Murray Bannerman

As Tony Esposito's career wound down in Chicago, eventually ending in 1983-84, the Blackhawks had a young goalie from Fort Frances, Ontario apprenticing to take over between the pipes. His name was Murray Bannerman.

"Murray was a guy that started off as a real good goaltender," explained former teammate Terry Ruskowski. "He was in the shadow of Esposito for a number of years, but when it was his time to play, he played, and he played very, very well.

Originally a 5th round pick of the Vancouver Canucks in 1977, Bannerman was traded to Chicago as part of the Pit Martin trade after playing just a single game with the Canucks. He would apprentice with the Hawks farm team in New Brunswick and then as Esposito's understudy, taking over the starting role in 1982-83.

Bannerman was a standout early in his career, playing well enough to earn NHL All Star game invites in both 1983 and 1984. Ultimately he did not have the focus to take a poor Hawks team to a higher level. The intense scrutiny placed upon him as the man replacing Tony Esposito certainly did not help him.

He had all the tools to be a starting goalie, but critics agree he lacked the concentration skills. He was very inconsistent from game to game and even from period to period. When he was good he was good, but when his game fell apart he would sit too far back in his net and flopped in his goal crease like a fish out of water. An excellent skater and one of the earliest puckhandling goalies, Bannerman liked to stray from his crease, with some spectacularly disastrous results early in his career.

After seven years with the Hawks, Bannerman was sent to Saginaw of the IHL early in the 1987-88 season. He quit professional hockey soon after.

"I knew they were going to get some other goaltenders. The only thing I was upset about was when I talked to them all summer, they told me to come to camp, work hard and 'we'll give you a good chance to be a member of the team again.' Obviously, when you don't play one league game, that's not much of a chance. It's their right to make changes. But is it really so much to tell a guy you're not in the plans? i don't feel they ever really did it. Judging by the way many things have been handled, I guess you can't expect it."

Bannerman's NHL career spanned 8 seasons and 289 games played. His record in that time was 116 wins, 125 losses with 33 ties. He had 8 career shutouts and a lifetime 3.83 GAA.