Gerry Meehan, a member of the inaugural Buffalo Sabres team who went on to serve impactful stints as both team captain and general manager, died Friday at age 79.<\/p>\n
Meehan was selected by the Sabres in the 1970 expansion draft, thus beginning a lifelong association with the organization and Western New York. He ranked third on the team in goals and points during its inaugural season, including the first assist in Sabres history.<\/p>\n
He was named the second captain in franchise history the following year, a role he held through the end of his Sabres tenure in October 1974. Meehan\u2019s stint as captain included Buffalo\u2019s first-ever playoff berth in 1972-73, when he scored a career-best 31 goals.<\/p>\n
“The idea that an expansion team was coming – not only to Buffalo – but close to my home in Toronto, and to be selected by them and get a chance to play as an NHL regular, obviously made my career,” Meehan said years later.<\/p>\n
Meehan went on to play 10 NHL seasons for Toronto, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Vancouver, Atlanta and Washington. Upon retirement, he received his law degree from the University at Buffalo and joined the Sabres\u2019 front office under general manager Scotty Bowman in 1984.<\/p>\n
Meehan replaced Bowman as Buffalo\u2019s fourth-ever general manager during the 1986-87 season. As general manager, he executed some of the most impactful transactions in Sabres history, including trades to bring in future Hall of Fame players Pat LaFontaine, Dale Hawerchuk and Dominik Hasek, plus the draft selection and subsequent defection of Alexander Mogilny from the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
Mogilny\u2019s defection in 1989 proved to be a trailblazing moment in NHL history, with other Soviet players following suit in the ensuing years. Meehan and Don Luce, then the Sabres director of player development, played pivotal roles. The duo traveled to meet Mogilny in Stockholm, Sweden and ushered him through the process while evading the reach of the KGB.<\/p>\n
Mogilny thanked Meehan and Luce during his Hall of Fame induction last November.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were my guiding lights when I came into the NHL,\u201d Mogilny said.\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gerry Meehan, a member of the inaugural Buffalo Sabres team who went on to serve impactful stints as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-688296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}