It was three days before the 1995 NHL trade deadline when the Detroit Red Wings, already with a roster sprinkled with future Hall of Famers, made a deal with Anaheim to bring in Stu Grimson.
A six-foot-five, 239-pound winger, Grimson had precisely one assist in 31 games, playing for the then-Mighty Ducks.
It was his 110 penalty minutes, though, that were appealing to coach/director of player personnel Scotty Bowman, who already had six Stanley Cup championships to his name from his time in Montreal in the 1970s. The Red Wings lost in the finals in 1995, but Grimson remained in Detroit for the 1995-96 season, tallying just one assist in 56 games — and adding another 156 penalty minutes, nearly half of which came from 15 five-minute fighting majors.
Grimson’s unique set of skills — or, more specifically, his ability to pummel whoever he was fighting — became less important in the playoffs. But Bowman decided that while Grimson wouldn’t be in the lineup for a second-round series with the Blues, he wanted him around the team anyway. Grimson’s fists might not be necessary, Bowman figured, but his voice and the way he perceived what was happening on the ice could be useful.
So for a handful of games, Grimson swapped his shoulder and elbow pads for a suit and tie, standing behind the bench alongside the legendary coach.
“It was the weirdest situation because, yes, I was coaching, technically, sort of,” Grimson recalled. “But I wasn’t involved in the coaches meetings between periods. I was sitting in my stall in the locker room, and I would behave in much the same manner that I did when I was a player. ‘Let’s chip it out, make sure you keep your feet moving.’ Nonsense like that.
“It’s probably a very illustrative example of, this is kind of what certain players are doing even before they step behind the bench or do something else in the game.”
Grimson officially retired in 2003, playing 729 career NHL games over a 14-year career, and posting 17 goals and 2,113 penalty minutes while earning one of the game’s all-time great monikers, “The Grim Reaper.” After earning a law degree from the University of Memphis in 2005, he worked as in-house counsel for the NHL players’ association for three years and then transitioned into television, appearing first as an analyst for the Nashville Predators and now the NHL Network.
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