1974-75 was the year of the coach in the hockey card world with the rookie cards of Don Cherry and Scotty Bowman dominating. Both cards are the most valuable in the 1974-75 O-Pee-Chee set at $60 each. Straggling a little further behind at $15 is the rookie card of a highly ranked goaltending prospect of the St. Louis Blues.
The John Davidson rookie card appears as number 11 in both the O-Pee-Chee and Topps sets in 1974-75. This was a goaltender that may have even had Hockey Hall of Fame potential if injuries didn’t cut his NHL career short. The Davidson hockey card was one of 396 produced by O-Pee-Chee that year with a full set valued at $500.
J.D. played in the NHL from 1973-74 to 1982-83 with the Blues and New York Rangers. He was a standout in junior with the Calgary Centennials of the WCHL (the Tri-City Americans of the present day WHL). He played two years with the club, 1971-72 and 1972-73. In his first campaign, he played 66 of the team’s 68 regular season games, recording eight shutouts and a 2.37 goals against average as the Centennials finished first overall. The playoffs were unkind as the Edmonton Oil Kings grounded the Centennials in the semi-finals. Davidson played two games for Edmonton at the Memorial Cup that year. John was named WCHL MVP and Goaltender of the Year.
At the 1973 NHL Amateur Draft, the Blues took Davidson fifth overall. Drafted before him? Denis Potvin, Tom Lysiak, Dennis Ververgaert and Lanny McDonald. He was immediately the starting goaltender with the Blues in 1973-74 but spent just two years with the St. Louis before heading east to the Big Apple.
In 1975-76, Davidson played in a heft 56 games with the Rangers but 1978-79 would prove to be the pinnacle of his NHL career. The Rangers played slightly above mediocre during the regular season, finishing third in the Patrick Division behind the New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers. J.D. played 39 games, sharing duties with Wayne Thomas and Doug Soetaert. His 3.52 GAA left him out of the NHL’s top ten. Yet, John played all of New York’s 18 playoff games as the Rangers lost just three games in the first three rounds to reach the Stanley Cup finals. The Los Angeles Kings were their first victim in a 2-0 sweep in the preliminaries. The Rangers then proceed to take out the Flyers and Islanders to earn a confrontation with the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs took out New York in five games to capture their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup.
John played 41 games the following season before injuries took hold. In the three years from 1980-81 to 1982-83, he played in just 13 NHL games before retiring. He then began a career in broadcasting that would eventually earn him the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award in 2009.
However, none of the above has put J.D. in the trivia books as much as the jersey number he wore with the Rangers. He is the first player to wear the number ’00’ on his back. Marty Biron is the only other to wear the double-zero, a number that is now banned by the National Hockey League.