Eddie Shack 1961-62 Parkhurst #7

‘The Entertainer’, so many, including himself, have said that Eddie Shack could have been so much more than the class clown in the National Hockey League. The talent was there in Shack to be a scoring star in the league. As it was, Eddie played over 1,000 games in the NHL and was a member of four Stanley Cup championship teams in Toronto.

Eddie Shack – 1961-62 Parkhurst #7

The Eddie Shack 1961-62 Parkhurst hockey card is valued nearly seven times more than a common card. It is the third highest in value for Toronto Maple Leafs players and the sixth highest valued in the whole set. Not bad for a player standing outside the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The back of the card celebrates Shack’s achievements from the 1960-61 season. Eddie came to Toronto from the New York Rangers 12 games into the 1960-61 NHL season. With the Maple Leafs, he played 55 games, scoring 14 and assisting on 14 for 28 points. Shack’s combined 107 penalty minutes placed him eighth in the league.

Eddie Shack – NHL Career

Shack played five years of junior hockey in the OHA with the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters. In his final year, 1956-57, Eddie scored 47 goals and assisted on 57 for 104 points over 52 regular season games on the Eddie Bush coached team. Shack placed third in goal scoring behind Frank Mahovlich of Toronto St. Michael’s and Bill Sweeney, also of the Biltmores. Shack tied Sweeney for the league lead in assists and placed second in the league in the race for the Eddie Powers Trophy, two points behind his teammate.

After a year in the American Hockey League with the Providence Reds in 1957-58, Shack became a regular in the NHL with the Rangers. He played in the NHL from 1958-59 to 1974-75, appearing in 1,047 regular season games. Over that time, he scored 239 goals and assisted on 226 for 465 points. In the Stanley Cup playoffs, he played an additional 74 games, adding 13 points.

Eddie played for the Maple Leafs when they won three consecutive Stanley Cup championships between 1961-62 and 1963-64. He was also part of the 1966-67 Toronto team that won the last championship in franchise history. 

After that 1966-67 season, Shack was traded to the Boston Bruins where he played on a line with Derek Sanderson and Wayne Cashman. His days in Boston ended a year before the Bruins won two Stanley Cup championships over three years.

Besides being known for his antics, Shack is in the books as the first NHL player to record 20 or more goals in a single season with five different teams. In 1965-66, he scored 26 with the Maple Leafs. Alongside Sanderson and Cashman, he scored 23 with the Bruins in 1967-68. Eddie scored 22 with the Los Angeles Kings in 1969-70 then 25 with the Buffalo Sabres the following season. In 1972-73, he completed his goal scoring tour of the league with 25 goals as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins.