During the 1987-88 season, the Calgary Flames won the Smythe Division with 105 points, edging out the Montreal Canadiens for the NHL’s top record. However, the team, just two seasons removed from the Stanley Cup Final, was swept in the Division Finals by provincial rival, the Edmonton Oilers. Of course, the Oilers went on to win the Stanley Cup, signaling the end of the Wayne Gretzky era in northern Alberta.
In an attempt to retool an already elite lineup, then General Manager Cliff Fletcher made one of the franchise’s most important trades on September 6, 1988, acquiring four players from the St. Louis Blues who would help the franchise win the Stanley Cup in May 1989.
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On an early September morning, Fletcher was working the phones with the Blues to make a blockbuster trade that altered the Flames’ future. He offered Mike Bullard, Tim Corkey, and Craig Coxe to St. Louis in exchange for Steve Bozek, Michael Dark, Mark Hunter, and Doug Gilmour.
Within hours of the trade, Fletcher would swap Bozek and Paul Reinhart to the Vancouver Canucks for a third-round pick in 1989, which turned into Veli-Pekka Kautonen.
Meanwhile, Dark never skated for the Flames, bouncing between the AHL, IHL, CoHL, and UHL, and ending his professional career in 1999. Hunter, who is not related to franchise penalty leader Tim Hunter, would go on to play three seasons in Calgary before finishing his NHL career with Hartford and Washington.
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Looking back at this blockbuster deal, only one player, Gilmour, would have made an immediate impact, helping the Flames win the Clarence Campbell Bowl and the Stanley Cup. As a former 105-point player with the Blues, he tallied 26 goals and 85 points to finish third in team scoring. In the playoffs, the only time the future Hall of Famer would play in the Stanley Cup Final, he scored the second-most goals with 11 and finished third in scoring with 22 points in 22 games.
In parts of four seasons, Gilmour would go on to score 81 goals and 295 points in 266 games, which still ranks 27th all-time in franchise history. At the time of his trade to the Toronto Maple Leafs on January 2, 1992, he had recorded the 13th most assists.
Historically, the trade between Calgary and Toronto, which featured Gilmour swapping jerseys, remains the largest in franchise history, as it involved 10 skaters changing teams. On that day, recently hired General Manager Doug Risebrough pulled off a trade still talked about to this day: the Flames acquired future NHL head coach Craig Berube, Alexander Godynyuk, Gary Leeman, Michel Petit, and goalie Jeff Reese. In return, he shipped out Gilmour, Jamie Macoun, Kent Manderville, Ric Nattress, and goalie Rick Wamsley to Toronto.
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Although no one from the Maple Leafs had had a significant impact on the Flames out of the gate as Gilmour did, he led Toronto to the Western Conference Final in 1993 and 1994. It was the franchise’s first Final Four appearance since 1967, and the loss to Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings in 1993 in Game 7 remains one of the NHL’s most talked-about playoff moments. Moreover, those early years with the Maple Leafs are just one of the many career highlights for Gilmour, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011.
Gilmour may not have replicated his St. Louis production in Calgary, but his impact extended far beyond the scoresheet. As one of the key contributors to the Flames’ only Stanley Cup championship, his acquisition remains one of the smartest trades of Fletcher’s own Hall of Fame career.
