Ferraro Vs. Ronning

[Sentinel]

Normally I prefer players like Ronning to the players like Ferraro, but Ferraro had the *it* factor. Much more charisma and personality, on and off the ice.

 

[Jim MacDonald]

Normally I prefer players like Ronning to the players like Ferraro, but Ferraro had the *it* factor. Much more charisma and personality, on and off the ice.

Sentinel when you say you " normally you prefer" is that meaning Ronning (or any player) who has more in his toolbox/skill set/brings more to the table then Ferraro (smaller toolbox/skill set)?

 

[Sentinel]

Sentinel when you say you " normally you prefer" is that meaning Ronning (or any player) who has more in his toolbox/skill set/brings more to the table then Ferraro (smaller toolbox/skill set)?

I prefer playmakers to scramblers.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Ronning was a bit more effective later in his career, but I think Ferraro peaked higher and for longer. I think if you swapped him and Ronning on the 94 Canucks, they win the Cup that year. I get that he was a heart and soul guy on that team, but there's nothing to suggest Ferraro wasn't as well, and I think he brought a bit more to the table offensively. Having a shoot-first guy beyond Bure would have allowed the 2nd guy to get away from the Leetch matchup, whereas Ronning was more of a playmaker.

ferraro makes the difference in '94? i'm not sure i see it. maybe insofar as ronning's hand was broken and he fanned on a good chance in the slot near the end of the third in game seven of the finals.

they were different players and i think that '94 team needed a ronning more than a ferraro. he was the skill that fit nicely between momesso's beef and gelinas' hard work. that third line didn't score a lot but it kept defenses honest and working.

ferraro had that great '93 run but ronning was the biggest of big game players. mclean had game one, pavel had game five, and linden had game seven, but ronning was the most consistently good canuck in the finals. the little guy was just a sparkplug. in the first round, when quinn was in big trouble against the flames, he put together the stacked line of courtnall-linden-bure. but in the finals, more often than not when he needed a little oomph, it was ronning with bure and for once those two worked.

what people underrate about ronning's importance, though, is that he was local. ferraro is from trail, BC and would have fit nicely with what pat quinn was doing. quinn went out of his way to build a team of big, physical western canadian and BC boys, and outside of the province i think it's hard to see that the '94 team continues to mean so much to the province because of that. linden, babych, diduck, craven, murzyn, timmy hunter, robert dirk and his replacement bryan glynn, all lunchpail western canadian boys. geoff courtnall and gus adams were both from BC. all of this was really important, for better or worse, at a time when vancouver was in the middle of an identity crisis, rapidly growing and absorbing immigrants from other parts of canada and especially other parts of the world at an unbelievably fast rate.

which brings us back to cliffy. he was the only guy on the team that was actually from greater vancouver. and unlike all those huge alberta guys i listed above, or the chippy courtnall or large cross-check-absorbing adams, ronning was this little pipsqueak from vancouver, about whom theo fleury once said "i'm not the smallest guy in the league anymore; i can eat my lunch of the top of cliff ronning's helmet," at probably the very last moment that vancouver could possibly still see itself as an underdog.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

one thing is eerie though. the most memorable play of each guy's life is basically the same play--






another parallel: both guys probably would have been retired but because the league expanded by four teams each had some nice years at the end on expansion teams.

over five years from '99 to '03, ronning averaged almost 60 points a year in the DPE on nashville and minnesota. to put that in perspective, he was scoring almost at the same rate as his little #7 successor, brendan morrison, in morrison's best five years.

and another thing about ronning: in the last three games of the '03 second round, when minnesota came back from that 3-1 deficit against the canucks--

naslund, 2 assists, -3
bertuzzi, 1 goal, -1
morrison, 1 goal, 1 assist, -3
ronning, 37 years old, 2 goals, 3 assists, +4

ferraro didn't have ronning's five year stretch at the end of his career, but he did have a huge 29 goal, 76 point season in atlanta in '01, at 36 years old. it was his highest goals total in five years and his highest points total since 1992.