Thursday, January 22, 2009

Scouts All-Time Goaltenders

Only five men ever manned the nets for the Kansas City Scouts. Given the defense in front of them, it was not a place for the faint of heart.

Michel Plasse and Peter McDuffe were selected in the expansion draft. Kansas City hockey fans were already familiar with Plasse. He had played 16 games in '70-'71 with the CHL Kansas City Blues, in one of which he became the first professional goalie to score a goal. Plasse got the nod to start the franchise's first game, but he and McDuffe split time fairly evenly until January 10, 1975 when Plasse was traded to Pittsburgh for Denis Herron.

From that point on, Herron was the man for the Scouts, and with good reason. While his 15-52-15 record might not seem impressive, consider that when he was in the net, the Scouts had a .274 points percentage, compared to .205 for all other netminders. In '75-'76, Herron had 11 of the 12 Scouts victories.

click the chart to view in better resolution

A game-used Herron jersey:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I think I have that card!

Looks like K.C. will have lots of chances coming up to snag a team...bt if it's the Islanders there might not be a name to change this list with DiPietro so fragile.

Aaron Stilley said...

Hi David, thanks for the comment, and especially thanks for the link on inGoalmag.com! Very cool.

I don't think the Isles will be coming here, but if they did - I'd be thrilled to have a team, but mortified to have that ridiculous 15-year DiPietro contract hanging over the team.