The first face of two franchises has sadly passed away: Remembering Eddie Joyal
Photo credit: Jeff Burlew / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Eddie Joyal died at 86. Most tributes will list his teams, but the sharper truth is that he helped build two of them from nothing.
The NHL Alumni Association announced his passing, calling the St. Albert, Alberta native a player mentored by Gordie Howe in Detroit.
That Detroit start is where the tributes begin, though it undersells what followed.
When the NHL doubled in size in 1967, the Los Angeles Kings claimed Joyal in the expansion draft, and he immediately became their identity.
He led the first-ever Kings team in points with 57 in 1967-68, then scored 33 goals the next season.
He also wore a letter as an alternate captain, a leader on a roster still learning what it was.
He founded a franchise, then did it again
Five years later Joyal went home, signing with the WHA's Alberta Oilers in 1972 as one of their original centres.
That team became the Edmonton Oilers, the franchise that would later belong to Gretzky and now to McDavid.
In 2016, before Rexall Place closed, the Oilers held an Eddie Joyal Day, a rare bow to a WHA original.
Few players can say they were a leading scorer at the birth of one major franchise.
Joyal did it for two, across two different major leagues.
The trade that built a champion elsewhere
There is a quieter thread here too.
When Los Angeles moved Joyal to Philadelphia in January 1972, the same deal sent Bill Flett and Ross Lonsberry east.
Both became Broad Street Bullies and won the 1974 Stanley Cup, a title Joyal helped seed without ever lifting it.
So the player remembered as a journeyman was really a hinge point.
He connects Howe's Detroit, the Kings' first scoring title, the Oilers' first season, and a Flyers dynasty.
That is a fuller goodbye than a list of stops. May he rest in peace.
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