We interrupt our scheduled programming…

…To announce that all-time Buffalo Sabres great Rick Martin is dead at the age of 59, according to the Buffalo News. He was apparently driving in the suburb of Clarence when he suffered a fatal heart attack. I was going to do a post about the Sabres’ recent good fortune in the standings and I’ll get around to it after this post, though maybe not before today’s game against the Ottawa Senators. But Martin was such an important figure in Sabres history that he deserves to have his own post.

Obviously, I became a Sabres fan well after the heyday of Martin and his French Connection cohorts, Gilbert Perreault and Rene Robert. Martin and Robert both retired in 1982, a full eight years before I was born and Perreault joined them in retirement in 1987. By contrast, I was born three years after Perreault retired and didn’t become the diehard Sabres fan I am now until the 2005-2006 season. I never saw the French Connection play and so all I have are the recollections of those Sabres fans I know who were actually lucky enough to see them in action, the same as I do with Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith and the Buffalo Braves or the AFL champion Buffalo Bills of the mid 1960’s.

But what those memories from the veteran fans I know and what the all-too-small amounts of video footage of the Sabres in the 70’s reveal is that while Perreault might be the only member of the French Connection to have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, all three players were nothing short of amazing, including Martin.

At a time when the Sabres were a brand-new team in a rapidly declining market and could very easily have been out of town within its first decade, as was the case with the Braves, the Atlanta Flames, the California Golden Seals and the Kansas City Scouts, Martin and his cohorts were dynamic, exciting players. Martin was just as responsible for Perreault for saving the team.

They enabled what was basically an expansion team to not only make the playoffs for the first time in just their third year but to make the Stanley Cup Finals only five years after being founded and to come within two games of knocking off the mighty Philadelphia Flyers for the Stanley Cup itself. Martin scored a respectable 382 goals during his 11-season career, including 52 goals in one season two years in a row at the Sabres’ peak in 1974 and 1975.

Those goal totals, if I’m not mistaken, are still tied for the fourth most in a season in Sabres history, with only Danny Gare, Pat Lafontaine and of course, Alexander “76 goals in one season” Mogilny ever having topped them. That’s right, even the great Perreault couldn’t top his winger in that department.

Martin also suffered several injuries, including one induced by Dave Farish of the New York Rangers which is credited with helping to increase the use of helmets among the Sabres, as well as a 1980 knee injury which eventually led to his being traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1981 and retiring shortly thereafter.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Pegula era so far has been the Sabres’ new owner’s eagerness to reach out to the team’s former greats, including estranged legends like Robert, who had criticized ex-owner Tom Golisano’s ownership style and been ostracized for it, and Dominik Hasek, who didn’t exactly leave Buffalo on the best terms way back in 2002.

Pegula calls it the “French Reconnection” and even never having seen the French Connection play on TV or in person, I couldn’t help but be inspired by the sight of the team’s three original franchise players at the press conference introducing Pegula to the Buffalo public. They were a living reminder of just how much greatness the Sabres have achieved in their 40 years so far and of the potential to reach that greatness once more. So even though I never saw him play a game, I can honestly say I’ll miss Rick Martin and all that he represented.