Six seasons Buddy O’Connor played for his hometown team in Montreal in the 1940s, putting in work as a serviceable centreman and helping the Canadiens win a Stanley Cup championship. But it was after he was traded in 1947 to the New York Rangers that O’Connor’s star really began to shine in the NHL.

Born on a Wednesday of today’s date in 1916, O’Connor contrived to score 24 goals and 60 points in his first season with the Rangers, 1947-48, which was almost (but not quite) enough to win him the NHL’s scoring championship: as it turned out, his former Montreal teammate Elmer Lach beat him by a single point.

O’Connor did collect two major trophies that season, the Hart (as MVP) and the Lady Byng (for gentlemanly excellence), and in doing so he became the first NHLer to win them in the same season. Each trophy came with $500 bonus that year, and with O’Connor’s share of the Rangers’ playoff money that spring, he took in $4,150 over and above his salary.

The following season. O’Connor’s second with the Rangers, started off with an unfortunate bang when he and a carload of teammates were injured in an accident. Driving from Montreal to New York in early October of 1948, the Rangers collided with a truck on the road six miles north of the U.S. border. Frank Eddolls severed a tendon in his knee, and Bill Moe suffered a concussion; Edgar Laprade broke his nose, and O’Connor a pair of ribs. Only Tony Leswick escaped without injury.

Eddolls missed the most time, finally returning to the ice at the end of December. O’Connor got back earlier that same month, and on December 7, just before New York’s game at Madison Square Garden against the Boston Bruins, he was presented with the silverware he’d earned the year before.

The Rangers were holding down last place at the time in the six-team NHL, while Boston was way up in first. The Rangers took the lead, 2-1, on goals from Pentti Lund and Nick Mickoski, with Grant Warwick replying for the Bruins, but they took a penalty in the second for too-many men, and Ken Smith secured the 2-2 tie for the Bruins. O’Connor centred New York’s third line on the night, skating between Leswick and Clint Albright.