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Sunday, September 11, 2011

88-89 OPC Tribute; A Sabre, a Shark and a Legend

   Thomas Vanek is a two-time 40 goal scorer and actually led the league in +/- in 2006-07 with a +47.  Check out this sick overtime goal.

#10 - Thomas Vanek

  Joe Thornton is the only player in league history to win an Art Ross or Hart Trophy while being traded during that same season,which he accomplished in 2006-07.  Is Jumbo Joe a HHOF?  Perhaps... barely.

#11 - Joe Thornton

  Speaking of HHOF, Peter Stastny, inducted in 1998, is the next legend to be added to the set.  As tremendous as his on-ice accolades are, his off-ice story is just a riveting.  Peter, along with brother Anton, were the first European players to defect to the NHL while still in the prime of their careers.  The brothers, and Peter's pregnant wife Darina, escaped communist ruled Czechoslovakia, via Austria and arrived in Canada in August of 1980.  As punishment for the brother's defection, a third brother, Marian, was kicked off the Czechoslovakian National Hockey team and put under police surveillance.  Marian would later join his other brothers in Quebec the following season, 1981.  Today's young European stars owe a debt of gratitude to the courage and determination the Stastny brothers showed in 1980.

#92 - Peter Stastny

  I am really liking these Legends of Hockey videos.  Although I wish this one spoke more of his defection rather than Peter checking out the Nordiques muscles.

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