Quebec Nordiques - 1980s

1980s

As part of the NHL–WHA merger, the WHA insisted on including all of its surviving Canadian teams, including the Nordiques, among the teams taken into the NHL at the end of the 1978–79 season. As a result, the Nordiques entered the NHL along with the Whalers, Oilers and Jets.

Forced to let all but three players go in a dispersal draft, the Nordiques sank to the bottom of the standings. They finished the 1979–80 NHL season last in their division despite the play of promising rookie left winger Michel Goulet. An early highlight to the otherwise dreary season came when Real Cloutier became the second (following Alex Smart) NHL player ever to score a hat trick in his first NHL game.

In August 1980 the Nordiques announced that they signed newly defected brothers Peter and Anton Stastny, members of the Czechoslovak national team, since they drafted Anton in the 1979 amateur draft. Their brother, Marian, would follow and also sign with Quebec in the summer of 1981. The following season, led by Peter Stastny's 109-point Calder Trophy-winning performance, the Nordiques made the NHL playoffs for the first time, but fell in the best-of-five opening round in five games to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Led by Goulet and Peter Stastny, the Nordiques made the playoffs eight years in a row. In 1981–82, despite notching only 82 points in the regular season, they defeated the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins, both in winner-take-all games on the road. Their Cinderella run ended when they were swept by the New York Islanders in the conference finals.

The rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens intensified during the 1983–84 NHL season culminating in the infamous "Vendredi Saint" brawl, otherwise known as the Good Friday Massacre, during the 1984 playoffs. The Habs scored five unanswered goals in the third period of Game 6 at the Montreal Forum to eliminate the Nordiques. The goals all came after Peter Stastny and Dale Hunter were ejected in the brawl.

In 1984–85, Montreal and Quebec battled for the Adams Division championship. The Nordiques finished with 91 points, at the time their highest point total as an NHL team. However, the Habs won the division by three points—solidified by a 7–1 Canadiens trashing of the Nordiques at The Forum in the final week of the regular season. The Nordiques would exact revenge in the Adams finals with a seven-game victory, which was clinched by Peter Stastny's overtime goal at the Forum. They then took the powerful Philadelphia Flyers, who had the league's best record, to six games.

They won their first NHL division title in 1985–86 (and as it turned out, one of their two in Quebec, the other 1994-1995), but a defensive collapse in the playoffs allowed the Hartford Whalers to sweep the Nordiques in three games.

The next season saw more of the Nords-Habs rivalry as the playoff series went to seven games, with the Canadiens coming out on top. In that same season, when Quebec hosted Rendez-Vous '87, an alteration of the All-Star Game to include the Soviet national team, a costumed mascot, Badaboum—a fuzzy, roly-poly blue creature—began entertaining fans at the Colisée with his bizarre dance routines. Badaboum was created just for Rendez-Vous, but generated such a following that the Nordiques made it a permanent fixture at home games.

Decline began the following season. The Nordiques finished last in their division—the first of five straight years of finishing at the bottom of the Adams Division—and missed the playoffs for the first time in eight years. The slide continued: in 1988–89 they had the league's worst record.

Michel Bergeron, who had coached the team from 1980 to 1987, returned for 1989–90. The season was also highlighted by the arrival of Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur, who turned down a lucrative offer from the Los Angeles Kings so he could finish his career in his home province. It soon became clear Lafleur's best years were far behind him. "The Flower" managed only 24 goals in 98 games with Quebec over two seasons, but the 38-year-old was still among the team's best players while receiving diminished ice time. The season saw the Nords hit rock bottom; they finished with a hideous record of 12–61–7 (31 points)--the second of three straight seasons with the worst record in the league, and still the worst record in franchise history.

Michel Goulet and Peter Stastny were traded in 1990, winding up with the Chicago Blackhawks and New Jersey Devils respectively. Despite the stellar play of young forward Joe Sakic, the Nordiques struggled throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, in that year's draft they drafted Swedish prospect Mats Sundin, making him the first European to be selected first overall in the NHL draft. The following year Quebec chose first again, taking Owen Nolan.