12 of NHL history's greatest record-breaking goals, ranked from worst to best

With the Alex Ovechkin goals chase now down to single digits, it no longer feels like a question of if he’ll break Wayne Gretzky’s mark this season, but rather when.

We’ve already covered that question, a few weeks back. But there’s a second, and maybe even more important question that’s now looming: Will the record-breaking goal be any good?

The NHL is already worrying about this, especially the possibility that the record-breaker falls victim to their very bad and nit-picky replay review system. Other fans have been openly antagonizing the hockey gods with ideas for the most Team Chaos-worthy way the record could fall. (Personally, I’m a big fan of the “Ovechkin has an empty-net look against the Penguins but Sidney Crosby throws his stick for an automatic goal, meaning Sid's the one who actually ‘scores’ the record-breaker” scenario.)

Whatever happens, it will be a cool moment. But how cool? Just in case Ovechkin is looking for inspiration, today’s column is going to look at a dozen historic NHL goals that broke an important record. To be clear, we’re not worried about individual milestones, or important game-winners or sudden death snipes. We want the guys who broke a significant record, did it with a goal, and did it in style. Just like how we all hope Ovechkin will over the next few weeks.

We’ll use a modified version of the scale we established for the goalie goals ranking, with an emphasis on the creativity and/or skill of the goal itself. We’ll go from worst to best, which means there’s really only one pick for 12th spot…

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Who wins, a team of coaches who coached their own team or those that never did?

NHL teams love hiring former players as coaches. You could argue that makes perfect sense, since nobody is better suited to understand the details of the game than somebody who spent years learning it up close. You could also argue that this is just more evidence of hockey’s old boys club, with the same names recycling through the league because their buddies keep hiring them. Whichever side you’re on, you could certainly find a few coaching stints that would support your view.

Today, we’re going to try a different angle, with a pair of rosters made up of modern-era NHL stars who became coaches. Who you got: Guys who went on to coach one of their former teams, or guys who coached elsewhere?

I kind of love this concept, because in theory it shouldn’t be close. We’re talking about an era with more than 20 franchises, so even if the average star suits up for a few teams in their career, the odds are solidly stacked against the “own team” side. The numbers are just overwhelmingly against them. But of course, we know it won’t work out that way, because star players always seem to wind up coaching the same team they played for.

Or do they? It’s not universal, and you can probably already think of one star who’s going to wind up on the “other teams” squad that could tilt the balance. I’m genuinely curious how this will turn out.

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The Athletic Hockey Show: Eugene Melnyk's complicated legacy

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian shares his thoughts on the passing of Eugene Melnyk and the complicated legacy he leaves
- What does the future hold for the Senators now, and is there a chance it won't be in Ottawa?
- Jesse joins us to look at the rise in NHL scoring
- We discuss Rules Court, and that 2-on-1 shootout idea
- The best and worst of hockey pranks
- The underappreciated Phil Esposito, listen questions and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)

-- ZOOM: Trying signing in through the web site (w/ google) and entering meeting ID, then when it launches the app it should only ask for the password. (All info found in calendar invite.)

Building a roster of players whose goals and assists were perfectly balanced, as all things should be

We’ve arrived at what’s often the first lull of an NHL season, with a long way to go to the playoffs but enough games in the bank that we’re not overreacting to every result. We’re past a wild October and the dreaded U.S. Thanksgiving milestone but have a few weeks to the holiday freeze, and still months to wait for the Olympics (maybe) and trade deadline.

In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to waste some time with a roster-building challenge.

We haven’t done one of these in a while. If you’re new to this, the whole idea is to take a challenge from a reader and use it to construct the best team we can. It’s a chance to dip into history and Remember Some Guys, with no higher purpose than that. Oh, and then you go into the comments and tell me I got it all wrong, and we argue about whether some dude from the 70s was better than your favorite team’s current third-liner. That part’s fun too.

Today’s question comes from reader Rodney:

What’s the best team you can assemble from players who had a year where their total goals equalled total assists?

— Rodney Payne (@gonebeancountin) November 22, 2021

That’s a beauty, because it’s amazingly simple but (as we’ll see) secretly complicated. Thankfully, I can tell you that it’s also reasonably straightforward to answer, unlike some questions we could mention, and it is also not staggeringly dumb, which is a nice change.

Let’s do this. A full roster of players who had a season where their goals total exactly matched their assists. One key ground rule here: We want to build the best roster we can, and we’re getting the player from that year. If we take Jean Beliveau based on his one goal and one assist in two games as a teenaged callup, that’s who we get – the wet-behind-the-ears rookie, not the all-time great. For that reason, we won’t be getting cute with partial seasons for guys that were injured or otherwise limited.

Single-season goals and assists, perfectly balanced, as all things should be. I have a concept, roughly seven dozen open hockey-reference tabs, and too much time on my hands. Let’s do this.

Forwards

The first hurdle we run into is one you’re probably already thinking about: Lots of history’s best players won’t fit well into this concept. That’s especially true for centers, especially playmakers, who almost always have more assists than goals, and usually many more.

For example, Wayne Gretzky doesn’t get anywhere close to our list at any point in his 20-season career; even when he was shattering all the goal-scoring records, his assist totals were way higher. The same is true of other centers you may be hoping to see, like Marcel Dionne, Connor McDavid, Bryan Trottier, Peter Forsberg, Joe Thornton, Mark Messier or Joe Sakic. Great players all, but not ones that will help us here. In fact, as we’ll see in a bit, centers are hard to find for this exercise.

On the other side of the coin, you have the pure snipers who almost always rack up more goals than assists. That problem isn’t quite as pronounced – there can be two assists for every goal, meaning there are more helpers available to be earned. It’s rare to see even a one-dimensional scorer have a very low assist total, although it’s always fun when it happens because we can all make jokes about them winning the Cy Young. (Or as it may be called soon, the Mangiapane.) For our purposes, the best years of guys like Rocket Richard, Steven Stamkos and Pavel Bure are too goals-heavy for this roster.

Then there are the agonizing near-misses, where more-balanced superstars just don’t quite land on the magic number we’re looking for. The worst of those is Mario Lemieux, who had 54 goals and 53 assists in 1986-87. That wasn’t even one of his ten best seasons, but we would have gladly taken it because Mario was awesome. We also just barely miss out on Sidney Crosby (44 goals and 45 assists in 2016-17), Teemu Selanne (48 and 46 in 2006-07), Luc Robitaille (63 and 62 in 1992-93), and Steve Yzerman (50 and 52 in 1987-88, then 62 and 65 in 1989-90). Jaromir Jagr somehow never pulled it off in his three centuries of playing, coming closest with a 47 and 48 in 1996-97. And we need to make a special mention of Mike Bossy, who went 60 and 58 in 1982-83 and then teased us by being one off in each of the last three years of his career.

Still, we have plenty of legendary forwards to choose from, so let’s start building out our roster with guys who did hit the sweet spot. We’ll start with one of the greatest of all-time in Gordie Howe, who had 43 goals and 43 assists in his Art Ross and Hart-winning 1950-51 season. On the other wing, we’ll go with Alexander Ovechkin, who followed up his Calder-winning rookie year with 46 goals and assists in 2006-07.

The center on our top line will be the greatest season we’ll find in our quest for perfect balance: Phil Esposito and his legendary 1970-71 campaign, which saw him shatter the single-season goals record with 76 and then exactly match that total with 76 assists. Espo always had a flare for the dramatic, and his inclusion here is no different – he was at 76/75 until recording a second assist on the Bruins last goal of the season, which came with two minutes left in their final game.

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Who wins, an all-time roster of stars who became coaches or stars who became GMs?

NHL teams sure do love to hire former players for important jobs. These days, if your favorite player retires, it’s probably not goodbye. Just give it a few years, and he’ll be back as coach or GM or to be determined.

Sometimes it works. Joe Sakic could win GM of the Year honors for his work in Colorado, while Rod Brind’Amour is the favorite for this year’s Jack Adams. Sometimes it doesn’t, like Wayne Gretzky’s coaching career or Mike Milbury as GM. Jim Benning and Travis Green, two former players, didn’t have a great year in Vancouver, but Bill Guerin and Dean Evason did pretty well in Minnesota. Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz never played a shift in the NHL, and neither did Julien BriseBoise or Jon Cooper, while Bob Murray and Dallas Eakins played plenty. It’s kind of all over the map.

Today, let’s come at the question from a different angle. Who’d win a head-to-head matchup, a team made up entirely of NHL stars who went on to become coaches, or those who went on to become GMs?

You’re already starting to come up with names for both teams, and that’s half the fun. But first, a few ground rules:

– We’ll build two full rosters of 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies, without worrying too much about position beyond that. We’ll go back over all of NHL history, but we’ll give priority to guys from the modern era, because I’m tod it’s more fun if reader know who I’m talking about.

– To be clear, we’re looking to build our two teams based on how good the player was, not necessarily what they did as coach or GM. You shouldn’t hire Wayne Gretzky to coach your favorite team, but you do want him on your Team Coach roster here.

– In the case of guys who spent time as both coach and GM, we’ll assign them to a team based on which job they held the longest. We’re looking for NHL jobs only, not WHA or other leagues. And assistants aren’t in play – you need to have held the real job.

– Finally, we’re going to limit this to guys who held the job for more than one full season. It turns out a lot of guys got hired for very short stints, especially on the coaching side, and we don’t want to fill our roster up with ringers.

Take a moment to see if you can figure out which side is going to win, and how many names your favorite team will supply. OK, let’s see how this plays out…

First lines

So yeah, let’s start with the obvious pick for Team Coach: the greatest player in NHL history, Wayne Gretzky. He never got the Coyotes into the playoffs in four years behind their bench, apparently because yelling “Just do what I used to do” isn’t really a strategy. That doesn’t matter here, as he gives Team Coach a huge head start.

For his wingers, we’ll reach back into history for Alex Delvecchio, who coached the Wings for parts of four seasons (and was their GM for three). On the other wing, let’s slot in Denis Savard, who’s top claim to fame behind the Blackhawks bench was being fired and replaced by Joel Quenneville. Gretzky, Savard and Delvecchio give us about 5,500 points worth of production, over half of which comes from Gretzky. Pretty good!

Team GM doesn’t have any Gretzky-level stars available, but they come pretty close. Let’s start them with Phil Esposito, who held the job with both the Rangers and Lightning and was a complete and certifiable madman the whole time. (Seriously, look at his trading record in just three years in New York.) We’ll give him Terrible Ted Lindsay on one wing, thanks to three seasons running the Red Wings in the late 70s.

The other pick for a spot on Team GM’s top line came with some controversy. I originally assumed that Brett Hull would be an easy pick, based on his two seasons in Dallas. But Hull shared the job with Les Jackson, with both listed as co-GMs. Should that count? The pair held the job for less that two seasons, meaning if we give Hull 50% credit he’ll fall just short of our one-year cut off. But I’m not an NHL replay official and I’m not here to pull goals off the board on a technicality, so Brett Hull is on the team.

The edge probably has to go to Team Coach here just based on having Gretzky, but it ends up being closer than you might expect – and maybe even tilts to Team GM if Lindsay catches anyone with their head down. Which he will.

Second lines

We’ll start Team Coach’s second line with another Hall-of-Fame center in Adam Oates. His brief stint as Devils co-coach with Scott Stevens was even weirder than the Brett Hull thing, but luckily he had a few years in Washington to make sure he qualifies. We’ll reach back into history to give him a pair of Hart Trophy winners as his linemates, in Milt Schmidt and Toe Blake. Schmidt had some strong seasons behind the bench in Boston and two more he’d rather forget in Washington, while Blake may be the only Hall-of-Fame player who actually went on to even more success as coach.

Team GM will stay in the modern era with a trio current GMs you were probably waiting to see. We’ll start with Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic. Granted, it will feel a little bit weird to see them on the same line given that the Red Wings and Avalanche had a bit of a rivalry back in the day, but we’re figuring they can get along well enough to rack up some offense. We’ll round out the line with Ron Francis, giving us the fifth, seventh and ninth highest scoring players of all-time on one line. Yeah, that’s probably manageable.

It’s always tough to compare across eras, and Blake and Schmidt were legitimate stars in their day, but I think Team GM takes this one and it isn’t especially close.

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Grab Bag: CBA details, prerecorded fans, and an 80s montage about friendship

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- My spies have dug up key details from the new CBA
- A debate about how to broadcast games in empty arenas
- An obscure player with great initials
- Comedy stars
- And a YouTube trip back to the 80s, where we learn about the power of friendship

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In which I attempt to answer a simple question about jersey numbers that almost breaks me

Every now and then, a reader will reach out to me with a question. Sometimes, I already know the answer. Often, I have no idea where I’d even start. But the best kind of questions are the ones that make me think: “Huh, I’m not sure, but I bet it would be fun to find out.”

I got one of those a little while ago from a reader named Bryce. It was nice and simple. Bryce wanted to know which NHL player had scored the most goals in a single season in which their total matched their jersey number.

That’s kind of a cool question. And it’s one that shouldn’t be all that hard to figure out. I couldn’t come up with an answer off the top of my head, but I knew how to find one: just crack open a list of the highest single-season goal totals and work backward.

So that’s what I did. It will be fun, right?

Let’s begin, the way all great journeys do, at the beginning. In this case, that meant a list of every NHL player to ever score 60 goals or more in a season. It’s not a long list, but it’s probably longer than you might think. There have been 39 seasons of 60+ goals in NHL history. Could we find our answer in that list? I wasn’t sure, but it was the right place to start.

Five of those 39 seasons belong to Wayne Gretzky, and we can obviously eliminate him; he wore No. 99 for his entire NHL career, and he never got that many goals in a season. He came reasonably close, topping out at 92 in 1981-82, which still stands as the all-time record and probably always will. But we’re not looking for close here, so Wayne’s not our man.

He does have an impact, though, because his iconic No. 99 encouraged a generation of stars that followed to wear distinctive high numbers of their own. That was a new thing, and it should make our search easier.

Here’s where we run into our first problem: A lot of history’s greatest offensive talents have worn high numbers, but they were too high. Gretzky’s the only player to ever crack the 90-goal plateau, which wipes out the chances of plenty of today’s 90-wearing stars, like Connor McDavid and Steven Stamkos. Eric Lindros and Patrick Kane have posted big goal-scoring years, but neither got anywhere close to the 88 they wore. Alexander Mogilny’s 76 goals in 1992-93 is tied for the fifth-most ever, but he had a long way to go since he was wearing No. 89. Sidney Crosby’s great, but he hasn’t come anywhere near 87.

Brett Hull did, scoring 86 in 1990-91 and hitting the rarified 70-goal mark on two other occasions. But he did that while wearing No. 16, which leads to our second problem: Star forwards who don’t wear really high numbers usually wear relatively low ones. It’s a tradition thing. So right off the bat, we know we can rule out low-numbered stars like Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull (all No. 9), Alexander Ovechkin and Cam Neely (No. 8), Guy Lafleur and Pavel Bure (No. 10). Mike Bossy, Teemu Selanne, Steve Yzerman, Luc Robitaille or Jari Kurri? Sorry. All wore good, solid, traditional numbers that are way too low for what we’re looking for.

There is one player who wore a number in the 70s and had a 70-goal season. But that’s Phil Esposito, and he scored 76 in 1970-71 while wearing No. 7; he didn’t switch to No. 77 until he was traded to the Rangers, so he’s one goal and five years away from being our answer.

After dropping down into the 60s, optimism kicks in because there are two legendary scorers who both wore numbers in this range – Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, with both showing up on the list of 60-goal scorers. But Jagr topped out at 62 goals in 1995-96, missing his iconic No. 68 by a half-dozen. And while Lemieux had two seasons of 69 goals, one of 70, and one of 85, he never landed on exactly 66. He goes down in history as the highest jersey number to be exceeded by his goal total, but our search for an exact match carries on.

The only other candidates left on our initial list are Lanny McDonald, Dennis Maruk, Steve Shutt and Reggie Leach, and they all came along before higher vanity numbers were a thing. So no, we won’t find our answer in the 60+ club after all. No worries, though – we’ll just have to open up the search to the 50-goal club. And as it turns out, that’s a very big club indeed. Dropping our cutoff down to 50 goals opens the floodgates enough to allow 157 new seasons onto our list, so surely we’ll find our answer here.

The good news is that our list now includes dozens of names that we haven’t seen yet. The bad news is that a glance at some of the guys who had seasons in the high 50s tells us that we’re going to immediately run into the same two problems as before. Marcel Dionne, Tim Kerr and Michel Goulet? Traditional numbers that are too low. Pierre Turgeon or Sergei Fedorov? Too high.

And then, the first sense of doubt creeps in: Wait, what kind of star forward wears a number in the 50s?

There sure aren’t many. Typically, if they hand you a number in the 50s in training camp, it’s because they don’t expect you to stick around long. If you do, you get yourself a real number as soon as possible. What kind of self-respecting sniper is going to wear No. 58?

Not many. But that’s OK because we only need one. And the 50-goal tier is where we start to see some names where I wasn’t sure what number they wore. Charlie Simmer? Craig Simpson? Blaine Stoughton? Rick Kehoe? Nope across the board. John Ogrodnick, Wayne Babych or Pierre Larouche? Negative. I held out some hope for No. 55 since the double-digit thing was in vogue after Gretzky, Lemieux and Lindros. But no such luck, as guys like Keith Primeau, Jason Blake and Eric Daze fall well short, and Mark Scheifele has yet to come close. Dave Andreychuk did wear No. 52, but only for one season in 2000-01 when his 50-goal days were well behind him. Same with Dany Heatley wearing No. 51 for the Ducks.

I had a brief flutter of optimism when I remembered Jonathan Cheechoo’s 56-goal season. Did Cheechoo wear No. 56? It seems like the sort of number he might wear, right? He’d never been an elite goal-scorer before that wild 2005-06 season, so maybe he was still wearing a scrub’s number when he broke through. Alas, he was not. He wore No. 14 that year. Not even close.

By the time I got into the low 50s – Rick Martin? Blaine Stoughton? Ray Freaking Sheppard? – desperation was beginning to set in. I felt like I may have made a terrible mistake.

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Could an all-time team made up of NHL brothers beat one made up of NHL fathers and sons?

Cayden Primeau made his NHL debut last week, playing goal for the Montreal Canadiens two years after being drafted in the seventh round. It’s a great story, especially when you remember that Primeau’s father Keith was a longtime NHLer. Keith’s brother Wayne also played in the league, which was nice for them except for that time that it wasn’t.

Battling brothers. Proud fathers and sons. It feels like there’s a story idea in there somewhere. And luckily, one reader found it for me:

Now that Primeau has started as an NHL goalie, @DownGoesBrown what is your best complete father-son team vs the best complete sibling team? Dick Irvine Sr is the father-son coach with JR calling the game and a Sutter can coach the sibling team. And who would win?

— Dr. Lee Skallerup Bessette (@readywriting) December 6, 2019

Oh hell yes, we’re doing that. Thank you, Lee. (And thanks to everyone else who takes the time to send me weird YouTube clips, obscure trivia and ideas for bizarre stories nobody else would write. You are all the greatest.)

Team Father/Son vs. Team Brother, from all of NHL history. Which side can build the best team? Let’s do this.

But first, as always, some ground rules:

• We’re going to build lines and defense pairings, but we’re not going to get too caught up in who plays where. We might have some guys switch wings or move around a bit. They’re stars, they’ll figure it out.
• We’re using Peak Production rules here, which is to say that if you get a player, you get them at their very best. They’re healthy, motivated and at the height of their powers.
• Most importantly, and maybe most controversially: We’re going to institute a rule that everyone on this roster has to have played at least 250 NHL games as a skater or 100 games as a goalie. Call it the Brent Gretzky rule. Yes, we could build out a pair of rosters that were front-loaded with mega-stars and then pad them out with a fourth line of guys like Alain Lemieux, Paul Messier and Brett Lindros. But that’s not fun. That’s just naming superstars who happened to have relatives who played hockey, and that’s most of them. We want our rosters to feature guys who made their own name in the game. Or at least came close enough that we can squeeze them in without feeling guilty.

OK, let’s make this happen. We’ll start up front with the top lines, which means both sides are breaking out their big guns.

First lines

Team Brother: Phil Esposito, Maurice Richard, Frank Mahovlich

Team Father/Son: Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Peter Stastny

Yikes. Good luck to anyone trying to shut down either unit; you could make a good case that we’ve got four of the top ten players in hockey history here. That includes Howe, the single greatest player we’ll find on either roster, which gives Team Father/Son a strong start. Mr. Hockey and the Golden Jet together would be close to unstoppable, with a combined 1,400 NHL goals between just two guys (and nearly 500 more if we count the WHA). But they’re facing a killer trio from Team Brother, with the first 50-goal scorer, the first 100-point player and the Big M there to feed them both.

Stastny is notable for a few reasons. For one, he’s the weak link on Team Father/Son’s top line, which isn’t exactly an insult given who he’s playing with. But more importantly, you may be questioning why he’s even on Team Father/Son at all. You could absolutely put him on Team Brother instead, on a line with Anton and Marian. Having run through the various combinations, he ends up fitting a bit better on Team Father/Son, but there may not be a player in league history who presents a tougher call.

Second lines

Team Brother: Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Henri Richard

Team Father/Son: Brett Hull, Zach Parise, J.P. Parise

Both teams have some decent scoring depth. There’s more balance on Team Brother, with three Hall-of-Famers. But Team Father/Son has the most dominant player in Hull and his 741 goals, plus a pair of All-Stars who saw action in some of the most important international tournaments ever played.

Also, a quick clerical matter: We made the call to deny Team Father/Son eligibility to Howie Morenz and Bernie Geoffrion; Howie was Boom Boom’s father-in-law, which doesn’t quite fit the spirit of the thing. Any complaints or challenges can be filed with the official Down Goes Brown Office of Appeals (my trashcan).

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This is so pointless: A brief history of players going oh-for-the-postseason

This post is going to be completely pointless.

Wait, that didn’t come out right. I don’t mean that this post won’t have any reason to exist. I mean, who would write something like that? (Realizes everyone is staring at him.) OK, yes, I may have had a few of those in my day. But this isn’t necessarily one of them.

No, I mean that this is going to be pointless in the other way – as in, it will have zero points. Today, we’re going to try to assemble an all-time roster of playoff performers who didn’t record a single point in a given postseason.

That’s not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re a decent player. Even if your team goes out early, you’d think that you’d get in on at least one goal along the way. But as we’ll see, there are some surprisingly big names on the list. And a few other players have some interesting stories to tell.

Nobody from this year’s postseason made the cut, although a few almost did. Sidney Crosby didn’t get a point until his team’s final game. Neither did Nikita Kucherov. Of course, their runs ended early. But some lasted longer, like Carl Gunnarsson. He made it all the way to Game 2 of the final before finally recording a point. He actually had two that night. I can’t remember if any of them turned out to important.

The point is … well, sometimes there is no point. And that’s OK. Don’t worry, Viktor Arvidsson and Nikolaj Ehlers. Fear not, Nikita Zadorov, Micheal Haley, Trevor van Riemsdyk or Frederik Gauthier. You may have been pointless, but as you’re about to see, you’re in decent company.

First line

C Phil Esposito (1964 and 1967)

We’ll start off with a Hall-of-Famer who qualifies for our list in two seasons, one of which helped change NHL history. Esposito’s playoff debut came in 1964 when he was a 22-year-old rookie. He was only a bit player with the Hawks back then and had only managed three goals in part-time duty during the regular season, so his pointless performance in four games during a semifinal loss to the Red Wings wasn’t especially newsworthy.

But three years later, Esposito was coming off a 61-point season that left him tied for seventh in the league scoring race. With a lineup that also featured Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita in their primes, the Hawks ran away with top spot in the NHL, racking up 94 points over the 70-game schedule while outscoring the next best offensive team by 52 goals. They went into the playoffs as heavy favorites, before being stunned by the Maple Leafs in six games. Esposito was held off the board again, cementing a reputation as a player who couldn’t be counted on when it mattered.

Convinced they needed a change in direction, the Hawks traded him to the Bruins in an offseason deal that stands as one of the most important trades in NHL history. Esposito developed into one of the greatest goal-scorers the league had ever seen, helping the Bruins win two Cups. And it may have never happened if he’d just managed a point or two in that 1967 playoff loss.

RW Mike Gartner (1989) and LW Bryan Trottier (1988)

We’ll give Esposito a pair of Hall-of-Famers on his wings, even if we have to ask Trottier to play out of position to do it. Gartner never won a Cup and occasionally fought a reputation as a guy who was a better regular season star than a playoff performer, as evidenced by the 1994 Rangers shipping him out at the deadline. He did have some decent postseasons, including four where he hit double-digit points. But his lone spring as a North Star saw him go pointless after a massive deadline deal and he’d be gone less than a year later.

As for Trottier, he won six Cups, led the postseason scoring race twice, won a Conn Smythe and ranks among the highest scoring playoff players ever. But he was blanked in a first-round loss in 1988 despite an 82-point regular season, finishing behind high-scoring Islander teammates like Gerald Diduck and Ken Leiter.

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What was the second most important trade in NHL history?

What’s the most important trade in NHL history?

Easy. Wayne Gretzky being traded from the Oilers to the Kings in 1988. There’s really no debate. That one’s number one by a mile.

Cool, good post. See you in a few days.

(Editor’s note: Uh, Sean … we were kind of hoping for more than 40 words out of this one.)

Huh. OK. In that case, let’s up the degree of difficulty by changing the question around.

What’s the second most important trade in NHL history?

Now things get tougher, in large part because the Gretzky trade was such a game-changer that it overshadows everything else. That trade changed the league’s financial landscape, reset how hockey was viewed in the U.S. and is directly responsible for the existence of about a half-dozen of today’s teams. Forget the NHL, you could make a solid argument that it’s the most important trade in the history of sports.

So sure, the drop down to second place is going to be a big one. But that’s what makes the debate fun, because once you get past Gretzky, the field suddenly gets crowded.

Note that we’re not talking about the “biggest” trade, in terms of the number of players or even the sheer star power involved. What we’re looking for here is importance. That’s an admittedly fuzzy concept, but think of it this way: If you go back and undo the deal, how much of NHL history changes?

So with all due respect to Alexandre Daigle, let’s take some time to remember number two – or at least the contenders for that crown. Here are 10 possibilities that I think can make the strongest case.

The Next One arrives: Eric Lindros to the Flyers

The trade: On June 30, 1992, the Nordiques sent Eric Lindros to the Flyers for Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Chris Simon, two first-round picks and $15,000,000.

The case for: Read that list of names again. Then remember that Lindros hadn’t played a single NHL game at this point. It was an almost unfathomably huge haul for one teenaged prospect – and it may not even have been the best deal the Nordiques could get, given that they preferred the Rangers’ offer.

At the time, Lindros was considered the best prospect to come into the league since Mario Lemieux, and maybe even the best ever. He never quite lived up to that hype in Philadelphia, but he did win a Hart Trophy and led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final. Meanwhile, Forsberg became arguably the best player in the deal and helped the Nordiques win two Cups in Colorado.

The case against: Both Lindros and Forsberg had their careers shortened by injury, so the trade’s impact wasn’t quite what it could have been. Still, that feels like nitpicking.

Moose on the Loose: Mark Messier to the Rangers

The trade: On Oct. 4, 1991, the Oilers traded Mark Messier to the Rangers for Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice, Louie DeBrusk and future considerations.

The case for: For better or worse, this trade defined the next decade and more for both teams. Against all odds, the Oilers had survived the Gretzky trade and won another Cup in 1990. But Messier’s exit signaled the true end of the dynasty and the Oilers’ new role as one of the NHL’s have-nots. (A point that was driven home when Nicholls initially refused to report.)

As for the Rangers, they watched Messier win the Hart while guiding them to the Presidents’ Trophy in his first season. But the big moment came in 1994, when they finally put an end to the “1940” chants by winning the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in over half a century. It was Messier who led them there, most memorably with his guaranteed win against the Devils. And it was Messier who was the one to receive the Cup handoff in front of a roaring MSG crowd.

Messier would go on to captain the Rangers until 2004, not counting the three years he took off from 1997 to 2000 to go do missionary work, and is often ranked as the greatest Ranger of all-time. And maybe even more importantly, Messier and the Rangers made the NHL seem cool and trendy for just about the first time ever.

The case against: New commissioner Gary Bettman decided that the Rangers’ win made for the perfect time for a lockout, and any momentum the NHL was riding was squandered. Rangers fans were too delirious to care, but this trade’s impact beyond New York and Edmonton didn’t end up being as big as it could have been.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Grab bag: Three stars of comedy HOF, Seattle GM power rankings, the Vegas outdoor game and more

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The Three Stars of Comedy hall of fame class of 2019 is here, and it needs your vote
- A power ranking of the ten most entertaining choices for Seattle's new GM
- The NHL really needs to stop putting one player from every team in the all-star game
- An obscure player who's basically just there so I could make a bad Christmas pun
- And a YouTube look back at the modern NHL's original outdoor classic

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

A brief history of players being told that they wouldn’t be traded and then being traded

It’s​ been almost two​ weeks​ since​ the​ end​ of​ the William​ Nylander contract saga,​ with its twists​ and​ turns and last-minute​​ buzzer-beater resolution. As the round-the-clock coverage fades into more reasonable daily updates, we’re trying to sort through the various details that are emerging on how this deal was put together.

One of those details is Nylander’s apparent belief that Kyle Dubas has promised not to trade him.

Nylander says he has assurance from Dubas he won’t be traded while he’s the GM.

— James Mirtle (@mirtle) December 3, 2018

Because of the way the CBA works, the personal word of his GM is the only sort of trade protection Nylander can get; players aren’t eligible for no-trade or no-movement clauses until the reach their UFA-eligibility seasons. So Nylander has to rely on Dubas to hold up his end of the bargain here.

And Dubas probably will – after all, trading Nylander wouldn’t make much sense for the Leafs, and this is a rookie GM who’d no doubt prefer to establish a reputation as a straight-shooter. Assuming Nylander’s version of the conversation is accurate and Dubas really did give his word, there’s no reason to think that the young winger has anything to worry about here.

But just to be safe, he might want to stop reading right about now.

Because as it turns out, NHL history is filled with players who’ve believed they’d been given the same sort of assurance that Nylander says he got from the Maple Leafs. And more than a few times, those promises turned out to not be quite as ironclad as the player would have hoped.

So today, let’s look back at a few of the (many) trade scenarios in hockey history that started with a firm handshake or at least a perceived wink and nudge and ended with a player angrily mumbling about loyalty while packing a suitcase.

1975: The Bruins trade Phil Esposito to the Rangers

We’ll start with what may stand as the most famous example of the genre: the 1975 blockbuster that saw the Bruins trade Esposito and Carol Vadnais to the Rangers for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and a minor-leaguer. It was a monster deal, one that saw New York acquire the player who’d led the league in goals in each of the last six seasons. And it didn’t make Esposito very happy.

That was because he’d signed a new contract that summer that he assumed would let him finish his career in Boston. He’d reportedly been offered $2.5 million on a five-year deal to join the WHA’s Vancouver Blazers, but took roughly half that to stay with the Bruins. According to Esposito’s version of events, Harry Sinden promised him that he wouldn’t be traded, and even offered to write a no-trade clause into the deal, which at the time was rare. Esposito says he told the GM not to bother, and that his word was enough. Weeks later, he was gone.

The trade, of course, ended up being a steal for the Bruins. Esposito played well in New York, but Park became the best player in the deal. And it got even more lopsided when the Rangers decided to reunite Esposito with center Ken Hodge, and sent a young Rick Middleton to the Bruins to get him. Park and Middleton became key parts of the late-70s Bruins teams that nearly won the Cup.

At the time of the trade, Esposito told reporters that he was “crushed” and that “I thought I had a home in Boston.” But he said he had “no regrets” toward Sinden or the Bruins. That tone would change over the years, as Esposito carried the grudge well past retirement. In 2013, almost 38 years after the trade went down, he was asked about the Bruins facing the Blackhawks in the Cup final and responded that “This series doesn’t mean shit to me.”

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Grab Bag: Oh la la

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Thoughts on Tom Wilson's suspension
- Jesperi Kotkaniemi makes history
- An obscure player who's tied with you and me in career scoring
- The week's three comedy stars
- And the 1979 New York Rangers would like to sell you some jeans...

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

Eight traded NHL stars who didn't want to go

With the hockey off-season staying quiet and the Toronto Blue Jays flatlining, the biggest news in Canadian pro sports continues to be the Toronto Raptors‘ recent blockbuster. By adding Kawhi Leonard, the team may have improved their chances of winning the Eastern Conference next year. But the deal came at a cost, with the popular DeMar DeRozan heading to San Antonio in the deal.

That’s a tough spot for an organization, because DeRozan didn’t want to be traded. He made that clear before the trade, and especially so in the days immediately after. Sports is a business, as we’re constantly reminded, but it’s difficult for a fan to see a popular player leave town against his will.

Every now and then, we see something similar in the NHL. Most big hockey deals are pulled off with at least some cooperation from the player, and some are outright forced by a star who wants to be elsewhere. But occasionally, a star is traded against his will. Here are eight times it happened, and how it worked out for everyone involved.

1. Wayne Gretzky, 1988

The player: Wayne Gretzky. You may have heard of him.

We may as well start with the obvious example of a player’s grief at being dealt. Gretzky’s press-conference breakdown, complete with his quip about how he’d “promised Mess I wouldn’t do this,” is burned into the memories of a generation of hockey fans.

The trade: The Oilers — or more specifically, owner Peter Pocklington — sent Gretzky to Los Angeles along with Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley in exchange for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, three first-round picks and a truckload of cash.

How unhappy was he? That’s a matter of at least some debate; Pocklington would later infamously accuse Gretzky of shedding “crocodile tears” at the press conference. It’s true that by the time the deal was officially made, Gretzky wanted to go to L.A. — according to one version of the story, he was given the chance to back out of the move that morning and chose to go through with it. But all of that came after it had been made clear that Pocklington had been working on a trade for a while, and it’s hard to blame Gretzky for eventually going along with the inevitable.

How’d that work out for them? On the one hand, the trade was a disaster for the Oilers. Carson was good but lasted only one full season in Edmonton, Gelinas was just OK, and none of the three firsts turned into franchise players. Meanwhile, Gretzky won the Hart in his first year in L.A. and added three scoring titles.

On the other hand, the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1990, while Gretzky and the Kings never did combine for a championship. So who really won the trade? [Checks notes.] Right, the Kings won by a mile.

We’ll be back in Edmonton a little later in this piece, but for now let’s skip ahead a few decades to a different Canadian team…

2. P.K. Subban, 2016

The player: Subban had won the Norris in 2013 and been a finalist in 2015. But he was also carrying a $9-million cap hit, the highest of any defenceman in the league at the time, and had a no-trade clause that was days away from kicking in.

The trade: As part of the craziest 23 minutes in NHL off-season history, the Canadiens shocked everyone by swapping Subban straight up for Nashville’s Shea Weber.

How unhappy was he? He certainly didn’t want to be moved — that’s why he’d negotiated that NTC. And he’d put down roots in Montreal, including making a $10-million donation to a local children’s hospital. He seemed to take the move personally, and earlier this week, he empathized with DeRozan’s situation.

How’d that work out for them? Habs fans will claim that it’s too soon to tell, and maybe it is. But in the two years since the deal, the Predators have been to a Stanley Cup final and won a Presidents’ Trophy, while the Canadiens haven’t won a round and are coming off a miserable season that has some calling for them to blow it up and start all over. Meanwhile, Subban just posted yet another Norris-caliber season, while Weber missed most of last year and will be out for the first half of this coming season.

We’ll just mark that down as “Advantage: Nashville” so far. But the good news for Montreal is that Weber still has eight years left on his deal, so there’s plenty of time to turn things around.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Grab bag: Happy birthday to you

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- The NHL celebrates its 100th birthday, sort of
- The dangerous game of teams making empty threats about moving
- An obscure player who won four Cups with four teams
- The week's three comedy stars feature an awkward wedgie
- And a classic YouTube clip of the best jersey retirement ever

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Grab bag: Pangs of pregret

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- An NHL coach finally calls BS on the league's ridiculous injury policy
- Celebrating a new class of terrible of contract
- An obscure player who did something nobody had managed since Phil Esposito
- The week's three comedy stars, including that SNL sketch
- And a YouTube breakdown of the game that introduced Mickey Mouse to the NHL

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Grab Bag: The day the Senators and Lightning were born

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Upon further review, the NHL's coach's challenge explanations are useless
- A tribute to legendary hockey fan Alan Thicke
- My suggestion for how the NHL could get in on the e-sports boom, and yes it's exactly what you think
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a classic YouTube clip in which the NHL announces their expansion plans and the TV guys try really hard not to laugh about it.

>> Read the full post at Vice Sports

Five times an NHL arbitrator actually got to do something

It’s been a rough few weeks for NHL arbitrators. While 25 contract cases had been scheduled for hearings, only Tyson Barrie made it to a hearing, and that was resolved before a ruling was issued, meaning the league’s arbitrators didn’t get to render a single decision. And all that comes on the heels of news that James Oldham, the neutral arbitrator who ruled on the Dennis Wideman case, had been dismissed by the league.

But during these dark days for the league’s proud arbitrating fraternity, it’s worth remembering that times weren’t always so tough. The NHL has a long history of arbitrators making headlines, on cases involving everything from contract signings to disputed trades and beyond.

Here’s a look back on five times in NHL history that an arbitrator got the chance to bask in the spotlight.

THE RFA FILES

The case: Today’s fans are familiar with the concept of restricted free agency. Certain players, typically those in the early stages of their pro careers, can find themselves eligible to sign offer sheets with other teams. If the offer isn’t matched, compensation is paid in the form of draft picks, based on a league-mandated scale. But the offer is matched, pretty much every time, which is why they’re rarely even attempted anymore and restricted free agency usually ends up being a dud.

Years ago, things were a lot more interesting.

Back before the current system came into place, the league went through a period where RFA signings were still subject to compensation. But instead of a list of draft picks and dollar signs, the compensation took the form of actual players. Each team – the one that had signed the RFA, and the one that was losing him – would have to submit what they thought was a fair trade to an arbitrator. And that arbitrator would have to pick one offer or the other, with no room to split the difference or compromise.

It was amazingly entertaining, and the strategy involved was fascinating. If you were signing another team’s RFA, would you lowball on your compensation to try to get the best possible value? Or did you make a generous offer just to make sure you weren’t burned? And if you were losing a player, did you retaliate by asking for someone even better in return?

OK, that last one sounds kind of over the top. But the New Jersey Devils tried it anyway, it worked, and everyone lost their minds.

The ruling: The player compensation system was used in all sorts of RFA signings over the years (I’m still not over the Maple Leafs losing Peter Zezel for Mike Craig). But the most famous case came in the early 90s, when the St. Louis Blues went on a spending spree targeting other teams RFAs. In 1990, they signed Scott Stevens away from the Capitals and named him team captain. And then in 1991, they went after Brendan Shanahan of the Devils.

Those were two big moves – Shanahan was a 22-year-old power forward who looked like a future star, and Stevens was already considered one of the best defensemen in the league. Put them together, along with established stars like Brett Hull and Adam Oates, and you had the core of a potential Cup champion. But as it turned out, it was the “put them together” part that ended up being a problem.

When it came time for an arbitrator to rule on Shanahan’s compensation, the Blues made a generous offer: Curtis Joseph and Rod Brind’Amour, two very good young players who’d go on to long and successful NHL careers. But the Devils shocked everyone by swinging for the fences and asking for Stevens. That seemed crazy – Shanahan was good, but Stevens was far better. But arbitrator Edward Houston stunned the hockey world by siding with the Devils, sending Stevens to New Jersey.

Understandably, the Blues flipped out. Stevens was also furious, initially refusing to report to the Devils before finally backing down shortly before the season started. The deal was a lopsided steal for New Jersey, one that helped set the stage for three Stanley Cups to come. To make matters worse, the Blues even tried to get Stevens back in 1994, and ended up getting nailed for tampering because of it.

To this day, Stevens-for-Shanahan stands as one of the biggest trades in NHL history. And thanks to an arbitrator, it was made against the will of one of the teams involved.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

Grab bag: Snubbed Leafs, benched stars, and the Rangers take over the ad world

In this week's Grab Bag:
- The snubbing of the Toronto Maple Leafs
- When stars get benched
- Comedy stars, featuring D-Boss and a bunny
- Introducing the concept of prebuilding
- And the New York Rangers show Madison Avenue how to do commercials right

>> Read the full post at Vice.com

Patrick Marleau, Ray Bourque, and the ultra-rare veteran trade

The Patrick Marleau trade watch continues this week, with rumors swirling that the Sharks could be shopping the forward, possibly at his request. The story feels familiar, one that plays out multiple times every season – the veteran star on the middling team, with both sides wondering if a change of scenery wouldn’t be for the best.

But there’s a twist here that makes the Marleau situation somewhat unique. The forward has spent his entire career in San Jose, and is currently in his 18th season with the Sharks. While veterans are dealt all the time, it’s remarkably rare to see a guy spend anywhere near that much time with one franchise and then leave via trade.

How rare? According to Elias Sports Bureau, just 21 players in NHL history have played at least 15 full seasons with one franchise, then moved on to play for another team. Of those, nine left as free agents, including recent cases like Daniel Alfredsson and Martin Brodeur (as well as current Bruins’ GM Don Sweeney). Three more went to the WHA and then returned to the NHL when the league absorbed their new clubs. And one, Serge Savard, was plucked in the waiver draft.

That leaves just eight players in the history of the NHL that have done what Marleau may be on the verge of doing: Play the first fifteen years or more of their career for one franchise, and then find themselves traded out of town. So I figured I’d take a look back at each of those cases, and see if there’s anything that Marleau and the Sharks can learn from them.

Ray Bourque

The prelude: Bourque was a first round pick in 1979 and made the Bruins as a teenager that same year. He’d go on to play almost 21 full seasons in Boston, winning five Norris Trophies, earning 12 first-team all-star honors, and recording over 1,500 points. His time in Boston saw him achieve just about everything a player could ever hope to… with one exception.

The trade: With no Cup rings after two decades in Boston and the Bruins on the verge of missing the playoffs, Bourque requested a trade to a contender. On March 6, 2000, the Bruins sent him and Dave Andreychuk to the Avalanche in exchange for Brian Rolston, Samuel Pahlsson, Martin Grenier and a first round pick.

The aftermath: This deal is pretty much the sports world’s gold standard for trades involving a long-time franchise player. The Bruins didn’t get much for their superstar, but that was hardly the point. This move was all about getting Bourque his ring. And while it didn’t happen in 2000, that just set the stage for one of the most cherished moments in hockey history to play out one year later.

The lesson: Sometimes, it’s more important to find the right fit for your long-serving veteran that it is to squeeze every drop of value out of a trade. Unfortunately, that sort of sentiment seems unlikely to apply here. Marleau has his fans in San Jose, but he’s nowhere near as beloved as Bourque was in Boston – and that extends to a front office that’s seemed to want a divorce for years. They’ll move Marleau if the right deal comes along, but don’t look for the Sharks to be doing him any favors.

>> Read the full post on ESPN.com