Eddie Joyal’s name is being remembered today after the former Detroit Red Wings center died at 86, and the early stretch of his NHL career still stands out as the most vivid part of his story.
Joyal arrived in Detroit as a rookie in 1962-63 and found himself around Gordie Howe right away. Howe took the Alberta center under his wing, and Joyal responded with 10 points in his first 14 NHL games. He also got into the 1963 Stanley Cup Final, where he had five shots and scored a goal in Game 4 of Detroit’s series loss to the Maple Leafs, with Howe picking up the assist.
The next season brought another memorable moment. On Jan.
18, 1964, Joyal scored the insurance goal in Terry Sawchuk’s 2-0 shutout of Montreal. That was Sawchuk’s 95th career NHL shutout, moving him ahead of George Hainsworth for the top spot on the league’s all-time list.
Sawchuk finished with 104 shutouts and held the record for 45 years before Marty Brodeur broke it.
Joyal also came through in the 1964 Stanley Cup Final, when he scored the game winner against Johnny Bower to help Detroit take a 3-2 series lead over Toronto. Looking back years later, he told the St.
Albert Gazette in a 2016 interview, “We beat Toronto 2-1 in Toronto and that was a pretty big deal for me, but we didn’t win the series,” Joyal told the St. Albert Gazette in a 2016 interview.
“We should’ve won that series, but we blew it.”
Detroit eventually moved him in the spring of 1965, sending Joyal to the Toronto Maple Leafs in a deal that brought back Andy Bathgate, Billy Harris and Gary Jarrett. The trade also included Autry Erickson, Larry Jeffrey, Lowell MacDonald and Marcel Pronovost going to Toronto from Detroit.
Joyal’s biggest NHL break came later, when the Los Angeles Kings picked him in the 1967 expansion draft. He had spent most of the season before that in the minors, but once he got to Los Angeles, his scoring took off. In his first four seasons with the Kings, he put up 33, 23, 18 and 20 goals.
He became a fan favorite in Los Angeles, and owner Jack Kent Cooke gave him the nickname “The Jet” as part of a marketing push. Cooke wanted fans to connect Joyal with his speed and scoring touch.
Joyal wasn’t buying the nickname’s logic. ” I don’t know where he got the idea that I was a Jet,” Joyal told the St.
Albert Gazette . We used to have races in training camp in L.A. and I never came in better than fourth in the races.
Over 4 and a half seasons with Los Angeles, Joyal scored 105 goals and added 204 points in 319 games. His NHL career finished with 128 goals and 134 assists for 262 points, and he also played for the Edmonton Oilers in the WHL.
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