Today, Claude Lemieux announced his retirement. Again.
Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that we’re both big fans of the man known as “Pepe”. He was the typical pest – great if he’s on your team, a nightmare if he isn’t. Modern-day agitators such as Sean Avery only wish they could have been as effective as Claude Lemieux.
Quite frankly, if the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2012 does not include Claude Lemieux, something is seriously wrong. And how fitting would it be if Lemieux were to be inducted alongside his former Avalanche teammate Joe Sakic? Of course, there will be plenty of detractors who will call Lemieux a dirty player. These are the same people who gushed over players like Bobby Clarke and Scott Stevens, so there you go. Anyway, let’s take this moment to go over some of Lemieux’s Hall credentials.
- Four Stanley Cups (1986, 1995, 1996, 2000). It should also be pointed out that each of these Cups came on different tours of duty. As in, he helped make four different teams into winners. Also, he never lost in a Stanley Cup Final.
- 80 playoff goals, good for 9th best in NHL history.
- 1995 Conn Smythe winner.
- Nine seasons with 20+ goals and 100+ penalty minutes. To put that into proper context, only five players accomplished this feat in 2008-09.
- Nine trips to the conference finals or beyond.
- 379 regular season goals. Not bad for a guy primarily known for his playoff scoring.
- Came back to the NHL at age 43 and played a regular shift on a team that won the President’s Trophy.
That last one might be the most significant one of all. Even though his skills had largely eroded, Lemieux was still able to show something to a group of players who weren’t even alive when he was drafted. It’s a shame the Sharks choked in the playoffs, as is customary for them, because Lemieux winning a fifth Cup would have been such a great story.
As it is, Lemieux retires with his head held high, knowing he could still do it. Truth is, he always could do it. He just had the misfortune to have high goal totals in an era where goal totals were extremely high, then nearly killed Kris Draper. There wasn’t a period in Claude Lemieux’s career where he wasn’t an underrated player. I hope his retirement will educate some of the nay-sayers – as well as the aforementioned haters who claim Lemieux was a dirty player – on what was a spectacular career.
As one of my favorite non-Islanders of all-time, I always wonder what might have happened if things were different. It’s a little-known fact that Claude Lemieux was an Islander for a very brief time. The Islanders acquired Lemieux from New Jersey after the 1995 season, then immediately shipped him off to Colorado for Wendel Clark. (Trivia question: Who went to New Jersey in exchange for Lemieux?) Surely, Lemieux wouldn’t have won a Stanley Cup with an awful Islanders team in 1995-96, but I would have cherished the chance to watch a true great, a legitimate Hall of Famer, for 82 games. Lemieux always shined in the playoffs, but he was never anything but a tremendous talent who could do it all.
July 8, 2009, at 10:00 pm
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