Keith Allen
Hockey
Flyers Legend and architect of the Broad Street Bullies
Keith Allen’s contribution
to the Flyers far outlasted
his time as GM. And it
continues today.
Because of the quality and the color
of the Broad Street Bullies team that
he put together, the Flyers have fans
everywhere, a fact reflected by how
much orange you see in the stands when
our team is on the road. That started with
Keith Allen. He didn’t care about credit,
only about Stanley Cups.
How great was a general manager who
built a Stanley Cup winner in a team’s
seventh year of existence? Keith Allen was
greater than even that. When the Flyers
won the Stanley Cup for the first time in
1973-74, none of the other five teams that
had entered the 1967 NHL expansion with
us even had a winning record.
There is no better example
of Keith’s vision and patience
than the three-way deal that
brought us Rick MacLeish
in 1971. We decided to use
our only position of depth—
goaltending—for
badly needed
scoring and, in
dealing Bernie
Parent, were
trading away a
beloved player.
This was only the
first of many examples of Keith doing
what he thought was right and not being
paralyzed by the fear of what fans and
media would think.
That year, when we added Bill Barber
with the seventh overall pick in the draft,
the belief I shared in Keith’s building
philosophy was backed up by my full
realization of what an incredible judge
of talent he was. I can’t remember one
player he traded away in his 14 years as
GM that we would come to regret. Bill
Fleischman of the Philadelphia Daily
News, who first called my GM “Keith the
Thief,” nailed it forever.
Once Keith fell in love with a player’s
promise, he was a bulldog about
eventually making that kid a Flyer.
From the day the Bruins drafted Reggie
Leach, Bobby Clarke’s junior line mate,
Keith planned either to trade for Reggie
or die trying.
Keith wanted talent on the rise and didn’t
settle for retreads when he picked his
coaches either. After firing Vic Stasiuk
five months after becoming GM, Allen
told me about the good track record of
somebody named Fred Shero, a coach in
the New York Ranger system.
“How well do you know Shero?” I asked.
“I don’t know him at all,” Keith said.
Think about that. Keith probably knew
five guys who had already been an NHL
head coach who would have been a
safe choice, but he wanted to take a
chance on someone with a great minor-league
record.
Nobody was too
obscure for Keith. Barry
Ashbee, who had been
passed over in two
expansion drafts, yet
became an NHL All
Star and perhaps our most courageous
player ever, was Allen’s fitting first-ever
acquisition. Because he so highly valued
character, our players were attractive to
struggling teams, enabling us to make
deals to steal good young talent.
Still, as tough-minded as he was
about infusing youth, Keith took care
of his veterans, especially the ones
who had won for us. He signed Andre
Dupont to a new contract before
sending him to his native Quebec to
finish his career and asked Joe Watson,
an original Flyer, for a list o f teams
where he might want to go before
trading him to one of them, Colorado.
Keith loved these guys, but he had an
almost perfect sense of when to move
on. That’s how Keith produced four
finalists, seven
semifinalists, seven
100-point teams,
and six regular
season division
champions in his 14
years as our GM.
In 1982, we traded
for Mark Howe,
which except for
getting Parent back from Toronto for a
No.1 and Doug Favell, perhaps was the
next best of all the great deals Keith ever
made. Mark, a Hall of Famer, anchored
us to two more Stanley Cup finals in
1985 and 1987 as one of 13 regulars
who played on those teams who were
acquired by Keith before he became a
senior adviser in 1983.
I loved Keith Allen for many more
reasons than how instrumental he was
in the Flyers’ and my personal success.
Keith was one of the nicest, most
straightforward, and solid persons you
ever would meet.
[Excerpt from the forward to Keith the
Thief by Blake Allen]
By Ed Snider with Jay Greenberg
