There never should have been a debate about Fred Shero’s worthiness for Hall of Fame induction, but now that this historically wrong snub will be righted Monday night with The Fog’s enshrinement in Toronto, the omission of Pat Burns becomes the next unconscionable mistake for the selection committee to address and correct in June.
Brendan Shanahan — part of the Class of 2013 with Shero, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Chelios and Geraldine Heaney — was part of three trades in his career — once via free agent compensation, once by demand — in exchange for Scott Stevens, Chris Pronger, Paul Coffey and Keith Primeau, and that alone makes him a Hall of Famer.
Niedermayer, for better or worse, was kept on such a short leash by Jacques Lemaire throughout his first few seasons with the Devils, the joke was the coach told the defenseman to dump it in when he was awarded a penalty shot against the Flyers in 1996.
Maybe you had to be there.
OK, Cam Neely is in with 395 goals and 694 points in a career shortened to 726 games by injuries. Peter Forsberg, who will walk into the Hall on two good feet upon his first year of eligibility in 2014, recorded 249 goals and 885 points in an injury-shortened career of 885 games.
So then why not Eric Lindros, the game’s most compelling player for most of the decade in which he was healthy enough to participate, who completed his career with 372 goals and 865 points in 760 games?
Keep Forsberg in Philadelphia with Ron Hextall and Garth Snow as his goaltenders, and get Lindros to Colorado with Patrick Roy and which, do you suppose, has the pair of Stanley Cup championships?
Who is inducted first into the Hall of Fame, Lindros or Mike Keenan?
And how many Stanley Cups would the Rangers have won between 1970 and say, 1976, if Emile Francis had hired Freddie to coach on Broadway rather than allowing him to leave the organization to go to Broad Street instead?
One thing for sure, Moose Dupont wouldn’t have been traded to the Blues as he unfortunately was in November 1971 (with Jack Egers and Mike Murphy for Gene Carr, Wayne Connelly and Jim Lorentz) if Shero has been behind the bench.
Shanahan, Patrik Sundstrom and John MacLean formed the second-best line in Devils’ history, eclipsed by only the mighty A Line of Jason Arnott between Patrik Elias and Petr Sykora.
The Crash Line of Randy McKay and Mike Peluso flanking Bobby Holik is the Devils’ all-time fourth line, but which is third, Zach Parise with Travis Zajac and Jamie Langenbrunner, or Bobby Carpenter between Stephane Richer and Claude Lemieux?
We’ll take Zajac’s unit for the regular season, Carpenter’s for the playoffs.
Do you remember when it seemed at the moment then-general manager Neil Smith was doing the prudent thing by refusing to trade a package of Dan Cloutier, Christian Dube or Niklas Sundstrom, Jeff Brown and a No. 1 to the Whalers for Shanahan in October of 1996?
Neither does Wayne Gretzky, who was entering his first season with the Blueshirts, desperately wanted Shanahan as his wingman, and thought that had been the plan.
Of course, Smith sent just about the same package to Tampa Bay a couple of years later for the right to select Pavel Brendl fourth overall in the Entry Draft — Hmm, Shanahan/Brendl, Brendl/Shanahan — in 1999.
Speaking of whom, after Brendl had a horrifically bad first day on the ice at training camp in ’99 that truly did foretell the future, Smith said this: “This year does not revolve around whether Pavel Brendl stays in the NHL or not; I think our next decade does.”
Well, it was only a half-decade, but you’ve got to hand it to the man: When he was right, he was right.
It was obvious all along, wasn’t it, that once the NHL adopted a hard-cap system, the small-market franchises in Buffalo, Edmonton and Florida would thrive?
Dale Tallon’s dismissal of Kevin Dineen — who won’t be hunting for work for long — in Sunrise seems like a general manager working for a new owner attempting to cover himself for as long as he can.
So if it took Claude Giroux about a month to play himself off the Canadian Olympic Team, is it remotely possible for Chris Kreider to play himself onto Team USA with another six weeks like his last two?
A star-spangled jersey in Sochi, meanwhile, should await Kyle Okposo , that much seems to be clear.
Has been interesting to listen to the pro-fight lobby attempt to define “good fights” vs. “bad fights” in the wake of last Friday’s Ray Emery fiasco.
Fight in the wake of a big, legal hit? Bad. Appointment fight between fourth-line enforcers? Bad. Goalie fight? Bad. Spontaneous fight? Good!
Next up for the lobby: Distinguishing between good and bad punches to the head and good and bad blows to the brain.
So the Devils have scored 30 goals in 16 games this season after getting 19 in the 11 games Ilya Kovalchuk missed with his shoulder injury down the stretch last year, and, yes, you’re so right, his defection to the KHL was a coup for the Devils.
This just in. Flyers are willing to include the video of Kate Smith singing God Bless America in 1974 in a package for a first-line winger or first-pair defenseman.