Mike Bossy Career Biography and Statistics

Bio:
When the New York Islanders constructed a dynasty in the early 1980s, their leading goal scorer was an unassuming, gentlemanly right winger with a Derringer shot - Mike Bossy.

Although he excelled as a Canadian junior player, many NHL scouts considered him too slightly built and too indifferent a checker to succeed in the league. But the Islanders' coaches knew that natural “finishers" like Bossy could be taught to check, so the team drafted him in the first round (15th overall) in 1977.

Bossy made his cheeky prediction of a 50-goal season a self-fulfilling prophecy and won the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie. He topped it with 53 goals the following year. In the 1981-82 season, Bossy scored 50 goals in 50 games, the first player to accomplish the feat since Maurice Richard did it 36 years earlier. After four straight Stanley Cups from 1980-83, Bossy and the Islanders were finally silenced by Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers in the 1984 Cup finals.

Back injuries limited Bossy to 63 games in the 1986-87 season, although he still scored 38 goals. The injuries forced Bossy to retire prematurely in 1987 at age 30. He worked as a television broadcaster for the Quebec Nordiques and a radio personality in Quebec until 2006, when he joined the Islanders' front office. In 1991, Bossy was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.