Mohns achieved 'most legendary' status on, off ice for Bruins

Alphabetically, the late Doug Mohns is No. 57 on the Historic 100, a list of players voted to be the 100 "most legendary" Boston Bruins of the past century for the franchise's 2023-24 centennial season.

His name is bound to be overshadowed by the team's greatest legends, Bobby Orr, Milt Schmidt, Eddie Shore, Dit Clapper, Johnny Bucyk, Phil Esposito, Ray Bourque, Patrice Bergeron and others.

But make no mistake, Mohns is richly deserving of his place among the iconic 100, for the 711 regular-season games he played as a forward and defenseman for the Bruins from 1953-64, another 35 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the gigantic footprint he left in Boston in retirement until his death in 2014 at age 80.

Boston Bruins goalie Sugar Jim Henry makes a kick save, defenseman Doug Mohns and captain Milt Schmidt (right) skating in to help, during a 1954 game against Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Nicknamed "Diesel" for his locomotive skating that he used to powerfully rush the puck, Mohns was the first defenseman in Bruins history to score 20 goals in a season, adding them to his 25 assists in 1959-60. Four consecutive seasons between 1965-66 and 1968-69, Mohns would score 22 or more with the Chicago Black Hawks, by then a forward often used at left wing on the "Scooter Line," with center Stan Mikita and right wing Kenny Wharram.

Mohns had 710 points (248 goals, 462 assists) in 1,391 NHL games from 1953-75 for the Bruins, Black Hawks, Minnesota North Stars, Atlanta Flames and Washington Capitals. He had 50 points (14 goals, 36 assists) in 94 playoff games.

Mohns was such a good skater that at age 7 he was offered a contract with the world-renowned Ice Capades troupe. His family politely declined it and directed him into minor hockey in Capreol, Ontario, once an independent northern Ontario town that today is a community within greater Sudbury.

It was with Boston's junior affiliate in Barrie, Ontario, that Mohns met future Bruins captain Don McKenney, who also was voted as a member of the Historic 100. Together they won the Memorial Cup, Canada's major-junior championship, in 1951.

Boston Bruins goalie Harry Lumley and defensemen Doug Mohns, wearing a primitive helmet to protect a broken jaw, during a December 1958 game against Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens.

"We just clicked," McKenney told the Boston Globe in a Feb. 20, 2014 appreciation upon Mohns' death. "When we were first with the Bruins, we were roommates before we each got married. And then we moved to (Boston's) South Shore and stayed close and ran a hockey school in Falmouth (Massachusetts). He was my dearest friend, as sincere as anyone I've known."

Schmidt, whose No. 15 was retired by the Bruins in 1980, was impressed with Mohns' two-way play, as efficient at rushing the puck as he was racing back to provide defensive support.

"He could have played in any era, he was that good. And he'd be a star today," Schmidt said of Mohns, a Bruins teammate who he later coached with Boston and Washington.

From left: Don Marcotte, Johnny McKenzie and Doug Mohns acknowledge the crowd in Boston on Feb. 13, 2007 during a ceremony honoring Johnny Bucyk for his 50 years with the Bruins organization.

For a time a Bruins alternate captain, Mohns got close to the winning the Stanley Cup, Boston losing to the Montreal Canadiens in five games in the Final in 1957 and in six games in 1958. In the 1958 playoffs he had an NHL career-best 13 points (three goals, 10 assists) in 12 games.

The Bruins failed to make the playoffs during Mohns' final five seasons in Boston, 1959-64.

"But that probably brought us closer together," he said. "We shared a common bond, we suffered together and we made lasting friendships."

Mohns played his final season with the expansion Capitals in 1974-75, serving as captain during his 75 games played at age 41.

If he was nicknamed Diesel, Mohns also was a battleship, returning to action in January 1958 after sustaining a fractured jaw during a game against Chicago on Dec. 8.

From left, the Chicago Black Hawks’ Kenny Wharram, Stan Mikita and Doug Mohns formed the "Scooter Line" during the mid to late 1960s.

Bruins doctor Edward Browne figured Mohns would lose 20 pounds with his jaw wired shut for six weeks, leaving him too weak to contribute to Boston's late-season run to the playoffs. Instead, the defenseman gained five pounds through his own ambitious conditioning program and the ingenuity of his wife, Jane, and her mother, Barbara.

It was no matter that Mohns had to eat with a straw slipped through the wires of his jaw. His wife and mother-in-law set to work with a blender, pureeing ground steak, peppers, onion and water one day, roast beef mixed with bouillon the next, vegetables always part of the meals.

Mohns was 175 pounds when he sustained his broken jaw. He returned to action at 180 and helped pull the Bruins into the playoffs. He then enjoyed his career-best postseason, which included at least a point in all six games against the New York Rangers in the NHL Semifinals, and two assists in six games in the Final.

"It's difficult to breathe when you can't open your mouth," Browne said as Mohns neared his return. "Yet Doug skates steady for 30 minutes, rests a bit, skates again, then does pushups."

Boston Bruins’ Bronco Horvath (left) and Doug Mohns wearing crudely built helmets in the visiting dressing room at Maple Leaf Gardens on Dec. 20, 1958. Each had sustained a broken jaw in a game in Toronto two months earlier.

Mohns was quite a sight when he returned to action in Montreal on Jan. 18, 1958, wearing a bizarre helmet/mask designed to protect his jaw. That was only one of the remarkable stories at the Forum. It was the same night Mohns' Bruins teammate, Willie O'Ree, historically became the first black man to play in the NHL.

With Joseph Martino of Boston's United Limb and Brace Co., Browne fashioned a helmet with a sort-of trap door in the back, nylon-covered curved aluminum bars attached to the front.

Browne's idea came from the shoulder of an artificial arm, which he cut from the original prosthetic to provide a perfect fit on the helmet.

The invention paid dividends the following October when Mohns had the other side of his jaw broken against the Maple Leafs in Toronto, Bruins teammate Bronco Horvath having his jaw shattered in the same game. Each would play wearing Browne's helmet.

Former Boston Bruins teammates Willie O'Ree (right) and Doug Mohns on Jan. 19, 2008 for a TD Garden celebration of O’Ree's 50th anniversary of breaking the NHL’s color barrier.

It was in retirement that Mohns had the most significant impact in his adopted home of Boston.

In 1978, he and his wife learned of the tragic death of 11-year-old Dianne DeVanna, who had been physically abused by her father and stepmother. Dianne was familiar to Jane Mohns, who had worked with the youngster as a school psychologist.

Doug and Jane Mohns took part in a fundraising campaign to pay for Dianne's gravestone. Their work and that of others helped create the Dianne DeVanna Center in Braintree, 13 miles south of Boston, for the benefit and care of vulnerable children.

Even with a 22-season NHL career and his trailblazing work in the community, Mohns never was at ease in the spotlight.

"I was the type of guy who always left the (Boston) Garden by the back door instead of the front," he joked in a 1985 Boston Globe story.

Doug Mohns as a member of the 1960s Chicago Black Hawks (left) and 1970s Minnesota North Stars.

"I was never really comfortable accepting a lot of praise because I guess we are here to give praise, not to get it. We are all put on Earth to help others when we can. God's been good to me and I feel I have some obligation to be good to others."

His giant heart did not go unrecognized.

"Doug spent his life fighting to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable children," Julie Howard, the DeVanna Center's program director, said in 2014. "It has been an honor and privilege to have had the support of such a kind, compassionate and generous man."

For 19 years in retirement, Mohns also was an executive at the New England Rehabilitation Hospital in Woburn, Massachusetts. When he stepped down, his No. 19 Bruins jersey was raised to the hospital's ceiling in an emotional salute.

Now, Mohns will be among the 100 Bruins celebrated for their role during the team's first century. Consider him forgiven for having scored his two NHL hat tricks in 1966-67 for Chicago -- at Boston Garden against the Bruins, six weeks apart.

Top photo: Boston Bruins defenseman Doug Mohns in a 1950s portrait taken at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. @ Turofsky/Imperial Oil Collection, Hockey Hall of Fame