#2. Doug Jarvis (24th overall, 1975 NHL Amateur Draft)
Number two on the list is Doug Jarvis, a player far more associated with the Montreal Canadiens than the Toronto Maple Leafs, but a player that was indeed the team’s second-round (24th overall pick) in the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft.
Doug Jarvis won four Stanley Cups as a member of the Montreal Canadiens dynasty in the 1970s; that’s not to say that he’s the reason for that, but he certainly played his part as part of the team. Jarvis is somewhat unique when you consider the style of hockey being plays in the seventies.
The team to win the Stanley Cup before the Canadiens was the ‘Broad Street Bullies’ iteration of the Philadelphia Flyers after all. All the while, Jarvis literally peaked at just 34 penalty minutes in a season across his NHL career.
Perhaps the reason most people know Doug Jarvis’ name is his legendary ‘Ironman’ streak; 12 seasons and 964 consecutive games in a tough-as-nails era where hits were heavy and players lacked the conditioning of a pro we expect these days.
Thinking back to the Toronto Maple Leafs team of the mid-seventies, Lanny McDonald, Borje Salming and Darryl Sittler; Doug Jarvis would’ve been a useful extra extra part of the roster, but realistically he would have struggled to stand-out.
Here’s a player that capitalized on playing a useful role for what was a dynasty team, offering some secondary scoring for a team headlined by Guy Lafleur.
As much as it feels like a miss by the Toronto Maple Leafs, nobody was truly to know that Jarvis could offer anything on an NHL team; though to be fair 133 points in a 64-game season as captain of the Peterborough Petes certainly suggested he might do more than he did.
Perhaps the reason for this to be a hard pill to swallow can be found in the fact that the return on the trade was Greg Hubick, a player that managed just one season with the team.