The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Jack Egers, who scored first game-winning goal for Washington Capitals, dies at 72

September 15, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. EDT
Jack Egers playing for the Washington Capitals in the 1970s. (Washington Capitals Photography)
4 min

Jack Egers, an NHL forward who played for the Washington Capitals in their inaugural season and scored the first game-winning goal in team history, died Sept. 10 at a hospital in Woodstock, Ontario. He was 72.

The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, said his son, Mark Egers.

Nicknamed “Smokey” for a blazing slap shot that could “knock the sap out of the wood,” according to a junior coach, Mr. Egers (pronounced “eagers”) played for the New York Rangers and St. Louis Blues before the Washington Capitals selected him with their final pick in the 1974 expansion draft.

Though injuries limited his time in D.C. to only 26 games over two seasons, Mr. Egers holds the distinction of lifting the fledgling franchise to its first victory in a 4-3 win against the Chicago Black Hawks on Oct. 17, 1974, at the old Capital Centre in Landover, Md. It was the Capitals’ fourth game of their inaugural season.

“I got a pass, went up the wing, took the shot and scored,” Mr. Egers later told Sports Illustrated. “That’s my claim to fame. Good trivia question for you to remember. I’m sure we got some headlines in the paper. Maybe someone even said things were turning around. They were wrong.”

That first season, the Capitals set an NHL record for futility with an 8-67-5 record. Mr. Egers played only 14 games before a herniated disk ended his season.

“Then they screwed up, putting me on the ice too soon and I re-herniated it and had to have another back surgery and then I tried to come back from that but I couldn’t,” Mr. Egers told Inside Hockey in 2015. “I was done in the ’75-76 season.”

The Caps had off-ice problems as well, one involving a late-night shouting match between Mr. Egers and coach Milt Schmidt.

“At training camp Stan Gilbertson and I got suspended for keeping beer in the tub of our hotel room,” he told Sports Illustrated. “We had two workouts a day, so guys would come in after the second practice. Uncle Milty, he didn’t like that too much.”

The Caps threatened to trade the pair, but it didn’t happen. “We’re grown men,” Mr. Egers told The Washington Post in 1975. “What’s the matter with a few beers? All athletes like beer. Doctors have said it’s good for you if you’re dehydrated.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Egers’s financial luck didn’t fare any better as he fell victim to agent Richard Sorkin, who was found guilty of grand larceny in 1978 and sentenced to prison for gambling away his clients’ money. The victims — about 50 of them — never received compensation.

Mr. Egers was 26 when he played in his final NHL game. After hockey, he moved his family back to Kitchener, Ontario, where he got his start as a 15-year-old with the Kitchener Rangers. There, he became a firefighter and eventually a captain of the Kitchener Fire Department. He retired in 2009.

John Richard Egers was born Jan. 28, 1949, in Sudbury, Ontario, and grew up in the Ontario mining town of Lively. His father was a nickel miner, and his mother ran a hair salon.

Mr. Egers met his future wife, Wendy Beteau, in Kitchener while playing junior hockey. In the 1969-1970 season, Mr. Egers led the Central Hockey League in scoring, with 42 goals, while with the Omaha Knights.

Mr. Egers was drafted 20th overall in 1966 by the New York Rangers, and he made his NHL debut in the 1969-1970 season, where he played alongside Jean Ratelle and Rod Gilbert.

He was with New York for three seasons before being traded — on the same day his daughter was born — to the St. Louis Blues, where he found his scoring touch with consecutive 20-plus goal seasons. He played for New York again before Washington selected him in the expansion draft.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Egers coached amateur hockey in Ontario.

In addition to his wife of 54 years, of Woodstock, survivors include two children, Mark Egers and Cori Knorr, both of Baden, Ontario; a sister; four grandchildren; and one great-grandson.

Mr. Egers said the Capitals were so hapless in their inaugural season that other teams took pity on them.

“We were playing in Boston Garden against Bobby Orr and we were losing, 10-3, with a few moments to play,” Mr. Egers told The Post in 1989. “I passed the puck to Denis Dupere and Orr just kept backing in on [goaltender] Gerry Cheevers and saying, ‘Shoot, Dupy, shoot.’ He backed in so close Cheevers was screened and Denis put it in. That’s how sympathetic other teams looked at us.”