1977-78 O-Pee-Chee 17 Willi Plett Hockey Card (Front)
1977-78 O-Pee-Chee 17 Willi Plett Hockey Card (Back)
1977-78 O-Pee-Chee NHL Checklist
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Card Notes
One of the NHL’s outstanding rookies of the 1976-77 campaign, he played 14 games at Tulsa during the season and was superb. Possessed with a strong wrist shot and fine scoring ability, he’s acknowledged as one of the Flames’ aggressive players.
En Français
Une des meilleures recrues de la saison 1976-77, il joua aussi 14 matches pour Tulsa où il brilla. Willi a un bon lancer du poignet et on le considère comme un joueur agressif.
Details
The back of this card contains a slight typo ERROR – in the info snippet, ‘played’ is spelled ‘palyed’.
Actually, Willi Plett was THE outstanding rookie of the 1976-77 NHL season. Plett captured the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year with a decent edge in voting over second place Don Murdoch. Roland Eriksson, Glen Sharpley and Mike Palmateer were also in the running.
As a rookie, Willi scored 33 goals over just 64 games with the Flames. Three of those goals came on the night of March 13, 1977 in a 5-3 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Along with his hat trick, Plett also had a third period fight with Dan Newman of the Rangers. All of Plett’s goals were scored on New York goalie Gilles Gratton.
Over the following three seasons, Plett’s numbers were not at the level of his rookie season. However, the move to Calgary for the franchise for the 1980-81 NHL season brought new life to his game. He scored a career high 38 goals and 68 points. He finished fifth in the league with 239 penalty minutes, 104 behind leader Dave “Tiger” Williams.
Between 1975-76 and 1987-88, Willi Plett appeared in 834 regular season and 83 playoff games in the National Hockey League with the Flames, Minnesota North Stars and Boston Bruins. The fifth round pick of the Flames at the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft went on to amass 2,572 career regular season penalty minutes, still good for 16th all-time.