Tag: Dallas Stars

Elisabeth Hill, “The Puckslayer”.

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Ask a young goalie who their “hockey hero” might be, and the answer I receive most often these days is Carey Price. Not in every instance, but definitely more often than any other response. So I am floored when I ask Elisabeth Hill who her hockey hero is and she tells me matter of factly: “Ron Hextall”. Are you serious? What 18-year old girl has Ron Hextall as her favorite goaltender? Hextall, the first goaltender to ever score a goal by firing it into the opponent’s net, which he actually did twice. Hextall, the 1987 winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Vezina. And Hextall the goaltender who had over 100-minutes in penalties in each of his first three seasons in the NHL due to his tendency towards stickwork and getting his blocker up in opposing shooters faces; on top of the fact that he was very much an elite goalie in addition to his junkyard dog-ishness. Needless to say, I am highly impressed by this answer, and I love meeting individuals who break stereotypes and go totally against the norm. Elisabeth Hill possesses strong individuality, and she is also pretty darn good at stopping pieces of vulcanized rubber. Hence her nickname, “The Puckslayer”.

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Elisabeth Hill at age 12 with her hockey hero, Philadelphia Flyers goaltending great Ron Hextall (Photo provided courtesy of Elisabeth Hill).

Hill is a originally from Midlothian, Texas but is attending a preparatory school in Middletown, New Jersey called Mater Dei Prep. “I am 18-years old now, but I was about 8 or 9 when I started playing. Both of my parents were Dallas Stars fans, and as I got a little older I started to watch the games with them. I thought to myself, ‘Hmmm. That looks fun and aggressive; I kinda think I would like to try that out. My parents put my in a “Learn to Skate” program and then a “Learn to Play” through USA Hockey. In “Learn to Play” I found myself always gravitating towards the net. You don’t really expect someone to be a goaltender right off the bat, but a few weeks later this guy came up to my mom and said, ‘You do know she’s going to be a goalie, right?’. At first my mom was like, ‘oh please! God no!’, but here I am”, Hill tells me with a chuckle.

Though the state of Texas has the Stars and a large number of minor league teams, I was not sure how much youth hockey was available to Hill in order to grow in the game and foster her goaltending skills. “I mostly played boys hockey in Texas because that was the level of play where I felt that I would do better in. I did play girls, but there is only one girls hockey organization in the entire state, but at the time it was very much a different organization than what it is now. I ended up only playing girls hockey for 2-years before I went back to playing boys. The competition was a lot better in boys hockey and everybody actually wanted to play”.

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A superb backstopper for the Mater Dei Seraphs, Elisabeth Hill possesses not only elite goaltender prowess but is intellectual, creative and kind. (Photo provided courtesy of Elisabeth Hill).

There is a brief, completely kidding of course, moment of contention between Hill and I considering that her 1999 Dallas Stars beat my Buffalo Sabres in the Stanley Cup Finals. “Yeah… sorry ’bout that”, she says. All kidding aside, Hill looks fondly upon that ’99 Stars team that won it all, particularly their Hall of Fame netminder. “My favorite player from that team is Eddie Belfour. He was very aggressive, but was one of the best of all time”.

Speaking of goaltender aggressiveness though, Hill tells me more about how she idolizes Ron Hextall. “When I tell people that it always gets a few headshakes with people saying, ‘wait, what?’. Even my teammates who I play with have no idea who that even is; my coach does, but they don’t. Hextall is the reason why I wear number-27. I actually met him when I was about 12, and my first words to him were ‘Can I hug you?’. He was kind of like, ‘What?… Oh, yeah. Okay, sure’. My mom was friends with someone who worked for the (Manchester) Monarchs of the AHL”. Hextall was at one time the General Manager of the Manchester Monarchs, the former top minor league affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings. “He had actually signed some stuff for me when I was younger, and I had a nationals tournament in California and that was where the opportunity to meet him presented itself”.

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A senior at Mater Dei Prep, Elisabeth Hill is one of the fledgling members of their women’s ice hockey program (Photo provided courtesy of Elisabeth Hill).

Now living in New Jersey, Hill is a goaltender for her prep school’s women’s ice hockey program, the Mater Dei Seraphs, as well as for the Jersey Shore Wildcats of the New Jersey Youth Hockey League (NJYHL). We talk first about the Seraphs and their fairly new women’s hockey program which is only in its third year. As a senior now, Hill is one of the program’s original startup players for the school. “Originally I was recruited by a local girls youth team and they had an agreement with Mater Dei for a number of girls to attend there and help start the program which was my sophomore year of high school. Education wise, Mater Dei made everything possible for me, and hockey wise it was the best fit. We started my sophomore year, but we actually did not get into league play until just this year. We had a thing to prove our first two years, and I think we proved it very well”.

A new experience for sure for the teenage Hill who prior to attending Mater Dei had never lived outside of Texas before. “Usually I go home for Christmas. Sometimes my mom will make plans to come up to New Jersey to see me and sometime she has plans through work too that bring her up this way, which is really nice”. The Serhaps’ playoff season will begin the second full week of February, and Hill’s mother has already scheduled the trip to be there in attendance. “It is kind of funny; the older I get the more I actually miss my family and being at home. At 16 I was like, “Yes! I’m on my own! I’m independent!”, but now I’m 18 and it’s more like, ‘Oh man, I miss my mom!’. In her three years with Mater Dei, Hill has compiled a total of 151-career saves to go along with a 0.873-save percentage while allowing just 22-goals.

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At 5’9.5″ and 145-pounds, Elisabeth Hill uses both her size and her quick tracking to be a top-notch goaltender. (Photo provided courtesy of Elisabeth Hill).

Coinciding with her play with the Seraphs, Hill also tends net for the Jersey Shore Wildcats, a team in the fairly expansive youth hockey program throughout the state of New Jersey; a whole bunch of teams comprise the competition in this league. Hill tells me, “This is the first year for the Wildcats to have a girls program. My two coaches from the Seraphs and the Wildcats actually know each other, so they try to work around each other’s schedules. The Wildcats have another goalie but she attends prep school in another state, so there are times when I am the only goalie for both teams”. Personally, I think it is quite commendable how Hill’s two coaches are able to share her goaltending capabilities for their respective teams while not putting any undue pressure or unfair circumstances onto their young netminder. “Sometimes even if there is a scheduling conflict, the U16 goalie for the Wildcats will come up and play, and she is a very nice girl; she and I get along really well”, Hill says.

Elisabeth Hill has really good size for a women’s goalie standing at 5’9.5″ and 145-pounds. “In girls hockey I am considered a big goalie, but I also think that my tracking and my speed are some of my best attributes in addition to my size. Some people think that as a goalie you are just kind of standing there by yourself, but you actually set the mood and the pace of the game. You set an attitude for the game as well. If you have a good attitude and work ethic that sets the mood for your entire team”. When Hill explained it to me as such, I realized that she is a very cerebral goaltender even at her young age, and that she is an astute player that “feels” the game as much as she thinks it. Off the ice Hill greatly enjoys free-writing, developing short stories, and photography, so she is very much in tune with herself as both a person and as an athlete; something that carries over onto the ice and has been a quintessential part of who she is as a goalie. “Especially when you have so many different thoughts and ideas going through your head, and you are able to put it all down on paper, it is a really nice feeling”. Playing goaltender out on the ice affords a similar sort of release and oneness.

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Elisabeth Hill, her Seraph teammates, and her coach Oktay Armagan have taken Mater Dei’s women’s ice hockey program to the next level; they are a team to be taken seriously (Photo provided courtesy of Elisabeth Hill).

Now that she is well into her senior year of high school, Hill already has her sights set on playing hockey collegiately. “The goal is to go NCAA and I have two schools in mind, and I love both equally; Plymouth State University and Norwich University. Both have really good hockey programs and both are very good educational schools too. I am a big fan of the small school atmosphere and you get a better learning environment. You get to know everybody and nobody is really a stranger; it is definitely a nice feeling. You get a lot of one-on-one with teachers”. Hailing from a small private college myself, I agree with Hill completely on the benefits that schools of this nature tend to offer.

While she still has some time to ponder it, Hill has aspirations of playing hockey professionally someday too. A supporter of the NWHL’s New York Riveters, Hill has even attended some of the Rivs’ home games. “I would love to play in the NWHL or even the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL). I would be fine with playing in either of those leagues for sure. I would love it if they merged. Just absolutely love it. In the CWHL there is only one American team and the rest are Canadian. If they could merge, it would just expand women’s hockey in general. With the NWHL All-Star Game going to be in Pittsburgh very soon, I am just thinking to myself, ‘Please put a team there too!’. That would be so nice! And I really wish that the NHL would get a little more involved with supporting both leagues”. Wise words from a very bright young woman. National Hockey League, are you listening?

Intellectual. I think that is the word that I like best for describing Elisabeth Hill. Her words ring true to me, and I think that they apply greatly to the current status of women’s hockey, perhaps especially the NWHL. “Hockey has taught me that working hard in general does not have a guaranteed success. You need to keep working harder, so that when you do have success it is much, much sweeter”. Hill has some words of advice to me even. “I think that you should keep interviewing female athletes and other female hockey players just to get the word out. The more people that you tell, they’re going to keep telling other people. You will get more interest, and those people will start looking at women’s hockey too”. The more buzz there is about it, the more support there will be. “People should know that when things get hard, especially in sports, you should just keep going. The harder you work, the more success you’ll have. You learn something from someone new everyday”.

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One of Elisabeth Hill’s best attributes is her ability to track the puck so well. (Photo provided courtesy of Elisabeth Hill).

Elisabeth would like to add a special note of thanks to her coach at Mater Dei, Coach Oktay: “For his belief in us as a team, for never giving up on us when things got tough, and for teaching us lessons on and off the ice. Coach Oktay makes us well-rounded players all the way through. Some girls have for sure changed in 3-years, but in all the best ways. He may be a tough coach, but he is tough in all the right ways. I would also like to thank him for pushing me beyond limits I never thought I had, and always expecting nothing less than the best from me. Coach Oktay helped shape me into the person and the player that I am today”. Thank you, Coach Oktay.

A few words with: Mike Torchia, former Dallas Stars goaltender

Published on by nathanielaoliver2 Comments
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Mike Torchia tended goal for six games for the Dallas Stars during the 1994-95 NHL season, compiling a winning record of 3-2-1

Two things impress me the most when I think of my conversation with former Dallas Stars netminder, Mike Torchia. Firstly, how courteous, soft-spoken, and professional he is. Talking hockey with him is a sincere pleasure, and he automatically puts you at ease. Plain and simple – Torchia is a great guy. Secondly, it is how vividly he can recall his hockey career, starting from the time that he was just a young kid, all the way up through the four years of his junior career, his eleven years at the professional level, and into the present with his involvement in the game today. Mike Torchia is perhaps best remembered by NHL fans for his lone season with the Dallas Stars during the lockout shortened 1994-95 season. Personally, I became curious to know more about Mike’s hockey career leading up to that season in the NHL, and to find out what he has been doing since.

Mike Torchia was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Torchia began playing hockey at the age of 4-years old when he first started skating. Up until the age of 7-years old, Torchia had always been a positional player when one day while playing for a Selects hockey club, the team’s goaltender did not show up. Torchia’s coach asked of his players at the time if anyone was willing to suit up in net. Torchia had always been intrigued by the position, and figured that he would give it a go. With Torchia between the pipes, the team would end up winning the game 6-1. From that point forward, Mike Torchia became a goaltender permanently and never played a game as a position player again.

Growing up in Toronto, it was difficult for anyone to be a Leafs fan during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly when it came to cheering on the Leafs’ goaltenders. While Toronto certainly possessed considerable talent on their roster, a winning team never came to fruition for the Leafs. From a goaltender perspective, the Leafs best bet was arguably Mike Palmateer, but he would be traded away in the summer of 1980 to the Washington Capitals. From that point forward, the Toronto Maple Leafs became a revolving door for netminders, with the likes of Jiri Crha, Vincent Tremblay, Jim Rutherford, “Bunny” Larocque, Rick St. Croix, Ken Wregget and a handful of others all seeing time in the Toronto nets; most of whom were regularly averaging between 4.00-5.00 goals allowed average each season.

It would not be hard to understand then why Mike Torchia’s favorite team growing up was the Boston Bruins and the stellar goaltending of Hall of Famer Gerry Cheevers, as well as perennial All-Star selection and Vezina Trophy winner Pete Peeters. As the mid-1980s approached, Torchia also came to admire another legendary goaltender, the Montreal Canadiens’ Patrick Roy. For Torchia, a young goalie himself growing up in Toronto, these were his hockey heroes.

Shortly after he had turned 16, Mike Torchia would be drafted by the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers. Torchia would be taken in the second-round of the 1988 OHL Priority Selection draft. The 20th selection overall, Torchia would be selected ahead of the likes of Adam Foote, Owen Nolan, Chris Simon, Jassen Cullimore, Kris Draper, and other longstanding future NHLers. For Torchia, being selected by the Rangers in 1988 would eventually bring many wonderful moments and opportunities to his life; both as a youth hockey player and continuing even to this day.

Mike’s success with Kitchener would be almost immediate. The first two seasons with the Rangers in particular, at the ages of 16 and 17, would be his best of the four years in juniors, at least from his team’s standpoint. The 1989-90 OHL season, his second in the league, would see Mike and the Rangers finish second overall in the Emms Division with a record of 38-21-7. Kitchener had immense firepower, and would lead the OHL in team scoring that season with 358-goals scored; a full 24-goals more than the next highest scoring team in the league. The leading scorer for the Rangers was Torchia’s future brother-in-law, Gilbert Dionne, who would lead the way with 48-goals and 57-assists for 105-points in just 64-games. Joey St. Aubin and Jason Firth would also eclipse the 100-point mark that season for Kitchener, while 28-goal and 39-goal seasons came from future NHLers Shayne Stevenson and Steven Rice respectively. Anchoring Kitchener’s defense that season were future NHL blueliners Chris LiPuma and Jason York. Considering this team’s output and the caliber of the players they possessed, it was no wonder that the Rangers went as far as they did for this particular season.

Mike Torchia was just as exceptional as his teammates for 1989-90. As the number one netminder for Kitchener, Mike would finish with an impressive 25-11-2 record in 40-games, while registering a 0.875 save percentage and a 3.58 goals against average to go with 1 shutout. Perhaps more importantly though, Torchia would be at his very best in the OHL playoffs that season, backstopping Kitchener all the way to a 7-game showdown in the Finals against Oshawa that would go the entire distance. Mike posted a playoff run of 11-wins with only 6-losses during the 17-game stretch, and held opposing shooters at bay with a solid 3.52 goals against average. Torchia was so strong in the Kitchener nets that the Rangers had ripped through the North Bay Centennials and the Niagara Falls Thunder each in a series where they won 4-games to 1. It would not be until the Finals against Oshawa where Torchia and his Kitchener teammates would lose more than one game in a series.

Despite the 4-3 Finals loss to Oshawa, Torchia and the Rangers earned a birth in that spring’s Memorial Cup tournament to determine the major junior hockey league champion of the Canadian Hockey League. Mike Torchia and his Kitchener teammates would come ever so close to winning the Cup. Despite beating Kamloops 8-7 in overtime and Laval 5-3 in the round robin of the tournament, as well as a 5-4 semi-final victory over Laval once more, the Rangers would lose a heartbreaker in the championship game, losing once more to Oshawa that would take two overtime periods to resolve. Regardless of these tight losses in the finals and at the Memorial Cup, Mike Torchia had garnered attention and respect across Canada and in junior hockey. Torchia would be named to the 1990 Memorial Cup All-Star Team and would be named the Hap Emms Trophy recipient as well, as the top goaltender in the Memorial Cup tournament for that season.

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With the Kitchener Rangers, Mike Torchia would finish his junior hockey regular season career with a record of 89-68-16 in 182-games across four seasons.

After four highly successful seasons with Kitchener, Mike Torchia would see a dream come true in 1991 when he was chosen by the Minnesota North Stars in the NHL entry draft. Mike described the moment to me as a “surreal experience”. Not in the least bit out of cockiness, Torchia knew that making it into the NHL was where he was supposed to be. “I said to myself, ‘this is what I wanted to do. This is what I am going to do”. Being selected in the fourth-round at seventy-fourth overall, it was indeed a very surreal feeling for Mike. “Here I am at the time, walking down after being selected and being greeted by Bobby Clarke, who was the general manager of the North Stars at the time, and who I had watched as a kid with those missing teeth, winning Stanley Cups. And then Bob Gainey (who was the North Stars head coach at the time), and you think of all that he accomplished in his career, and it was just very, very surreal for me”.

Initially Torchia would be encouraged by the North Stars to play somewhere that he could get a lot of training in, and so he joined the Canadian National Team during 1992-93. “There was a very strenuous training regiment that Hockey Canada used at the time. We would start as early as 6:30AM in the morning, and going all the way into the evening. We did not play in a lot of games, but there was a lot of practice”, Torchia recalled. For the period of time that he was with the national team, Torchia was living in Calgary with teammates and friends like Hank Lammens and Adrian Aucoin, both of whom were on the national team and who would find NHL success in their careers as well.

In addition to his brief play with the national team, Torchia spent his first few professional seasons with the Stars minor league affiliate the Kalamazoo Wings of the IHL. While seeing regular action with the Wings, the Minnesota North Stars would relocate down south to Dallas and became the Stars. It was during their second season after relocation, the lockout shortened 1994-95 season, that Mike Torchia would make first his NHL appearance. When asked about what his first NHL game was like, Mike laughed and said “I guess I have Bob Gainey to thank for it”. Explaining further, Torchia said “Darcy Wakaluk had gotten hurt and was out for 2-weeks. So they called me up from Kalamazoo and flew me to Detroit on Friday for a Saturday game against the Red Wings. Then they called Manny Fernandez up, and I got sent back down to Kalamazoo, while Manny got the start against the Red Wings. I guess they intended to split the games between Manny and I. The next day I got called up and we flew to Chicago. About 4-hours before the game, Bob Gainey looks at me and says ‘you’re starting'”, again Torchia laughs, “I didn’t even have time to get nervous!”.

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Mike Torchia would stop 29 of 30 shots in an April 2, 1995 debut and 2-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Chicago Blackhawks would be an incredibly tough test for Mike to face in his first NHL game, as they were truly talent-laden. Garnered with All-Stars such as Eddie Belfour, Chris Chelios, Gary Suter, Jeremy Roenick, Joe Murphy and Tony Amonte, the game would conceivably be a shooting gallery against Torchia, while also having to outduel a future Hall of Fame goaltender in Belfour at the opposite end of the rink. Torchia was up to the challenge, and was absolutely superb in net. The Stars would win the game 2-1, with Torchia stopping 29 of 30 shots for an 0.967 save percentage. “The one goal I let in was the one I likely should have stopped. Joe Murphy let go of a wrist-shot, but didn’t get anything on it and it just fluttered into the net”. Torchia also reminded me that this was the game where “(Derian) Hatcher put a big hit on Jeremy Roenick and ended up injuring his knee”. When I tell him I am impressed with how well he recalls the details of this first game, Torchia responded with “the first game is always really special. I remember it like it was yesterday”.

During that first season in Dallas, Torchia learned a great deal from the Stars top netminder and veteran winner of three Stanley Cup championships, Andy Moog. While Darcy Wakaluk “was very quiet and kept mostly to himself”, Moog offered the young Torchia some great tutelage. “Andy Moog was just brilliant to be around. He taught me about making saves with the middle of the body. Simplifying things in terms of positioning. So many little details that I still use to this day”. Perhaps this mentoring by Moog in his first season is what helped Torchia achieve a respectable record of 3-2-1 in his rookie season, with wins over Toronto and Winnipeg in addition to the win over the Blackhawks.

After a solid rookie season, the 1995-96 season would be a tumultuous one for Torchia. Being involved with a summer trade from Dallas to the Washinton Capitals organization, followed by a trade to Anaheim in March of ’96, Torchia would end up playing for five different teams all in one season. Between injuries and conditioning assignments, as well as battling it out for limited NHL spots in the Capitals and Ducks organizations, to go along with a temporary loan from one team to another, Torchia would bounce from the cities of Norfolk to Kalamazoo to Orlando to Portland to Baltimore. Going from four straight years of being in Kitchener, to three to four years in Kalamazoo, and then suddenly five cities in one year would prove very difficult.

Eventually things would settle for Torchia during the 1998-99 season when he took the opportunity to play in Italy. “Looking at my background and heritage. My parents were from there. My sister was actually born there. I had met my wife and were married two years prior. We did not have any kids at the time. It was a great opportunity to see my roots. It became more about the experience than the hockey”. When asked about the fact that there were numerous other NHL experienced or drafted players (i.e. Reggie Savage, Tony Iob, Trevor Gallant) on the same team as Torchia, “Asiago HC”, Mike remembered the fact that Italy was a very enjoyable place to play for everyone. “We had a blast! There was one English speaking channel the whole year, so you could only watch so much TV. We would play cards. The wives would spend time together. The city we were in was more of a tourist spot, ski resort area. It was a lot of fun being with friends”.

Torchia would continue to wrap up his professional career overseas, as after his time in Italy he would play from 2000 through 2003 in the British Ice Hockey League. “Of the 18 skaters on our team, 17 of us were Canadian. Dale Craigwell, Scott Metcalfe, Trevor Gallant, Scott Allison. We would end up winning what they call the ‘Grand Slam’; all three or four trophies that were available for clubs to win”. Mike would have stops with the Sheffield Steelers, the Manchester Storm and the Guildford Flames. Mike would be named an ISL Second Team All-Star after an extremely solid performance with Sheffield which saw the Steelers finish first overall and lose only 9 of 48-games.

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Mike Torchia suiting up for the Manchester Storm of the British Ice Hockey Superleague during the 2002-03 season.

These days Mike Torchia is still very busy and still very much involved with the Kitchener Rangers. “I do color commentary for their radio broadcasts, and had done so on television too. I was their goalie coach for a while as well”. Torchia’s son Nathan, a goaltender just like his father, is now ranked in the top two goaltenders for the upcoming OHL draft and is slated to go very high in the 2016 Priority Selection. In fact, the younger Torchia is one of the top goaltenders in the world for those in his age group. When I congratulate Mike on his son’s success, he humbly reminds me that “nope, it’s all his doing”.

The last question that I leave Mike with is this – when he thinks back on his career, what is the most important thing that he learned which he still carries with him to this day. “Enjoy every day. It doesn’t last forever, and the end is very tough. It’s not so much the games. It’s being in the locker room with your buddies before or after a game. Being able to go for a skate with your buddies. Make sure you enjoy every day, every moment of it”.

I wish Mike the best of luck in all of his future endeavors, and I am excited to see what his son is going to accomplish in the years ahead. I have a hunch that he must be a lot like his father – courteous, professional, soft-spoken, truly a great guy. Those qualities breed success no matter where you go in life, and Mike Torchia certainly possesses them.

 

Andy Moog: not to be overlooked

Published on by nathanielaoliver5 Comments
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A 3-time Stanley Cup champion with the Edmonton Oilers, Andy Moog is too often overlooked for his accomplishments on the ice.

In front of him during his 18 NHL seasons was a long list of Hall of Fame caliber teammates. Gretzky. Messier. Fuhr. Kurri. Bourque. Recchi. Neely. Modano. Nieuwendyk. So many other names, that the 1990 Jennings Trophy and 3-time Stanley Cup winning goalie, Andy Moog, often gets overlooked. Closing in on twenty years since his last NHL game, Moog’s accomplishments to the game of hockey are nearly forgotten. This is a shame in my eyes. Not only because Moog was always one of my favorite goaltenders, but also because I believe his achievements are noteworthy. The argument could even be made that what Moog did on the ice should make him a consideration for Hall of Fame candidacy.

I will focus on a couple of key numbers. First, and perhaps the most remarkable – Andy Moog was the second fastest goaltender in NHL history to record 300-wins. It took Moog only until his 543rd game to reach this feat. The only goaltender that did it faster was the great Jacques Plante. But what makes this achievement so much more significant is the fact that Moog never played more than 62-games in a season, and only 5-times did he play at least 50-games in a season during his 18-year run. Plante, on the other hand, had 9-seasons of at least 50-games played, including the 1961-62 season when he suited up for all 70 of Montreal’s games (Plante also played in 69 of 70 games of the 1959-60 NHL season).

Take a look at a few particular contemporaries of Moog’s that are also members of the 300-win club. Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek, Grant Fuhr, Curtis Joseph, Eddie Belfour. All five goaltenders played during the same era as Moog, have at least 300-wins and in some cases well over 400-wins (Brodeur leading the pack with an astonishing 691), and all had at least one season where they played in 70 or more games. Moog still reached 300 career wins faster than any of them. Of these same contemporaries, only Brodeur and Hasek have better career win percentages than Moog; Andy having won 52.17% of his career regular season games. No matter how you splice it, to recognize that Moog was able to hit this milestone faster than anyone else except for one other goaltender, and in less games, has to count for something.

The other number that I would like to pinpoint about Andy Moog is career appearances in the Stanley Cup Finals. Not only did Moog win three Stanley Cups during the Edmonton Oilers dynasty years (Moog was a member of Edmonton’s championship teams in 1984, 1985 and 1987), but he also played in the Finals on three other occasions. In fact, between 1983 through 1990, only two years did a team make it to the Stanley Cup Finals that did not have Andy Moog as one of their goaltenders. Only former teammate Grant Fuhr equaled that task of six Finals appearances during the same time period. Fuhr and Moog being teammates for the first four Finals series together in Edmonton (1983, 1984, 1985, 1987), and then adversaries for the later two (1988 and 1990). Moog tended goal for a total of 15 Stanley Cup Finals games, and although his record in those games played is not ideal (3-wins, 10-losses), Moog still has his name inscribed on the Cup three times as a player.

How quickly he surmounted 300 career wins and the number of appearances in the Finals are what I find to be most impressive about Moog’s NHL career. But most certainly, there are other numbers of Andy’s that can be looked at and appreciated. Fast approaching twenty years since his last NHL game, Moog still sits at 15th place for all-time career wins with 372. That is more wins than Hockey Hall of Fame enshrined goalies Gump Worsley, Harry Lumley, Billy Smith, Bernie Parent or Ken Dryden.

Playing during a time period when goal scoring was at its most prolific, Moog still possesses a solid career save percentage. In 713 regular season games, Moog finished his career with a .892 save-percentage. You have to take into consideration that this number was attained throughout seasons when opposing players like Brett Hull and Mario Lemieux were scoring over 80-goals a season, and Bernie Nicholls, Teemu Selanne, and Alexander Mogilny were surpassing the 70-goal plateau (obviously I did not count Moog’s teammates during a portion of this era, Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri who put up astronomical numbers themselves).

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In between the pipes for the Boston Bruins, Andy Moog would win the Jennings Trophy with Rejean Lemelin for fewest goals allowed during the regular season.

Andy Moog was also an NHL All-Star in 1985 and 1986 when both he and Grant Fuhr were selected together as goaltending teammates, as well as selections in 1991 and 1997. In an era before NHL players were allowed to play in the Winter Olympics, Andy Moog shared the goaltending duties for Team Canada during the 1988 Calgary Olympics and helped lead Canada to a fourth-place finish, after he decided to leave the NHL briefly in 1987 to play for the Canadian national team. These are just a couple other achievements of Moog’s that I feel are worth noting.

This is what often happens when you play on great teams. Superb players like Andy Moog fall into the backdrop. In Edmonton, there were just too many great names during those dynasty teams and everybody remembers Grant Fuhr as the cornerstone in goal. Moog gets forgotten. Especially because Fuhr became the frontrunner in net for the Oilers, and at best for Andy, he and Fuhr were a tandem; it was never really the case that Moog was the number one guy while the Oilers were winning Cups; it was either Fuhr or the duties were shared.

In Boston, Moog’s heroics were kept out of the limelight by the accolades achieved by Bruin superstars Ray Bourque and Cam Neely, not to mention the fact that once again the goaltender duties were shared concurrently with Rejean Lemelin, although this time Moog had the edge towards being number one. Then in Dallas and in Montreal, Moog was certainly the number one goalie, but it was achieved during the final leg of his long career. Moog put up very solid numbers with both the Stars and the Canadiens, but I think arguably his best years in the game had already been played by that point.

Yes, this is what happens when you play on great teams. I think Ken Dryden experienced it in Montreal playing behind Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe, Serge Savard, Bob Gainey and all those great Habs players. I think that Chris Osgood can also relate from his time with the Detroit Red Wings teams of the late-90s and 2000s. Most people do not even know that Osgood is in eleventh place on the all time wins list by a goaltender and that he reached the 400-mark.

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In his final NHL season, Andy Moog suited up for the Montreal Canadiens.

I hope that in writing this I can at least draw some attention back to Andy Moog and what he accomplished during his NHL career. Do not overlook him. I remember seeing Andy in net in Buffalo at the old Aud on November 15th, 1995 when he was with the Dallas Stars. The Sabres won the game 2-1 (it was also the same night that “The French Connection’s” jerseys were retired in unison), but Moog turned in a decent 17-save performance for a 0.895 save-percentage that evening. Sitting in the stands with my father, I felt fortunate that I was getting to see Andy Moog play in person. I hope that anyone else who got to witness him play, whether as a fan, teammate, rival, coach, or official, feels at least a little privileged to have seen Moog play. Or at the very least, is able to recognize that they were witnessing a player who was better than most. Not to be overlooked.