In anticipation of Monday’s Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, PHT is taking an in-depth look at each of the four main entrants.
Whether it was before or during the dead-puck era of the 1990s and 2000s, Pavel Bure always proved why he was a Hall of Fame talent. The only thing that kept him from being an all-time career goal scoring leader were injuries.
Fans in Vancouver are busy debating whether or not they’ll retire Bure’s No. 10 but when you look at what his career entailed, there’s no doubting he’s a Hall of Famer, injuries and all.
Bure played 13 seasons in the NHL. Of those, he had three that went uninterrupted by injury (92-93, 97-98, and 2000-01). In those years he scored 60, 51, and 59 goals, the latter of which led the league.
In the Canucks’ Stanley Cup finals year in 93-94, Bure missed just six games but led the league in goals with 60. In 1999-2000 with Florida, he missed eight games and scored a league-leading 58, 14 of which were game-winners (also a league-leading stat). Even in spite of the injuries, he still scored 437 goals.
Did you need more of a reminder of how good he was? Good, because YouTube is teeming over with Top Ten reels of his goals and other goodies, but two in particular show off his greatness.
First up, his puck from skate to stick deke against Boston.
That highlight has probably been seen a thousand times and never gets old... Unless you’re a Bruins fan bummed out at seen Ray Bourque getting spun around.
Speaking of often-seen highlights, Flames fans might want to just skip this part entirely. Game 7 in the 1994 playoffs saw Bure deliver one of the most clutch goals in Canucks history with his triple-overtime game-winner.
