Puck Talk

Puck Talk returns from its NHL lockout-induced hiatus to sing the praises (again) of Cameron Michael Neely on the occasion of his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

It’s been almost 13 years to the month since my only visit to the hockey Hall of Fame during a family summer vacation to Buffalo and Toronto. It was the summer of ’92 and I’m guessing if you took a poll at that time asking whether Cam Neely would be inducted to the hall when his career ended the results would’ve been mixed.

It’s not that anyone would’ve sold him short as a player. By 1992 he’d already established himself as one of the premier forwards in the game. The problem was injuries. Cam’s infamous run-in with Ulf Samuelsson in the ’91 playoffs had essentially brought his career to a screeching halt. For the next two seasons after that incident in the Igloo he’d play no more than a few dozen games. To say Cam Neely was a lock for the Hall at that point was almost certainly a matter of great debate.

Fast forward 13 years to the present and the debate is over. Cam Neely is officially, and forever more, a Hall of Famer. And while I don’t take that honor lightly, having watched his entire career, I have to say that it’s extremely well deserved.

Cam embodied everything the Boston Bruins have always stood for as a franchise. He was big. He was tough. He was talented. And he was a winner. It’s always bittersweet to talk about his numbers because they could have, should have, been so much better without the injuries. But for starters it’s worth noting, for a team with no shortage of playoff heroes in it’s past, that nobody scored more playoff goals (55) in black and gold than Cam Neely. In 93 career playoff games he posted 89 points. That’s clutch. That counts for something in my book.

That half of those goals seemingly came at the hands of St. Patrick and the Habs just adds to his legacy. My all-time lasting image of Cam will always be the goal that finally put Montreal away in ’88. Blowing by Petr Svoboda. Drilling it over Roy. The glory days of the Adams Division and the Bruins-Canadiens rivalry are long gone but when that goal went in, and 45 years of frustration finally melted away, it meant everything to us. And that was Cam. He always showed up when it mattered. Before Neely arrived on the scene the Bruins lost 16 straight series to the Canadiens. During his tenure in Boston they beat Montreal 5 times in the playoffs. They haven’t beaten them since. They haven’t really beaten anyone since. Cam was a difference maker.

His career numbers, even with all the time missed, are still pretty respectable. 395 goals and 299 assists for 694 points in 726 games. 78th on the all-time goals list. But if you give him credit for a little bit of what might have been it’s clear to see how badly he was robbed. Say the average great player plays, I don’t know, 15 years. Gretzky, Howe, Esposito and most of the guys above him on the all-time goals list played more than that but, just to be conservative, give him a 15 year career instead of 9 which is more or less what he got.

Two of those seasons, 1992 and 1993 (when he played just 22 games combined and scored 20 goals) were at the absolute height of his career. In 1990 he had 55 goals. In ’91 he had 51 (in only 69 games). And in ’94 he had 50 goals in 49 games. So I think it’s safe to assume that he left at least, at the very least, about 70-80 goals on the table for those two seasons. Let’s call it 75.

Now give him 4 more healthy seasons on the back end of his career. Even when he was playing on one leg at the end of his career he was still scoring at least a goal every other game. To say he’d have scored 30 a season if he was healthy is probably extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY, conservative. But let’s do just that. Let’s give him 75 for the two prime years missed and 120 more for 4, by his standards, mediocre seasons. Now we’re talking about 590 career goals. Now he’s ahead of Mike Bossy and Guy Lafleur in the top 15 scorers of all-time. And again, that’s being very conservative. If you simply plug his career goals-per-game average into 492 games (6 extra seasons) you get an extra 267 goals. Now we’re up to 662. That’s 10th all-time. And even that’s being generous.

But the greatness of Cam Neely, of course, cannot be entirely captured by numbers. Name another forward in the last 25 years who could score goals at the same pace of pure scorers like Luc Robitaille or Dave Andreychuk while, at the same time, could match with the toughness of a guy like Wendell Clark. That’s what made Cam so special. He was tougher than any scorer in the league but more skilled than any tough guy.

And the fact that he did it with as much class and dignity as he did only adds to his case in my opinion. He didn’t just fight. He fought the biggest guy on your team. Never bragged. Never showed anyone up. Never complained. He would have fit right in with Bill Belichick and the Brady-era Patriots. Humble. Hard working. Selfless. That was Cam Neely. If you ever wanted to find a role model for how to conduct yourself as a professional athlete you’d be hard pressed to find a better one.

I was 17 the last time I visited the hockey Hall of Fame back in ’92. Cameron Michael Neely goes in on Monday, November 7th 2005. Now that I think of it, that sounds like it just might be the perfect time to go back.

Questions? Comments? Please send feedback to Michael James at feedback@barstoolsports.com