Flyers legend Bernie Parent passes away at age 80

PHILADELPHIA -- Bernie Parent, the Hall of Famer considered one of the great goalies of all time who anchored the net for the Philadelphia Flyers' only two Stanley Cup championships during their Broad Street Bullies heyday, has died. He was 80.

The Flyers made the announcement Sunday but provided no immediate details. Parent died overnight in his sleep, said Joe Watson, a star defenseman on the Flyers' Stanley Cup teams.

Parent's steel-eyed stare through his old-school hockey mask landed him on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 when the Flyers reigned as one of the marquee teams in sports. He won Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies in back-to-back seasons when the Flyers won the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975, the first NHL expansion team to win the championship.

After he made his NHL debut with Boston in 1965, Parent was left unprotected by the Bruins in the 1967 expansion draft and was selected by the Flyers. After 3 1/2 seasons, he was traded to Toronto but ended up back in Philadelphia ahead of the 1973-74 season. He won a league-high 47 games that season and led the NHL in wins again the next season with 44.

He retired with the Flyers in 1979 after 271 wins - 231 of them with the Flyers - over a 13-year career. Parent was accidentally struck in the right eye with a stick in 1979 and was temporarily blinded, forcing him to retire at age 34.

Though he no longer played on the team, Parent stayed active within the Flyers organization, becoming an ambassador for Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education.