‘LB’ bled Black & Gold

Upon captain Wayne Cashman’s retirement at the end of the 1982-83 season, Lyndon Byers was assigned Cashman’s No. 12 sweater as a member of an impactful foursome of young forwards integrated by GM Harry Sinden into the Boston Bruins lineup during the 1983-84 season, also including Geoff Courtnall, Greg Johnston and Doug Kostynski.

There were other new players to be sure, starting with back-nine defensemen Guy Lapointe and Jim Schoenfeld in an attempt to mitigate the departure of Brad Park to Detroit via free agency, and later on Dave Silk, a member of the gold medalist Team USA of 1980, joined the club. So did Jim Nill via a late-season trade with Peter McNab, enabled by the emergence of young centermen Barry Pederson, Tom Fergus and Steve Kasper. Also aboard was Dave Donnelly, who had been acquired from Minnesota with Brad Palmer in the deal that allowed the North Stars to choose Brian Bellows second overall in the 1982 draft (Sinden was always going to take Gord Kluzak first).

But back to Byers, the news of whose passing last night at age 61 landed with sadness here, in part because he was always a better hockey player than he got credit for. A second-round draft pick in 1982, the right winger from Saskatchewan was a monster with the WHL Regina Pats, putting up 32-57-89 and 154 PIM’s in just 58 GP in 1983-84 before becoming a full-time pro.

Although he would play AHL and/or IHL games in all but two of his 11 fully professional seasons (1989-90 and 90-91), Rink Rap thought Byers showed the instincts to become a formidable all-purpose NHL winger. But he gravitated toward the enforcer role that became his NHL legacy.

Known for a devastating uppercut that once bloodied a young Craig Berube in the Spectrum and for pummeling an aging Clark Gillies (then a Buffalo Sabre) and reportedly telling him this one’s for Cashman, this one’s for O’Reilly, etc…. Byers had his best NHL season in 1987-88.

Despite a lineup that included Willi Plett and was extremely deep at forward in general, Byers played a career-high 53 regular-season games (10-14-24 and a career-high 236 PIM’s) and 11 of Boston’s 22-plus playoff games (that was the year the lights went out during Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final at the Garden, so the game, then tied, was replayed in its entirety in Edmonton, where the Oilers repeated as champs, technically in four straight).

Want to know the biggest difference between the Terry O’Reilly-coached Bruins of 1988 and the Mike Milbury-coached Bruins of 1990? Look at Byers’ stat line: In the ’88 playoffs, Byers (as noted) played 11 of 22 official games, 1-2-3 totals and 62 PIM’s; in 1990 he played 17 of Boston’s 21 postseason games with 1-0-1 totals and 12 PIM’s. The Bruins in total almost put up twice as many PIM’s in the ’88 playoffs (807) as they did in 1990 (409).

I can’t remember if it was Gord Donnelly, but the Quebec Nordiques were in Boston late in the 89-90 season, and Byers was leaning out the bench door during an altercation when an opponent goaded him and Byers was suddenly standing on the ice when Milbury grabbed him by the elbow to avoid Byers getting suspended.

In fairness to the coaches, the NHL was also changing. The brutal playoff brawls involving the Nordiques and the Montreal Canadiens in 1984 and the Canadiens and the Flyers in ’87 (after the pregame warmup!) were by 1990 at least meant to be a thing of the past. Penalties for gateway actions (no pun intended) were severe, so perhaps O’Reilly and Milbury coached the Bruins in the order they should have as ordained by Sinden.

Byers’ legacy on and off the ice was big in Boston. Not only did he hold a post-playing career as a radio personality, but he participated in the “Hole Hearted” music video for the Boston-based rock band Extreme.

Former Bruins right winger Lyndon Byers can be seen in this music video playing guitar, and he and teammate Cam Neely later appear clapping along to the song.

As a point of trivia, Byers scored the final goal of the 1990 Stanley Cup final against the Oilers at Boston Garden. I always liked this winger as a hockey player and wish he didn’t bust up his hands so much. I was often reminded of this when looking at his No. 22 San Jose Sharks sweater hanging on the wall of The Fours on Canal Street.