By: Mark Allred  |  Follow Me On Twitter @BlackAndGold277

Happy 73rd Birthday To Former Boston Bruins Forward Jim Lorentz!

Jim Lorentz was born on May 1st, 1947, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Before playing in his first National Hockey League games for the Boston Bruins, he spent several seasons in the organization’s minor system. The big 6′-0″ 190-pound forward was with the B’s OHA-Jr. club the Niagara Falls Flyers from the 1964-65 season to the 1966-67 campaign playing in a total of 129 games and posting 51-95-146 with his best OHA career year coming in his final season with Niagara in 66/67 contributing 33-59-92 numbers as a 19-year-old. Jim would go onto play in the CHL with the Oklahoma City Blazers from the 1967-68 season to the 1968-69 year as the NHL Bruins also had control of that team from 1965 to 1972. With the Blazers and a higher level, Lorentz would post 66-118-184 numbers in only 126 games in the United States midlands.

Lorentz didn’t play much for the Boston Bruins only appearing in 79 career games and putting up 8-19-27 numbers in his short stay with Boston, but the final year with the B’s might’ve been his most memorable. During the 1969-70 season, Jim and the Boston team would go onto win the fourth Stanley Cup in Franchise history going 7-16-23 in 68 regular-season games that year and 1-0-1 in 11 playoff games before raising the most famous trophy in professional sports history.

After beating the St. Louis Blues in early May of 1970, the Boston Bruins traded Lorentz to the “Show-Me-State” to join the Blues club, a team Boston beat just 16 days prior for St. Louis’ first-round selection in the 1970 NHL Amateur Draft. Per HockeyReference.com, that first-round selection would turn out to be Ron Plumb, who never played for the NHL Bruins electing to sign and play in the WHA.

Lorentz got off to a quick start in his first full year of NHL hockey, but his offensive numbers started to decline in the few seasons to follow. After only playing in 12 games for the Blues during the 1971-72 season, the St. Louis club traded him along with Gene Carr and Wayne Connelly to the New York Rangers for Jack Egers, Andre Dupont, and Mike Murphy in mid-November 1971. Lorentz would be on the move once again after only appearing in five games for the Blueshirts and was sent to the Buffalo Sabres, a 1970 expansion franchise. This move would prove to be the best fit for Lorentz as he went onto finish his NHL career posting 134-197-331 numbers in 487 games. Jim retired in 1978 and after playing in 659 career NHL games and hung up his skates after a 9-15-24 season with Buffalo and overall 161-238-399 totals in 10 seasons of NHL service and at the age of 30

Check out the new Black N’ Gold Hockey Podcast episode 176 that we recorded below on 4-27-20! You can find our show on many worldwide platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Spotify, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.

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