St. Louis Blues: On The Seventh Day Of Bluesmas 2020

Garry Unger

For the slightly younger crowd, and those who only look at numbers, Unger is your man. Unger had more goals with the Blues alone than Berenson had in his entire career.

Unger was nicknamed the Iron Man because he playe 914 games straight without missing one. The only reason his streak ended was because the coach of the Atlanta Flames decided to bench him.

Unger ended his Blues career with 292 goals and 575 points. Over his entire career he had 413 goals and 804 points.

It’s interesting that the Red Wings would trade Unger. He was trending upward over the past two seasons with Detroit.

I guess they feared regression when he had only scored 13 goals through 51 games in the season he was traded. Detroit’s loss was the Blues gain.

Unger scored 70 points in his first, full season with the Blues. He scored 80 points the year after that (1974-75) and would score 80-plus points two more times with the Blues.

Even in his down years, he still scored more than 30 goals. In fact, Unger never scored fewer than 30 goals with the Blues when he played a full season.

Despite his skills waining in the NHL, Unger never lost his touch overall. After leaving North America, he played a few seasons in England and managed a whopping 95 goals and 200 points in 30 games one season.

Still, it was his iron will to stay on the ice that endeared him to Blues fans. While he loved the game and had a pain threshold unlike many others, it was a family situation that gave him extra motivation to push through.