In 1979 the World Hockey Association was formed and a charter team granted to San Francisco. They moved to Quebec, PQ, Canada before a game was ever played. The new team was named the Nordiques because they were the furthest north of any WHA team. In the 1974-5 season they were the Canadian Division champions but lost to the Houston Aeros in the Avco Cup finals. In 1976-77 they defeated the Winnipeg Jets to win the Avco Cup and become the WHA champions. The WHA was short-lived however, and folded in 1979. The Nordiques joined the NHL along with fellow WHA teams the New England Whalers (Hartford Whalers, now the Carolina Hurricanes), the Edmonton Oilers and the Winnipeg Jets (now the Phoenix Coyotes).
The new NHL team made the playoffs their second season in the league. Although they were ousted in the first round they continued to improve each season. With the likes of Real Clouter, who scored a hat trick in his first NHL game, Michel Goulet and the Stastny brothers the Nordiques began to make a name for themselves.
In 1980 Peter Stasny defected from Czechoslavakia and joined his brother Anton on the Nordiqes. Peter was an instant success earning the Calder Trophy as the rookie of the year with 109 points and finishing 3rd over all in the league his sophomore season. By the 1982-3 season Quebec had an entire line made up of the Stasny brothers (Peter, Anton and Marion) who combined to tally 115 goals and 295 points. They played together until 1985 when Marion went to the Toronto Maple Leafs. By this time the Nordiques had reached the top of the Adams division with three 90 point seasons, but they continued to have troubles in the playoffs. And the team then fell onto hard times, missing the playoffs for the next five seasons.
One of the few bright spots during this time was the arrival of center Joe Sakic in 1988. Even though he was posting great numbers he went practically unnoticed by the press because the team was still losing. In 1989-90 Sakic posted his first of four 100+ point seasons with the team yet they only won 12 games the entire season. The other good point during this time was that the team could acquire good draft picks, one of which turned out to be a major turning point for the team.
In the 1991 draft Quebec picked the young star center Eric Lindros, who refused to play for a team whom he felt had no future. So on June 30, 1992 GM Pierre Page sent Lindros to Philadelphia in return for Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall and Philly's first round draft picks in 1993 and 1994. (Gee, wonder who got the better end of that deal.)
"We were looking for players who would not only help us to be good now, but to be good five and ten years from now," Page said in 1993. And that's excatly what they got. The Nordiques started the 1992-3 season with nine new players and posted their best franchise record. They also set an NHL record for best ever single season turnaround. Mats Sundan and Sakic each posted 100+ point seasons and led the team to the playoffs for the first time in six seasons. But like so many times before the post season proved to be a challenge and they were knocked out by the Montreal Canadians. The 1993-4 season was another forgettable season. The only notable event was the arrival of center Adam Deadmarsh.
Things began to look up in the 1994-5 season with the debut of Peter Forsberg who earned the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the year. Sundan was sent to Toronto and Marc Crawford was named as head coach and also earned the Jack Adams award as Coach of the year. The team posted the best record in the Eastern Conference and stormed into the playoffs. It was a talented but young team and their inexperience cost them. The less talented but seasoned playoff veterans of the eighth seeded New York Rangers pulled off the upset of the post season and knocked the Nordiques out in the first round.
The team was sold in the summer of 1995. Instead of leaving Quebec with a bang the team quietly packed it's bags and moved on to Denver, Colorado. Where, as the Colorado Avalanche, they hoped for a fresh beginning and a brighter future. On the eve of the teams transition Kevin Johnson, a reporter for the Quebec dailey Journal Le Soleil, made a prophetic comment: "This is a team that is maybe one player and a little experience away from being the best in the league."
#3 J.C. Tremblay 1972-9 794 Regular Season: 794 games played, 57g, 306a, 363pts, 204pim,
#8 Marc Tardif
#16 Michel Goulet
#26 Peter Stastny 1980-94 Regualr Season: 971 games played, 449g, 788a, 1237pts Playoffs: 93 games played, 33g, 72a, 105pts, 0 cups Legends of Hockey: Peter Stansy
