It wouldn't surprise me if Scotty Bowman said to Bob Gainey: "You can't score, at best you're a 3rd line player so if you want to stay in this league you need to follow Rick Mddleton/Reg Leach/etc around and stop them from scoring."As usual, another well thought out post by Maurice.
I would not be surprised if Scotty Bowman said to Bob Gainey: "Your job is to shut down the other team's offense. Don't worry about scoring goals, we have Lafleur, Lemaire, Shutt, Cournoyer, etc. taking care of scoring goals."
BTW: I vaguely remember Cournoyer being a PP specialist in his first 2-3 years. Yes, he was a role player.
BTW2: The 1978-9 Canadiens have 10 members in the HOF if we include Rod Langway.