In 2005, I started to get the collecting itch again after purging most of my collection in 2002 to assist with the purchase of my first house. With $10 burning a hole in my pocket at a flea market in Ohio, I purchased a lot of 50 hockey rookie cards from an older lady selling mostly knitted dolls. She wouldn't let me look inside the small box, but she said her son had collected up until a few years ago and these were his "leftovers." I figured most of the cards were commons and I remember when I got back to my house, I had heard of a few of the guys, but some of the cards were from players in the 1970's. Not all are in the best shape, but for $10, what do you want? After a while, I decided just to put the box in the corner of my closet, and I simply forgot about it. So, 14 years later, I decided I would take out a card from the box at random and write a small post about the player. I'll count down from 50. Here goes:
43. 1983/84 O-Pee-Chee Gary Laskoski RC #156
The first goalie on this list is Gary Laskoski. Laskoski was born on June 6, 1959, in Ottawa, Ontario. During his college years, Laskoski would attend St. Lawrence University. He immediately became their starter. In his freshman season, Gary would play in 21 games with abysmal results (5 wins, 15 losses). His Goals Against Average wasn't anything to write home about either at 4.94 to go along with an .876 Save Percentage. However, St. Lawrence stuck with Laskoski as their back stopper for the next 3 seasons. With a Win-Loss record of 3-13, 10-10 and 7-7, it didn't appear that Laskoski had what it takes to be a starting goalie, let alone a backup goalie in the NHL. This is where the Los Angeles Kings come in. They offered Laskoski a tryout before the 1982/83 season started. His performance was so stellar, the Kings named him their starting goaltender for that season. Gary didn't even sign an actual NHL contact until after several regular season games had already been played. Instead, the Kings were paying him $200 a game! That season, the Kings goaltending was less than great. In the Smythe Division that year, you could find the Los Angeles Kings at the bottom of the standings with 27 wins total and 41 losses to go along with 12 ties. The Kings would use not only Laskoski in net, but also Mario Lessard (19 games), Markus Mattsson (19 games), Mike Blake (9 games) and Doug Keans (6 games). Laskoski would get the bulk of the work, however, and play in 46 of the teams 80 games winning 15 and losing 20 with 4 ties to his credit. His GAA was almost average for the era at 4.56 with a Save Percentage of .857. Even after that pretty average season, the Kings didn't go out to find a better goalie. The opening of the 1983/84 season saw the Kings sit Laskoski for the first month of the season before trying him back out as their starting goalie. It did not go well at all. Gary would hold onto the starting job from November until the end of December. His record of 4-7-1 to go along with a 4.96 GAA and a .829 save percentage didn't warrant him any more starts and the Kings decided to go with Mike Blake as their starter with Marco Baron and Markus Mattsson backing him up. As for Laskoski, well, he was sent down to the Kings affiliate the New Haven Nighthawks where he would finish out his last season of pro hockey before retirement.
Information about Laskoski is hard to find. I tried multiple searches for information from him and there wasn't much, so I apologize. I think as of right now he's a retired Geophysical Technologist. At least I think that's him, but I could be wrong. Fun fact, Laskoski was the only goalie in NHL history that played in the NHL the season immediately after playing college hockey and not playing any games in the minors beforehand until Devon Levi became the second in 2022. Pretty wild.
Thanks for reading.
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