The 1967–68

Oakland Seals The California Golden Seals were a professional ice hockey club that competed in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1967 to 1976. Based in Oakland, California, they played their home games at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena. The S ...

season was their first

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL). It began inauspiciously, with the firing of General Manager

Rudy Pilous Rudolph Pilous (August 11, 1914 – December 5, 1994) was a Canadian ice hockey player and coach, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Pilous won the Stanley Cup coaching the Chicago Black Hawks in 1960–61, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame ...

before the expansion draft.Seals: 1967–1968 Season
Retrieved 2010-07-15 The Seals started their inaugural season with Hall of Famer

Bert Olmstead Murray Albert Olmstead (September 4, 1926 – November 16, 2015) was a Canadian professional ice hockey left winger who played for the Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Black Hawks and Toronto Maple Leafs in the National Hockey League (NHL). Olmstead b ...

as both coach and general manager, assisted by

Gord Fashoway Gordon Walter Fashoway (June 16, 1926 – May 1, 2012) was a Canadian professional ice hockey left winger. During the 1950–51 season, he played in his only 13 National Hockey League (NHL) games for the Chicago Black Hawks. He was born in Portag ...

Season overview

The team began the season as the California Seals in an attempt to cater to a larger audience, but this did not work it was changed on December 8, 1967 and the team became known as the Oakland Seals. Despite winning the first two games of the season, the Seals won only 13 more en route to an NHL-worst record of 15-42-17. That gave the Seals 47 points, and they failed to qualify for the playoffs in their inaugural season in the NHL.

served as the first coach and general manager of the team, though in early February 1968 he gave up coaching to his assistant coach,

; in 43 games Olstead had a record of 10 wins, 32 losses, and 11 ties. The team was not strong financially; late in the season the ownership group, led by

Barry Van Gerbig Barend "Barry" van Gerbig (born 1939) is a US millionaire socialite best known as the owner of the National Hockey League's California Seals. Early life Van Gerbig was born in New York City as the son of attorney Howell van Gerbig and his wife D ...

began to look at selling. There were several interested groups, though two of them wanted to move the team to Canada, and as the NHL's new television contract called for a team in the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

area that was not possible. Attendance was low, with an average of 4,960 people per game, and the team lost an estimated $1.8 million over the season.

Offseason

Expansion draft

Amateur draft

Regular season

On January 13, 1968, 4 minutes into a game against the

Minnesota North Stars The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for ...

at the

Met Center The Met Center was an indoor arena that stood in Bloomington, Minnesota, United States, a suburb of Minneapolis. The arena, which was completed in 1967 by Minnesota Ice, just to the north of Metropolitan Stadium, seated 15,000. It was the home of ...

Bill Masterton William Masterton (August 13, 1938 – January 15, 1968) was a Canadian American professional ice hockey centre who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Minnesota North Stars in 1967–68. He is the only player in NHL history to ...

was checked by

Larry Cahan Lawrence Louis Henry Cahan (December 25, 1933 – June 25, 1992), was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League and World Hockey Association with the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Oakland Seals, L ...

and Ron Harris, and fell backwards onto the ice. The force of the back of his head hitting the ice caused significant internal bleeding. Masterton lost consciousness and never regained it: he died two days later.

Final standings

Record vs. opponents

Schedule and results

Player statistics

Skaters

''Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalties in minutes'' Oakland Seals (1967–1969) 1967 Stats, History, Awards and More
^†Denotes player spent time with another team before joining Seals. Stats reflect time with the Seals only. ^‡Traded mid-season

Goaltenders

''Note: GP = Games played; TOI = Time on ice (minutes); W = Wins; L= Losses; T = Ties; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; GAA = Goals against average''

Transactions

The Seals were involved in the following transactions during the 1967–68 season:

Trades

Playoffs

The Seals did not qualify for the playoffs

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:1967-68 Oakland Seals season California Golden Seals seasons

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...