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Everything posted by Kevin Biestra
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Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
For me, it's a pretty easy Adams / Ronning / Courtnall > Miller on the list right now for greatest Canucks of all time. Especially Ronning but all three for sure. The easiest test for that in my mind is if somebody suggested the Ring of Honour for a player. I'd probably be in favor of Ronning and I would have to definitely think about Courtnall and Adams. On the other hand, if Miller retired or got traded tomorrow and somebody suggested the ROH...it would be laughable. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Getting Sami Salo for Peter Schaefer was a pretty nice haul as well. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
It was a hell of a performance. Even after getting swept by the Islanders, Brodeur still had a higher SPCT than Billy Smith and led the league for the playoffs. Some point to the King's ordinary regular season stats in his NHL career and say his performance came out of nowhere, but he was always a clutch goalie for his career. He was the first Memorial Cup MVP Trophy winner in history and had backstopped the Nordiques to the AVCO Cup (and to the final another time). The first time he got to the AVCO Cup final he also got swept...and still finished the playoffs with a .913 SPCT, in the WHA. Anyway, good thing he was only a third stringer on the mighty Islanders and they didn't need him...we basically got him for nothing at all. You can't usually expect much of a player when you're getting him for simply switching 5th round picks with another team. That might not even get you the rights to present day Jim Rutherford in net right now. Can't blame the Islanders for not messing with the Smith / Resch tandem. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Especially after 1994 Messier fell in love with his own legend. I doubt he'd even notice another great player retiring let alone inconvenience himself over it. Even the way the Messier Award is given out is self-celebratory in every way. That thing is a joke and should be done away with. Like I care who Mark Messier liked the best every couple of months and that needs to be canonized in league history. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Yeah that 50 greatest Canucks series of threads a while back was a good way for people to get to know the team's history and the board actually seemed pretty receptive to hearing about some of the old dogs and even voting for them. There were a handful of deserving historical candidates left out in the cold at the end but I was also glad to see some of them recognized where I figured recency bias might have them behind Tanner Glass and Dale Wiese or any warm body from the last 10 years. -
Good stuff, let's just wear it for 82 games and we can wear other stuff the rest of the season.
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Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
The Linden trade is also easier to swallow and more revered because he ended up back here anyway. It was like he agreed to be a rental for a few years. It could have very easily gone quite differently...parted ways never to return like Dino Ciccarelli and the North Stars, or LaFontaine and the Islanders...where it was just a story that ended abruptly. And a far worse ending than those. Linden and the fans still got it all, everyone lining up to shake his hand as a Canuck at the end of his final game, etc. Everybody got to have their cake and eat it too but not by sole virtue of the initial trade. Messier was such a dick. Gretzky himself didn't even need an A with the Rangers. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
I really feel like Lalonde should be a bigger part of the folklore. It's really something that we had a 5'5" guy going around repeatedly getting 20 goals and 50 points in the Broad Street Bullies era of hockey. He made Ronning look like Kareem Abdul Jabbar. -
John Garrett's 1983 All Star Game (full)
Kevin Biestra replied to Kevin Biestra's topic in Canucks Talk
They used to care and the game wasn't a total joke back then. The league started treating it as a novelty moneymaking circus spectacle instead of the best against the best, and the players followed suit and adopted that mentality too. No player used to miss the game on purpose, much less do so at the cost of a suspension. It all started to go downhill with the North America against the World stuff and just got tackier from there. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Heh, yeah other than Orland, the 70s teams and their players are pretty underrecognized (save for Quinn and that's all for his coaching and management). I'd have put Andre Boudrias in the ROH by now. And done more to recognize Gary Smith as well. It's too bad that nobody nowadays really know who any of Oddleifson, Lalonde, Ververgaert, Sedlbauer or even Lever and Boudrias are. I guess it happens everywhere to some degree. I don't know but I get the feeling that Devils fans don't know or care about Glenn Resch nowadays, Sabres fans about Mike Foligno or Danny Gare, Chicago fans about Troy Murray, Red Wings fans about Reed Larson, Boston fans about Mike O'Connell or Barry Pederson for that matter, Penguins fans about Pierre Larouche or Jean Pronovost, etc. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Did you mean to use a word other than anticipated in the first sentence? I think I am missing the setup for the rest of the paragraph. Anyway yeah the comparisons to Perreault were unfortunate. What's crazy is how unrecognized Tallon and the Canucks were overall. Tallon broke Bobby Orr's record for rookie scoring...and he wasn't even a Calder finalist. 5th place in voting. Tallon had 56 points as a defenseman, Perreault won the Calder with 72 as a forward. Guevremont...51 points on the blueline the very next season and would himself have now been the record holder...zero Calder votes. Dave Burrows got Calder votes with 12 points in 77 games. Anyway, Linden wasn't Modano and Kirk Muller wasn't Mario Lemieux, but they both got a bit more of a fair shake. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Pederson / Neely was always one that I had mixed feelings about, as opposed to outright disdain for the trade. Neely really hadn't blossomed into anything like what he would become. Pederson was only about 4 years older and his first three seasons in the NHL were absolutely amazing. 92 points as a rookie, then 107 and 116. He had the Calder Trophy in the bag if not for Hawerchuk. Then he ran into his shoulder problems and he went from a 110 point player to a 75 point player. I think the Canucks were gambling that he was still recovering from the surgery and was on the upswing back to 100 point territory. It would be interesting to see what level of detail Canucks management and medical staff actually had about his surgeries. They lost the gamble that he would return to his original form but he still stayed a 70 point player. If he had regained that form, I think this would have just been viewed as a pretty good trade of one Hall of Fame caliber player for another like Turgeon for Lafontaine or Gartner for Ciccarelli. Meanwhile Neely took off for the stars and the Canucks have been terrified of trading any potential power forward type ever since...Sandlak, Kassian, Pyatt etc. I just feel bad for Pederson whenever I think about it because he was guaranteed a spot in the Hall of Fame before he ran into his physical problems. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Yeah even the trade of Rick Vaive and Bill Derlago for Tiger Williams was kind of the same thing. The Canucks circa 1980 really didn't have much reason to think Williams would be the vet that got them over the hump, to the point of giving up two 40-50 goal scorers at once. It just ended up working out really well for them. -
Here is the full video of the legendary John Garrett 1983 NHL All Star Game. Look at those beautiful clean white boards... For anyone not familiar with the story, Richard Brodeur was selected as a goalie for the Campbell Conference (now unfortunately changed to the Western Conference and the Wales Conference to Eastern) after the miracle run to the Stanley Cup Final the previous year. Brodeur got injured just before the All Star Game so his backup John Garrett took his place. Garrett had been a 1st team All Star in the WHA himself (a league with Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Frank Mahovlich, Dave Keon, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Jacques Plante, Gerry Cheevers and many more). Garrett had also been a minor playoff hero himself for the Nordiques in 1982. But despite his accolades, Garrett wasn't held in terribly high regard when he stepped onto the ice. I won't give any spoilers... Also to note, the game is called by Canucks legend Jim Robson. Garrett's teammate in net, the other Campbell goalie, is Murray Bannerman from the Blackhawks. The Canucks drafted Murray Bannerman and then traded him away after literally 20 career minutes as a Canuck. He played one period, then was traded away as "player who was going to be named later" for Pit Martin. Pit Martin had been a great player...800 career points...but he was at the absolute end of the road and Bannerman was just getting started. Also a teammate for Garrett in the All Star Game is Rick Vaive, traded away by the Canucks almost as quickly in his career, as well as future Canuck Dave Babych. On the other side and already an All Star, Barry Pederson, whom the Canucks would acquire in a few years for Cam Neely. Pederson was easily en route to being a Hall of Famer before shoulder problems took him from a 100 point player to a 70 point player. Garrett's opponent to duel in the other net is Pelle Lindbergh, one of the NHL's all time tragedies. He would soon win the Vezina Trophy and be a Hart Trophy finalist and then die at age 26 in a car accident. It really looked like Pelle Lindbergh was on track to be the Patrick Roy / Dominik Hasek of that time period. In hockey terms, the Flyers were fortunate to have Ron Hextall waiting in the wings to pick up right where Lindbergh had left off as a goalie ready to both win the Vezina and take the Flyers to the Cup final in his early 20s. There were only two goalies per team then so they changed goalies halfway through the 2nd period. It's the 55:00 mark of the video clip if you want to skip to Garrett warming up.
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Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Yeah, in 1991 the Blackhawks had Ed Belfour, Dominik Hasek and Jim Waite. Probably the three best goaltending rookies / prospects in the NHL all on the same team. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Finland has always had good goaltending. Noora Raty is considered the Tretiak of women by some. The Minnesota North Stars really bet heavy on Finnish goalies around the late 80s / early 90s. They had Jarrmo Myllys and Kari Takko. Takko fared slightly better than Myllys stats wise but both ended up being more Krutov than Larionov. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
I was a little surprised at how Myllys had no success in the NHL when he came over. Kind of like the Krutov of goalies. He had literally the worst numbers I've ever seen over an NHL career for a goalie. Four seasons, all with a GAA over 5.00. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Everything from 72 to 87 (and maybe 91 too) was fantastic hockey. Not a bad tournament among them. It has been very good hockey since but starting with that World Cup of Hockey in the 90s it was never quite the same. Everything was kind of never quite the same after the 94-95 lockout. Remember the Gretzky's All Stars going on tour like the Harlem Globetrotters while the labor dispute was happening? That's when the dead puck era started too. 92-93 was an insane season...21 players got 100 points, almost all in the HOF now. Nine 50 goal scorers (eight in the HOF). That was great hockey to watch. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Did you have any thoughts at the time when they traded Dale Tallon and then Jocelyn Guevremont in quick succession? Tallon had broken Bobby Orr's record for points by a rookie defenseman, and then Guevremont would have had that record himself if not for Tallon. In short order the Canucks had divested themselves of what looked like it could have been really something on the back end. Neither went on to be a Norris winner but they did both score 50 points again for their new teams. And everyone remembers Coffey for his speed - he was darn fast - but I remember him as much for his grace. Mike Gartner was just as fast but Coffey was almost like...I don't know, 9 parts hockey and one part figure skating while racking up the points. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Yeah people talked crap about Coffey's defense but it was underrated. Not many guys could stop the shot and the pass on a two-on-one this effortlessly, then skate the puck down, try to go through four players packed into a 5x5 foot spot on the ice and not look like a fool doing so. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
Yeah I'm embarrassed to say I actually liked Messier better than Gretzky on the Oilers. Liked him less as a Ranger and even less as a Canuck. Gretzky was fantastic to watch but Coffey was actually my favorite Oiler and probably my favorite player in the league to actually watch play the game. I just grew to admire and respect Gretzky more with each year, especially from around the 93 playoffs onward. I haven't been legitimately and impactfully saddened to see many athletes retire, but Gretzky was one of them. -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
@IBatch Yo I remembered another batch of old dogs from the golden age traded in their primes (on the previous page). Remember any of those guys? -
Trading Elite Players in their Prime -- Are we expecting too much?
Kevin Biestra replied to HKSR's topic in Canucks Talk
It's hard to remember how many games were available on TV one way or another in any given year. That's why I just wrote down what it felt like. The network deals changed and there was still the mentality back then that if the games were on TV then fans wouldn't buy tickets to attend the rink. As opposed to today where it's televise it all, get the biggest TV deal possible, cover the boards with ads, put a CGI ad over the crowd and on the glass behind the net, name the rink after a company and name every power play, penalty kill and face off after another company. They were still figuring out the science of scraping out every cent from fans and advertisers. Yeah the Sports Page comedy was good stuff. They were young and hungry, like David Letterman when he had to keep viewers watching when they were already exhausted after the Johnny Carson show. Or the Kids in the Hall, or the SCTV crew on the way up before they all became big movie stars.