The first scenario would involve Parent being chosen from the Boston Bruins in the 1967 Expansion Draft, where he would see increased playing time and improve his overall play. He would be traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs, where he continued to improve, and he was one of the players who jumped to the upstart World Hockey Association. He wasn’t there long as he signed with the Miami Screaming Eagles, which relocated to Philadelphia as the Blazers before the season started. Parent would have had a good season there, but he did not finish it and left after the first game of the WHA Playoffs due to a financial dispute. Seeking a return to the National Hockey League (but not to Toronto), his rights were traded back to the Philadelphia Flyers, and he would embark on the best run of his career.
The Philadelphia Flyers morphed into the “Broad Street Bullies,” and Parent provided the netminding needed for a Stanley Cup run. In both the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons, the Flyers won the Cup while Parent was named a First Team All-Star and the Vezina Trophy winner. His spectacular performance in goal allowed Philadelphia to play their style of hockey, and had he not gotten injured early in the 1975-76 season, the odds were strong that the Flyers could have won three in a row.
Parent would play a few more seasons at a solid level but would be forced into early retirement when an errant hockey stick entered his mask’s eyehole and his vision was forever damaged. He would join the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984. His #1 was retired by the team in 1979, and in 1988, he was also named as one of two men to the inaugural Flyers Hall of Fame.
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