Eight players on the 1960 Canadiens were bound for the Hall of Fame: forwards Beliveau, Bernie Geoffrion, Dickie Moore, and brothers Maurice and Henri Richard, defensemen Doug Harvey and Tom Johnson, and goalie Jacques Plante.
Add former player Ken Reardon, who was Canadiens vice-president that season, as well as Selke and team president Hartland Molson, each in the Builder category, and Blake (as a player) as others enshrined.
Harvey would win the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman in 1959-60, his fifth in six seasons, while Plante was awarded his fifth straight Vezina Trophy as the goalie whose team allowed the fewest goals (178, two fewer than Glenn Hall of Chicago).
The championship would be the crowning achievement for a remarkable dynasty that before puck drop the following season would see the retirement of captain Maurice Richard, who had won eight titles and scored a then-NHL record 544 goals during his 18-season, injury-riddled career.
Harvey would succeed Richard for one year, to be followed by Beliveau for a decade when Harvey was traded to the Rangers.
No matter how dominant those five-straight Canadiens were, Talbot remembered them being driven by a constant fear of failure, in their own eyes and those of their fans who didn’t merely hope for a championship, they fully expected one.
