Chris Pronger was a heck of a defenseman, and he didn’t fear playing against anyone. Well, that’s what we thought. He joined the St. Louis Blues in 1995 and stayed with the organization until 2005 when he joined the Oilers. In his last six seasons with the team, Pronger was the Blues’ captain and was a respected leader on the ice.
But he also played legends who destroyed him, and one of them was Mario Lemieux. Talking on the That’s Hockey Talk podcast, he spoke about a special meeting with Mario Lemieux.
He doesn’t specify what season the game was, but one thing is for sure, he took a beating to remember.
” I didn’t not like playing against anybody, but i would say the one guy… obviously Mario Lemieux was… When you look at his stats, they’re argubably better than Gretzky’s. When you look at them, and you look at the games played and all, it’s impressive,” he says.
” Right, playing against him, I didn’t realize how good of a skater he was. Because he’s good that long, powerful looking stride, and when I got to St. Louis, I got matched against him. Well they had some play, he cut out wide, he got close to the boards and just dink it in to the middle, I go to close him out and I was just like,’ I got him!’ Just as the guy is flying through, blow past the other defenseman, and boom, goal. The guy had four goals and four assists. Eight points, I was -8.”
” If we’re talking about green Jackets, I got two green Jackets on. I was just like, oh my god. How do you want me to stop this guy!?”
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