Asked on the Clearing the Crease podcast to name the best players he played with, Wendel Clark got through Doug Gilmour, Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman in about fifteen seconds. Then he stopped on a defenceman who never won anything.
“[Börje] Salming was as good. We weren’t a great team, but we had Salming. Had he got to play [with] Potvin four years, Islanders, or Boston. Put him on a team, Montreal with Robinson and Savard. Put Salming on a team that good. I still have him easily top five ever. I might even have him higher than that. Ever.”
Top five defencemen in history is a long way from where Börje Salming actually sits. Sports Illustrated’s ranking of the 25 greatest defencemen put him 24th. Denis Potvin was fifth. Larry Robinson was sixth.
Clark’s explanation for the gap is not that the lists are stupid. It is that Salming never had a team.
Sixteen seasons, and never better than third
He played 16 seasons in Toronto, from 1973-74 to 1988-89, and the Maple Leafs never once finished higher than third in their own division. They reached the final four a single time, in 1978. They never played in a Stanley Cup Final. In Salming’s last eight seasons there, they cracked 70 points once.
Potvin won four Cups with the Islanders. Robinson won six in Montreal. Salming won none, and never won a Norris Trophy either — though he finished second twice, in 1977 and 1980, losing to Robinson both times. He was named to six NHL post-season All-Star teams and put up five straight 70-point seasons from the blue line.
The one time Salming played on a good team
There is one occasion when Salming was handed a good team, and it is the strongest evidence Clark has. At the 1976 Canada Cup, playing for Sweden, Salming was voted onto the tournament All-Star Team. The other defenceman selected was Bobby Orr. Sweden went 2-1-2 and did not reach the final.
“They couldn’t touch Börje”
The rest of Clark’s answer is not an argument at all. He arrived in Toronto in 1985 as the first overall pick. Salming was 34, turning 35, in his thirteenth NHL season.
“When we got there, [Al] Iafrate and [Russ] Courtnall were our fastest guys, and they couldn’t touch Börje. He was 35. And those two guys could skate. Remember the old training camps, you’d do eight laps one way and eight laps the other way? He’d be done his laps, and we’re not done. We’ve got more to do.”
Courtnall was among the quickest forwards in the league at the time. Iafrate was a 6’3″ defenceman who skated like a winger. Clark’s point is that the man beating them both was a decade past his best, and that this was the only version of Salming he ever saw.
Salming died in Sweden on 24 November 2022, aged 71, three months after announcing he had ALS. Twelve days earlier, Darryl Sittler and Mats Sundin had helped him onto the ice at Scotiabank Arena to a standing ovation. The Leafs started six Swedish players that night.
