by Cate Racher, Staff Writer/Copy Editor, All Habs Hockey Magazine
Welcome to Habs History! Throughout this series, we’re going to be taking a look at the top seven goalies to ever wear the bleu-blanc-rouge throughout the Habs’ extensive history, according to their number of wins. It will include bios, player stats, and other fun facts about some of our favourite team goalies and how they fit into the team’s history. This week, we’ll be taking a look at Ken Dryden, but before we do that, be sure to check out pars one through three below.
No. 7: Michel “Bunny” Larocque
No. 6: “Little George” Hainsworth
No. 5: Bill “Dr. Strange Glove” Durnan
Kenneth Wayne Dryden was born on August 8, 1947 in Hamilton, Ontario to Murray and Margaret Dryden, already parents to Dave Dryden, who would also become an NHL goaltender. Ken would become a big brother in 1952 when his sister Judy Dryden was born. As a child, Ken’s father would pave their family’s backyard in Etobicoke so that the neighbourhood ball hockey games could be played at their house and so both Ken and his brother could hone their skills.
In 1964 at the age of 17, Ken was drafted by the Boston Bruins but was traded soon after to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Paul Reid and Guy Allen. Before beginning his professional hockey career, Ken attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to pursue of Bachelor of Arts in history. He played hockey for the Cornell Big Red throughout his education, and graduated in 1969.
Shortly before his graduation, Ken played for the Canadian amateur team at the 1969 World Ice Hockey championships in Stockholm, Sweden. He married his wife Lynda Dryden, with whom he shares two children, in 1970.
Ken spent the majority of the 1970-71 season playing for the Montreal Voyageurs of the AHL before he was called up to be the big team’s starting goalie during the playoffs. Their first round opponent was the formidable Boston Bruins, which at that time had stars like Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito (who would later refer to Ken as “the giraffe”) on their roster.
The series lasted a full seven games, but the Canadiens came out on the winning side in large part thanks to Ken, who maintained a goals-against average (GAA) of 3.00. At 6-foot-4-inches and 205 pounds, Ken was imposing to any and all opposition. The Habs went on to become Stanley Cup champions for 1971, and Ken earned the Conn Smythe trophy, awarded to the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Ken played 64 games the following season, winning 39 and losing eight, with a GAA of 2.24. His efforts that season would earn him both the Calder trophy and an invitation to backstop Team Canada at the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union, where he helped lead the team to victory alongside fellow Canadiens Serge Savard and Yvan Cournoyer.
During the 1972-’73 season, Ken maintained a GAA of 2.26 and led the team to yet another Stanley Cup victory, while also earning his first of five Vezina trophies.
Ken elected not to play during the 1973-’74 season due to his dissatisfaction with the contract offered to him by Montreal. He used this time to earn a degree in law from McGill University while also working as articling student at the law firm of Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt in Toronto.
Dryden’s loss was heavily felt by the team, who lost to the New York Rangers during the first round of the playoffs that year. Ken returned to the ice during the 1974-’75 season with a GAA of 2.69 during the regular season and 2.53 during the playoffs, where they would be defeated by the Buffalo Sabres in the semi-finals.
Over the next four years, Ken’s regular season GAA never went above 2.30, making him one of the most formidable goalies in the league. He would earn the Vezina trophy four more times between 1976-1979, as well as helping the team win the Stanley Cup another four times.
The 1976-’77 season proved to be his best season, with a regular season GAA of 2.14 and a playoff GAA of 1.55.
After seven years in the NHL, Ken retired from professional hockey at the age of 32 following the 1978-’79 season. His incredible record of 258 career wins is fourth in Canadiens’ history, with Patrick Roy (289), Carey Price (297), and Jacques Plante (314) sitting ahead of him.
In 1983, Ken published The Game, a non-fiction account of the Habs from 1978-’79 as well as detailing the pressures of being an NHL goalie. This book is considered by many to be the greatest book ever written about the sport of hockey, and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award that same year. He was also inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame at this time.
Ken served as a hockey commentator for the 1980, 1984, and 1988 Olympics. In 1997, he made his return to hockey as the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, a position that he filled until 2004.
It was at this time that he entered politics as part of the Liberal Party of Canada in the Toronto riding of York Centre, and was later named Minister of Social Development by then-Prime Minister Paul Martin. In 2006, Ken ran for leadership of the Liberal Party but placed fifth in the running. He was re-elected to York in 2006 and 2008, but lost his position to Conservative Party candidate Mark Adler by a margin of 6000 votes in 2011.
Ken’s No.29 jersey was retired to the rafters of the Bell Centre in 2007. He was invested into the Order of Canada in 2013 and was recently given the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from McGill University.
In 2017, Ken published a novel titled Game Change that details the rise, fall, and death of Steve Montador and which also serves as a critique of the NHL and how they perceive head injuries such as concussions.
