Kansas City Scouts’ Best Players From Their Brief NHL Run
A retrospective ranks the five best players from the Kansas City Scouts, the NHL club that lasted only two seasons before relocating. The list highlights Gary Bergman, Simon Nolet, Denis Herron, Guy Charron and Wilf Paiement. Despite the team’s brief and unsuccessful run, the article notes several notable individual careers connected to the franchise.
The Scouts competed in just two NHL seasons, playing 160 games and winning 27. They produced 374 goals and allowed 679, finishing second from the bottom in each campaign. In the summer of 1976 the franchise relocated to Colorado as the Rockies and eventually became the New Jersey Devils.
Gary Bergman came from Detroit on Aug. 22, 1975, with Bill McKenzie for Peter McDuffe and Glen Burdon. At 37, Bergman skated in 75 games, notched 5 goals and 33 assists for 38 points, topped Kansas City’s defenders and placed third on the club. Simon Nolet, the first position player taken in the 1974 expansion draft, served as captain and set personal bests with 26 goals, 32 assists and 58 points.
This retrospective could strengthen local memory of a short-lived franchise and may give Kansas City hockey fans, former Scouts players and Devils historians a shared reference point. It might also feed nostalgia-driven engagement among collectors and older fans, while reminding newer audiences how relocation shapes team identities. Its social effect is likely modest, centered on sports culture and community storytelling rather than broad public debate.