The History of the Washington Capitals(Est. 1973)
ROD LANGWAY---SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
ROD LANGWAY CAPITALS STATS
PLUS/MINUS: +117 (1ST)
GAMES: 726 (10TH)
Rod Langway (born May 3, 1957) played for the Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals in the National Hockey League (NHL) and Birmingham Bulls of the World Hockey Association (WHA). Langway also spent time with teams in the American Hockey League (AHL) and East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) as a player-coach after his NHL career ended. A two-time winner of the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the top defenseman in the NHL, Langway was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2002.
Rod Langway was born when his father, an American serviceman, was stationed in Taiwan, and he is the only NHL player to have been born in Taiwan. He grew up in Randolph, Massachusetts, and did not begin playing hockey until age 13 in 1970, aside from pick-up street hockey games with the neighborhood boys. He then played hockey for his high school team, the Randolph Blue Devils, which he led to state tournament appearances in 1973, 1974 and 1975. He was also a standout quarterback for the Randolph High football team, and was one of the top football recruits in the nation. As a catcher on the Randolph High baseball team Langway was considered a baseball pro-prospect. However, the top college football programs in the country had identified Langway as a future NFL quarterback. It was a football recruiter from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) who convinced him to play college hockey at UNH. UNH was one of the few schools that would allow him to play both football and hockey in college, which he did without having to choose one over the other as an incoming freshman. Langway went on to lead UNH to the NCAA hockey final four in 1977. Ultimately hockey ended up being the direction for him as a professional career. He was inducted into the Randolph High School (Massachusetts) Athletic Hall of Fame and the University of New Hampshire Athletic Hall of Fame.
A left-handed shot, Langway was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens of the NHL in 1977 and by the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA in the same year. He played one season for the Bulls (1977–78) before joining the Canadiens for the 1978–79 NHL season, and would win the Stanley Cup that year. He played for Montreal until he was traded to the Washington Capitals for the start of the 1982–83 season. The Capitals acquired Langway from the Canadiens in a blockbuster trade—going with Doug Jarvis, Craig Laughlin, and Brian Engblom in exchange for Ryan Walter and Rick Green—that not only saved the franchise from moving out of D.C., but also stocked them for an extended string of postseason appearances. After not making the playoffs in their first eight seasons in the league, the Capitals competed in the postseason in every one of the 11 years that Langway was with the team. Following that trade, the Capitals named Langway their captain, which he would hold for the next 11 seasons until his NHL retirement. (Wikipedia)
As captain, Langway became known as an accomplished leader who demanded greatness from himself and others, earning the nickname "Secretary of Defense". Many people considered him the franchise's savior, despite not being the sort of player that one would expect to prevent the club from moving. Langway's predecessors as Norris Trophy winners were the dominant defensemen of the 1970s, like Bobby Orr, Larry Robinson, and Denis Potvin, who had put up high scoring numbers. By contrast, Langway was a traditional defender whose shot was likened to a "cool summer breeze", scoring only three goals during one of his best seasons, though he is remembered by Capitals fans for a game–winning goal in overtime against the New York Rangers' Mike Richter in the 1990 playoffs. Despite his lack of offensive production, his excellence at his position was credited with significantly reducing the Capitals' goals against average, which enabled them to finally make the playoffs.
Langway won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman in both 1983 and 1984. He earned two postseason All-Star First Team selections and one Second Team selection as a defenseman—the first American NHL All-Star since Frank Brimsek in 1948. Langway finished runner-up to Wayne Gretzky for the Hart Trophy in 1984. He was also part of the NHL All-Star team that played the Soviet national hockey team in Rendez-Vous '87. Upon his retirement from the NHL in 1993, Langway was the last active player who won a Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens during their late-70s dynasty. In international hockey, he represented the United States in the 1981, 1984, and 1987 Canada Cup as well as the 1982 Ice Hockey World Championship tournaments.
Langway's jersey number (#5) was retired by the Washington Capitals on November 26, 1997, and he was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1999. His career was crowned with his election to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2012, he was inducted into the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame in the “Legends of the Game” category.
Rod Langway Trade Turned Capitals Into Contenders
30 years ago Sunday, then-Capitals GM David Poile made the most significant trade in the brief history of the Washington Capitals.
by Ted Starkey Sep 7, 2012 sbnation.com
There are six pages of transactions listed in the Washington Capitals' media guide dating back to the franchise's first season in 1974.
Although all the trades are listed in the same font size, there is little doubt that one of the two deals listed for the date of September 9, 1982 is the largest in the team's history.
After a turbulent summer that saw the franchise nearly leave town, the Capitals were still looking for the first playoff berth in the team's eight-year history, and new Washington general manager David Poile - who was hired at the end of August to turn around what had been one of the league's perennially struggling franchises - made a big splash.
Poile sent team captain Ryan Walter and defenseman Rick Green to Montreal in exchange for Canadiens defensemen Rod Langway and Brian Engblom - who legendary Montreal Gazette writer Red Fisher said were "generally regarded as the best defensive pair in the National Hockey League" - along with forwards Craig Laughlin and Doug Jarvis.
While the price was steep - Walter was the second-overall pick in the 1978 NHL Draft and Green the top overall pick in 1976 - the return changed the course of Capitals' history, and gave the team a new defensive identity that defined the franchise through the 1980s.
"This trade makes the Capitals competitive," Poile told reporters at the old Capital Centre, per the Washington Post. "We've added four quality players. For the first time in Capitals history, we have a defense."
WNST's Ed Frankovic recalled the trade, and how it shaped the club.
"At the time it didn't seem too bold because the team was bad and they needed a drastic change. In hindsight, to come in and trade two top players to a franchise like Montreal with such a storied history that always seemed to come out on top in trades was very risky. The Caps' early years were littered with bad trades, but clearly Poile was the answer at GM that Washington never had until then, because he knew what he was getting in return."
According to what Langway said at the time, money - and Quebec's high tax rate - was a big factor in the trade.
"They knew they either had to make me happy with more money, or had to trade me," Langway told Fisher. "I was honest with them. I told them I'd walk if they didn't do something with my contract or trade me, and believe me, I would have walked."
Langway went from a team just three seasons removed from its fourth consecutive Stanley Cup to one that had never been part of a 16-team playoff field in a 21-team league. There was no doubt that Washington was going to be a change.
"The pressure won't be as great, and while I know I'm going to a team which hasn't made the playoffs, what I have to do is help the team make it," he told the Gazette.
That he did. The Capitals never missed the playoffs with Langway in the lineup, and didn't miss the postseason again until the 1996-97 season, four years after his last game in Washington.
Ironically, the Montreal Gazette bemoaned the loss of Langway's defensive partner Engblom more than the departure of the future Hall of Famer. Fisher - a Hall of Famer in his own right - acknowledged Langway "had to go" with his salary demands, but also wrote "I can understand Jarvis going in a trade and players like Laughlin, unhappily, are born to be traded - but what was [Canadiens GM] Irving [Grundman] thinking about when he agreed to relinquish Engblom, who had been the best Canadiens defenceman during the last two seasons ... by far?"
As for the outgoing Capitals, Green told the Gazette Walter was "shocked" by the trade, "because he's been a leader here, both on and off the ice. He was really settled."
For his part, Green was more direct. "I'm just glad to be getting out of here and to get with a winner."
With Langway and young defenseman Scott Stevens, the Capitals became one of the league's best defensive clubs. Engblom was traded again 13 months later -- sent to the Los Angeles Kings along with Ken Houston for future Hall of Famer Larry Murphy. Doug Jarvis - one of the NHL's top defensive forwards - won the Selke Trophy in 1983-84 for his work, and was a big part of the early 1980s Caps until his trade to Hartford for Jorgen Pettersson in 1985. And Laughlin played for the Capitals in six seasons before getting dealt to Los Angeles in 1988, although he is now more well-known for being the color commentator on Comcast SportsNet telecasts.
"The Langway trade was huge on so many fronts," Frankovic said. "Rod was a natural leader because of his work ethic, ability to talk the talk and walk the walk, and his knack for including everyone and getting them on the same page. He put the team first and he took on a great responsibility to ensure that this team came together and got better. Langway was in his prime when he came over and there was noone better on defense than him in those days. He was a can do guy and his hard work style was what the team needed. During Rod's tenure as captain there was never a question of leadership on those Capitals teams."
While Green and Walter missed out on Washington's hockey renaissance, they did get to get their name on the Stanley Cup as members of Montreal's 1985-86 title squad.
But after a summer of uncertainty, the bold move 30 years ago Sunday helped change the Capitals from also-rans to Stanley Cup contenders. It also helped the Capitals, who had trouble drawing fans during the team's playoff drought, to near-capacity average attendances by the end of the decade as the team took a deeper hold in Washington's sports culture.
"Best trade in franchise history to this day, no doubt," Frankovic said. "Langway, Engblom, Jarvis, and Laughlin combined with rookie Scott Stevens turned the Capitals from one of the doormats of the league into a winning team instantly. From then on the Capitals were taken seriously and were pretty much always in the Stanley Cup conversation during Langway's career. In the local area, hockey suddenly became a real interest point from that 1982-83 season on and Langway's presence helped to transform the whole organization. If they only had a goalie back in the 80's they might have won a Stanley Cup."