Playing Career
Adams was passed over in the NHL Amateur Draft and signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1979. In his final year in the WHL with the Victoria Cougars he scored 62 goals playing on a line with Barry Pederson. He turned pro in 1980 and spent the 1980–81 season with Flyers' farm team in Maine, and also impressed in a 6-game stint in Philadelphia, scoring 3 goals. The following season he appeared in 33 games, scoring 19 points.
Adams was traded to the Hartford Whalers in the Mark Howe trade in the summer of 1982. In 1982–83, he spent his first full season in the NHL, scoring 10 goals and 23 points in 79 games. He also established himself as a gritty, physical presence and registered 216 penalty minutes (PIM), the highest total of his career.
Adams was dealt again in the summer of 1983, this time to the Washington Capitals. While the Whalers had just 19 wins in 1982–83, the Capitals were one of the deepest squads in the league, and he found it more difficult to get ice time. In his first two years in Washington, he scored just 8 goals in 108 games, and was demoted briefly to the AHL. However, he established himself as a key member of the team in 1985–86, and put up surprising numbers with 18 goals and 56 points, along with 152 PIM. He continued to perform well over the next two seasons, posting totals of 14 and 15 goals while providing his usual physical presence.
For the 1988–89 season, he was moved to the defending Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers. However, he struggled to find a niche with the Oilers, scoring just 4 goals in 49 games, and was dealt again at the trade deadline, this time to the Vancouver Canucks. This created one of the more unusual situations in NHL history, as the Canucks' lineup already featured star winger Greg 'Gus' Adams. As a result, the elder Adams would thereafter be known as 'Greg C. Adams'.
Adams' stint in Vancouver was brief, scoring 4 goals in 12 games for the team. He was moved to the Quebec Nordiques for the 1989–90 season, although he didn't establish himself there and spent time in the AHL. He finished the season with the Detroit Red Wings before retiring.
Adams finished his career with 84 goals and 227 career points in 545 NHL games. He also recorded 1173 PIM.
Read more about this topic: Greg Adams (ice Hockey B. 1960)
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or career:
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)