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| From NBCSports.com |
While the St. Louis Blues won the sweepstakes to pry Wayne Gretzky away from Los Angeles, doing so on Feb. 28, 1996, the market for the next best living thing to Wayne Gretzky was wide open.
Dale Hawerchuk, already a veteran of more than 1,000 games and well over 1,000 career points and who played in the shadow of Gretzky for the first nine years of his NHL career, had been bounced from Buffalo to St. Louis, victim of two consecutive veteran purges in less than one season.
Flush with the confidence of several moves that profoundly shifted the way the Philadelphia Flyers roster was constructed in the mid-1990s, GM Bob Clarke sniffed an opportunity. The desire was mutual.
According to Jay Greenberg in his 1996 book Full Spectrum, Hawerchuk actually wanted to sign with the Flyers during the 1995 offseason as the Sabres shifted into purge mode after a first-round playoff exit handed to them by Philadelphia.
Looking for a deal in the range of what he received at $7.8 million over 3 years, there simply wasn’t enough cash in the till at that point due to the necessity for Clarke to lock up two-thirds of the Legion of Doom line as well as seasoned defensive vets Eric Desjardins and Kevin Haller.
But when the Blues – well, GM and head coach Mike Keenan – decided to radically reshape their roster into one more playoff tested and reacquire a bunch of higher-level players already known as friend or foe, Hawerchuk had a little bit more runway to fly the coop. Despite a lineup which featured offensive weapons such as Brett Hull, Hawerchuk, Al MacInnis and Geoff Courtnall, St. Louis waded in the bottom five in total goals scored and goals-per-game all season.
The deal struck on March 15, 1996 was one-for-one: Craig MacTavish (by then a 4-time Stanley Cup winner and the last helmetless player in league history) headed to the Gateway City and Hawerchuk (who never advanced past the second round of the playoffs at any point of his future Hall-of-Fame-worthy 15-year career) arriving in Philadelphia.
Timing couldn’t have been better for the Flyers, who were hanging on long enough to challenge for the Atlantic Division lead with the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers – both of which were beginning to fade after scorching sections of their earlier schedule.
After battling each other to a 3-3 tie at Madison Square Garden on March 13, the Panthers were 2-9-2 since Feb. 14 and the Blueshirts just 3-5-4 since then. The Orange and Black had 16 games remaining, just 2 points behind Florida and 9 back of New York, but sputtered to a 2-4-1 mark since Feb. 22.
They were missing the back third of the Legion, Mikael Renberg, sidelined with a persistent stomach-muscle issue that today would have been identified as a core muscle problem or sports hernia injury.
Instead, as hockey remained in the dark ages orthopedically speaking, Renberg missed 17 straight games from late January to early March, then failed to record a point in the 2 games he started thereafter; another top-flight veteran option who could be moved on a line was a must after Dan Quinn was brought in to shore up the second line and Bob Corkum the bottom six.
“Mike said he needed to free up some money to sign Gretzky,” Clarke recalled in Greenberg’s book. “I would have been interested even if Renberg wasn’t hurt. He’s an intelligent player who could fit into the power play and he could play the wing.”
As luck would have it, Hawerchuk’s debut was at the Spectrum against the franchise he basically willed into existence, the original-and-not-extra-crispy Winnipeg Jets.
These Jets, saved from relocation at the last minute the previous summer, were almost officially on their way out of Canada by now, though angling for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. It was a long way from the club which rose from the dead after selecting Hawerchuk No. 1 overall in the 1981 NHL draft after back-to-back championships in Canadian juniors with the Cornwall Royals.
“I had no clue anything was up,” Hawerchuk remembered in Full Spectrum. “But I wasn’t playing that much and I thought if anybody was interested it would probably be Philadelphia. You always have mixed feelings about a trade, but I felt pretty comfortable with Philadelphia.”
Hawerchuk played primarily on the power play, putting 4 shots on goal without a point in a 3-0 Flyers victory. Renberg, on the other hand, was a human adrenaline boost with his season-best 7-shot performance.
Unfortunately, Renberg wasn’t able to skate the next night against San Jose. Hawerchuk was, with Flyers head coach Terry Murray giving him carte blanche to get comfortable up and down the lineup. He centered three lines including the Legion, recording two assists (on goals from Joel Otto and John LeClair) and a third-period goal while riding shotgun with the top line which closed out the 8-2 romp.
“When I walked into the locker room for the morning skate at Voorhees,” Hawerchuk recalled, “It was a much happier, looser atmosphere than in St. Louis. I just had a good feeling about being there.”
That good feeling was rocket fuel for a sudden spate of health and wealth which spurred a sprint to the finish. From the day of Hawerchuk’s acquisition, the Flyers went 13-3-0 overall, including a 7-1-0 at home. One of the two road losses was No. 18’s final visit to the Winnipeg Arena on March 22, a 4-1 Jets victory.
The Flyers sped past the faltering Panthers and the sagging Rangers, not only reaching first in the Atlantic, but the top overall seed in the Eastern Conference as the Penguins also backslid at the finish. Hawerchuk’s final regular-season line: 20 points in 16 games (4G, 16A). Five multi-point efforts. At least one shot on goal in all 16 games, 44 SOG all told. A six-game point streak from March 23 through Apr. 2.
In the playoffs, Hawerchuk was widely credited with calming down a jittery locker room after the Tampa Bay Lightning stole Games 2 and 3 in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series. His calm tip from the slot near the end of the second period of a contentious contest at the Thunderdome gave the visitors a 3-1 edge in Game 4.
The Flyers won the night to draw even in the series and then took next two, pummeling the Bolts, settling all scores and outsourcing them by a 14-3 margin. They lost to the Panthers in 6 games in round two and again, Hawerchuk couldn’t clear the nagging postseason hurdle.
Hawerchuk was again leaned on at the start of the following season when Eric Lindros missed most of the first two months with a nagging hamstring issue brought on by playing in the inaugural World Cup of Hockey. Before Lindros' return, he earned a piece of team history, recording the first hat trick in NHL play in the Flyers’ new arena, netting 3 goals in a 7-3 decision over the Penguins on Nov. 21, 1996. It was his first hattie since 1992 and the 15th and final 3-goal effort of his storied career.
Even when reaching the promised land of a Stanley Cup final, fate turned a cruel hand. Hawerchuk's playing days concluded on June 4, 1997 at Detroit, when a crushing open-ice hit by Red Wings defenseman Vlad Konstantinov early in a 6-1 Game 3 loss resulted in a concussion which kept him out of the club’s season-ending Game 4 defeat.
Hawerchuk finished his Philly career by posting 54 points in 67 regular-season games, adding 16 points across 29 playoff appearances. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001. Coaching soon beckoned and the product of Quebec major junior hockey spent nine seasons as bench boss for the Barrie Colts of the Ontario Hockey League.
After a years-long battle with stomach cancer, Hawerchuk passed away at the age of 57 on Aug. 18, 2020. As a way to thank him for his years of service to hockey in Winnipeg, a statue in his honor greets fans outside MTS Centre.
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