Glen Sather

Canada Glen Sather
Hockey Hall of Fame , 1997


Date of birth	September 2, 1943
place of birth	High River , Alberta , Canada
Nickname	Slats
size	180 cm
Weight	77 kg

position	Left wing
Shot hand	Left

Career stations

1960-1961	Wainwright Elks
1961-1964	Edmonton Oil Kings
1964-1965	Memphis wings
1965-1967	Oklahoma City Blazers
1967-1969	Boston Bruins
1969-1971	Pittsburgh Penguins
1971-1973	New York Rangers
1973-1974	St. Louis Blues
1974-1975	Montréal Canadiens
1975-1976	Minnesota North Stars
1976-1977	Edmonton Oilers

Glen Sather (born September 2, 1943 in High River , Alberta ) is a retired Canadian ice hockey player , coach and manager. He played eleven years in the National Hockey League for the Boston Bruins , Pittsburgh Penguins , New York Rangers , St. Louis Blues , Montreal Canadiens and the Minnesota North Stars and in the World Hockey Association for the Edmonton Oilers . As coach and general manager, he led the Edmonton Oilers to five Stanley Cups before serving as GM of the New York Rangers for fifteen years until July 2015.

Career

As a player

Glen Sather began his career in 1960 with junior teams in Wainwright , before joining the Edmonton Oil Kings in the CAHL in 1961 and winning the Memorial Cup with them in 1963 , the most important trophy in Canadian ice hockey for 16 to 21 year olds. Sather then played his first season as a professional with the Memphis Wings in the Central Hockey League . After a year he moved within the league to the Oklahoma City Blazers , where he played two years. At the end of the 1966/67 season he came for the first time in the NHL for the Boston Bruins and was part of the regular squad the following year.

Despite his rather low point yield for a striker, he was able to establish himself in the league through his tough game and moved in 1969 to the Pittsburgh Penguins . After two seasons in Pittsburgh, he spent three years with the New York Rangers , with whom he reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1972 . His most successful season in the NHL he finally had 1973/74 with the St. Louis Blues with 15 goals and 29 assists in 69 games. After two seasons with the Montreal Canadiens and the Minnesota North Stars , he moved in 1976 to the competitive WHA league for the Edmonton Oilers , where he played a year as team captain and then ended his career.

Player statistics

	Seasons	Games	Gates	Assists	Points	Penalty minutes
NHL Regular Season	10	658	80	112	192	724
NHL playoffs	6th	72	1	5	6th	86
WHA regular season	1	81	19th	34	53	77
WHA playoffs	1	5	1	1	2	2

As a trainer and manager

Immediately after the end of his playing career in the summer of 1977, Glen Sather became head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. In 1978 the Oilers signed 17-year-old Wayne Gretzky and Sather led the team to the playoff finals of the 1978/79 season . After the end of the season, the WHA was dissolved and the Edmonton Oilers joined the NHL. In the summer of 1980, just before the 1980 NHL Entry Draft , Sather was named general manager of the team. In this draft he laid an important foundation for the years to come when he selected Paul Coffey , Andy Moog and Jari Kurri . In the NHL Entry Draft 1981 he selected Grant Fuhr and together with Gretzky and Mark Messier , who had been committed in 1979, the young players should form the cornerstone of the Edmonton Oilers.

Sather passed the coaching office to Bryan Watson in the summer of 1980 , but returned only a few months later to the post and trained the team again from then on. After two passable years in the NHL, the Oilers improved significantly in the 1981/82 season and were second-best team in the regular season. The following year, Sather led the team to the Stanley Cup final, but there they were defeated by the New York Islanders , who had dominated the league for the past few years. In 1984 they reached the Stanley Cup final again and met again on the Islanders, who were aiming for their fifth Stanley Cup triumph in a row, but it was finally the Oilers who could win the coveted trophy for the first time. In addition, Sather won the Canada Cup in 1984 as head coach of the Canadian national team .

In the following season, the Oilers successfully defended the title. Sather then withdrew a little from the coaching work and from then on shared it with his previous assistant John Muckler , but officially remained the head coach and was awarded the Jack Adams Award for best coach in the NHL in 1986 . In 1987 and 1988 the Oilers won the Stanley Cup again, but only a few months after their last triumph, Sather suffered a setback when the team's superstar, Wayne Gretzky, was transferred to the Los Angeles Kings . But he managed to build a competitive team around the new team captain Mark Messier as well as Jari Kurri and goalkeeper Bill Ranford .

In the summer of 1989, Sather finally resigned from his coaching position and concentrated exclusively on his work as general manager and John Muckler took over the coaching position. In 1990 the Oilers won their fifth Stanley Cup, but after that the franchise faced difficult sporting and economic times. Player salaries in the NHL rose dramatically and the Oilers, as a team based in one of the NHL's smallest markets, were unable to offer players these salaries. Sather had to watch the stars leave the team and head coach John Muckler switched to the Buffalo Sabers .

In 1992/93 , only three years after the last Stanley Cup victory, the Oilers missed the NHL playoffs for the first time and could not qualify for them until 1997. During the 1993/94 season , Sather returned to the post of head coach, but he could not lead the team back to old successes. In 1994 he took over the post of general manager of the Canadian national team at the World Cup and there he was able to celebrate a success with the first World Cup title for Canada since 1961.

Towards the end of the nineties, the team around Curtis Joseph , Doug Weight , Ryan Smyth and Bill Guerin qualified again regularly for the playoffs, but in the summer of 2000 Glen Sather resigned as general manager.

Just a few weeks later, he joined the New York Rangers organization, assuming the post of President and General Manager of the franchise. But even there, the first few years were marked by failure. In addition, Sather made himself unpopular through transfers with which he sent long-time team members such as Brian Leetch or Adam Graves to other teams in order to get better players in return who could not meet expectations, such as Eric Lindros or Bobby Holík . Between 2002 and 2004, Sather also took on the role of coach with the Rangers.

Sather succeeded in signing a superstar in 2004 with Jaromír Jágr and before the 2005/06 season he brought another experienced striker with Martin Straka and with Henrik Lundqvist a talented goalkeeper into the team, which the Rangers for the first time since 1997 back in the playoffs led. This was followed by engagements by players such as Brendan Shanahan and Sean Avery , who further strengthened the team and in the summer of 2007 Sather achieved a coup when he was able to bring two of the most sought-after free agents to New York with Chris Drury and Scott Gomez .

In 1997, Glen Sather was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame for his services as coach and general manager .

In July 2015, Sather stepped down after fifteen years as GM of the Rangers, but will continue to be president of the franchise. He was succeeded by Jeff Gorton , who had been his assistant for four years.