[1] When the Majors' famous hockey program was discontinued after the 1961–62 season, Walton and the rest of the players were transferred to Neil McNeil Catholic Secondary School, where he scored 22 goals in 38 games for the Maroons in 1962–63.

[citation needed] He became a part of the Toronto Maple Leafs' talent pipeline when he joined its Ontario Hockey Association farm team, the Marlboros, where he was the club's second leading scorer with 92 points (41 goals, 51 assists) in 53 games, while helping them win the league championship and Memorial Cup in 1964.

Working exclusively on power-play situations, he scored four goals with three assists while playing in all twelve games of Toronto's postseason run to the 1967 Stanley Cup Championship.

Prior to his dismissal in April 1969, the domineering Imlach, disdainful of younger players, clashed with Walton over his hairstyle and bombarded him with negative comments about his on-ice performance.

[citation needed] Walton was traded by Toronto to the defending Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins as part of a three-way deal which also involved the Philadelphia Flyers on January 31, 1971.

[5] Walton blended in well with the Bruins' prolific scorers led by Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr, his business partner at the time with the Orr-Walton Sports Camp in Orillia, Ontario.

[citation needed] He was injured in a bizarre accident in the middle of the 1972–73 season when he tripped and fell through a plate glass door at a St. Louis hotel.

Two years earlier on February 7, 1974, they had traded his NHL rights, along with Chris Oddleifson and Fred O'Donnell, to the Vancouver Canucks for Bobby Schmautz.