Red Handed: New York Americans coach Red Dutton congratulates right winger Lorne Carr on the night of Tuesday, March 29, 1938, after their team beat the Chicago Black Hawks 3-1 at Madison Square Garden to take the opening game of their playoff semi-final. The Americans had sailed past the Rangers in the first round, but couldn’t keep up the momentum against the Black Hawks, losing the next two games to the eventual Stanley Cup champions.

Red Dutton did it all in the NHL. A star defenceman in the old WHL, Dutton, who died on a Sunday of this date in 1987 at the age of 89, joined the Montreal Maroons in 1926, anchoring the defence and ending up captain of the team before moving on to the New York Americans after four seasons. He played six further seasons with the Amerks and ended up as coach of the team — and caretaker owner, too,  after the NHL separated Bill Dwyer from the franchise in the 1930s. The Americans, of course, didn’t survive the tumultuous years of the Second World War; Dutton, meanwhile, took over as interim president of the league after Frank Calder’s death in 1943. A Hall-of-Famer and Stanley Cup trustee, Dutton ran a highly successful construction based in Calgary, where also, through the years, he was owner and president of the CFL Stampeders and headed the city’s famous Stampede.