Remembering Stan Mikita- NHLs Top 100 Player of All Time..(VIDEO)

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Sam Walker
April 3, 2022 (10:53)

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Stan Mikita played his first 3 games of his whopping near fourteen hundred NHL career in the 1958-59 season, as a 18 year old rookie forward. The roster at the time contained some grittiness and all around skill:

Ed Litzenberger
Tod Sloan
Ted Lindsay
Bobby Hull
Ron Murphy
Pierre Pilote
Eric Nesterenko
Danny Lewicki
Ken Wharram
Earl Balfour
Lorne Ferguson
Elmer Vasko
Dollard St. Laurent
Al Arbour
Jack Evans

Just to name the amazing core the 1950's era team had, Mikita would slide in and get a opportunity the next season (1959-1970) to play with some of the best players at the time. Four years into Mikita's career, former teammates Joel Quenville describes Mikita as "One of the nastiest players of the game", just next season-Mikita cleaned up his act, but why?

Mikitas daughter Meg went to her first as a 5 year old, and after the game she said "daddy, why do you always sit by yourself?", Mikita said that changed him. The next season, he went on to win the Lady Bing trophy, for the best sportsmanlike and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing. Mikita spent 22 seasons with the Blackhawks, former teammates say he was so comitted that even during practice you could not get the puck from him.

Mikitas first game with the Blackhawks got a call from the Blackhawks when he was having dinner as a rookie on the Blackhawks affiliate team, when he got a call asking him if he wanted to go play for Chicago. He showed up in Chicago shortly after, with no directions and nobody to meet him, he was completely lost.

In his second season, he played a key part in helping the Blackhawks win a Stanley Cup, their first since 1938- and their last for many years to follow. Mikita was deemed the best center of his era, and was cleary the best faceoff man. He was one of the first players to put on a helmet in the NHL, after taking a shot to the skull in 1968 suffering a severe concussion. Mikita ended up retiring in 1980, and was introduced to the hockey hall of fame in 1983 with teammate Bobby Hull.

Stan Mikita passed away at 78 years old in 2018, no details were given. But his family had mentioned in the past that he was believed to have the progressive brain disease Lewy body dementia.

WATCH: Remembering Mikita + Highlights