Gary Leeman
Gary Leeman ( born February 19, 1964 in Wilcox, Saskatchewan ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player who was active during his career, including for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues. In the season 1992/93 he won with the Montreal Canadiens the Stanley Cup. In addition, he completed 14 games for the Canadian Junior National Team.
Career
Leeman began his career with the Regina Pats in the Canadian junior Western Hockey League. He has already won in his first season and thus attracted the attention of talent scouts from the National Hockey League in coming. The native Canadians scored in the 75 games in which he was employed, 64 points scorer. Even then he played hockey and form-fitting conceded to 112 penalty minutes. During the NHL Entry Draft in 1982, it was the leaders of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who selected him in the second round by a total of 24 positions. Leeman was then another season in the WHL before moving to the NHL for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the summer of 1983. In his last season with the Pats, he was able to increase his points haul again, he scored 92 points in 68 games. He was nominated for the Canadian junior national team Subsequently, with which he participated in the World Youth Championship in 1983. There he took third place with Team Canada.
The first season in the NHL spent the then 19 -year-old complete with the Maple Leafs, who used it in a total of 53 games in which he has achieved twelve points scorer. Only a season later he was briefly in the former farm team, the St. Catharines Saints of the American Hockey League, issued. Nevertheless, he came again to 53 games. He was able to yield more than doubled his points and scored 31 points scorer. A year later the left shooter was represented for the first time with his team in the play-offs. There they reached, after a first-round victory against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Conference semi-finals, where you failed in a best - of-seven series with 3:4 games against the St. Louis Blues. Leeman was during the play-offs at the best scorers of his team, so he completed ten matches and scored twelve points. In the following years, he established himself in the Maple Leafs and formed with his former teammates Wendel Clark and Russ Courtnall the infamous " Hound Line", which at that time represented the parade line of Maple Leafs.
In the 1986/87 season he was again able to reach the Conference semi-final with his team, the team retired there after a 1:3 lead after playing in the end even with 4:3 games against the Detroit Red Wings from. Leeman came in five games for use and scoring a Assist His best years in the National Hockey League, he completed between 1988 and 1990 at this time., He was with the Maple Leafs is indeed seen no play-off success, but he was one of the best point forwards in the league. After the first time he was able to score more points in the 1988/89 season, when he games completed ( 75 points in 61 games ) and then All-Star Game was nominated in 1989 even for the NHL, he was able to accomplish this feat a season later and scored in 85 games total of 101 times. At that time he scored 54 goals, making him the only the second player in the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, according to Rick Vaive who scored more than 50 goals in a season. The following season was due to a shoulder injury less successful.
During the season 1991/92 he was transferred to a then sensational exchange to the Calgary Flames. He was transferred on 2 January 1992, together with Craig Berube, Aleksandr Hodnjuk, Michel Petit and Jeff Reese to Calgary that charges him return, the player Doug Gilmour, Jamie Macoun, Ric Nattress, Rick Wamsley and Kent Manderville. The Flames Leeman was unable to match his achievements in the Maple Leafs and was again two years later, on 28 January 1993, issued again in a barter transaction to the Montreal Canadiens, with whom he could win the Stanley Cup. Those responsible for the Canadiens put him a little later in their damaligem farm team, the Fredericton Canadiens of the AHL, and extended his contract at the end of the 1993/94 season. Then he signed as a free agent contract with the Vancouver Canucks, for whom he completed only ten games since the season was 1994/95 reduced due to the lockout in the NHL at 48 Main Round games. His contract was not renewed in the summer of 1995 and he left the club after just one year. There was one season when HC Gherdeina with which he was active in the highest Italian league, the Serie A1. In 1996 he returned to North America, and thus stood in the squad of the St. Louis Blues, for which he, however, was only used in two games and the former farm team, the Worcester IceCats of the American Hockey League and the Utah Grizzlies of the International Hockey League, have been made.
Finding himself when his contract expired barely figured chances of a renewed long-term commitment in the NHL with the Blues, he forced a move to Europe. There, the leaders of the Hannover Scorpions were aware of the striker and transferred him to the 1997/ 98 into the German Hockey League. There he was a member of the tribe squad and was with his now 34 years one of the best players in the league point. In 48 games he scored 52 points scorer. The following season, he completed only ten games for the Scorpions and moved to the second highest Swiss Hockey League, the National League B for EHC Biel, for which he also denied only eight missions. In the end, he finished his career in 1999 at the age of 35 years at the Swiss club HC Sierre.