Mention the name Dave Schultz to an old-time Penguins fan and you’re liable to draw anything but a favorable reaction. You might even elicit a few choice expletives. After all, “the Hammer” and his fellow Philly Mad Squaders beat on our Pens without mercy back in the early 1970s.
However, some may remember that the NHL penalty king actually sported the skating Penguin logo for a time.
During the summer of 1977, popular enforcer Bob “Battleship” Kelly signed a free-agent deal with Chicago, leaving the Pens without a protector. Although general manager Baz Bastien imported a trio of rugged players, Brian “Spinner” Spencer and former Pens Colin Campbell and Bob Paradise, to help resident tough guy Russ Anderson with the policing chores, the Pens quickly fell prey to imposing clubs like Boston and Philadelphia.
Dismayed by his team’s poor showing, owner Al Savill sought out the advice of former Bruins mainstay Derek Sanderson at a party.
“You have no real big, tough guy,” Sanderson offered. “You should get Dave Schultz.”
Indeed, Schultz had impacted the sport like few players before or since. The prototypical “Broad Street Bully,” he’d piled up an astronomical 1,618 penalty minutes over five seasons, including a league-record 472 in 1974-75, while emerging as the dean of NHL enforcers. Handsome, charismatic and utterly unrepentant, his name became synonymous with hockey violence.
Ironically, it was Schultz who’d helped establish Kelly’s reputation. The two fought twice during a Blues-Flyers preseason game in 1973. “Battleship” outgunned “the Hammer” to gain a pair of quick victories.
In a display of the almost manic determination and fearlessness that became a hallmark, Schultz challenged Kelly to a third go. The rangy Blues battler declined, replying, “I’m not wasting my knuckles on your cement head.”
Still, “the Hammer’s” fighting style was simple and brutally effective.
“First I grab the guy by his collar,” he explained to Maury Levy in an article for Philadelphia Magazine. “That keeps him in one place. And if I grab him high like that with my left hand, it makes it hard for him to throw his right. And then I just start hitting him and holding him.”
Upon his arrival in the Steel City, Schultz embraced his role with guts and tenacity. On November 2, 1977, he stood up for the team by decking rugged Reed Larson during a brawl-filled encounter with Detroit. Months later he hopped over the boards and clobbered St. Louis pest Gary Holt, who was roughing up some of his less combative teammates. Over the course of the season the rugged left wing dropped the mitts a whopping 21 times and racked up 405 penalty minutes (378 with the Pens) to reclaim the league’s penalty crown.
Possessing an underrated scoring touch, Schultz produced in other ways as well. On January 9, he shrugged off the persistent challenges of boisterous Nick Fotiu and scored a goal to pace the Pens to a 5-3 victory over the Rangers. “Schultz contributed mightily to the win without throwing a punch,” chimed the Pittsburgh Press.
He went on to tally nine goals and 36 points in 66 games, decent numbers for a policeman, to earn the team’s Unsung Hero Award.
Encouraged by the acquisition of former Philly teammates Tom Bladon, Orest Kindrachuk and Ross Lonsberry, Schultz was primed for a strong season in 1978-79. However, the Hammer soon became excess baggage on an improving team. Later in the campaign he was traded to Buffalo for speedy winger Gary “Wheels” McAdam, but not before a final burst of belligerence.
On the night of November 25, 1978, he took on his former partner in crime André “Moose” Dupont and Philadelphia’s new enforcer Behn Wilson in a rough-and-tumble game against the Flyers at the Civic Arena. A sendoff befitting the old gunslinger.
