Bob Baun, hero of what most consider to be the gutsiest playoff goal in Maple Leafs history, has died at age 86. 

Of 100 players in franchise history ranked by an alumni/media panel in the club’s 2017 centennial, Baun placed 30th and seventh among all club defencemen.  

Baun had some foot bones broken while shot-blocking early in his career and nearly died in a freak injury during the final game of the 1960-61 regular season in New York. 

In a collision with Rangers’ Camille Henry, the latter’s skate bruised Baun’s throat. Baun came back in the game’s third period, but afterwards was found by teammate Tim Horton gasping for air as the Leafs were about to board their bus. An emergency operation was needed to restore his breathing. 

Not only did Howe’s shot crack his ankle in that ’64 final, it was impossible in a six-team league that a fearless defenceman such as Baun wouldn’t get struck by a Bobby Hull slapper. After maskless goalies, the most victimized opponents of The Golden Jet’s drives — the first to be timed in excess of 100 mph — were bare-headed blueliners with ancient shin guards. Baun caught one of the Chicago star’s drives on his right ankle in the ’64-65 season.

But Baun’s brawn had already attained legendary status the previous spring when the Leafs took aim at their third straight Cup. 

On a night he had already been in the thick of it with two penalties, he got in the way of Howe’s shot in the scoreless third period, taking it on the right leg just above the ankle.  

“I wheeled and my leg turned to cream cheese,” Baun recounted. 

After play stopped, teammates helped stretcher him to the dressing room. The Olympia was one of the few NHL rinks at the time with a portable X-Ray machine and though a hairline fracture of the ankle was suspected, Baun convinced Haggert and team doctors to have his leg wrapped tight and pumped with pain killer. 

Video showed Baun clomping back to the bench by the end of the third frame and, in overtime, he countermanded general manager/coach Punch Imlach’s attempt to have Kent Douglas go out and took the shift with Carl Brewer. Baun pinched to cut off Al Langlois’s clearing attempt and the man who was hardly feared for his shot delivered “a triple-flutter blast with a follow-up blooper.”

Baun delighted in ribbing his off-ice pal Gadsby for years later, dubbing him ‘Jinxsie.’

In the hoopla that followed his goal, Baun avoided Imlach for two days and kept his foot in ice around the clock for fear of being replaced in Game 7. But Imlach sensed he and injured teammate Red Kelly (knee ligament) would be ready and purposely kept them in the room before warmup at the Gardens until the last second. The building went bonkers when they appeared. 

“Nothing could have held back Baun,” Imlach said after the game. “He had a charge to him that could have blown up the rink.”

Both Baun and Kelly factored in the 4-0 Cup clincher.

“It was the best break I ever had.” 

Baun was born in Lanigan, Sask., to a farming family and came East to play with Toronto’s junior farm team, the Marlboros in the mid-1950s. He only spent half a season in the minors with Rochester before becoming a full-time Leaf, quickly establishing himself one of the league’s hardest hitters.  

By the early 1990s, open-ice hits, leading with the shoulder or the classic hip check, became a hot-button NHL issue, led by Scott Stevens’ kayoing of Eric Lindros. 

Imlach had some rogue methods to get the most out of every Leaf and while he didn’t have to worry about Baun, the two men had issues away from the rink. 

Baun, who once made as little as $12,500 a season, was an early convert to a strong NHL players’ union, which Imlach just as vehemently opposed. Baun’s business sense also saw him advise teammates on contract salary clauses and off-ice opportunities such as the stock market that Imlach considered distracting and detrimental to team success. 

As such he didn’t bother showing up to what would have been his fourth Cup parade, joking later he’d have led the entire motorcade if he knew there wouldn’t be another for what has been 57 years. 

Unprotected in the ’67 expansion draft a month after the Cup, he was selected by the Oakland Seals. Rather than dominate the new six-team Western Division as many predicted, the Seals suffered in their inaugural campaign and Baun asked to be traded back to an Original Six team. 

He was with Detroit for two seasons, but when Imlach, as new GM of the expansion Buffalo Sabres, re-acquired Baun as part of a three-way deal with St. Louis, Baun refused to report to the Blues. 

But early in ’72-73, Baun suffered a neck injury after a hit from Detroit’s Mickey Redmond and did not play again.  

Baun had already begun carving his post-playing career. He’d farmed 800 hectares near Pickering before urban sprawl for cattle.

“Don’t call me a gentleman farmer,” he told sportswriter Paul Hunter in 2004. “I had manure on my boots.”     

Owner of three Tim Horton’s donut franchises (he lent Tim some start-up cash and claimed to have sold Horton on the drive-through concept), Baun’s store at Highway 2 and White’s Road in Pickering did the most business in 1987 of 400 outlets in the fast-food chain. 

Baun said he realized his talent for salesmanship back in his Cub Scout youth on the Prairies. When Apple Day came along, Baun had polished his for three days for the best presentation. He saved enough money by age 15 to buy a Cadillac.

“He was the nicest man and had such a soft voice for a player so tough,” said Leafs historian Mark Fera, whom Baun entrusted his ’64 game-winning puck. “And he took so much precision signing autographs. He relayed to me something Howe had first told him in the 1960s, that many people had come a long way to see him play, some of them on lengthy train trips, so you better make sure your signature was legible.”  

No stranger to hospitals — he once stopped by the bed of this reporter during a childhood tonsils operation at the East General for an autograph — he eased his stay for surgery by secretly stocking a bar and having lobster bisque delivered from La Scala restaurant.

He was a great believer in Norman Vincent Peale’s bestseller in the ‘60s, The Power of Positive Thinking and related publications, attending some of Peale’s live lectures.

He was one of the best, a sound defenceman

Dick Duff on Bob Baun

Left winger Dick Duff played on two of the three consecutive Leafs Cup teams in the early ‘60s and came to appreciate Baun’s contributions.

“He was one of the best, a sound defenceman,” Duff told the Sun after hearing the news. “Teams that won in those days did it defensively. Our forwards backchecked and guys such as Bob, Horton and Brewer bodychecked at the line. We were dedicated and knew the system. No one got in our zone.

“People might forget we learned to be that competitive in junior, the guys like me from Kirkland Lake and Northern Ontario playing for St. Michael’s College against the Marlie guys like Bob. The criteria was understood, we were the best prospects for the Leafs and there was no love lost in those junior games.

Duff said Baun helped solidify the Leafs’ room as well.

“His wife (Sallie) used to play bridge and cribbage with the other wives and girlfriends. They were an important part of us being so close. The team meant so much to all of us.”

Current club president Brendan Shanahan stated Monday: “Bob possessed unquestionable toughness and incredible pride in being a Leaf. His inspirational presence continues to embody the heart of the game. He will be greatly missed by the team and its fans.

“Our thoughts are with Bob’s loved ones at this difficult time.”

Baun is survived by them and numerous grandchildren, including forward Kyle Baun, who briefly played for the Chicago Blackhawks and in Toronto for the AHL Marlies.