Montreal Canadiens coach Toe Blake chats with four of his players during his team's 1959-60 training camp at the Montreal Forum. From left: Dickie Moore, Blake, Don Marshall, André Pronovost and Phil Goyette.
The Canadiens had high hopes for this smooth-skating center with a nose for the net, based on his fine junior and minor-pro offensive output. But Marshall, slotted by Irvin between wings Maurice "Rocket" Richard and Bert Olmstead, broke his ankle in 1954 during training camp and played sparingly with senior-league Montreal before he could rejoin the Canadiens. By then his prime position was lost, and Marshall was deployed by Irvin as a checker, penalty-killer and almost as a fill-in, as he was by Blake when the latter became coach in 1955-56.
Blake immediately led the Canadiens to their unprecedented five consecutive Stanley Cup titles, with Marshall one of the 12 players on the roster of all five champions. He says he's very grateful that he's one of three still alive, with Henri Richard and Jean-Guy Talbot.
An efficient goal-scorer, Marshall played the defensive role his coaches wanted without a murmur of protest, and he was one of the best of his generation.
"I could do it, as simple as that," he said of being recast as a checker. "In the minor leagues, I killed penalties and scored goals. In the NHL, I killed penalties but didn't get the opportunity to score many. I knew I could play hockey, any position, and if I had to do what my coaches wanted to get on the ice, I'd do that. I had no problem with it."
The Canadiens of that era, he said, were simply expected to win, and a season without a Stanley Cup parade was viewed as a failure. Marshall, who was traded by the Canadiens to the New York Rangers on June 4, 1963 -- "I was going from a team that was very good to a team that wasn't so good," he said charitably with a laugh -- recalled Blake as a coach who was "very good" with his players, a ferociously intense man who had his own way of doing things.