Detroit Red Wings All-Time Team and Line Combinations
Terry Sawchuk
Terry Sawchuk stands alongside Dominik Hasek and Patrick Roy as being arguably the greatest goaltender in NHL history. Goaltending was a completely different beast back in the Original Six era. Goalies had very little equipment; their pads could barely even qualify as anything more than basic safety equipment.
Heck, the goalie mask wasn’t even a thing yet. With that in mind, it is incredible anyone volunteered to play the position at all. Yet Sawchuk didn’t just play the position, he mastered it, and he reveled in it.
Over the course of his 21 year career, Sawchuk won fourVezina Trophies (three as a Red Wing), a Calder, and four Stanley Cup Championships. His career goals against average is elite even by today’s standards at a sparkling 2.44, and his 109 career shutouts served as an NHL record for 39 years.
Despite his immense talent and unparallelled individual and team successes, Sawchuk struggled with depression. By the age of twelve, Sawchuk had already experienced the deaths of two of his three siblings; one of whom was his inspiration for becoming an NHL goaltender. Sawchuk never truly recovered from their passing. Sawchuk’s depression eventually manifested itself as alcoholism. When he wasn’t on the ice, he had a penchant for drinking and getting into scraps.
In May of 1970, Sawchuk would engage in one drunken brawl too many. In a drunken stupor, Sawchuk and his then Rangers teammate Ron Howard engaged in a heated argument that transitioned into a “horseplay” fight. The conflict ended when Sawchuk awkwardly landed on Howard’s knee with his abdomin. The impact ruptured Sawchuk’s liver; an injury that would eventually prove fatal. Sawchuk died at the age of 40, on May 31st, 1970.