A lot of these posts have centred around the character of the players involved. How they were natural leaders, how they would play without limbs if asked to, or how they bled whatever colour it was the Canucks were wearing during their era. Great humans first, while also happening to be pretty damn good hockey players as well.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Pavel Bure was the antithesis of these qualities – far from it. But they weren’t quite what he was known for. But if you needed a guy to hop on the ice and drop your jaw every time you glanced in his direction? Pavel was your guy. When push comes to shove, Bure was the most talented player to ever play for the Vancouver Canucks – and its probably not close.

Career Statistics

Memorable Moments

I typically don’t like over-saturating a post like this with too many videos, but, come on.

Bure’s first game may have been the most anticipated in Canucks history at the time. Fans had filled Britannia Ice Rink just to see him practice, and after a lengthy battle with the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation to even make the jump to the NHL, fans wanted to see what the hype was about.

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He didn’t score in his debut (fittingly, the 10th game of the season), but it took about half a shift for people to realize that the Canucks had something special on their hands.

If you ever have a couple of hours to burn on watching vintage Canucks hockey, I highly recommend the “Lost Shifts” series on Youtube. Devoted to squashing the reputation of Bure being a one-dimensional cherry picker, these videos display the type of shifts that Bure had that wouldn’t necessarily make SportsCentre the next morning. What you see is a player who wasn’t quite a power forward, but wasn’t scared to go into the corners, use his body, and, contrary to popular belief, backcheck. He was just so good on his feet that he still managed to be the first guy up afterwards.

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This is probably Pavel’s most famous goal with the team to non-Canucks fans, and shows why the team used him on the penalty kill. His explosive skating allowed him to chase the puck around and cover multiple players, and if somebody messed up, oh, you better believe they were going to pay for it.

After years of tension between the organization and Bure, hatchets began to get buried at the beginning of this decade, and gradually, Bure started becoming more involved with the team, even showing up to the odd game or two. In 2013, things were finally fully made right, and his number 10 was retired by the team, as you’ll see in the video above. They also named the Most Exciting Player award after him, which, given his play and the fact that every other Canucks award was named after somebody, made sense.

Did you really think that I was going to go through this without adding the goal that was not only his most important with the team, but possibly the most important goal in Canucks history? In typical Pavel fashion, he’s about four thousand feet ahead of everybody else and makes Mike Vernon look silly, while sending his team to the second round of the playoffs – eventually heading to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Canucks Milestones

Most points by a rookie (60 in 1991/92, tied with Ivan Hlinka)

Most goals in a season (60 in 1992/93, tied with himself in 1993/94)

Most goals all-time, playoffs (34, tied with Trevor Linden)

Most goals in a game (4, tied with 10 others)

Most shorthanded goals, all-time (24)

Fourth all-time, goals (254) / first all time, goals per game (0.59)

Seventh all-time, points (478) / first all time, points per game (1.12)

Won Calder Trophy, 1992

Lead NHL in goals, 1994

Represented Canucks at NHL All-Star Game, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998

Named to NHL First All-Star Team, 1994

Winner of Molson Cup (3 Stars), 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998

Winner of Cyclone Taylor Trophy (Canucks MVP), 1993, 1994, 1998

Winner of Cyrus H. McLean Trophy (Canucks Points Leader), 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998

Winner of Pavel Bure Most Exciting Player Award (lol), 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998

Represented Soviet Union as Canucks Prospect, World Juniors 1990, 1991 (1st all-time, goals)

Represented Soviet Union as Canucks Prospect, World Championships 1990 (Gold), 1991

Represented Soviet Union as Canucks Prospect, Goodwill Games 1991

Represented Russia as member of Canucks, 1998 Olympics (Silver Medal, Best Forward of Tournament)

First long-term Canucks player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, 2012

Legacy

In a way, there’s a part of me that wishes that Bure was part of early-2010’s core rather than the early-90’s one. Other than the more recent team being better overall, he would have dominated without the ubiquitous hacking, slashing, clutching, and grabbing that he had to overcome early in his career.

But at the same time, that’s what was so amazing about seeing him play. Despite all of these things that seemingly only existed in an attempt to destroy the game, Bure rarely let them stop him. Teams could chase after him, and his knees would eventually wear down as a result, but most of the time, he would just deke you out or blow by you and create a scoring opportunity. On many nights, he looked like he could do it himself, and often he did.

But he was more than just that guy who scored a lot of breakaway goals. He was always buzzing around the ice looking for ways to contribute to the play; zone coverage, scrambles on the corner, maybe an elbow if the referee wasn’t looking; he was possibly the best two-way forward in the history of one dimensional floaters.

More than anything, though, Bure was one of the most exciting players to ever lace up the skates, and when he was his best, he did it while wearing the flying skate of the Vancouver Canucks on his chest. There had been some great players on the team up until that point, but Bure was the first one to truly be a superstar – one who left the entire hockey world’s jaws on the ground. He did so for the better part of seven years and had some of the best seasons of any Canucks player ever.

It goes without saying that he could have left on better terms (or, you know, not at all). A lot of people struggle to forgive him for the contract disputes and the eventual trade request, and even more feel those same emotions over the cold heart he showed to the Canucks afterward. But with hatchets buried and the nostalgia tide as high as ever, it’s worth remember just how much excitement he brought a city and a fanbase over the years he was here.





