Former NHLer Johnny Wilson Dies at LinesMaker

Former NHLer Johnny Wilson Dies

Johnny Wil­son, a four-time win­ner Stan­ley Cup win­ner with the Detroit Red Wings and uncle of Maple Leafs coach Ron Wil­son, has passed away at the age of 82.

Ron Wil­son broke the news via twit­ter on Tuesday.

“My uncle, Johnny Wil­son, passed away this morn­ing at 82 yrs. He was a war­rior thru & thru, right to the end. Our fam­ily will miss him dearly,” the Leaf bench boss tweeted on Tuesday.

Johnny Wil­son, a native of Kin­car­dine, Ont., scored 161 goals and added 171 assists in 688 games with Detroit, Toronto, Chicago and the New York Rangers. In the process, he helped the Wings dynasty win Cups in 1950, ’52, ’54 and ’55.

Johnny Wil­son also coached seven sea­sons in the NHL, serv­ing stints behind the bench with Los Ange­les, Detroit, Col­orado and Pitts­burgh.

Dur­ing his play­ing career, he also put together the NHL’s iron­man streak of 580 games, a mark that was eclipsed by the New York Rangers’ Andy Heben­ton in 1964.

Dur­ing an inter­view with the Toronto Sun’s Steve Sim­mons just before the 2011-12 NHL reg­u­lar sea­son kicked off, Johnny Wil­son acknowl­edged his health issues.

“When I’m sit­ting down, I feel like a mil­lion bucks,” Johnny Wil­son told Sim­mons over the phone. “But when I get up, I’ve got this oxy­gen thing I’ve got to carry around with me. I’ve had a lit­tle trou­ble with my lungs after an oper­a­tion. I’ve got to have this damn thing with me all the time. I’m hang­ing in there as best I can for an old guy. But some­times you need to slow down.”

Johnny Wil­son also admit­ted at the time that he gave his nephew Ron some help­ful tips.

“He’s (Ron) got a tough job in Toronto,” Johnny Wil­son told Sim­mons. “I told (Ron), he’s got to get those play­ers fired up.

“He knows the game. He knows what has to be done. You can stand in the dress­ing room some­times and give these kids all kinds of advice but the prob­lem is, once they hit the ice, it’s all turned over to the players.

“I was a left winger. I don’t know how I’d react to all this coach­ing today. I’d go out there and react to the sit­u­a­tions as they tran­spire. I’d do it instinc­tively. Today, you’ve got some­body telling you, you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that. I think I’d go out there and be too afraid of mak­ing a mistake.”

There was no ini­tial word on the cause of Johnny Wilson’s death.

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