I unabashedly love Hall of Fame debates. Always have. Years ago I had an editor tell me that HHOF stuff always bombs with readers, and maybe that’s true, but there are a few times a year when I decide to be selfish and do it anyway.
This week is one of those times, because the Hall will celebrate the class of 2023 over the weekend in the lead-up to Monday’s indication ceremony. On Wednesday, we looked at a half-dozen of the toughest calls among active players, with the help of Paul Pidutti from Adjusted Hockey. But some of you wanted to know about other guys, or complain about some of the players who are already in. So today, let’s open up the mailbag and see what else is on your mind.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.
What about Anze Kopitar? How important is it for him to get to 400 goals? (I think if he stays healthy he’ll get to 800 assists and probably gets to 1,200 points, but without getting 400 goals.) – Sam
Kopitar is interesting because he’s going to be heavily linked with Patrice Bergeron and Jonathan Toews, as the trio of 200-foot centers who really made us rethink how we viewed two-way forwards during the dawn of the analytics era.
Bergeron is a slam dunk at this point, and while the case for Toews is much weaker, he’s probably also a lock because of how much respect he got during the Hawks’ peak. (Remember, he was named to the NHL’s Top 100 players of all time list, when fellow active players like Joe Thornton and Evgeni Malkin weren’t.)
Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of Sidney Crosby’s golden goal, the overtime winner against the United States that delivered Olympic gold in front of a delirious Vancouver crowd.
It was a remarkable goal that still holds up as a “where were you” moment to this day, and the anniversary spurred a rush of pride and patriotism among Canadian hockey fans. But it also prompted something else, something far more rare and wonderful: a good tweet.
Specifically, a tweet by user @thupka1982 asking a seemingly simple question: What’s the Mount Rushmore of Team Canada goals? In other words, which four stand above the others as the best and/or most memorable in Canadian international hockey history?
I’m going to take the liberty of expanding the question to not just goals, but moments. The beauty of the question is that the first three are obvious. Just about everyone would give you the same list: Crosby’s Golden Goal, Paul Henderson’s winner in 1972 and Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux teaming up to beat the Soviets in 1987. You can’t get hockey fans to agree on anything, but I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t have those three moments on their list.
But what’s No. 4? That’s where it gets interesting. Today, with permission from our pal @thupka1982, let’s break down some of the candidates.
Darryl Sittler’s fake shot
The game: The inaugural Canada Cup in 1976 was meant to expand on the success of the 1972 Summit Series, with the expectation that we’d get a rematch between Team Canada and the Soviets. Instead, Canada ended up facing an underdog Czechoslovakian team in the final.
The moment: Canada won the first game of the best-of-three in a 6-0 blowout. But they had a tougher time in Game 2, needing a late goal to send the game to overtime. That’s when this happened:
Why it’s in the running: It was the first great international moment to happen in sudden death, and it’s an absolute beauty of a goal. (Side note: Don Cherry has tried to claim the credit for the move, which may or may not factor into where you rank it.)
The case against: Not having it come against the Soviets hurts the case a bit, as does the fact that it wasn’t a must-win game for Canada.
Bottom line: It’s definitely in the conversation, although I’m not sure there’s room on our Mount Rushmore for two games from the 1970s.
John Slaney plays the hero on home ice
The game: Heading into the 1991 World Junior Championship, Canada was the defending champs. But they’d never won back-to-back tournaments and had never won the tournament on home ice. They had a chance to make history on both fronts when they faced the Soviets in their final game of the tournament, with the winner taking gold.
The moment: Late in a 2-2 tie, a draw in the Soviet zone ended up with the puck sliding back to Canadian defenseman John Slaney, who had time to step into the shot of his life.
Why it’s in the running: It’s not the greatest goal on the list, although it might challenge for the best celebration. But this moment, along with the crowd reaction and TSN’s coverage of it all, may have been the one that elevated the world juniors from a vaguely important tournament to a Canadian institution.
The case against: In terms of big names to score a crucial goal, Slaney doesn’t exactly rank up there with Crosby or Lemieux or Sittler. Then again, when it comes to the world juniors, that might be part of the appeal.
Bottom line: It’s probably hard to explain to younger fans, but this one really was a huge moment back in the day and set the stage for other great WJC moments to come. Like this one …
Jordan Eberle’s buzzer-beater
The game: Canada and Russia renewed international hockey’s greatest rivalry at the 2009 world juniors in Ottawa. Canada had won four straight golds, but the Russians held a one-goal lead late in the game.
The moment: With the goalie pulled and Canada pressing in the final minute of the third, Ryan Ellis made a play at the blue line to keep the puck in the Russian zone. After an extended scrum along the sideboards, the puck squirted free to Jordan Eberle in front of the net.
Why it’s in the running: There may not be a goal in Canadian hockey history that came out of nowhere quite like this one. One second, the puck was by the boards as the game ticked away; the very next, Eberle was somehow all alone in front of the Russian net. The whole thing played out almost too quickly for a fan’s brain to process in real time, which made it one of the great “Did I actually just see that?” moments ever.
The case against: Memory is a funny thing. You know Canada went on to win the game, but do you even remember who scored the winner in overtime? Nobody did because the game was decided in a shootout, which is kind of lame. Another piece you may not remember, with shades of the Miracle on Ice: This wasn’t the gold medal game. It was the semifinal.
Bottom line: The fact that a goal that didn’t end a game or a tournament is still remembered to this day just drives home how insane the moment was for those that watched it live.
That's the old hockey cliché. Whenever a crucial game gets to overtime, or close enough that it feels like overtime, somebody will mention that it will probably end on an ugly goal. That's just how hockey works.
Not always, of course. Sometimes, we get a goal that lives up to expectations. From Doug Gilmour to Pavel Bure to Todd Marchant, some of history's most memorable clutch goals were beauties. Even Patrick Kane's overtime Cup winner featured a nice little shake-and-bake move before everyone lost sight of the puck. So they're not all bad.
But yeah, some of them are pretty awful. And now we can welcome Patric Hornqvist to the club. His Cup-winning goal on Sunday night was as big as they come, but you probably won't be seeing his behind-the-net bank shot replayed on many highlight reels.
But don't worry, Patric. You're in good company. So today, let's look back on five of the (many) all-time classic goals that, if we're being honest, were pretty ugly.
Uwe Krupp, 1996 Stanley Cup final
When the Stanley Cup is on the line in overtime, you're hoping the winner will be memorable. That's especially true if it's a 0-0 nail-biter. And if it also happens to be triple-overtime, look out. This is the time for some future Hall-of-Famer to make their mark on the game's history with the goal of their career. And there were more than a few HHOFers on this Avalanche roster, so it was all set up pretty much perfectly.
Or, you know, a defensive defenseman could randomly fire one home from 70 feet out. I guess that works too.
That's what Uwe Krupp gave us in 1996, becoming the first player since Bob Nystrom in 1980 to score a Cup-winning goal in overtime. It's OK if you don't remember it. Barely anyone seems to; the goal was so unremarkable that the broadcasts barely bothered showing replays.
The goal ended one of the worst Stanley Cup finals ever, although it also confirmed the Avalanche's arrival as one of the best and most entertaining teams of the next decade. Let's just tell future generations that the game ended on a Forsberg-to-Sakic tic-tac-toe play and be done with it.
One of the most common complaints about the modern NHL is that the league’s product is occasionally boring. And when it comes to the action on the ice, that’s often true. But in the bigger picture, 2016 couldn’t be accused of being dull. The year was a lot of things – ridiculous, controversial, head-scratching – but it was rarely boring.
Here are 10 of the biggest stories from an undeniably weird but entertaining year in the NHL.
1) The Penguins win it all
By the end of 2015, the Penguins were a mess. They’d just fired their coach, they were barely hanging in the playoff race, and they seemed more like a collection of aging, overpaid stars than an actual team.
By the end of 2016, they were the best team in hockey.
Nobody had a better 2016 than the Penguins, who close out the year near the top of the NHL standings and as defending Stanley Cup champions. They won that Cup thanks to a dominant performance by Sidney Crosby, now fully healthy and once again the undisputed best player in the world. He was supported by an unlikely hero in goal, as rookie Matt Murray took over the job despite having just 13 career starts heading into the playoffs.
And then there was Phil Kessel, the much-maligned winger who’d been acquired the previous summer. He went from league-wide punch line to the Penguins’ leading postseason scorer, not to mention one of the sport’s most lovable memes. By September, he was even throwing bombs on Twitter.
Phil Kessel is the best. In 2016, the Penguins were too.
2) The day the hockey world went nuts
June 29 seemed like it would be a relatively normal day in the NHL. The draft had just passed, and the start of unrestricted free agency was still two days away. The rumor mill was busy, as it always is this time of year, but nobody was expecting anything too crazy.
Then everyone lots their minds.
First came word that the Oilers had traded former first overall pick Taylor Hall to the Devils for defenseman Adam Larsson, in a move that stood as easily the most stunning one-for-one deal in recent NHL history. It held that honor for all of a half hour or so, before we learned that Montreal had sent PK Subban to the Predators for Shea Weber. You could hear hockey fans’ heads exploding around the world.
By the time reports emerged that Steven Stamkos had re-signed in Tampa, the day seemed almost incomprehensible. The Stamkos free agency auction was the biggest story in the league when the day began; by the time it ended, fans barely noticed.
In a league where nobody makes big moves anymore, we got three within an hour. It was madness. Here’s hoping it happens again someday soon.
While hockey fans may have missed it among all the lockout doom and gloom, Sunday was an important anniversary in hockey history. The day marked forty years since Canada and the USSR took to the ice at the Montreal Forum for game one of their infamous 1972 Summit Series.
Most Canadians know the story of the series by heart. But did you know how the team was put together? Hockey historians recently unearthed the original application form that was sent to Canadian players, and DGB spies were able to send me a copy.
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Thank you for your interest in playing for Team Canada in the 1972 Summit Series. To help us narrow down the list of candidates, please fill out the application form below.
Your name: _______________________ Your position: ________________________ NHL team that you play for: _______________
(If you wrote “Montreal Canadiens”, skip the rest of the form; you’ve made the team!)
What was your first thought after series organizer Alan Eagleson initially approached you about participating?
( ) “It would be an honor to represent my country.”
( ) “This sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
( ) “It will be interesting to travel all the way to Russia.”
( ) “Hey, that’s weird, my wallet is missing.”
What is your primary reason for wanting to join Team Canada for the Summit Series?
( ) Have always admired the passion of Canadian hockey fans, and think it would be fun to be booed mercilessly by them the first time we have a bad shift.
( ) Will be a nice change of pace from the typical 1970s player’s pre-season preparation of trying really hard not to chain-smoke quite as much while grilling ribeye steaks three meals a day.
( ) Hoping assistant coach John Ferguson brings his adorable five-year-old son to the practices, since it’s so cute how he falls for the “trade me two dimes for a nickel” trick every single time.
( ) Honestly, just want to be close to Phil Esposito’s sideburns.
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
