Joe Malone (ice hockey)

Malone (front row, middle) with the 1913 Stanley Cup champion Quebec Bulldogs

Malone broke in at the age of 19 for the Quebec Bulldogs of the Eastern Canada Hockey Association in the 1909 season, scoring eight goals in 12 games. The next season the NHA formed, but Quebec was left out of the loop, so he played for the Waterloo Colts in the Ontario Professional Hockey League. Rejoining Quebec in 1911, he was named the team captain and so served for the Bulldogs' seven NHA seasons. Centering linemates such as Eddie Oatman and Jack Marks, he led the Bulldogs to the Stanley Cups in 1912 and 1913 - rampaging for a career-best nine goals in a Cup match against Sydney - while recording a remarkable scoring total of 43 goals in 20 games in 1913. His brother Jeff Malone also played for Quebec in 1913 when they won the Stanley Cup. In 1917, Joe scored 41 goals in 19 games, finishing tied for the scoring lead with Frank Nighbor of the Senators. Malone was in the scoring lead until the final game of the season, when he played Nighbor and the Senators. Ottawa had two players cover Malone the entire game, while Nighbor was able to score 5 goals and finish tied.[2]

When the NHL was founded in 1917, Quebec did not operate a team its first season, and the team's players were dispersed amongst the other teams. Malone was claimed by the Montreal Canadiens. Playing on what was one of the most powerful forward lines of all time with Newsy Lalonde and Didier Pitre, Malone shifted to left wing to accommodate the great Lalonde, and was the NHL's first scoring leader, registering 44 goals in 20 games, a record total that would stand as the NHL's single season goal scoring mark until 1945 and a record per-game average that stands to this day. (If such an average was sustained over today's 82-game schedule, it would result in 180 goals, nearly double Wayne Gretzky's record of 92.) Malone scored at least one goal (and a total of 35 goals) in his first 14 NHL games to set the record for the longest goal-scoring streak to begin an NHL career.[3] This streak still stands as the second-longest goal-scoring streak in NHL history.

The following season Malone suffered an injured arm and missed most of the regular season, although he scored five goals in five games in the league final series against the Ottawa Senators; the lingering injury held him out of the ill-fated Cup finals against the Seattle Metropolitans which was cancelled after five games due to the Spanish flu pandemic.[4]

Quebec revived its franchise in 1919 and Malone rejoined the club, once more leading the league in scoring with 39 goals, and setting a single game goal-scoring mark which still stands of seven against Toronto on January 31, 1920. However, the team was very weak on the ice—its goaltender had the poorest goals-against average the NHL would ever see (7.13 GAA)—and recorded a 4–20 record on the season.

The team was relocated to Hamilton for the 1921 season. Despite missing the first four games of the season as well as the franchise's continued poor performance, Malone still finished fourth in league scoring with 28 goals. He finished fourth in scoring the following season, as well.

After trading Lalonde, the Canadiens traded for Malone in 1923, but he scored only a single goal that season while generally playing as a substitute. He played nine games without scoring the next season, playing his last game on January 23 against his former mates in Hamilton, before retiring. The Canadiens did not include his name on the Cup in 1924, because he did not play in the playoffs. However, he is credited by the NHL as winning his third Stanley Cup that season.

Malone finished his career with 343 goals and 32 assists over 15 professional seasons. He scored the third-most career goals of any player in major hockey's first half-century (behind Newsy Lalonde and Nels Stewart). His 179 goals in the NHA were the most in the league's history.[2]