Pavel Bure was traded from Vancouver to Florida in January 1999. Wayne Gretzky retired three months later, having spent his final seasons with the New York Rangers. In one of his first interviews after walking away, he connected the two things.
Bure has never forgotten it.
“The biggest compliment of my career came from Gretzky. When Wayne had just finished with hockey, in one of his first interviews he said in plain terms that if the Rangers, and not Florida, had traded for me from Vancouver, he would have stayed in hockey another year,” Bure told NHL.com. “Just to play together with me. Hearing that was incredible.”
Pavel Bure’s final three 50-goal seasons:
| Season | Team | Goals |
|---|---|---|
| 1997-98 | Vancouver | 51 |
| 1999-2000 | Florida | 58 |
| 2000-01 | Florida | 59 |
How many goals did Pavel Bure score?
Everything that happened around the hockey is the place to start. Injuries cost him more than 200 games at his peak, with three serious knee problems, and roughly another 150 went to off-ice disputes, including a lawsuit with CSKA that delayed his debut season and a holdout in Vancouver that ran from October to late January in 1998-99. He retired at 31.
READ MORE: Pavel Bure was once hilarious threatened by Wendel Clarke
All of which is why the raw figure, 437 in 702 games, doesn’t crack the top 70 in league history and tells you almost nothing useful. The rate is the number that matters. Bure managed 0.62 goals per game across his career, putting him in the top five of all time, marginally ahead of both Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin at 0.61.
There is a neat footnote to the Gretzky relationship. On the night Gretzky passed Gordie Howe to become the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer, Vancouver were the opposition, and Bure scored a hat trick that left the record-breaker somewhat in the shade.
When Sportsnet asked readers a few years ago which player from the past they would most like to see in the modern NHL, Bure finished ahead of Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Eric Lindros and Paul Kariya.
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