Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports
It’s probably fair to say that former Montreal Canadiens stalwart Donald ‘Donnie’ Marshall could have accomplished more individually if he hadn’t played for the most dominant team in the history of the game.
Had Marshall not broken his leg in training camp in 1955 and lost his spot as a center on the Canadiens’ top line to Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard and Bert Olmstead, perhaps things would have been different.
Instead, Marshall became the best foot soldier of the Canadiens’ five-Cup dynasty, switching to left wing and becoming a defensive player and penalty killer. When he died Thursday at the age of 92, the core of that dynastic team died with him.
Marshall was the last of 12 Canadiens players to play on all five Stanley Cup winners during that dynasty. And that is something very, very important. Because we’ll never see it again in the NHL, not with league parity and a salary cap that would make it impossible to keep such a large core together for so long.
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