Advent Day 14 - Rene Robert

One player has the distinction of having their number 14 retired in the NHL - Rene Robert.

His career actually started out not with Buffalo but with 5 games playing for the Maple Leafs in 1970, he then spent half a season in Pittsburgh before landing with the Sabres.

As part of the French Connection Robert was Buffalo's first 100 point scorer and the team nearly took the Cup in 1975, losing in the Finals to the Flyers. He had 7 highly succesful seasons with the Sabres before being traded to the hapless Rockies. Don Cherry, then head coach of the team, sums his time in Colorado up pretty well:

"After I got Robert, and looked at some of the guys he had to work with, I'd feel sorry for the guy. He blocked shots, threw his weight around and fought. He even played though he had a broken thumb, a separated shoulder and a pulled groin! Considering our collection of players, I wouldn't have blamed Robert if he had just thrown in the towel, but he wouldn't quit."

After a season with the Rockies he was back where he started playing in Toronto. He retired after the 1982 season. He played in 2 All-Star games and was for a time president of the NHL Alumni Association.

In 1990 the Sabres retired Gilbert Perreault's number, 5 years later they retired Rick Martin and Robert's - immortalizing the French Connection.

More on Robert can be found at the Buffalo Sabres Alumni page here.

The jerseys in the database are here.

Just how good was the French Connection?
So good they wrote a pretty awful song about them -