BY RANDY SCHULTZ –
“Roger was the foundation of the Buffalo Sabres franchise. That was why Punch Imlach traded for him.
“The minute Punch got Roger from the Red Wings, it gave the Sabres instant credibility. And that said a lot about the Sabres, which was just an expansion team at the time.
“And Punch knew that the strength of the Sabres would be built from the goal out. Roger provided that foundation in goal to work from.”
“That was how Floyd Smith, a member of that Sabres expansion team, as well as its first captain and eventual head coach, remembered the legendary netminder, Roger Crozier.
Crozier played for 14 seasons in the NHL including six with the Sabres, seven with the Detroit Red Wings and one with the Washington Capitals. Prior to his arrival with the Sabres, Crozier had already established himself in the NHL.
He won the Calder Trophy and named to the NHL’s First All-Star team in 1965. The following year he added the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs. What was unusual about that is that the winner of that award usually comes from the Stanley Cup winning team. Detroit didn’t win the Cup in 1966.
So Crozier’s reputation was well-known by the time the Sabres into the League in 1970. On June 10 of that year Imlach, GM and coach of the newly created Sabres, selected Tom Webster from the Boston Bruins with his first pick of the expansion draft.
Minutes later Imlach orchestrated a deal with the Red Wings, sending Webster to Detroit for Crozier.
“Roger really made the difference for the Sabres that first year,” recalled Smith. “Punch was constantly trying to improve the team, making several key deals along the way.
“But it was Roger who kept us in many games that first season. There were nights when he faced as many as 50 to 60 shots and he stopped many of them.
“He kept us respectable.”
And Crozier, a member of the Sabres Hall of Fame, was no stranger to Buffalo. Prior to joining the Sabres or even playing in the NHL, Crozier spent parts of three seasons with the Buffalo Bisons of the American Hockey League.
“When I first got to Buffalo as a rookie, he told me how great it would be to be playing in Buffalo,” recalled Larry Carriere, a defenseman with the Sabres in the 1970s. “He took me around and introduced me to Buffalo.
“You had to love his intensity for the game. He was an acrobat, the way he played in goal.
“He had tremendous reflexes and I remember the way he used to grab the crossbar to pull himself up after he had made a big save. He brought a lot of leadership and motivation to the Sabres as well.
Another teammate of Crozier and Carriere at the time was defenseman, Jim Schoenfeld.
“Roger was the ultimate team player with the Sabres,” stated Schoenfeld. “He had stomach problems from the time he joined the Sabres and that illness would occasionally knock Roger out of the lineup.”
“Roger’s ability to stop the puck helped the Sabres team grow in those early days,” recalled Don Luce, another teammate with Crozier with the Sabres. “He kept us in many games that we really shouldn’t have been in.
“Because of that he gave us confidence. We didn’t have to be afraid to make a mistake out there because we knew that Roger was there to back us up.”
Unfortunately, Crozier passed away in 1996 at the age of 53 of cancer.
“Roger left us way before his time,” concluded Smith. “He was an outstanding goalie who gave it everything he had when he played.
“He was a big part of the foundation that the Sabres were built on.”
(NHL.com photo)
