The quest for 50

The next guy to score 50

In the spring of 1990, after Gary Leeman became the second player in Maple Leafs history to score 50 goals in a season, the franchise bestowed two gifts.

The first was a contractual obligation — a $50,000 bonus previously written into his deal — and the second was so strange, he had to take a picture of it.
The team gave him a trophy.

It was not a large trophy. In the picture he snapped, Leeman placed it next to a trophy he won for being named player-of-the-month during his bantam season in Toronto. His minor hockey trophy was bigger than the one he got for scoring 51 regular-season goals in the NHL.
“I really haven’t made it that public, you know?” he said with a chuckle. “I’d love to take it into Shanny and say, ‘This is what it was like, so make sure this doesn’t happen with your guys.’

“I couldn’t see them giving this trophy to Auston.”
Leafs president Brendan Shanahan will have to start shopping for ideas this spring if Auston Matthews, his young star centre, stays on the pace he has set heading into the all-star break. The 22-year-old is on pace to score 57 goals by the end of the season.
Despite a history that stretches back more than 100 years, only three Leafs players have scored 50 goals in a season. Rick Vaive did it first, in 1982, setting the franchise record (54) in the first of three straight 50-goal seasons. Leeman followed, and Dave Andreychuk was the last, in 1994.

“You look at Rick Vaive, he had a great shot,” Leeman said. “If you ever saw the stick he scored 50 with, you’d think it was more of a superhero. It was the worst hockey stick you could possibly shoot with, and he did it three times with that stick.”
It was truly amazing, he said: “Rick’s stick, I could barely bench press.”
“It weighed about 10 pounds,” Vaive said with a laugh. “Very little curve. But it worked for me.”
Vaive was only 22 years old when he hit 50 for the first time in Toronto. Like Matthews, Vaive had also been a first-round draft pick (fifth overall, in 1979), but his arrival was not as immediately celebrated.

He arrived as part of a trade that sent Dave (Tiger) Williams to Vancouver. The Canucks appeared to be giving up on a prospect who had worn out his welcome.

The Leafs were hosting the St. Louis Blues at Maple Leaf Gardens the night Vaive scored his 50th. It was late March, and he would go on to score four more times over the final five games to set a franchise record that has stood for the better part of four decades.
“Records are meant to be broken,” Vaive said. “It’s going to happen one day. And why not this year, with him? And then it’d be a pure, unbelievable goal-scorer who broke the record.”
He said he mentioned the record to Matthews when they chatted during a recent team event. Vaive told Matthews he would have to hit 55 to set the new record.
“He goes, ‘Oh, I got a little bit of work to do then,’” Vaive said. “We had a good chuckle over it.”
John Tavares has gotten closer to 50 goals than any Leafs player over the last quarter-century, with 47 last season. (He was held without a goal over his last two games of the season, despite managing eight shots on goal against Montreal in the finale.)

Gary Leeman

Leeman was born in East York and skated at Dieppe Park, one of the local outdoor rinks. By the time he reached the NHL, his hometown team had already fallen into one of its darkest eras. Owner Harold Ballard had turned a flagship franchise into a (lucrative) doormat.
“To be honest with you, I’m not really a numbers or stats guy,” Leeman said. “I just wanted to win.”
He said he did not know how close he was to getting 50 goals until the general manager pulled him to the side before a game in New York. Leeman had gotten into a fight five or six games earlier, and he cracked a knuckle.

It got to the point where he could barely hold his stick. The goals started to dry up, and Floyd Smith wanted to know what was wrong. He told Leeman he had the chance to do something rare in Toronto.
“I wasn’t thinking about it, and I didn’t want to think about it,” Leeman said. “To me, it was more of a line thing. It wasn’t an individual thing. Our line was playing great. We were producing, and that’s all you can really ask for — doing your part in a line.”
He was on a line with Ed Olczyk and Mark Osborne that season. Leeman sought them both out after meeting with the general manager.
“I said, ‘Hey, I just got the message, so all passes come here,’” he said. “And they looked at me funny, like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
He was joking.

Ricky Vaive

His father turned 50 a month or so before Leeman scored his milestone goal. The son framed the puck and gave it to his father as a belated birthday present. He still has it.
“That’s the kind of thing that makes me feel good,” Leeman said. “I shared it with my dad, and anybody that sort of was involved with my career.”
He also still has the small plastic trinket the Leafs gave him, stored in a box near his old player-of-the-month trophy. It was not much, but it was more than the Leafs gave Vaive.
“Nothing,” Vaive said with a smile.
No trophy? No letter? No pat on the back from management?
“Not even a congratulations from Mr. Ballard or anything,” Vaive said.
It was not clear what, if anything, the Leafs might have given Andreychuk for reaching 50 goals. Now vice-president of corporate and community affairs for the Tampa Bay Lightning — and also enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame — he did not respond to email requests to be interviewed for this story.
If Matthews can stay healthy, Vaive said he suspects the 50-goal club could soon add another member.

“I would expect that he will,” he said. “And hopefully, I’ll be able to be there when he does and congratulate him.”