CALGARY – It’s been almost 40 years since Don Maloney punctuated the night of his life with a declaration: “This proves that miracles do happen.”
A coach’s pick by Al Arbour to play in his second NHL All-Star Game, the then-25-year-old winger had just tied an All-Star Game record with four points to win game MVP honours and a $14,000 car.
“It was a fire-engine red Camaro Z/28,” said a smiling Maloney, who entered the league’s showcase game in 1984 as its lowest-scoring participant.
“The irony was I had a Z/28 when I first turned pro, but I wasn’t turning it down, mind you.
“I got the car and while driving out to Long Island, I remember getting a speeding ticket in it.
“I went back and traded in that car, and the car I had, for the car I always really wanted – a Jaguar.
“I traded up.”
The first time he was traded in the NHL became a sign of things to come for the longtime New York Rangers forward, whose 13-year playing career quickly morphed into more than three decades in NHL front offices.
“He went from sitting beside me to assistant coach and GM in a weekend,” said his Islanders stall mate, Glenn Healy, with a laugh.
“It’s funny he says that, because that’s pretty much what happened,” said a chuckling Maloney, sitting in the Saddledome, where the newly minted president of hockey operations is tasked with ushering in a new era for a club in need of a new GM and coach.
“I retired (in 1991) on a Tuesday, and then on Friday I was on the bus in the AHL with the minor league team, helping the coaches, scouting the opponents and working out the players.
“Al Arbour wanted me to coach the AHL team.
“But then in the afternoon, I’d go into Bill Torrey’s office, where he did it all for the Islanders as GM, president and pseudo-owner.
“He was just looking for some poor stiff to help him out and I just happened to be there.
“It really wasn’t like I wanted to work in management my whole life, but I hadn’t won anything and that was my driving goal to change that.”
Maloney went on to spend three years as Islanders GM, a decade in the Rangers’ front office, and nine seasons running the Arizona Coyotes before joining the Flames in 2016.
NHL Network analyst Brian Lawton, who was traded with Maloney by the Rangers to Hartford in 1989, said he and Tom Kurvers had long ago pegged Maloney as a future front-office type.
“Donny’s reputation is he’s universally known as the first NHL player who travelled with a laptop, so I wasn’t surprised he went into management,” said Lawton, who described Maloney as a trusted player he said was an “upgrade on Blake Coleman.”
“He’s just always been ahead of the curve.”
So far ahead, said a joking Maloney, that the laptop came decades before the internet.
“At that time it was very rudimentary, with spreadsheets and, trying to just figure out, ‘OK, I have this laptop – now what do I do with it?’” he said, laughing, finding it useful during summer internships with Wall Street firms and eventually getting his real estate license.
Columbus Blue Jackets president John Davidson, Maloney’s longtime netminder in Manhattan, said Maloney’s innovation started when he was a player, showing up every fall as the fittest of the bunch.
“Most of us would show up in camp to get in shape, but he was one of the originals in terms of conditioning, preparation and with all sorts of stretching,” said Davidson, who called the quiet yet diligent Maloney the ultimate pro and consummate teammate.
“His older brother, Dave, ended up being our captain, and was more emotionally attached.
“Don was attached, but not the firecracker Dave was.
“Don was dedicated to the game, which was his priority. A 200-foot player who was tough, could score and could play on any line.”
As Healy suggested, he was all business.
“He was never one of the Rangers hanging out at Studio 54,” said the retired netminder, laughing.
“He’d rarely join us drunken losers for beers at lunch – it was like he had bigger aspirations.”
A second-round draft pick out of Lindsay, Ont., Maloney said even his father called him a “middle of the pack player” who realized his edge would come via an all-season fitness regimen.
He’d do whatever it took, which is reflected in his 38-bout fight card, which includes the likes of Paul Baxter, Moose Dupont, Dave Hunter, Chris Nilan, Tim Hunter, Joey Kocur, Pat Verbeek, Craig MacTavish and Nick Fotiu.
“I wasn’t a fighter, but you have to go back to that time – everybody had a certain number of fights and it just was more spontaneous,” said Maloney, still a fitness fanatic, who played at 6-foot-1, 190 pounds.
“I remember the worst fight I had was with Bobby Nystrom.
“It was my first year and at that time they had no glass in front of the penalty box.
“It was at the Garden and after he dumped the puck in, I hit him with my shoulder into the stanchion.
“The crowd went crazy, and he came at me so angry.
“He hit me so many times on the top of my head that I couldn’t even touch my hair for like two weeks.”
Marcel Dionne joined the Rangers several years after Maloney posted five-straight 20-goal seasons, but praised the winger for his commitment to the two-way game.
“He was special, you never had to worry about him,” said the colourful Hall of Famer.
“If he would have played with me in my prime, he would have had more chances to score like 30 to 40 goals.”
Late last month, Maloney was asked to head up a Flames organization in which he’s spent the last six years as Brad Treliving’s right-hand man.
The humble, hard-working interim GM has since gone about his GM search the same way he’s always conducted himself – quietly.
“He will never tell you about it, but I know he had a lot of success with the Rangers and Islanders, and there were a couple years he was a dominant player (with a pair of 29-goal seasons),” said former Coyotes captain Shane Doan, who played nine years under Maloney in Arizona.
“Think about being All-Star MVP with a ton of Hall of Famers playing – that was when those games were serious, the teams didn’t like one another, and no one knew each other.
“He’s a really hard worker who kind of keeps a lower profile than a lot of people by going about his business the way he thinks he should.
“When he was with us, there was a lot going on, as the league took us over as owners and they gave him the freedom to make moves that made us better.
“At one point we finished third or fourth with 109 points, and three years in a row we averaged over 100 points, won the division one year and went to the conference finals.”
That run, on the back of Mike Smith, has been Maloney’s front office highlight.
“My first year with the Rangers, in 1978-79, we went to the finals and we lost to Montreal in five games,” said Maloney, who set a Rangers record with two goals in eight seconds.
“As a 20-year-old, I remember being so exhausted, but just saying to myself, ‘OK, we’ll get them next year.’ Like, ‘It’s automatic, we’ll win and be back next year.’
“Well, now I’m 64 and I haven’t been back to the final since.
“It kind of gives you a little sense of how hard it is to win.
“I’m either really bad at what I’m doing, or maybe I should have changed professions a long time ago, but I’m stubborn and I’ve stuck it out.
“I’m not leaving until I get that Cup.”