Five To Go For Number Nine: Modano's Last Days?

by Brad Gardner on Apr 2, 2010 7:00 AM CDT in Dallas Stars Analysis

Disclaimer: We don't know if these are Mike Modano's final five (or fewer) games in the National Hockey League. What we do know is this: We don't want them to be. But if they are, then we would be sorely remiss at the end of next week if we did not take the opportunity to mark them as such.

Fives games to go, and some rather cryptic comments from Mo himself this week have put everyone who covers this team (even if it's extraordinarily part time) in a difficult position: To make a big deal or not? I think I'd like to make a big deal. If he comes back, we'll make a big deal again next year.

When you count down the greatest athletes in Dallas sports history, you have to rank him pretty high, even in this football town. He's approached or breached top 25 in all time NHL assists, goals, and overall scoring, which will put him in conversations about the hockey hall of fame. He's established himself as the United States greatest hockey player (or scorer, if you like). He's won a cup, been to a few conference finals, and he's been the face of this franchise since it got here. He deserves more than a mention here or there between the Mavericks trying to hold onto the #2 seed and the Rangers starting their season on Monday.

Nevertheless, these last 5 games are an opportunity for we who love him so to savor the memories and look back at what he did to make hockey so successful here in Texas. So I'd like to take these opponents as they come and see what kind of classic Mike Modano moments we can find.

Tonight he faces the Edmonton Oilers, long time ~~whipping boys~~ playoff rivals of the Dallas Stars. Mike played his first game against Edmonton on...

Follow the jump for a classic Modano/Edmonton moment and his career versus the Oil...

On December 2nd, 1989. Where were you on December 2nd, 1989?

Box scores being hard to come by of games in 1989 (if you know where to get complete boxscores, please email me) and considering that Modano didn't score his first NHL goal until sometime after that, it's hard for me to say when he got his first point against the Oil, but that night it was a 6-1 loss.

Mike has played 67 career games against the Oilers, notching 34 goals and 42 assists for a total of 76 points and 34 PIM.
He scored his career high, 4 goals in a single game, against Edmonton on Feb. 16, 1996.
Set a playoff career high of 3 assists in one game against Edmonton in 1997.
Scored his 1,300th career point against the Oilers last season on 11/30/2008:

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Comments

I wasn’t even born on October 17, 1988. Jeez I’m young. Well, since I didn’t get to see Modano’s first game against Edmonton, I’ll see his final game against Edmonton. Hopefully it’s not his last, but I’ll probably be about to cry when I think that it might be.

Here's to all us girls who love hockey...and the men who play it.

by Brad_Richards_Rocks on Apr 2, 2010 11:21 AM CDT reply actions

I was 16 and two months into my junior year of high school

Back then, aside from knowing who Wayne Gretzky was, I knew nothing about hockey (I lived in Kentucky at the time – basketball was, and still is, the state religion). I was fortunate enough to move to Dallas in Jan 2000 – a few months after Dallas won the cup and a few months before they made the second consecutive trip to the finals. Since hockey was enjoying a surge of popularity, I became very aware of the game and who Mike Modano was. I’m dreading the day we can no longer see Mo in a Stars uniform. Heck, with everything that’s going on, I’m sure the Stars are going to break my heart this summer.

by TracyJean on Apr 2, 2010 11:23 AM CDT reply actions

Well, if it is the end

We sure were very luck to have him. (Particularly as Americans)

I don’t think I even knew what hockey was when I was six years old in 1988.

Defending Big D

by Brad Gardner on Apr 2, 2010 11:33 AM CDT reply actions

Great memories

I graduated high school in 1987 in a suburb of Minneapolis (I moved to San Francisco in 1999 and, sadly, my friends here are Sharks fans … ugh). I was a die hard North Stars fan from the time I was very young, and remain a dedicated fan of the Dallas Stars today. I remember when Mike was drafted and feel extremely fortunate to have been able to see him play the game with such brilliance every year of his illustrious career, both live (too many games to count at the old Met Center in Bloomington, MN) and on television (subscribe to NHL Center Ice to catch every Stars game). If he is not a first ballot Hall of Fame, then something is seriously wrong. He has done way too much for the Stars and the game of hockey.

Oh, and my birthday is October 17!!

For a copy of the box score, I would contact the archives department at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

by MNtoCAStarsfan on Apr 2, 2010 11:45 AM CDT reply actions

First Game Against Edmonton

Brad,

Mike played the 1988-89 season in the WHL for the Prince Albert Raiders and then played for Team USA in the 1989 World Junior Championships in Anchorage, Alaska.

He made his NHL debut in the North Stars’ five-game first-round playoff series loss to the St. Louis Blues in April of 1989 playing in two of the games and scoring no points.

His regular season NHL debut was on October 5, 1989 in Minnesota against the Islanders and he scored his first goal in that game against Glenn Healy.

His first game against the Oilers was a 6-1 loss in Edmonton on December 2, 1989.

The following two websites are good sources for tracking this sort of information down:

http://www.shrpsports.com/nhl/result.htm
http://hsp.flyershistory.com/ (this one has boxscores from the 1993-94 season on if you scroll to the bottom of the page).

I’m a life-long New Yorker and was a big-time Rangers fan from 1976-96 when I had a falling-out with the organization (ironically, the Sergei Zubov trade to Pittsburgh was a major sticking-point for me).

I began watching Mike play in the 1996-97 season and he turned me into a Dallas Stars fan ever since.

He’s my all-time favorite player and will be missed tremendously whenever he decides to stop playing.

Really enjoy reading your website.

Keep up the great work!

by Greg Rizza on Apr 2, 2010 12:13 PM CDT reply actions

Whhoooops!! Thanks

I was looking somewhere last night that said he played 80 games in the 88-89 season and I thought that was weird, but went with it anyway.

Defending Big D

by Brad Gardner on Apr 2, 2010 1:45 PM CDT up reply actions

Thank you for the heads up on these two websites. Cool.

I’m very interested in hockey stats and have been keeping stats for the Stars all season long on a spreadsheet – I can tell you who scored, how many saves were made, if any Stars were among the Stars of the Game, etc., at a glance (where do you all think I got the numbers for my fan post about the offense a few weeks ago?). It’s cool to go back and look up a game and see who did what – for example, a friend of mine mentioned the game in Boston way back when where Eddie had gone AWOL and Marty got an unexpected start, so I just had to go and look it up and found that Marty ended up with a shutout in that game. DallasStars.com has limited information once you go back past the 2003-2004 season, so it’s nice to find someplace else that has stats.

by TracyJean on Apr 2, 2010 2:14 PM CDT up reply actions

I found the shrpsports one last night

But not the other, thanks.

(This is why I was pining for real box scores… to avoid these kinds of mistakes.)

Defending Big D

by Brad Gardner on Apr 2, 2010 1:47 PM CDT reply actions

A True "Franchise Player"

The term “Franchise Player” has been used to describe many players over the years in professional team sports, but rarely has the term been more appropriate than in the case of Mike Modano.

When Mike played in his 50th game this season (a 6-3 loss in Pittsburgh on March 6th) he positioned himself to join an extremely exclusive club of NHL Royalty.

Only three players have ever played an entire NHL career with one franchise for 20 full seasons (defining full as having played in at least 60% of his team’s games each year):

Alex Delvecchio – Detroit Red Wings (22 full seasons out of 24)
Stan Mikita – Chicago Blackhawks (20 full seasons out of 22)
Steve Yzerman – Detroit Red Wings (21 full seasons out of 22)

All three are enshrined in The Hockey Hall of Fame and they have all won the Stanley Cup.

Mike will become the fourth player to join this group if he retires without playing for another NHL franchise.

His 30 games played in the lockout-shortened 48-game season of 1995 accounted for 62.5% of the Stars’ games.

Six other players have played an entire NHL career with one franchise for 20 seasons, but none of them played 20 full seasons:

Dit Clapper – Boston Bruins (19 full seasons)
Jean Beliveau – Montreal Canadiens (18)
Henri Richard – Montreal Canadiens (19)
George Armstrong – Toronto Maple Leafs (19)
Ken Daneyko – New Jersey Devils (15)
Joe Sakic – Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (18)

All six have won the Stanley Cup and Clapper, Beliveau, Richard and Armstrong are Hockey Hall of Famers (with Sakic being a sure-fire inductee in 2012).

Just a little something to think about and appreciate as we watch Number 9 fly around the ice in these final 5 games.

by Greg Rizza on Apr 2, 2010 3:19 PM CDT reply actions