Former NHL player and coaching legend Billy Reay has died at the age of 86 after losing a battle with liver cancer.
Reay played in the NHL for 10 seasons, including eight with the Montreal Canadiens. He won the Stanley Cup in his first year with the Habs, 1946, and again in 1953 - his final season as a player.
In 479 games, Reay scored 105 goals and 267 points. In 63 playoff games, Reay scored 13 goals and 29 points.
After retiring as a player, Reay took up coaching and really made his mark on the hockey world. He coached three seasons in the American Hockey League, reaching the final all three times and leading the Buffalo Bisons to the title in 1963.
After that, the NHL came calling. After a 90 game stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Reay coached the Chicago Blackhawks for 13 full seasons, missing the playoffs only once. Three times he led the Hawks to the Stanley Cup final.
In 1971, Chicago had 2-0 and 3-2 leads in the final series against Montreal, but the Canadiens forced a seventh game. The Hawks had a 2-0 lead in the second period of Game 7, but lost 3-2.
"I remember (Bobby) Hull hit the crossbar with a shot that would have made it 3-0," Reay said. "Then (Jacques) Lemaire scored on a long shot to make it 2-1. I thought that was the year we were going to win it, but that's the way things go in hockey."
The last time he took the Hawks to the final, Reay was matched up against one of his former junor players - Scotty Bowman. The student beat the mentor when Bowman's Canadiens won the 1973 series in six games.
Reay was replaced by Bill White in the middle of the 1976-77 season, allegedly getting the news through a note that was slipped under his hotel room door. He never got another head coaching job in the NHL. His legacy, however, remains in the numbers he piled up behind the bench. Reay is sixth all-time with 542 wins in 1,102 games as a coach. His winning percentage of .563 (including playoffs) is also in the all-time top-ten.
Reay is not in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but the three retired coaches ahead of Reay on the all-time wins list are enshrined: Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour and Dick Irvin. Active NHL coaches Mike Keenan and Pat Quinn are also ahead of Reay on the wins list.
Reay was known for coaching in a dignified manner, and never showed up his players. "He treated the players like men," Hall-of-Famer Stan Mikita once said. He preached defence first, as demonstrated by his famous mantra, "None Against."