Just when it appeared that the St. Louis Blues would be down and out in the 1986-87 season, along came the little guy, Doug Gilmour.
At a time when the Blues were laboring along with injuries and gaining no type of consistency, Gilmour kept St. Louis afloat.
In this Feb. 6, 1987 - Volume 40, Issue 19 of THN.com.Archive, Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch caught up with Gilmour and his rise among the ranks as a seventh-round pick in 1982 to the top of the charts with the Blues.
Gilmour finished that season with 105 points (42 goals, 63 assists) in 80 games, 33 points ahead of the next-closest behind him [Bernie Federko, 72 points] and was one of the primary reasons the Blues were able to get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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"Gilmour New Spirit Of St. Louis"
Feb. 6, 1987 – Vol. 40, Issue 19
By Jeff Gordon
BLUES’ CENTER FILLS A VOID
Gord Wood isn’t surprised that Doug Gilmour is holding together the injury-ravaged St. Louis Blues.
Wood, now scouting for the Ontario League’s Kingston Canadians, considers Gilmour one of the most fierce and ambitious players he’s ever seen.
“He’s a killer,” said the colorful Wood. “If you’d seen him when I first saw him…you’d never believe it.”
Both are natives of Kingston, so Wood has followed Gilmour’s development closely. Gilmour was a subcompact defenseman who had to weave through a maze of frustrations to become a star center.
“Everybody looked at me as too small,” Gilmour said. “It just took me a little longer to mature. I was still growing. I was 5-foot-1 in Grade 9. It gave me more incentive. It made me work harder. My parents pushed me. My brother (David, a former World Hockey Association player) pushed me. Some people were always on my back.”
It was Wood who insisted Gilmour switch positions. It was Wood who rescued Gilmour from midget hockey, landing him a Tier II job in Belleville after he quit Kingston’s Jr. B team.
And it was Wood who gave Gilmour his biggest break, drafting him for the Cornwall Royals, where he played alongside Dale Hawerchuk on a Memorial Cup winner and became a star.
Gilmour rewarded Wood with 177 points—he scored in a then-major junior-record 55 straight games—in 1983 and was named the Ontario League’s most outstanding player.
-‘IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR DOUG THIS YEAR, WE WOULDN’T BE ANYWHERE NEAR .500.’—FEDERKO
Now, in his fourth National Hockey League season, Gilmour has emerged as one of the league’s top 10 scorers and one of its better two-way players. After scoring 53, 57 and 53 points in his first three seasons, Gilmour had 20 goals and 37 assists in his first 44 games this season.
“He’s an unusual case,” Wood said. “I tell many, many kids about his case. He is just never going to let somebody get ahead of him. He is just so determined it’s unbelievable. And he has terrific amounts of ability.”
Wood has many Gilmour stories, but his favorite concerns a 1981 Memorial Cup victory against Kitchener.
The game was tied 2-2 but Cornwall was lifeless. Lifeless, that is, except for Gilmour.
“He went out and scored a goal, made it 3-2, and we never looked back,” Wood said. “There was no emotion out there but Gilmour’s. I always gave him a lot of credit for that. He has such desire to win.”
Gilmour was 5-foot-3 when Wood first saw him play. He was 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds as a Royal. Wood called him “Gilly” then. Now, at 5-foot-l1 and 165 pounds, Gilmour is known as “Killer.”
Why?
“He has a killer instinct,” said Blues’ assistant coach Doug Mac Lean. “He goes to the net, no matter what.”
“There is nowhere on the ice that Doug Gilmour can’t go if he wants to go there,” general manager Ron Caron said. “He can take care of himself.”
Brian Sutter gave Gilmour his nickname, which is a tribute to his determined style.
“It was turned around from Charlie,” Gilmour explained. Sutter named him Charlie Manson. “I was a skinny little guy with goofy-looking eyes. They took it from there.”
Gilmour is the same tenacious player that Wood admired. Since he isn’t strong or fast and his shot won’t pierce the net Gilmour is easy to overlook.
Many have.
But he is clever, creative and, above everything else, competitive. This season the Blues have lost Sutter, Rob Ramage, Bernie Federko, Eddy Beers, Jocelyn Lemieux, Mark Reeds and now Ron Flockhart for extended periods.
They could have fallen well out of the Norris Division race, such as it is, by early January. But Gilmour wouldn’t let them.
“If it hadn’t been for Doug this year, we wouldn’t be anywhere near .500,” Federko said. “We would have been so far behind we might have been forced to make some deals.
“He’s carried the club. He’s playing unbelievably. No question, he’s playing as well as anybody in the league. He takes charge. He doesn’t wait for somebody else to do something.”
In his first three seasons with the Blues, Gilmour was used primarily in a defensive role.
CROSSROADS REACHED IN PLAYOFFS LAST YEAR
“When he first came, he came into a checking role,” Federko said. “They made him play all the toughest centers. He did a great, great job. And the goals he scored, the plays he set up…you knew he was going to be an excellent hockey player.”
Gilmour showed his potential in last season’s playoffs, when his 21 points helped the Blues reach the seventh game of the Stanley Cup semi-finals.
“He’s been phenomenal,” then-coach Jacques Demers said during the post-season. “In my mind, there is no doubt it will carry over to next year. He’s going to be the next star on this hockey club. He’s the next Bernie Federko of this hockey club.”
Demers was a seer. When Jacques Martin replaced Demers as coach, he made Gilmour’s scoring development a priority.
“Jacques changed my role,” Gilmour said. “I was just a defensive player. Jacques Demers would not let me carry the puck in. Now I can I can go in and try to make a play.
Another factor was the four-year deal Gilmour signed this summer. He was hoping to buy a new house and settle here with his wife Robyne and daughter, Madison.
When contract negotiations bogged down, he nearly called a press conference to complain. And he decided against buying the house until his future was settled.
Then Caron came up with a deal that would reward Gilmour for stepping forward with his career. He had the incentive and the obligation, he realized, to become a star.
“I just signed for four years and I signed for big money,” Gilmour said. “I have to prove myself all over again. If I don’t, I’ll be the first guy gone. Mr. Caron called me in. He told me my responsibility was to be a leader. That’s what he expects, and that’s what I expect, too.”
Caron is delighted with the way Gilmour responded.
“He came to a crossroads,” Caron said. “He emerged from the playoffs very successful, tied with Bernie for the most points. Now he had a new coach, a new opportunity, more ice time.
“We’re very pleased with his achievement this year. He has the skills and he has so much confidence in his skills. Hi is maturing, both mentally and physically.”
Wood believes Gilmour could be one of the league’s top guns.
“He could probably be three times as good with an offensive team,” Wood said. “Give him breathing room and he’ll play like hell. He’d make a lot more plays, set up a lot more goals.”
Gilmour shrugs off projections of his future.
“I just go out there and try to play every game,” Gilmour said. “I don’t want to put my foot in the mouth and say I’m going to get 100 points this season. You should never say you’re going to go out and do it. You just have to go out and do it.”
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