Bure is 6th all-time in goals per game (career). He is behind Bossy, Lemiuex, two guys I haven’t heard of, and Auston Matthews. Bure is also ahead of none other than Wayne Gretzky, making Pavel one of the best goal scorers the league has ever seen. Share your thoughts and memories about Bure below!
by PickAxeCA
15 Comments
I have also never heard of these 2 random guys
Absolutely love Bure and agree he’s an all-time great who’d have far better raw numbers if he’d had better luck with injuries and had a true #1 centre to play with in his career.
That said, his career GPG rate is actually helped by the fact that he retired at age 32 as any player who sticks around into their late 30’s sees their rate decline. It’s no coincidence Bossy is the gold standard as he basically played until 30 and walked away. Lemieux played longer but missed 3 years from his first retirement and actually didn’t play a ton of games when he returned. Imagine if Gretzky retired at 30 instead of 38!
None of this is to diminish how great Bure was at scoring goals 🔥
The two guys you’ve never heard of played in a completely different era of hockey so far removed from the modern game as to be worthless comparables. So it’s essentially Bossy, Lemieux, Bure and Matthews.
Of the four, Lemieux might be the most impressive given the era he participated in and the various health challenges he faced along with the nightly abuse he received, although he was surrounded by a galaxy of elite talent which helped his numbers.
You could make an argument for Bure, given he shattered his knee fairly early into his career and it dramatically changed the fearlessness and explosiveness with which he played. That, and the meat of his career was during the dead puck era where league scoring was massively depressed. Bure played on lesser teams than Lemieux (his goal/point share on those Florida Panthers teams was *startling*) and didn’t have nearly the same level of surrounding talent or support.
I think it’s supportable that pre-injury Bure was the best natural goal scorer in the history of the NHL.
**EDIT: Adding to this for more statistical fun and hijinx…**
Cy Denneny played 329 games from 1917-1929, basically the beginning of tracked statistics/the NHL. Goals per game in the NHL was 3.16 over his career span, beginning with an eye popping 4.75 and dwindling down to 1.46 by the end.
Babe Dye played 272 games from 1919 to 1931, goals per game in the NHL of 2.86 during his era.
Mike Bossy played 752 games from 1977 to 1987, NHL goals per game average was 3.75 during his playing career. He played his entire career in the most lucrative/offensively explosive era in NHL history. The lowest GPG rate during his tenure was 3.30, which would be the highest seen in the modern NHL since 1993.
Mario Lemieux played 915 games across 17 years from 1984 to 2006, missing a few in the late 90’s and the lockout year towards the end of his career. I fucked the math up on this one and don’t feel like repeating it, but the average GPG during his reign of terror wasn’t terribly dissimilar to Bossy, although he played the trail end of his career during the dead puck era and with failing health. Had Lemieux retired early like Bossy and shaved off the dwindling back nine of his career he’d be sitting on top of this list.
Pavel Bure played 702 games from 1991 to 2003, with an average NHL GPG during that span of 2.72, the lowest productive era that any of these players played in.
Auston Matthews has thus far played 562 games across 8 seasons, with a GPG of 3.01 during that span. It’s been rising steadily in recent years so his GPG total could continue to climb.
**Final breakdown of NHL GPG during these player’s careers:**
Mike Bossy – 3.75
Mario Lemieux – N/A I fucked it up and I’m too lazy to redo it (it would have been in the mid to high 3’s)
Cy Denneny – 3.16
Auston Matthews – 3.01
Babe Dye – 2.86
Pavel Bure – 2.72
I was stopped at 41st and oak intersection and looked over at the nice black Benz next to me and immediately started grinning like a dork when I realized that Bure was the driver. He acknowledged my realization by speeding off as soon as the light turned green…The end.
Bure was all by himself as far as the most exciting player of his generation he was extremely raw as far as how he was integrated into the team and how he fit with his linemates. But his solution as a rookie was to just score any way possible. I’d never seen a player just take the puck and try to beat the entire team before. For at least a few weeks it seemed he would just try to rush the puck going end to end over and over like someone had told him he couldn’t. Any other player on the team acted like that and they would be stapled to the bench as soon as their shift was over but he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, they would chant his name and you could hear the ooohs and ahhhs every time he touched the puck. There was literally no adjustment period where you see a young player acting nervous. No fear at all just his eagerness to prove himself and an absolutely unstoppable will to carry the puck through the neutral zone and score. More than any athlete in history he earned his nickname and younger fans will not be able to appreciate this watching clips of him. Coming over from Russia in those days put huge amounts of pressure on him. Unlike mcdavid he was not hyped by sports media for three or four years ahead of time he showed up to a league that dared him to succeed in an environment that was set up to bully players like him.
The two guys you haven’t heard of are both Hockey Hall of Famers from the early days of the NHL.
Babe Dye was an early superstar for Toronto in the 1920s, and was known for having one of the hardest shots of his era. He also was a three-sport athletes, playing minor baseball and football for the Argos.
Cy Denneny played for the Senators in the 1910s and 1920s and is also in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He retired as the NHL’s all-time top scorer and as a 4-time Stanley Cup champion, including one he won as a player-coach with the Bruins in 1929.
Bure and bossy some kings 🤴
Pavel Bure is the reason I fell in love with the sport and the Canucks, at age 8.
The Russian Rocket!!!
Love Bossy, however, Bure, if you watched him, was like Conner McDavid but even more focussed. When he wound up, it was an event, cause he was going for a goal. The crowd was oooohing and it was unreal. I’m lucky to have watched him. The other teams would slash him relentlessly. It was horrible to see, especially how other teams got away with that and the constant crashes into the end boards you knew, in away, that his time would be short. But he was unreal for speed, and excitement. This team now however, has me excited once more. They could score, but couldn’t defend, now they can defend, but their pp wasn’t good. I think they are fixing up everything they are bad at and have a great shot at being in the big show this coming year.
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The reason I became a fan. Game 7 Ot against calgary. Hooked ever since.
The thing I hear the most of all from those that watched him play, was that TV really couldnt do justice for how fast he was moving live in game. Sounds like he was the Bruce Lee of the NHL😄
I would put him ahead of Matthews due to the sheer amount of clutching and holding that was allowed during his playing years.
With these no clutch and grab rules , no two line off side, no opposing goon trying to take his head off.. does Bure look much different than Mcdavid in today’s game.
“Millions goals”