When Elmer Lach first stepped up to centre the Montreal Canadiens’ powerful Punch Line in 1943, his wingers were Maurice Richard and Toe Blake. The combination was a new one, though not the name. Going back at least as far as the 1939-40 campaign, the Montreal Royals of the Quebec Senior Hockey League had a Punch Line of their own, with Buddy O’Connor flanking Pete Morin and Gerry Heffernan. All three of them, of course, would eventually graduate to play for the Canadiens, with O’Connor going on to win Hart and Lady Byng trophies as a New York Ranger. Then in 1942-43, when O’Connor and Heffernan were both skating for Montreal, the team’s top trio was a Punch Line featuring Lach down the middle with Blake and Joe Benoit as his wingers. Maurice Richard took Benoit’s place the following year when the latter enlisted to serve with the Canadian Army.

Born on a Tuesday of this date in 1918 in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, Lach had made his NHL debut during the NHL’s 1940-41 season, during part of which he played on a line with left winger Tony Demers and, on right, (the other, non-Detroit Red Wings) Jack Adams. The following year, ’41-42, Lach and Demers combined with rookie Richard to form the line shown posing in the photograph here. All three players having been injured during the previous year — Lach and Richard on the ice, Demers in an automobile accident — they were dubbed, naturally, the Broken Bone Line.