Brett Hull actually tried to talk Wayne Gretzky out of coming to St. Louis. Gretzky ignored him, and it took all of one game for him to understand why the warning had been issued.
The Blues acquired Gretzky from the Los Angeles Kings on February 27, 1996, pairing him with Hull for what everyone assumed would be the most dangerous duo in hockey. The problem was the shape Wayne Gretzky arrived in. He had been getting around eight minutes a night under Larry Robinson in Los Angeles, while Hull was logging enormous minutes in St. Louis under Mike Keenan – a coach he famously clashed with, but who at least kept him on the ice.
Brett Hull and Wayne Gretzky
Hull told the story on the Ice Guardians Pod, the podcast he co-hosts with former Blues enforcer Kelly Chase.
“I played 30 minutes a game with Keenan. As much as there was animosity there, I appreciated the fact that he just kept putting me out there,” Hull said. “I’d play 28, 30 minutes a game and I was in heaven.”
Then Wayne Gretzky showed up, and their first game together was in Vancouver. Hull, used to barely leaving the ice, kept volunteering the line for more shifts.
“We’d come off the ice and one line would go out there, and I’d look back and go, ‘We’re ready.’ And he’d go, ‘Okay, Wayne, go,'” Hull said.
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That routine didn’t last long. Somewhere in the middle of the game, the greatest player in hockey history had heard enough.
“I don’t know how many shifts it took, but we came back to the bench and I’d look back, and he grabbed me and he goes, ‘If you tell him we’re ready one more f***ing time, I’m going to kill you,'” Hull said. “He was like, ‘I’m so tired right now. It’s not funny.’ And I go, I get it.”
The partnership ended up being far shorter than St. Louis hoped. Wayne Gretzky put up 21 points in 18 regular-season games with the Blues before the team lost a double-overtime Game 7 to Detroit in the second round, and he signed with the New York Rangers that summer.
“It was a cool, cool deal playing with Wayne for as short as we did,” Hull said.
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