This season, Avalanche captain Joe Sakic has been like the mile runner with a kick, passing others one by one.
And it is an illustrious list. Maurice Richard, Guy Lafleur, Stan Mikita, Bryan Trottier … and more. They are all in Sakic’s rearview mirror as he moves up the NHL’s all-time lists in goal scoring, assists and points.
“When you come into the league, you never dream of doing this,” he said. “At least I didn’t. But I’ve been pretty healthy and been fortunate to play on good teams, and that gives you an opportunity to succeed.
“When you do sit down and think about it, it’s an honor and you feel pretty special. But to me, just being there alongside those guys means I’ve accomplished something.”
Sakic has had an up-and-down season that has included streaks of seven, 10 and six games without goals, but a decent total of 27 goals and 43 assists. Especially in the reopened ice of the post-lockout NHL, those aren’t eye-popping numbers, and somewhat of a disappointment. But he has five goals in the past five games, including three goals in the two games Alex Tanguay has been out.
As the Avalanche comes down the stretch of the 2005-06 season with the chance to finish anywhere from first in the Northwest Division to out of the postseason altogether, the team is depending on Sakic more than ever.
Changing times
Thanks to the NHL’s new salary cap system and general manager Pierre Lacroix’s difficult decisions in putting together offers in the offseason, there is no Peter Forsberg around to be the other center in a pick-your-poison combination.
On top of that, the Avalanche now is without its leading goal scorer, Marek Svatos, for the rest of the season and its leader in points, Tanguay, for at least two weeks. Svatos, only 23, scored 32 goals in 61 games. Tanguay was having a solid season, and his absence in the stretch run leaves a huge void.
So Sakic might be skating with more weight on his shoulders than usual as he steadily climbs up the NHL career lists. The 36-year-old Sakic is:
Eighteenth in goals, with 569, and within four of longtime New York Islanders great Mike Bossy. The Avalanche finishes a road-dominated portion of the schedule Saturday in St. Louis before playing seven of the next eight at home, so it seems likely Sakic will catch Bossy in a game at the Pepsi Center down the stretch.
Fifteenth in assists, with 903, within 23 of Mikita, the Chicago Blackhawks’ great playmaker.
Eleventh in points, with 1,472, within 59 of the great-skating defenseman Paul Coffey.
“He’s a ways out there,” Sakic said of Coffey, laughing. “It will be awhile.”
Of those three next up, Sakic clearly has the most in common with Bossy, who got many of those goals off feeds from Trottier during the Islanders’ dynastic era. Bossy was a right wing, Sakic a center. But their trademarks, and what made them feared most of all by opposing goaltenders, are stunning wrist shots – with releases so quick, they credibly could demonstrate them by doing nothing and then saying, “Want to see it again?”
Sakic is not the quintessential playmaker in the middle, and he has no problem admitting it. That’s another reason he and Forsberg, the Avalanche’s other marquee center in their first nine seasons in Denver, were so complementary. Forsberg could take over a game with his uncanny passing, his vision and awe-inspiring ability to not be knocked off the puck or give it up until he darned well pleased.
Sakic shoots first, passes second, and knows that’s his job. He even self-deprecatingly points out that a lot of those assists come when others score in the wake of his own shots.
“They’re all rebounds,” he said, smiling. “Yeah, I like looking for the open man. But if the shot’s there, there’s no way I’m going to pass it up.”
Sakic also is the embodiment of another major change in the game over the past few decades – conditioning. Both because of an off-ice training regimen and a natural tendency to stay in shape – in other words, he’s skinny – he stands a good chance of playing at least until he is 40, which would take him through the 2009-10 season. That also would make him available to play in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and shoot to overcome some of the disappointment of serving as captain of the underachieving Canadian team in Turin.
That would provide a nice touch, too, because the son of Croatian immigrants to Canada was born in Vancouver, raised in suburban Burnaby and is an example of Canadian diversity. As a young boy, he spoke Croatian at home and was shy.
He started playing hockey, getting his big chance when his parents scraped together $300 so their daughter, Rosemarie, could figure skate at the North Shore Club. The membership allowed brothers Joe and Brian to skate, too, and begin their development. Also, his father, Marijan, a stonemason, built a miniature rink in the backyard. Joe advanced quickly and ended up playing his major junior hockey in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, before joining the Quebec Nordiques, who moved to Colorado in 1995.
This is how much the game has changed: In his second and third seasons with Quebec, when rooming on the road with Lafleur, Sakic sometimes had to watch Lafleur blow smoke. Literally. Most often, Lafleur would go into the bathroom, shut the door and light up, trying to be at least semi-considerate.
“To me, it didn’t matter,” Sakic said with a laugh. “I mean, what am I going to say to him? You see him come to your team, and you remember watching him flying out there against Boston and everybody. I was nervous at first to be around him, but he’s a great guy. He was so nice to me, a good teammate.”
Passing it on
But the cycles of the calendar have been relentless. Tanguay was raised near Quebec City, and his pee-wee team won a chance to “scrimmage” for five minutes against the Nordiques. The mean Nordiques captain, this Sakic fellow whom Tanguay idolized, put the puck through Tanguay’s legs and put a shot on Quebec goalie Ron Hextall, who was “loaned” to the kids.
Now that kid not only is Sakic’s teammate, but he’s ahead of him on the team scoring list. For the Avalanche to win the Northwest Division, and perhaps even to hold on to a playoff position, Sakic must pass Tanguay – he’s only four points behind now – and be as good on many nights as he was in a two-goal, two-assist game against the Los Angeles Kings this week.
Sakic has been adamant that he can’t get too carried away with trying to take over games, whether because of Forsberg’s departure or the recent injury siege.
“I haven’t changed the way I play the game or my approach,” Sakic said. “It was the same when (Forsberg) was here and now. You just do the best you can and that’s it. You miss a guy like that who can dominate any game when he’s feeling good, and that’s great to watch. That rubs off on everybody. We don’t have him now, but my approach is the same.
“It’s different now. The league isn’t being played the same way now, and that definitely helps. You’re not always seeing checking lines anymore. … It would be easier to compare now and then if we were still playing in the same league as before.”
Joel Quenneville, in his first season as head coach, was an assistant with Quebec and Colorado, so the New NHL’s first season hasn’t served as his introduction to Sakic.
“Joe’s adjusted to whatever situation he has had,” Quenneville said.
But this is a new challenge, and how he responds over the next couple of weeks could go a long way toward determining whether this team even makes the playoffs.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
