“The view is that Canadiens were taken like a green hand trying to outwit a table of card-sharps and frankly, it’s difficult to argue with the notion,” he wrote the day after the trade went down. “Canadiens gave away their key man and two other players for what amounts to a slightly overworked and frequently overweight goalie of some talent and a trio of nobodies. …
“Executives have been known to make mistakes, and it could be that a blunder of monumental proportions has been committed in this case. … Worsley can square the rap all by himself with the goaltending of which his admirers feel he’s capable. But he has a king-size job ahead of him trying to fill the position of a man who was the unchallenged peer of the league’s best goaltenders for so many seasons.”
The Gumper would play only eight games in 1963-64, spending most of the season with Quebec of the American Hockey League, Charlie Hodge playing 62 games for Montreal. But he would get important work during his Canadiens tenure, playing 172 games and 39 more in the postseason until his contract was bought by the Minnesota North Stars on Feb. 27, 1970.
In Montreal, Worsley went 90-41-24 with a 2.40 average, .914 save percentage and 16 shutouts. In the playoffs: a brilliant 29-7, 1.92, .932 with four shutouts.
In 98 games during his two years with the Rangers, before his career took him to St. Louis, Toronto and finally Boston, Plante went 32-53-12 with a 3.38 average, .908 percentage and five shutouts. He saw no playoff action with New York.