In Defence of Pavel Bure

Ooh today on the Hockey News's e-mail newsletter there was a link to an article about how Pavel Bure should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. I could not agree more. I have talked about it before, but Pavel is my first and always hockey love. If Lance Links (a kid my sister had a crush on) started my watching hockey in the first place, Pavel Bure kept me there. He was electrifying, he was incredible. Bure had inhuman speed, but more importantly, he had the skills to make that speed DANGEROUS. Speed will only get you so far (i.E. Max Afinigenov) But Bure had amazing puckhandling skills. He could control the puck at warp speed and he made goalies look silly. On a consistent basis. He was pure artistry on the ice. And he scored goals- lots of them.

But he never recieved the mainstream media that you'd expect from someone so talented. he shied away from the interviews and profiles, because deep inside he was a very private person. Also, keep in mind that he was raised in the Soviet Union and life was different then than it is now for the Russian born players. So the media villified him and that hurt his reputation, even though he was poetry in motion on the ice and sold oodles of tickets. I think that's the biggest reason he's not in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He also never won a Stanley Cup but you can't blame that on him. Stanley Cups are won and lost by TEAMS. He owned all players in playoff goals in 1994, the last time he made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs. He never played for a truly great team, and never with a superstar center. What he did do was lead all players in goals in 1994, 2000, and 2001. In 2000, he also came within TWO point sof breaking the Gretzky/Lemieux/Jagr trifecta that owned the Art Ross Trophy for highest point-scorer for 2 decades. That's not nothing.

Campbell from THN Has this to say:
The two arguments against Bure are that his career was cut short by injury and he never won a Stanley Cup, but both of those are quite easily debunked.

First of all, having a short career didn’t hurt Bobby Orr or Mike Bossy and it should not be held against Bure that his back gave in to the rigors of playing in the toughest league in the world. Had he spent the first half or two-thirds of his career playing in Europe and piling up Olympic gold medals and World Championships against inferior competition and in a much less rigorous environment, the way 2008 inductee Igor Larionov did, Bure would have his path to the Hall of Fame cleared already.

Secondly, it’s not Bure’s fault he didn’t win a Stanley Cup. He came agonizingly close to doing so with the Vancouver Canucks in 1994, a spring in which he led all NHL players in playoff goals with 16. Although Bure only played in the playoffs five times, he failed to average at least a point per game just one of those years and his 70 points in 64 playoff games stacks up favorably against a lot of players with Hall of Fame credentials.

But it was his sustained excellence during the regular season – particularly in goal scoring – that sets Bure apart. He played just 702 games, but scored 437 goals, just 47 fewer than Hall of Famer Darryl Sittler, whose 484 career goals came in almost 400 more games than Bure played. In fact, Bure’s average of .623 goals per game is third-highest in NHL history among the league’s top 100 goal scorers behind only Bossy (.762) and Mario Lemieux (.754).

I think the numbers will speak pretty well for themselves. Not to mention that he was Rookie of the Year in 1992 (the same year Nicklas Lidstrom was a rookie! And beyond the .623 Goals per game. he also averaged 1.11 points per game. Not bad at all. (For reference, here are some other players points per game: Mike Bossy- 1.50, Jagr- 1.25, Sakic 1.19, Lemieux 1.88 (!) Gretz- 1.92, Ovie- 1.24, Sid 1.38) **But also keep in mind that all of those guys except Ovie and maybe Bossy, are/were centermen which means they are setting up a lot more plays, thus leading to more assists and points. Pavel was a Right Wing.

I think that's it. I've been wanting to post this for ages. I think it's an embarassment to the hockey hall of fam committe that they didn't induct Bure, especially when they had 2 open slots. That's like a slap in the face. Next year will be Yzerman, Leetch, Hull and Robitaille, since they are up and are all for sure lock-ins so you know he's not getting there next year. It'll have to come late. And that's a shame. Pavel played in the wrong time- he would have thrived in today's obstruction-free NHL. But alas, his body fell apart. (too many cheap shots to the knees?) and he had to retire at age 32.