Gilbert Perreault: The Forgotten Frenchman

Gilbert Perreault came out of junior hockey a year ahead of Guy Lafleur and Marcell Dionne.

He was a year older than those two all-time great French Canadian hockey players. His career has always seemed tied to and overshadowed by one or the other, or both of them. They were always a year younger and yet seemingly better.

That comparison never seemed fair to me.

Gilbert Perreault was one of the greatest hockey players I’ve ever seen play the game. He made plays at speed like Lemieux, but he was faster than him. He was just as fast as Lafleur, but with more control and better puck handling skills. He was as fast as Orr with moves like Beliveau.

He was one of those transcendent players who come along all too rarely. Yet for most of his career and after it was over, he has seemed to be looked at as just another player.  

The comparison always seemed to find him wanting. He’s not quite Lafleur, he’s not Dionne, he hasn’t won a cup, he’s talented, but he’s not extraordinary.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my estimation, Perreault was one of the all-time greats. When I first heard Howie Morenz’s nickname I imagined he must have looked a lot like Perreault on ice. He must have exploded like he was shot out of a cannon moving at twice the speed of normal men.

However, while I imagined Howie with short, strong, choppy strides eating up distance, Perreault was quick, but smooth like silk. He was speed incarnate with little discernible effort. He deserved a nickname like the "Stratford Streak," the "Road Runner," the "Golden Jet," or the "Rocket", because he was faster than all of them and perhaps not as appreciated as any of them.

The French Connection was a great nickname for a line, but what did Perreault himself get? Gilly?

During his last season in junior league, the 19-year-old had 51 goals and 70 assists in 54 games in the OHA. Pretty impressive, eh?

Yet in that same year, 18-year-old Marcel Dionne had 55 goals and 77 assists in the same number of games. The next year Dionne had 62 and 81 in 46 games.

In 1969-1970, 18-year-old Guy Lafluer had 103 goals and 67 assists in 56 games in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The next year he had 130 goals and 79 assists in 62 games. He averaged more than two goals a game in major junior hockey.

Already it was hard for Perreault to compete. Whatever he did, whatever he managed, they did it better.

Perreault was a year older, and became Buffalo’s first franchise draft pick. He was the first man taken overall in 1970 amateur draft. Yet somehow the other two still outshone him.

All three broke into the NHL straight out of junior but Gilbert was there a year earlier. He starred for the Buffalo Sabres with almost a point a game his first two seasons, scoring 38 goals as a rookie and breaking the record set by Nels Stewart in the 1920s.

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