Montreal, April 16: Mike Bossy, one of hockey’s most prolific goal-scorers and a star for the New York Islanders during their 1980s dynasty, has died after a battle with lung cancer. He was 65.
The Islanders and TVA Sports, the French-language network in Canada where he worked as a hockey analyst, confirmed Bossy died Thursday night. A team spokesman said Bossy was in his native Montreal.
Bossy had revealed his diagnosis in October in a letter to TVA Sports.
It’s the third loss from that Islanders era this year after fellow Hockey Hall of Famer Clark Gilles died in January and Jean Potvin died in March.
“The New York Islanders organization mourns the loss of Mike Bossy, an icon not only on Long Island but the entire hockey world,” Islanders president and general manager Lou Lamoriello said.
“His drive to be the best every time he stepped on the ice was second to none. Along with his teammates, he helped win four straight Stanley Cup championships, shaping the history of this franchise forever.”
Bossy helped the Islanders win the Stanley Cup from 1980-83, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1982. He scored the Cup-winning goal in 1982 and ’83.
Bossy was a first-round pick in 1977 and played his entire 10-year NHL career with New York. He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year, got the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly conduct three times and led the league in goals twice.
Bossy scored 50 or more goals in each of his first nine seasons — the league’s longest streak. He and Wayne Gretzky are the only players in hockey history with nine 50-goal seasons.
Bossy is one of only five players to score 50 goals in 50 games. He remains the all-time leader in goals a game in the regular season at 0.762, and only two players have recorded more hat tricks than Bossy’s 39.
He ranks third in points a game and seventh on the all-time scoring list. Those are all in the regular season when Bossy put up some of the best numbers in the history of the game. In the playoffs, Bossy was even more clutch. He is the only player with four game-winners in the same playoff series and scored three playoff overtime goals.
Led by Bossy, Gillies, Bryan Trottier and defenceman Denis Potvin, the Islanders succeeded Scotty Bowman’s 1970s Montreal Canadiens as the NHL’s next dynasty before Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers took over the sport.
Bossy was an eight-time All-Star and finished with 573 goals and 553 assists for 1,126 points in 752 regular-season games. He was the fastest player to reach the 100-goal mark and currently ranks 22nd on the career goals list. In the playoffs, Bossy had 160 points in 129 games.
Before reaching the NHL, Bossy played five seasons in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with the Laval National. He had 602 points in 298 QMJHL games. Bossy also represented Canada at the Canada Cup in 1981 and 1984, long before NHL players began going to the Winter Olympics.
Off the ice, Bossy was a leader in the movement to reduce fighting in hockey. In 1979, he told the media that he was never going to fight on the ice.
He wrote about his anti-fighting stance in a 2017 article for The Players Tribune titled “Letter to My Younger Self.”
