In Game 5 of the 1964 Stanley Cup Final, Eddie Joyal beat Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Johnny Bower to put the Detroit Red Wings ahead 3-2 in the best-of-seven series, the signature goal of his career. Joyal, who went on to play nine NHL seasons for four teams before finishing his playing days in the World Hockey Association, died July 20, 2026, at age 86, according to the NHL Alumni Association.

Detroit could not close it out. Toronto won Games 6 and 7 to take the Cup, a result that stayed with Joyal for the rest of his life. Looking back on the series more than five decades later, he told the St. Albert Gazette in 2016: "We beat Toronto 2-1 in Toronto and that was a pretty big deal for me, but we didn't win the series. We should've won that series, but we blew it."

Joyal was born May 8, 1940, and grew up in St. Albert, Alberta, where he first learned to skate on the frozen Sturgeon River. He broke into organized hockey with the Edmonton Oil Kings in 1958, helping the junior club reach the 1960 Memorial Cup final, then turned pro in the Detroit organization with the Edmonton Flyers and the Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League.

He made his NHL debut with the Red Wings on January 24, 1963, an undrafted rookie centre who came up under the eye of Gordie Howe, according to the NHL Alumni Association. Detroit traded him to Toronto in May 1965, and two years later the Los Angeles Kings claimed him in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft.

Los Angeles is where Joyal became a scorer. Over four and a half seasons he hit the 20-goal mark three times, topping out at 33 goals in 1968-69, and the speed he had built on that frozen river as a boy earned him the nickname "The Jet." His NHL career ended with a 26-game stint with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1971-72, closing out nine seasons with 465 games played, 128 goals, 134 assists and 262 points, plus 19 points in 50 playoff games.

Rather than retire, Joyal went home. He joined the WHA's Alberta Oilers, later renamed the Edmonton Oilers, for the league's inaugural 1972-73 season and played four seasons there, adding more than 100 points to a professional career that had opened and closed in his native province.

Alberta did not forget him. In April 2016, during the final season of Rexall Place, formerly Northlands Coliseum, the Oilers honored him with "Eddie Joyal Day." That same year, St. Albert named a street in its Jensen Lake neighbourhood Joyal Way. "It's a very nice gesture but it's a family deal," Joyal said of the honor at the time. "The mayor (Nolan Crouse), I would imagine, had a lot to do with it and I appreciate it."

Joyal Way still runs through the town where his family had lived for generations and where he first found his footing on the Sturgeon River ice. The scoreboard at Detroit's old Olympia Stadium is long gone, but the box score from Game 5 of the 1964 Final still credits him with the goal that beat Bower, and the 262 points he compiled across four NHL uniforms sit permanently in the league's record book alongside the goal-scoring seasons that made him The Jet in Los Angeles.