Mike Bossy: Humble man, supremely confident hockey player

TORONTO — One of Mike Bossy’s greatest personal traits, as widely described by those who knew the late Islanders Hall of Famer, was an incredibly humble and sincere nature.

“He always had time for people,” Islanders co-owner Jon Ledecky said. “He was so modest about it.”

But Bossy, who passed away from lung cancer on Friday at the age of 65, was always supremely confident in his hockey abilities. It made him one of the greatest goal-scorers in NHL history, if not the best, and an integral part of the Islanders dynasty that produced four straight Stanley Cups from 1980-83.

“The greatest goal-scorer that ever played the game,” said Butch Goring, whose locker was next to Bossy’s during their time as teammates. “But he never talked in those terms. He didn’t have the ego that he wanted to talk about himself all the time. It was always about the fun and the winning.”

Bossy’s linemate and closest friend, Bryan Trottier, said all the other aspects of Bossy’s game have been underrated because it was so easy to focus on his goal-scoring ability.

But there’s no doubt that the Islanders needed Bossy’s greatest skill.

During the pre-NHL Draft interviews in 1977 — he went 15th to the Islanders — general manager Bill Torrey told Bossy the team was looking for a scorer.

“We have a good team with Bryan Trottier, Clark Gillies, a lot of other guys, and Bill said, ‘Can you score goals?’ ” Islanders Hall of Fame defenseman Denis Potvin recalled of the conversation. “Bossy’s first response was, ‘I’ll score 50.’ And Bill Torrey always said he couldn’t believe at the end of the year Boss had scored 53, and then never stopped scoring any less than 50 until that last year.

“The best goal-scorer I’ve ever seen,” Potvin said. “Not the best in his era. The best ever in the NHL, without a doubt.”

Bossy scored at least 50 goals in each of his first nine seasons before back issues “limited” him to 38 in 1986-87 and ultimately forced him to retire.

There have been plenty of NHL players who, like Bossy, had hard and accurate shots. But what elevated him?

There are two explanations: Will and skill.

“This guy didn’t want to score. He needed to score, that’s first and foremost,” Goring said. “That’s all he talked about every game, his need to score. You’ve heard Bryan Trottier say it was his job to set up Mike Bossy because Mike Bossy needed to score. He put himself in position to score all the time, and if he was covered, he worked to get loose.”

And Bossy’s shot was lethal once the puck was on his stick.

“He just had an uncanny ability to make the goaltenders think he was shooting somewhere else,” four-time Cup winner Bob Nystrom said. “It was always the short side. In those days, the goaltenders would stand up pretty straight, and as soon as they moved that one leg to cover the short side, he’d shoot five hole and he could hit that like nobody else I’ve ever seen.

“It was uncanny, just by the way he held his stick and by the way he shot that they would give up that five hole, which is not the easiest thing to hit. Even in practice, it was scary to just see him snipe away. Thank God we got him because he just rounded out that line of Trottier, Gillies and Bossy. They really stopped a lot of teams from being really aggressive with us because they scored constantly on the power play.”

One of Bossy’s most noteworthy achievements was matching Canadiens Hall of Famer Maurice Richard’s record of 50 goals in 50 games, which he did on Jan. 24, 1981, with two late third-period goals in a 7-4 win over the Quebec Nordiques at Nassau Coliseum.

But long before getting to 50-in-50, Bossy made it his stated goal to do so.

“He put himself out there, ‘50-in-50, I’m going for it,’ ” Trottier said. “I’m like, ‘What? Are you crazy?’ Think it, but when you say it out loud, that’s bold. A little brazen, but also brave. That’s good.”

Bossy scored goal No. 49 on the power play at 15:50 of the third period, then reached 50 at 18:31.

Seconds later, he and Trottier found themselves on another rush up ice.

“Yesterday, I was talking to my dad about it,” said former Islanders goalie and current Sabres broadcaster Marty Biron, who was born in Lac-Saint-Charles, Quebec, in 1977 and remembers watching the game. “He said, ‘You know what’s funny about that game is he had two goals and Bossy had a chance for a hat trick, and he passed it over to Trottier, who scored.’ ”

Even Trottier was surprised.

“Mike’s rule was don’t pass it to me, pass it to my stick,” Trottier said. “Everybody’s checking Mike pretty tight. But his stick was open and I slide the puck over to him. Everybody’s thinking he’s going to shoot, including the goaltender, and he just tapped the puck back to me. Those two-pass situations where the goalie is committed, he just can’t respond.

“We’re skating to the bench and I said, ‘Mike, why didn’t you shoot?’ He goes, ‘Because it was the right play.’ And he was 100% right. In every situation, he’d make the right play. He could have had 51-in-50 and broken the record, but he wasn’t thinking that. He was thinking this is a situation where I make the right play.”

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.