Brett Hull was about to turn 37 in the summer of 2001 and had just been made a free agent, with Dallas declining to pick up a $7 million option on him. Free agency opened on July 1 and the experience was not what he had pictured.
“You have an ego, right? And July 1st, you’re expecting at 12:01 a.m. the phone to ring and have your agent go, ‘Well, this team and this team, and they’ve all called,’ and it really wasn’t that way,” Hull said on Gloves Off: The Enforcer Code.
The Montreal Canadiens had an idea about how to get his attention. They put Jean Beliveau on the phone.
“I was out with my wife for lunch one day and my phone rang and I saw it was a Montreal number. It was Jean Beliveau, my dad’s favorite player,” Hull said. “And I’m outside the restaurant, and I’m a pacer when I talk on the phone. So I’m walking up and down the sidewalk and I can just imagine the people going, ‘What is this guy doing?’ And so, 45 minutes I talked with Jean Beliveau, and he was selling me on the Montreal Canadiens.”
It worked.
“I’m like, Montreal Canadiens? Are you kidding? It’s iconic, like playing for the New York Yankees,” Hull said. He asked for a couple of days to think it over, and his wife spent dinner that week talking him further into it.
“She goes, ‘I think it’d be real cool. I could learn French and it’s a beautiful city and the history, and you playing for the Montreal Canadiens would be incredible,'” Hull said.
Brett Hull’s three seasons in Detroit:
| Season | Games | Goals | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001-02 | 82 | 30 | 63 |
| 2002-03 | 82 | 37 | 76 |
| 2003-04 | 81 | 25 | 68 |
Why did Brett Hull sign with the Red Wings?
He had already made his decision, and it wasn’t Detroit. Hull was physically reaching for the phone to tell Montreal yes when the thing rang in his hand.
“And I go, ‘Oh, honey, it’s Chelly.’ I picked it up and Chelly goes, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ I go, ‘Good.’ He goes, ‘You want to come play for the Red Wings?’ And I go, ‘Yes,'” Hull said. “It was just that simple.”
Chris Chelios had beaten Montreal to it by the width of a phone call. Hull took a two-year, $9 million deal in Detroit despite the fact that Montreal and the Rangers had both offered more money, because what he wanted was a second Stanley Cup.
READ MORE: Brett Hull warned Wayne Gretzky not to join his team
He got it inside a year. Detroit won the Presidents’ Trophy with 116 points, Hull scored 30 in the regular season and then led the entire league with 10 in the playoffs, including the 100th postseason goal of his career in the Final against Carolina. The Red Wings won the Cup in five games.
Hull retired in 2005 with 741 goals and 1,391 points, and has never played a game for the Canadiens.
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