scoring ace a mixed bag
Nedved had highs, lows in Vancouver, but Gretzky souvenir stick after loss to L.A. was beyond the pale
Even through the lens afforded by 20/20 hindsight, one can look at Petr Nedved and see two different men.
Selfish or principled? Stubborn or disrespected? Bust or boom?
The Vancouver Canucks drafted the Czech forward in 1990, selecting a scrawny but highly skilled centre second overall after he had ripped up the WHL with the Seattle Thunderbirds, scoring 145 points and being named the CHL’s top rookie. The duality was there from the beginning. On one hand, he was still the courageous teenager who had walked into the frigid Calgary night carrying nothing but his hockey bag, defecting from Czechoslovakia and his team, TJ CHZ Litvinov, in the middle of the annual Mac’s Midget tournament.
On the other hand, neither his 6-3 body nor maturity were ready for the physical and mental rigours that come with playing pro hockey in the NHL. The Canucks stashed him on the fourth line, where — again depending on one’s perception — he was either protected by this move or had his development stifled. In 61 games, he had 10 goals and six assists, nowhere near the 65-80 he compiled with Seattle the season before.
Nedved improved to a 15-22 player the next season, but broke out in 1992-93 with 38 goals — second on the Canucks to only Pavel Bure — and 33 assists, including a then-team record 15-game points streak.
The Canucks roared into the playoffs, taking out the Winnipeg
Jets in six games, before falling to the Los Angeles Kings in six games, including a double-overtime loss in Game 5 at the Pacific Coliseum.
The young Czech’s unsophisticated world view was put on full display in Game 6 after Wayne Gretzky — the player he’d grown up idolizing and patterning his game after — had a goal and two assists to beat the Canucks 5-3.
A star-struck Nedved infamously asked the Great One for his stick in the post-game handshakes, a moment seen as an unforgivable sin as he skated smiling off the ice while his teammates were still smarting from the loss.
It was the beginning of the end.
George McPhee, assistant GM to Pat Quinn, began an acrimonious contract negotiation with Nedved and agent Tony Kondel in the off-season. Nedved was looking for a twoyear deal worth around $3 million; the Canucks offered less than half of that. In fact, after the team’s initial offer was rejected by Kondel, they came back with a number $50,000 less.
The disrespect was too much for Nedved, and he sat out most of the 1993-94 season.
When the St. Louis Blues visited Vancouver that March, with Nedved still MIA, Quinn was in negotiations to trade him to the Hartford Whalers for three players (Michael Nylander, Zarley Zalapski and James Patrick) when the Blues signed the restricted free agent to a massive offer sheet: three years, $4 million.
He would get $900,000 for the final 20 games of the season, as well as a $650,000 signing bonus.
The huge offer enraged the Canucks, who not only lost out on a trade that included two former lottery picks, but put their frugal financials on display to the rest of the league. As a Group One free agent, the Canucks were due compensation.
“We knew going into arbitration with St. Louis that they were going to have to submit a quality player, and when we received that proposal we were actually satisfied that this player is fair compensation for us,” McPhee told the Chicago Tribune at the time.
“The difference is Craig Janney is a proven player in the league, and the market value for his calibre player is up there.”
But the saga continued to fester as Janney refused to report to Vancouver, unwilling to leave St. Louis, nor his family. On March 21, the NHL’s trade deadline, it was finally resolved. Janney would remain with the Blues.
In return, the Canucks got two defencemen in Jeff Brown and Bret Hedican, and a forward in Nathan LaFayette. The three proved instrumental in the memorable run to the Stanley Cup final, including a first-round win over Calgary — which ironically boasted a trio of near-Canucks in Nylander, Zalapski and Patrick — when they came agonizingly close to beating the heavily favoured New York Rangers in seven games.
Brown had six goals and nine assists in the playoffs that season. Hedican had a goal and six assists, while LaFayette had two goals and six assists. LaFayette also rang a shot off the post in the dying minutes of Game 7, with the Canucks trailing by a goal, a moment that has dogged him since.
“I’d love to see the Canucks win (a Stanley Cup), because I think there’s no better hockey town,” he told the Globe and Mail during the team’s 1994 run. “But no question, it would also help me to kind of move on, to get rid of that collar.”
When fans look back at the magical 1994 Stanley Cup run, they can examine the key roles that Jeff Brown, Bret Hedican and Nathan LaFayette played in the playoff push. But understand the skill of GM Pat Quinn in making the trade at the deadline that year that brought them to Vancouver.
The Canucks had 1990’s second-overall pick Petr Nedved, who didn’t want to stay in Vancouver. He signed with St. Louis and, as compensation, the Canucks were awarded Craig Janney, who also did not want to play in Vancouver. So Quinn worked out a deal to bring the three to town, but that was met with Brown refusing to report. This was all great fodder for sports columnists.
PROVINCE COLUMNIST JIM TAYLOR WROTE:
Next to the battle between Geraldo and Oprah over the split-personality cross-dresser who argues with himself over what to wear, my current very fave news story is the one about the upcoming wedding of Tonya Harding and Petr Nedved.
You probably haven’t heard about it. Come to think of it, neither have I. But anyone who watches the soaps and talk shows will tell you it has to happen.
Once two storylines reach a certain level of absurdity, the central characters either clash and shoot each other, or collide with such ferocity and determination that one of them winds up pregnant.
That makes a Tonya-Petr wedding a natural. Picture it:
Petr waiting next to the minister, resplendent in his personally-autographed Wayne Gretzky jersey, pants, skates, helmet, socks and underwear, his big line (“Me and Wayne do!’’) written on the shaft of his polished Wayne Gretzky Easton aluminum hockey stick.
Tonya, tacky-chic in her lovely world championships figure-skating outfit, the now-famous broken skate lace wrapped tastefully around a parasol with retractable steel shaft. The choir singing the old Beatles classic, Bang Bang, Tonya’s Lillehammer.
I tell you, there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house. It could be the biggest wedding since Tiny Tim wed Miss Vicki live on The Johnny Carson Show. And what with Johnny gone and David fighting Jay who’s fighting Arsenio, who knows how high the bidding could go?
Not every wedding would be a hit on TV. But these two have that special quality that reaches to the very heart of soap opera.
Like the garlic on your lips after pigging out on escargot, they just never go away. You can burn the newspapers, shut off the radio and
TV, stay away from hockey games, figure skating and any social activity that requires speaking or listening to other people. It matters not. The next day, they’ll be back stronger than ever.
In the past week, Tonya has had a $2-million offer from a Japanese promoter who wants her to become a professional wrestler, struck a plea bargain that protects her from further prosecution in the Skategate affair, and learned that she didn’t cop the plea a moment too soon, because the grand jury wanted to indict her claiming she was so in on the plot to make Nancy Kerrigan rich by smacking her in the knee.
Meanwhile, Petr has continued to play for the St. Louis Blues while the Vancouver Canucks, having written him off as a third-line centre, suddenly decided during arbitration hearings that he was a star of highest quality for which they must be compensated in kind.
He has also become the innocent victim (for soap operas, the very best kind) while the Canucks lost Craig Janney and must now deal with a reluctant and possibly AWOL Jeff Brown.
From an entertainment package standpoint, we’re talking major-movie silly.
There are, of course, a few complications, not the least of which is that the two have never met.
But fate has a way of taking care of such things. Some day soon, as surely as Frankie kept tripping over Annette in those beach-blanket movies, Petr will tumble over Tonya, possibly clutching his knee.
They’ll look into each other’s eyes. He’ll lend her one of his skate laces.
“You’re the prettiest thing since Wayne Gretzky,’’ he’ll say tenderly.
“You’re kinda cute yourself,’’ she’ll reply. “I’d give you sixes across the board for artistic impression. Wanna go somewhere and show
me your technical program?’’
While the newlyweds honeymoon, the sports world will settle back into its normal orbit, dealing with everyday things like contract-breaking, steroids, drug abuse, salary caps, player strikes and Stanley Cup playoffs that last only slightly longer than the Hundred Years War.
Until Oprah offers: “Jock or Tu-Tu? The Dilemma of TwoSkate Families.’’ Spectator sport. It’s my life.
IN THE VANCOUVER SUN, IAIN MACINTYRE WROTE:
DALLAS — From the Vancouver Canucks’ war room atop their downtown hotel, general manager Pat Quinn could look out Monday into a cloudless powder-blue Texas sky and see forever.
The only thing he couldn’t see was the future. Quinn, after an exhausting weekend of phone calls, cigars and room-service food, made the trade Monday he knew would draw criticism with a team he’d rather not have turned to.
Smooth centre Craig Janney, who becomes an asterisk in Canuck history, was returned to the St. Louis Blues for skilled defencemen Jeff Brown and Bret Hedican and rookie Nathan LaFayette shortly before the National Hockey League’s trading deadline.
Janney, awarded to the Canucks seven days earlier as equalization for the Blues’ signing of Vancouver free agent Petr Nedved, refused to report and now returns to the club he felt betrayed him.
“It’s a grade B movie plot,’’ Quinn said moments after the dealing deadline, looking tired in bare feet and a golf shirt.
“We weren’t presented with the best scenario, but we have acquired a quality defenceman in Brown and up-and-coming young players.
“We didn’t have Petr and we didn’t have Craig, but we do have some players that can come in and help us now.’’
It appears, however, Brown won’t be helping the Canucks when they play Wednesday in Los Angeles against the Kings.
Brown was bitter with the trade and considering not immediately reporting.