Jacque Plante Trade Tree Between the Rangers and Canadiens

Canadiens Side

To recap, the Canadiens got back Dave Balon, Leon Rochefort, Len Ronson, and Lorne Gump Worsley.

Starting with Ronson, he would be sold to the California Golden Seals. He bounced around the minor leagues but only played 18 career NHL games, and they were for the Rangers and Seals. Montreal got no service out of his time in Quebec.

Leon Rochefort was in three different trades involving both the Canadiens and Rangers, but this one doesn’t link to any of the others. This is because the Philadelphia Flyers drafted Rochefort in the expansion draft. During his five years combined in Montreal, Rochefort played in 97 games, scoring 16 goals and 18 assists for 34 points. He wasn’t a star player but had a 15-year career in the NHL.

Gump Worsley has to be one of the best names in hockey history, and he was a great player, too. He spent ten years as the Rangers netminder, amassing 204 wins, 270 losses, and 101 ties with a .913 save percentage and a 3.04 goals-against average. Those stats only improved in Montreal with 90 wins, 41 losses, and 24 ties to go with his .914 save percentage and a 2.40 goals-against average.

Worsley was sold to the Minnesota North Stars in February of 1970 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1980. He was a great player with a great career as he continued the long list of Hall of Fame netminders the Canadiens had collected. While this one came from a factory in New York, that illustrious record of producing quality netminders still follows the Canadiens.

Now, we get to the final piece, which is Dave Balon. We know he appeared in the Rangers side again, so how did that happen? Balon spent four years in Montreal playing in 226 games scoring 56 goals and 56 assists for an aesthetically pleasing 112 points. Balon would walk away from the Canadiens in free agency and join the Minnesota North Stars, where he appears on the Rangers side of this deal.