Canadiens Hall of Famer Steve Shutt enjoying retired life in Florida

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Former Canadien Steve Shutt is enjoying retired life at his home in Sarasota, Fla., despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been a good place to quarantine for the last year-and-a half because the golf course is open, the restaurant delivers, Costco is five minutes away and I got my pool in the backyard,” the 68-year-old Shutt said over the phone Thursday morning. “What else do you need?”

Shutt retired three years ago after spending more than 20 years as a manager of recreational facilities and services with Toromont Industries, helping rink owners and operators with the newest technolgies in the ice-rink industry.

The Canadiens selected Shutt in the first round (fourth overall) of the 1972 NHL Draft after he posted 63-49-112 totals in 58 games as a left-winger with the junior Toronto Marlies. In 13 seasons with the Canadiens, Shutt posted 408-368-776 totals in 871 games and won five Stanley Cups. His 408 goals rank fifth on the Canadiens’ all-time list behind Maurice Richard (544), Guy Lafleur (518), Jean Béliveau (507) and Yvan Cournoyer (428).

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Shutt and Lafleur share the Canadiens’ record for most goals in a season with 60.

The Canadiens traded Shutt to the Los Angeles Kings for future considerations on Nov. 18, 1984. He played 59 games with the Kings, posting 16-25-41 totals, before retiring. The Toronto native was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993.

Here’s some of what Shutt had to say during a 20-minute interview Thursday while he enjoyed a morning coffee sitting outside in Florida.

Can you teach a player to become a goal-scorer?

“The elite guys, there’s a certain thought process that exceeds everybody else. You can teach five goal-scorers to be 10 goal-scorers. That’s pretty important because your five- and 10-goal scorers are probably half your forwards — basically two lines.

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“The average guy, when he gets the puck, he’ll look at the puck and then he’ll look at the goalie and then he’ll look for the hole. The elite guys, they’ll look where the goalie is before they get the puck. The elite guys already know where the goalie is, they already know where the hole is or where the hole’s going to be. So as soon as the puck arrives it’s going right to where that hole is going to be. That difference is about a 10th of a second and that’s the difference between a 50-goal scorer and a 20-goal scorer.”

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On Toronto’s Auston Matthews, who led the NHL with 41 goals in 51 games heading into the Maple Leafs’ regular-season finale Friday night against the Jets in Winnipeg:

“First of all, he’s got a great shot and he’s got a great wrist shot. What he does is he gets it away quick, but what he also does is he moves the location of the puck. If you watch him, he never comes down on one side and keeps that puck there. He’ll either bring it in or bring it out. What he does is he changes the angle for the goalie so he’s giving himself a hole. That’s an elite goal-scorer’s move and he’s got a great shot. As an ex goal-scorer, it’s really fun to watch.”

Were your career accomplishments maybe overshadowed by Guy Lafleur because you were linemates?

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“I would say yeah … probably. But we blended together very well. You can’t have two guys that carry the puck on the same line … it doesn’t work. You can’t have two guys that are shooters on the same line. So you have to be a counter of the guy you’re playing with and if you go through the history of great lines that’s what you have. You have a blend of different types of players. Guy was a much flashier player and he was a great player. It doesn’t bother me that much. But there’s a couple of records in Montreal that I still hold like most consecutive 30-goal seasons. With the 60 goals I’m tied with Lafleur for most goals (in a season).”

Was Jacques Lemaire the perfect centre for you and Lafleur?

“We first started with Pete (Mahovlich) and Pete was the big star at that time. He had just come back from the ’72 (Summit) Series. Myself and Guy really didn’t have the confidence in the league yet, so Pete gave us that confidence. What happened was then you’ve got two guys on the line that both needed the puck to play well. That’s when we brought in Lemaire and he was basically a defensive guy and he would just make sure he passed the puck up to us. We’d do all the fore-checking, he’d do all the back-checking and he could score once in a while, too.”

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Which team was your biggest rival back then?

“It was the Bruins. Obviously, we played Boston three or four times in a row (in the playoffs). Toronto was in and out … a lot of times we never even played them (because the Maple Leafs were in the Western Conference). The rivalry was starting to dissipate then. It wasn’t like it was in the ’60s, for sure, which is really unfortunate. It was a pretty good rivalry and hopefully now not only with Toronto but with Ottawa you can have a really good rivalry with those three teams.”

Do you have one favourite memory from your career?

“I don’t now about one memory. There were so many. You get into all the series with the Boston Bruins. We really respected the Bruins. They were a tough team … they weren’t dirty, but they were tough and everybody had to be tough because our tough guys were too busy looking after their tough guys. You had to look after yourself out there. But we had great series against those guys. The New Year’s game against the Russians was certainly a highlight. Just playing with the guys that I played with was probably the biggest experience.”

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What accomplishment are you most proud of from your career?

“I just think the teams that we had. When you get really good teams like that, really talented teams, and if you go through the history of all of the sports, generally who beats those types of teams are themselves. Somebody gets too big for their britches, there’s a breakdown within the team atmosphere. I think that we proved in the five or six years that we were really together that we really were a team. Everyone had their different talents, but everybody was treated fairly and equally and that’s the only way you can operate a team. So that was probably the thing I’m most proud of is just the team that we had and how well we played. Don’t forget, the four Cups that we won, in between them there was two Canada Cups. So a lot of guys only had six months off of hockey in four years — and that’s tough.”

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Can you imagine what it’s like now for the players to be playing now with no fans in the arenas?

“It’s probably the toughest season a lot of these guys have ever had in their life. I just could not imagine it. Not only that, but just the schedule that these guys had. Look at what the Canadiens were under after they had to take the 12 days off for COVID (after Joel Armia tested positive) … it was a schedule from hell. Now you go in there and there’s no fans … it’s almost like a practice game, but it’s for real. It had to be really tough for these guys to get their heads wrapped around this thing and to go out and play. And to their credit, really, everybody knows what the situation is and they went out and did it.”

What do you expect the playoffs to be like this year?

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“I think what’s going to happen is it’s going to set up for a really good playoff series … a whole bunch of good series. Everybody’s schedule was kind of weird. So now once you get into the playoffs you’re going to play that team for the next however many games and they’re playing on the same days as you are. This year you could almost look at the schedule and say: ‘OK, that team’s going to lose here, they’re going to lose here, they’re going to lose here because this was their fourth game in six nights. You could pretty much guarantee that they’re going to lose that game. I think the playoffs could be a little bit more interesting this year because there’s some teams that didn’t play as well as they should have and there’s other teams that maybe excelled what they should have.”

scowan@postmedia.com

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