Would the Professor have launched Russian Rocket to greater heights?
If Igor Larionov had remained with the Vancouver Canucks in 1992-93 instead of heading to Switzerland so that Russian hockey officials could no longer draw part of his NHL salary, might a run to the Stanley Cup have arrived a year earlier?
Might the Canucks have won the silver chalice in 1994?
And might Pavel Bure have posted numbers even greater than the stunning totals he put up in just his second NHL season?
The former two questions can’t be answered, though you can speculate. But of the latter, Stan Smyl has no doubt.
“Oh, yeah,” the former Canucks assistant coach said flatly to the notion of whether the veteran centre, nicknamed the Professor, and the young Russian Rocket would have combined for even greater heights than Bure reached without Larionov in his second season.
After a decent first NHL season in 1989-90, Larionov experienced a down year in 1990-91, tallying just 34 points and leading some to wonder if the former Soviet Olympic star was past his prime.
But the arrival of Bure in November 1991 seemed to revitalize Larionov, who ended the season with 65 points while Bure was named the NHL’s rookie of the year.
Larionov’s three-year contract expired in the summer of 1992, but the future hall of famer insisted he couldn’t return as long as the Russian hockey federation was still looking to take a percentage of his salary as some sort of solidarity payment.
“I will not see any more money go to the people running hockey in Russia,” he told reporters at a news conference in July 1992. “They made me a prisoner most of my life.
Because I was a good hockey player they kept me in the army when I did not want to stay. They tried to keep me from the NHL, and when I came, they made it part of the contract that the team must pay them also what it paid me.
“Now there are new people there and they say if I re-sign with the Canucks, they must get the same deal. It is a whole new federation. I owe these people nothing and the money does not go to Russian hockey. We don’t know where it goes. Maybe they line their pockets.”
Even without Larionov setting him up, Bure posted an incredible season, emerging as a true superstar. He became the first Canucks player to score 50 goals on March 1, 1993. He hit 60 goals on April 11. He was the first Canucks player to break the 100-point barrier.
“He was electrifying every night,” recalled Smyl, who retired the season before Bure arrived. “You didn’t know what to expect from Pavel. If he had a half-step on you, you were done. He could score both ways, with his shot or his speed with a deke. There was always something up his sleeve that you never thought a player could do.”
The team broke the 100-point barrier for the first time, good for a second straight first-place finish in the Smythe Division. They waltzed past the Winnipeg Jets in the first round, but lost to Wayne Gretzky’s L.A. Kings in the division finals.