1969 OPC #178 NRMT

A place among the greatest head coaches in NHL history will always be held by Alger Joseph "Radar" Arbour. His career totals of 1,606 games behind the bench and 781 victories trail only the legendary Scotty Bowman in the record ledger. Arbour's guidance contributed significantly to the New York Islanders' rapid ascent to competitive status in the 1970s and the club's subsequent run of four consecutive Stanley Cup wins from 1980 to 1983. As a player, he went to the Chicago Black Hawks, where he spent 3 seasons including 1961, the year of the franchise's Stanley Cup triumph. Arbour next played five seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs and earned his second Stanley Cup ring in 1962.

He retired and tries his hand at coaching. Starting out with the St. Louis blues, he quickly jumped at the greatest challenge of his young coaching career in 1973. Prior to the 1973-74 schedule, the New York Islanders were coming off a difficult expansion season in which they'd accumulated a mere 30 points. The organization felt it had some promise and required a young, ambitious figure to steer the team in the right direction. Arbour's positive impact on the team was immediate. The squad improved its total to 56 points and began building around talented defenseman Denis Potvin. Following the 1978-79 campaign, Arbour was presented the Jack Adams Award as the NHL's top coach. In 1979-80, the Islanders attained their ultimate goal by defeating the Philadelphia Flyers in six games to win the Stanley Cup in their eighth season. They repeated this accomplishment in each of the next three years to become only the second NHL club to win four straight titles (Montreal did it twice). Arbour retired in 1994 as the second-winningest coach of all time, with 781 regular-season victories and 123 post-season triumphs to his credit.