Buffalo Sabres Forward
It only took Rick Martin one year to join his longtime “French Connection” linemate Gilbert Perreault, one of 1991’s inaugural inductees, in the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.
Born in 1951 in Verdun, Quebec, Martin played his amateur hockey with the Montreal Junior Canadians. Martin was drafted by the Sabres in the first round, and was an immediate contributor. He scored 44 goals and 30 assists for 74 points in 73 games his rookie year, breaking Perreault’s rookie record of 72 points set the year before. Armed with a devastating slapshot, he and Perreault, along with winger Rene Robert, propelled “The French Connection” to national fame as one of the game’s greatest scoring lines.
During his career with the Sabres, Martin scored 382 goals and 695 points, second only to Gilbert Perreault, in the Buffalo Sabres all-time scoring.
Martin’s career was highlighted by back-to-back 52-goal seasons in 1973-74 and 1974-75. A first team NHL all-star selection in 1974 and 1975, and a second team selection in 1976 and 1977, Martin narrowly missed a third straight 50-goal campaign in 1975-76, when he entered the final game of the season with 49, only to be held scoreless in the contest.
After ten seasons with the Sabres, Martin was traded to the Los Angeles Kings at the end of the 1980-81 season, where he would play only four more games before his retirement in 1982.
In 1992, he joined Seymour and Northrup Knox, the same men who drafted him to the Buffalo Sabres, as a member of the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.