Steve Shutt says Guy Lafleur was ‘just one of the guys’ with Canadiens


“I think that was the reason for our success as a team,” former linemate says after death of Habs legend.

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One of my favorite memories of Guy Lafleur came long after his Hall of Fame playing career ended.

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It was 2016, and I showed up early to cover a news conference at the Bell Center for the Guy Lafleur Awards of Excellence and Merit, honoring young players in Quebec who best combine hockey and academic excellence.

Lafleur was sitting by himself, looking like a million bucks in a nice suit with a dark tan. When I asked if he got the tan on the golf course, Lafleur responded: “I hate golf.”

So, where’d I get the tan?

“Painting my house,” he said.

I laughed at the thought of one of the greatest players in hockey history painting his own house, but it wasn’t a shock because it was Guy Lafleur.

Despite his fame, Lafleur always came across as a regular guy. It’s part of the reason fans and teammates loved him so much and why they were so heartbroken to learn Friday that Lafleur had died at age 70 after battling lung cancer.

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“Are we in a different era? I don’t know,” Lafleur’s former linemate, Steve Shutt, said Friday afternoon when I told him that story over the phone. “But the one thing I do know is how down to earth he was, and I think that’s what brought everybody else on our team down to earth and really made us a team.”

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Lafleur still holds the Canadiens’ record for most career points with 1,246 (including 518 goals) and had six straight seasons with at least 50 goals. Lafleur and Shutt share the team’s single-season record for most goals with 60. Shutt set the mark in 1976-77, and Lafleur matched it the next season.

Along with Peter Mahovlich (and later Jacques Lemaire), Lafleur and Shutt formed one of the most explosive lines in the NHL.

But Lafleur wasn’t the easiest linemate to play with.

“We were talking one day and he said: ‘When I get the puck and I get going, I don’t like to even think about what I’m doing. I just want to go,’” Shutt recalled. “I said: ‘Well, how am I going to play with you when you’re doing that?’ He looked at me and smiled and said: ‘That’s your problem.’”

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Shutt let out a laugh.

“The funny thing is we have such dissimilar styles that we actually blended very well together,” he added. “He had to have the puck and carry it, and I was a finisher. So there was really no conflict of who was going to do what. He was 100 per cent an instinct player. So when I played with him, I had to try and play off him. Pete kind of took us both under his wing and that was our line. It was a pretty good line.”

That’s an understatement.

“He was honest, and he was just a great teammate,” Shutt said about Lafleur. “He was not above everybody else. He didn’t put himself above everybody else. He was just one of the guys. I think that was the reason for our success as a team. Because Guy was like that, everybody else was like that.”

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Shutt knew Lafleur was in very bad health recently, but the news of his death Friday still came as a shock and hit him hard.

“I was up in Montreal two weeks ago and went over to see him,” said Shutt, who was honored with a Bobblehead Night at the Bell Center on March 24. “We all knew it was coming, but he actually looked pretty good. He was lucid. So that’s why it was a little bit of a shock.

“I’ll tell you what, any superstar should be like Guy,” Shutt added. “Down to earth, honest, humble. That was Guy Lafleur. In today’s world, we need a lot more of them. In today’s sports, entertainment or anything else, they should all maybe read his biography of him or read about him. I think that’s why the fans really liked him because he was honest with everybody — and that’s tough to do at times.”

Shutt and Lafleur were roommates on the road and would go on off-season trips together with their wives.

“He was easy to get along with, nothing bothered him,” Shutt said. “He was just a really good guy. I guess at the end, if everybody can call you a really good guy, you’ve had a pretty successful life.”

Indeed.

RIP, Guy.

[email protected]

twitter.com/StuCowan1

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