Bobby Gould, Capitals fixture and a Cup-run Bruin, dies at 69

The Capitals have been a franchise for most of their history without much to point to, and Bobby Gould was one of the guys who made the thin years watchable anyway. He died Saturday at 69, and the number that says the most about him isn't a goal total. It's eight seasons in the same sweater, which in this league is its own kind of achievement.

Gould broke in with the Atlanta/Calgary Flames before Washington became his team for eight years, from 1981 to 1989. He played 600 games in a Capitals jersey, hit 20 goals four separate times, and had his best year in 1986-87 with 50 points. That's a middle-six winger who shows up every single night, which is exactly the player this site tends to notice. He finished third in Selke Trophy voting twice, after the 1982-83 and 1986-87 seasons, which tells you the league saw the same thing: a guy who did the stuff that doesn't make the highlight package.

He closed his career in Boston, and it was a good way to go out. The Bruins rode that roster to the 1990 Stanley Cup Final, where Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers beat them. Gould's full line: 145 goals, 159 assists, 572 penalty minutes across 11 NHL seasons. Not a star's resume. A pro's resume, which is the harder thing to be for over a decade.

The Capitals and the NHL announced his death Saturday. Washington's statement put it plainly: Gould was valued for the relationships he built and the impact he had on the people around him, on top of whatever he did on the ice. For a franchise that spent a long stretch of its history looking for an identity, that's a real tribute, the guy who gave it some of its spine got remembered for being a good teammate first.

Ferda take: every era has a Bobby Gould, the guy who never gets the banner but makes the other twenty guys in the room better. Petrolia, Ontario sent the league a worker, and the league got eleven seasons and a trip to a Final out of him. That's a hockey life well spent.