 In the team's second season, 1971–72, rookie Rick Martin, drafted fifth overall by Buffalo in 1971, and Rene Robert, acquired in a late-season trade from the Pittsburgh Penguins, joined Perreault and would become one of the league's top forward lines in the 1970s.Martin broke Perreault's record at once with 44 rookie goals.They were nicknamed "The French Connection" after the movie of the same name and in homage to their French-Canadian roots.