky's and Ovechkin's being non-consecutive; he thus is the sole record-holder for most consecutive 50-goal seasons.

Bossy was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991.

Bossy had boldly told Bill Torrey before the season he would score 50 goals, and wound up with a total of 53, setting a rookie record which stood until broken by Teemu Selanne in 1993.

Bossy additionally led the league with 25 powerplay goals.

The New York Islanders picked Bossy with the 15th overall selection.

General manager Bill Torrey was torn at first between taking Bossy and Dwight Foster.

Bossy was known as a scorer who could not check, while Foster, who had led the Ontario Hockey Association with 143 points, had a defensive aspect to his game.

Various stories exist explaining who persuaded Torrey to select Bossy.

One common story credits coach Al Arbour, who figured it would be easier to teach a scorer how to check.

Another credits Islanders scout Harry Saraceno, while another credits both Arbour and Saraceno.

Bossy replaced Billy Harris on the Islanders' top line with Bryan Trottier and Clark Gillies, creating a new combination that came to be known as The Trio Grande.

In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history.

Bossy was the fifth son among ten children, and grew up in a family of Detroit Red Wings fans in the parish of Saint-Alphonse, in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville area of Montreal.

Bossy attended St. Pius X Comprehensive High School and then Laval Catholic High School.

His mother Dorothy was English and French-Canadian, and his father Borden, who maintained a backyard ice rink at their apartment building, was Ukrainian.

When he was 12 years old, Bossy broke a kneecap while competing in long jump at school, later developing chronic knee problems during his hockey career.