Legendary New York Rangers goaltender Ed Giacomin has passed away at the age of 86. He blazed through a highly-successful NHL career from 1965 to 1978, split between 10 years with the Rangers and three years with the Detroit Red Wings. Giacomin was inducted into the Hockey Hall Of Fame in 1987. The Rangers’ retired his jersey number, No. 1, two years later.
Giacomin began his professional career in the Eastern Hockey League (EHL) in 1959, and more formally in the early days of the AHL in 1960. He earned the Providence Reds’ starting role in his very first season, and quickly took on a full workload – up to 69 games in the 1963-64 season. After four years of successful play in the minors, Giacomin joined the New York Rangers for the 1965-66 season, and became an NHL standout nearly right away.
He posted an 8-19-7 record and .883 save percentage in his NHL rookie season – his only negative record in a Rangers jersey. New York offered him a brief stint as the starter from November to January of his first year, a role that Giacomin would take over fully in the 1966-67 campaign. He led the league with 68 starts that season, and earned an All-Star bid on the back of a 30-27-11 record and .917 save percentage. Those marks, complimented by an incredible nine shutouts, earned Giacomin a second-place finish in Hart Memorial Trophy voting in 1967. He was only beat out by Stan Mikita, but still became the first goalie to rank in the top-three of Hart voting since Terry Sawchuk finished third in 1963, and Jacques Plante won the award in 1962.
A near-MVP finish cemented Giacomin as a pillar of the Rangers lineup. He rivaled 70 games a season through 1970. He posted wins in at least half of his games and a save percentage north of .910 in every year. Those numbers held high even as his starts began to dwindle entering his 30s. Giacomin posted a 27-10-7 record, .922 save percentage, and eight shutouts in the 1970-71 season – enough to win the Vezina Trophy alongside batterymate Gilles Villemure. His role would continue to dwindle through 1975.
New York opted to place him on waivers ahead of the 1975-76 season. The Red Wings, looking for a backup to fellow Hall Of Fame goaltender Jim Rutherford, placed a claim. With that, Giacomin wrapped up his career with three seasons in a menial role in Detroit.
Giacomin retired in 1978. He concluded with a 290-209-96 record and .902 save percentage through 610 games, and 13 seasons, in the NHL. Despite multiple years of Hart Trophy votes, and five years of All-Star bids, Giacomin’s Vezina win marked the only hardware of his career. He did, however, leave behind a lasting legacy on the scoresheet – boasting the second-most shutouts (54) and third-most wins (290) of any goalie between 1960 and 1980. His only rivals in the record books were Tony Esposito and Bernie Parent. Chants of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” rang loud through the early days of hockey at Madison Square Garden. His brazen athleticism and steady focus were the calling cards of a career later enshrined by the NHL.
Giacomin continued to fill roles in the hockey world after retirement. He served as the New York Islanders’ broadcaster for the 1978-79 season, and spent multiple years as an assistant coach and goalie coach for both the Rangers and Red Wings. He was only the second player to have his number retired by the Rangers.
RIP to a Rangers’ great.
One of the great goalies of the 70s when I started watching hockey. Sad to hear the news.
Absolutely one of the best Goalies of all time. RIP Eddie , You’ve earned it.
True legend. Goalie heaven has gotten a few greats recently.
Doing my homework at night I listened to a lot of the 60s Rangers games on radio with Marv Albert behind the microphone. “Kick save and a beauty by Giacomin!” or “Tremendous save by Giacomin!” were two of the typical calls, always in an excited voice. At the end of the game during the wrap-up it would be a calmer “Shutout number six for Ed Giacomin.” Great memories of a great goalie.
(sighs heavily) One by one, the greats of my youth pass on. Even in the late 60s/early 70s, his old-school stand up style was fast dying out, and he may have been its last great practitioner.
One of the first hockey books I ever owned was Brian McFarlane’s 50 Years of Hockey, written in 1969 and chronicling the first fifty years of the NHL. His final words were:
“The National Hockey League embarks on a new era, over fifty years after its founding. We are caught up with the present and the present will soon be past. Today’s hockey heroes will step aside, their deeds chronicled by some future hockey historian.
“Hockey is a marvelous game.”
And few played it like you did, Eddie. Rest well.
I was 15 when Giacomin returned to the Garden as a Red Wing for the first time. Chants of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” started in pregame, drowned out the anthem, and brought him to tears. We all rooted for Detroit that night, and they won. RIP Eddie.
Sad to hear. RIP. A Rangers legend.