Guy Lafleur spent the first 14 years with the Montreal Canadiens, followed by a three-year retirement, and then he came back to skate with the New York Rangers for one season and the Quebec Nordiques for two.

Known as one of the greatest right wingers ever to play the game and one of the most exciting offensive players of all time, Lafleur was also known as "le Demon Blond" (the Blond Demon) for his long hair, wild rushes down the ice and booming shot.

Although he is best known for his glory years with Montreal, he only ended up with the Habs because they had arranged a complicated series of deals with the California Golden Seals to get the Seals' first draft pick in 1971 and used it to pick Lafleur from the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec junior league. Scouts had been watching Lafleur as he led the Remparts to the Memorial Cup in 1971, and Montreal GM Sam Pollock was keen on ensuring Lafleur wound up in a Montreal sweater.

Lafleur was a First Team all-star in all six of those consecutive 50-goal seasons and won the scoring title three times, the Hart Trophy twice and the Conn Smythe Trophy once. He has the highest career point and assist totals in Montreal history, as well as the second-highest goal total behind Rocket Richard. And when Lafleur reached the 1,000-point mark, he did it in just 720 games, the shortest time taken to hit that milestone in NHL history. After that, he concluded: "I'm not going to say that now that I have 1,000 points I can sit down and relax. I've got five or six years to go and I can shoot for more."

During his 14 years with the Canadiens, Lafleur and his teammates won the Stanley Cup five times. After Montreal won the Stanley Cup in 1978, he borrowed it for the weekend without telling anyone to show his friends back home in Thurso. Lafleur boldly displayed it on his front lawn for all his neighbors to see!

Lafleur played 19 games at the start of the 1984-85 season but had only two goals in those games. It was then he decided to retire. In front of 18,000 fans at the Montreal Forum, he took one last skate around the ice and the crowd gave him a five-minute standing ovation. "After 13 years, I couldn't accept to be number two. I'm proud of what I did in the past and I'm proud I played for the Canadiens, especially on five Stanley Cup winners. I was in a slump and I wasn't scoring much at the time. I was frustrated."

Lafleur became the sixth Canadien to have his sweater number retired after Jacques Plante, Doug Harvey, Jean Beliveau, Howie Morenz and Maurice and Henri Richard. He was in tears as team president Ronald Corey presented him with the number 10. Journalist Red Fisher commented: "Everybody knew that he represented something special as a maker of excellence on the ice. What not enough people are aware of is his decency off the ice. In all the years I've covered the Canadiens, I don't think any one of the teams had more rapport with or respect from fans in the other cities. The respect and reaction of out-of-town fans was almost surprising as if they felt that Guy belonged not only to the Canadiens but in large part to them as well."

Retiring as a player at age 33, Lafleur went into a front-office position with the Canadiens. "I'm leaving the ice, but I want everybody to know that I'll never leave the sport." But his time with the Canadiens front office was short. Lafleur called the $75,000 they were offering him "clerk's pay."