The most competitive franchise over the life of the WHA
was likely the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets had several prime rivals throughout the
league’s seven years. Initially it was the New England Whalers who beat
Winnipeg in the first Avco Cup Championship. Then it was the Howes-led and loaded
with depth Houston Aeros. Finally it was the Quebec Nordiques, who had a roster
consisting of offense-first, mostly Quebec born players, who were the Jets nemesis.
As a fan of the WHA Jets, I was always confident of the
team’s ability to put the puck in the net, since it was stocked every year with
plenty of offensive firepower. They didn’t always win or lead the league every
year, but they were always exciting and never lacking when it came to scoring.
By the WHA’s fourth season there was a team down east that was almost a mirror
image of the teams the Jets had been putting together. The Houston Aeros had
become a match for the Jets, but they were a very deep team that played a very
different style from the one the Jets employed. While they had plenty of
offensive talent, they played a more traditional, aggressive North American style.
The assembly of the Nordiques offensive machine ensured there was a club in the
WHA that could be competitive with the Jets on their own terms. In fact, as a
fan of Winnipeg, the Nordiques became a team to fear and even envy, at times.
Real ‘Buddy’ Cloutier played for the Quebec Nordiques for
9 seasons, from 1974 until 1983. The first 5 seasons were within the World
Hockey Association; the last 4 after the Nordiques joined the NHL along with 3
other WHA teams.
Cloutier was one of the leaders on that offensive
juggernaut of a team that won 1 Avco Cup Championship, lost another cup final
and two league semi-final series in a five-year period. During his last four
seasons in the WHA, Cloutier scored 257 goals and added 256 assists for 513
points.
Cloutier joined the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s
Quebec Remparts for the ‘72-‘73 season as a youngster of 16. He quickly became
one of the most talked about junior players in Quebec history. He justified all
the talk with an amazing 99 points in just 57 games, including 39 goals. He
followed that up with an amazing 93 goals and 123 assists in 69 games. Cloutier
was drafted that spring, 9th overall, by the Quebec Nordiques of the
World Hockey Association. Since he was only 18 years old he was not eligible
for the NHL draft, so he jumped at the chance to turn pro not far from his hometown
of Sainte-Emelie, Quebec.
As an 18 year old, Cloutier had a very respectable 53
points, on 26 goals and 27 assists, in just 63 games. It was in his second year
with the Nordiques that Cloutier exploded. In the ’74-’75 season, Cloutier
scored 60 goals and added 54 assists for 114 points. Playing with line mates
Marc Tardif, Chris Bordeleau and Serge Bernier, Cloutier scored 66, 56 and an
incredible 75 goals for 141 and 2 129-point campaigns over the next 3 seasons.
Following the ’78-’79 season, four WHA clubs, including
the Quebec Nordiques, became the NHL’s newest franchises. Cloutier’s first
season with the NHL Nordiques seen him score a respectable 42 goals and 89
points. Injuries limited him to just 34 games the following year in which he
did still manage 31 points. Despite missing 15 games in ’81-’82, Cloutier
managed to put up a 37 goal, 97 point season. He played one more season with
the Nordiques and had a point a game. He then left Quebec after nine prolific
seasons to join the Buffalo Sabres where his production dropped, in part to a
rash of injuries. His first season with the Sabres was followed by a slow
start, a demotion to the AHL’s Rochester Americans and then half a season with
the Flint Generals of the International Hockey League. He retired in the spring
of 1985 after having scored 429 goals in the WHA and the NHL.
Real Cloutier and the WHA Nordiques had a big influence on
the game. Cloutier was one of the WHA’s biggest signings, helping to reform the
management-player relationship by giving players another option. By signing
with the new league, Cloutier and others contributed to the increase in earning
potential for professional players. They also built a team around pride of
local talent and the kind of game the people of Quebec could most appreciate.
They helped develop an offense-first style of play that was to become popular
and eventually dominate the NHL for many years.
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