MARLEAU CONTINUES TO MOVE UP ON ALL-TIME LISTS
The first goal he scored Monday night passed Gordie Howe on the all-time playoff list. The second goal he scored tied him with Steve Yzerman.
He is six playoff goals away from Mario Lemieux.
For a moment, you need to take a step back, find perspective and understand what it is Patrick Marleau is accomplishing as an NHL player, now with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
It is more than stunning — maybe because we’ve never really thought of him as an all-time great. But his name is right there, ahead of Mr. Hockey, one behind Bryan Trottier, six behind the genius Lemieux, ahead of Bobby Hull and Peter Forsberg and Phil Esposito and Doug Gilmour and Guy Lafleur and thousands of others. Some of the best we’ve ever seen. Scoring in an era when it’s never been more difficult to score.
Does any of this make sense? The next goal Marleau scores will be his 30th as a Maple Leaf. Which, really, is the story of his career. All he does is produce. Years ago, Cliff Fletcher told me that Marleau was the most consistent, underappreciated, maybe underrated goal scorer in the game. He was trying to find a way to acquire him. That’s how long ago it was.
And you see him now, still scoring, as the 16th leading NHL playoff goal scorer in history. Of the 15 ahead of him, only Esa Tikkanen, Claude Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, multi- Stanley
Cup winners, are not in the
Hall of Fame. The others read like a who’s who of greatest ever: Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri from those great Edmonton Oilers teams. Jean Beliveau, Joe Sakic, and Lemieux, the high end of the Top 100 players of all time.
And when he scored Monday against Boston, the first of two goals, he became the oldest Leaf to score in the playoffs, which seems odd considering the last Toronto team to win the Stanley Cup was full of old guys. The oldest before the Marleau goal, though, was Norm Ullman, who came to Toronto after the last Cup in 1967. Now another mark for Marleau to call his own, without a great deal of fanfare.
But that is who Marleau is and what he represents, so quiet off the ice, so productive on it. Long ago he became the Quoteless Joe of this generation. But that doesn’t matter. This year, salary aside, he has exceeded any and all expectations in terms of goal scoring, quiet leadership, and the surprising dependency the younger Leafs have on him, so many of them requiring someone to follow.
Mike Babcock has coached some remarkable talents: Nick Lidstrom, Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan, Dominik Hasek, Chris Chelios, Paul Kariya and Pavel Datsyuk would be at the top of that list. You wouldn’t necessarily rank Marleau alongside those greats, yet when you see the accomplishments and hear names like Hull and Howe and Yzerman, it does shock you.
“You’re aware of it, for sure,” Babcock said, referring to Marleau’s place on that all-time list. “You know, every time it comes up you’re reminded and you think it’s special. The other thing about it is — I used to say this about Nick Lidstrom all the time — you wonder who’s coaching who. And, what I mean by that is, you can learn as much from them as they can learn from you.
“In saying all that, they’re there to help you manage your team and make good decisions. That could even be with (having) rest, with treating people right, with how we handle our team. I think him and Ron (Hainsey) have been fantastic that way. They’ve given you someone to talk to — get a feel for your group without being worried they’re just shilling for the group. They’re not like that at all, they just want to do things right so we can have success.
“So, when you think of a guy like Lidstrom or (Henrik) Zetterberg or Yzerman or Shanahan or any of those guys that I’ve coached over the years, including these kinds of guys, these guys want the team to have success so they are really helpful to the coach. They don’t mind telling you what you need to be told.”
There isn’t much to tell Marleau. He does what he’s always done. Should he have an adequate season next year, he will move up the scoring list from 33rd all-time, passing Rocket Richard and Stan Mikita, and maybe catching the Bruins legend, Johnny Bucyk, on the list.
He has 535 goals, 605 if you include his playoff tallies. Mats Sundin is Toronto’s all-time scoring leader. He counted 420 times with Toronto (564 times in the NHL). Second on the list is Darryl Sittler at 389 (484 in NHL).
At 38, in his first season as a Leaf, in his 20th NHL season, Marleau is doing what he’s always done. He is there, hasn’t missed a game in nine years, scoring goals, contributing.
Other people make headlines. Other players make noise. He just keeps producing, quietly passing legends along the way.
So long, Mr. Hockey. You’re next Stevie Y. One of these things may not be like the other, but the record book, in this case, doesn’t discriminate.