Teemu Selanne's Rookie Season

kingmoore

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Can any older fans fill me in on how this guy managed to put up 76G and 56A his rookie season? I wasn't following the Jets at that point, and stumbled upon those numbers a while back and was astounded. Has any other rookie put up compareable numbers?

Teemu has never put up any numbers even remotely close to those, so what was it about that season? Did he have one year with a Thornton like player on his line? Were people thinking he was going to be a perennial 100 goal scorer?

Thanks guys.
 
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bleedgreen

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his linemates were alexei zhamnov and tkachuk, over ten years ago. zhamnov was amazing back then, and keith was a bit uhhhh.....quicker? they were an amazing line that had some true chemstry you dont often see between three players. you also had the master of the goal line to red line pass phil housley feeding him all year long. teemu had an awful achilles injury the following year that most would say he never fully recovered from, thats why most people think he never reached such heights again.
 

albertGQ

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He wasn't even the top goal scorer in the NHL that year. Alexander Mogilny scored the same number of goals but in fewer games
 

Ogopogo*

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kingmoore said:
Can any older fans fill me in on how this guy managed to put up 76G and 56A his rookie season? I wasn't following the Jets at that point, and stumbled upon those numbers a while back and was astounded. Has any other rookie put up compareable numbers?

Teemu has never put up any numbers even remotely close to those, so what was it about that season? Did he have one year with a Thornton like player on his line? Were people thinking he was going to be a perennial 100 goal scorer?

Thanks guys.

That was a year that many players put up huge numbers, it is not like scoring 76 goals and 132 points in today's NHL. It was an excellent year but, not on par with Gretzky-esque dominance at all.

But, Teemu also had several seasons at or near the top of the goal scoring race and points race, securing his status as one of the game's all time greats.
 
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jamiebez

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bleedgreen said:
his linemates were alexei zhamnov and tkachuk, over ten years ago. zhamnov was amazing back then, and keith was a bit uhhhh.....quicker? they were an amazing line that had some true chemstry you dont often see between three players. you also had the master of the goal line to red line pass phil housley feeding him all year long. teemu had an awful achilles injury the following year that most would say he never fully recovered from, thats why most people think he never reached such heights again.
Most of the credit can go to Housley. He had a 97-point season himself that year, most of it assists on Teemu's goals.

Teemu had actually "slumped" quite a bit in his sophomore season, even before the Achilles injury (when I say "slumped", he was on pace for "only" about 40 goals/80 points). His knee was bothering him constantly for the last 2-3 seasons before getting surgery during the lockout.

I think a lot of the dropoff can be attributed to the fact that the league changed a lot in the next 2 years - he missed half of 93/94 with the Achilles injury and 94/95 was the lockout year. By the time 95/96 rolled around, scoring was down league-wide, and his numbers decreased by roughly the same ratio. It's worth noting that he still managed 3 more 100-point seasons after that - and many consider his 96/97 season to be even better than his rookie year.
 

kingmoore

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Ogopogo said:
That was a year that many players put up huge numbers, it is not like scoring 76 goals and 132 points in today's NHL. It was an excellent year but, not on par with Gretzky-esque dominance at all.

Thanks for all the responses.

Why did lots of players put up huge numbers that year? What was different?
 

Snap Wilson

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kingmoore said:
Thanks for all the responses.

Why did lots of players put up huge numbers that year? What was different?

There's a thread on this. The short answer: two more games in the regular season and two new expansion teams, plus the Sharks who were a year old were the likely suspects.

I'm working on a statistical study of NHL equivalencies, which I should be ready to show in a day or two. According to the numbers I have, Selanne's 76 goal season in 1993 translates to the equivalent of 60 goals last year.
 

iamcaper

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Personally, I think it was the influx of Europeans into the league. In 92-93 the european rookie stock included Michael Nylander, Robert Lang, Teemu Selanne, Alexei Zhamnov, Jiri Slegr, Alex Kovalev, Roman Hamrlik, Alexei Zhitnik, Vlad Malakhov, Sandis Ozolinsh, and Martin Straka.

Now, add Scott Niedermayer, Eric Lindros, Joe Juneau (huge in his early years), Keith Tkachuk, and even Shawn McEachern to that group and you have a huge rookie surge of talent.

It was also the age of expansion so the talent was diluted and there were some really weak teams, ala San Jose and Ottawa.

These things helped combine for a short term golden age of offense.
 

iamcaper

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moneyp said:
There's a thread on this. The short answer: two more games in the regular season and two new expansion teams, plus the Sharks who were a year old were the likely suspects.

I'm working on a statistical study of NHL equivalencies, which I should be ready to show in a day or two. According to the numbers I have, Selanne's 76 goal season in 1993 translates to the equivalent of 60 goals last year.

I forgot about the extra games played. They actually played 84 games that season as opposed to 80 or the current 82 game schedule.
 

God Bless Canada

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I have long maintained that in terms of actual performance, Selanne's best year was in 1997-98. He had 52 goals and 86 points in 73 games, which pale compared to his rookie year, but his actual performance surpassed his rookie year. On a lot of nights, it was Teemu Selanne and Guy Hebert who were far and away the Ducks two best players on the ice. Kariya missed most of the season. The defence was far from imposing. But Selanne was magic every night, even when he was playing hurt after the Olympics.

As for his rookie year: he forged great chemistry with Phil Housley. While Housley was an abomination in the defensive zone, he was a wonderfully skilled defenceman with breath-taking speed and pinpoint passing. He was a great PP quarterback. Alexei Zhamnov and Keith Tkachuk were also rookies that year, but they did not have near the impact on Selanne that Housley did. (For those who scoff at Zhamnov based on his play the last few years, it is worth noting he led the league in scoring for part of the 1993-94 season, and he was a second team all-star in the lockout year). His performance tapered off the two following seasons, even before the heel injury, but by 1995-96, you could tell the drive was back.

Interesting to note: in 1992-93, the Jets became the first team in NHL history (and to my knowledge the only team) to have four rookies with 20 goals: Selanne, Zhamnov, Tkachuk and Evgeny Davydov, who had a lot of skill but rarely used it.
 

ktownhockey

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Teemu had an awesome season but he was 22 years old and already had alot of experience playing pro hockey in Finland. Not trying to take anything away from him but if he were to come over at age 20 he probably wouldn't have reached those incredible numbers.

Either way taking everything that's been said in this thread into account it's still an amazing feat.
 

reckoning

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moneyp said:
I'm working on a statistical study of NHL equivalencies, which I should be ready to show in a day or two. According to the numbers I have, Selanne's 76 goal season in 1993 translates to the equivalent of 60 goals last year.
I hope you post those results on here. I`m working on one too, but it likely won`t be finished until about 2025.

By "last year" do you mean `03-`04 or `05-`06? Going by strictly adjusting the league-wide GPG, Selanne`s 76 goals in `93 equals 53 in `04 and 62 in `06, so if your 60 goals is `03-`04 then that would indicate that league-wide quality decreased with the last batch of expansion.
 

ScaredStreit

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I think that Bossy had the best rookie season. No rookie to that point had ever hit 50 goals, and he straight up told his GM he'd do it. He told Torrey, that's not a very good deal for someone who's going to get you 50 goals. Torrey said you're right it's not, but I'll be happy if you get 25. So Bossy proved all the doubters wrong, almost hit the 100 mark as well, hell of a rookie season.
 

Snap Wilson

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reckoning said:
I hope you post those results on here. I`m working on one too, but it likely won`t be finished until about 2025.

By "last year" do you mean `03-`04 or `05-`06?

The results will definitely be posted here.

And I'm talking about '05-06. For '03-04, Teemu's rookie year comes out to 49 goals (or actually 48.8391874978476, but you get the picture). League-wide GPG doesn't figure directly into the formula. Since the study was on player statistics, that was what the focus was on, how each year impacted player stats.

Brett Hull's 1991 season is the most impressive goal-scoring season of all-time, translating to 64 goals in '03-04 and 76 goals (I think) this past year.
 

David Puddy

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iamcaper said:
Personally, I think it was the influx of Europeans into the league...

It was also the age of expansion so the talent was diluted and there were some really weak teams, ala San Jose and Ottawa.

These things helped combine for a short term golden age of offense.
The golden age of offense was about ten years earlier. I guy named Gretzky put up the only four 200 Point seasons, including 92 Goals in one of those campaigns.
 

sbtatter

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Housley made some many passes coming from behind the net right on to a speeding Selanne's stick, what a combination!! Remember when he broke the goal scoring record in a game vs Quebec, they stopped the game and gave him the stick, then the Jets went and blew the lead and lost the game!! Davydov had flashes of brilliance, very brief flashes!! Ulanov had a great rookie season and playoff as well. Too bad Tkachuk had an ego the size of the Titanic. Happy days!!
 

Hawker14

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selanne was just a great player when he came across. in a nutshell, that's the main reason. housley was a big part as well.
 

Transported Upstater

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David Puddy said:
The golden age of offense was about ten years earlier. I guy named Gretzky put up the only four 200 Point seasons, including 92 Goals in one of those campaigns.


Who the hell is Gretzky?
 

jiggs 10

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I think the 1992-93 season was the peak of the high-powered offenses. I mean, even Doug Gilmour got 120 points for ***'s sake! :D

Many players had incredible seasons that year. Selanne was basically alone, except for Housley. Tkachuk was just like he is now: slow and dumb. Zhamnov was a good passing center, but nothing great. It was just that Teemu was SO fast and such a great scorer he lit it up. I loved his trademark goal celebration: he threw his glove in the air, then pretended his stick was a shotgun and shot it down! Hilarious to watch today!
 

bleedgreen

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jiggs 10 said:
I think the 1992-93 season was the peak of the high-powered offenses. I mean, even Doug Gilmour got 120 points for ***'s sake! :D

Many players had incredible seasons that year. Selanne was basically alone, except for Housley. Tkachuk was just like he is now: slow and dumb. Zhamnov was a good passing center, but nothing great. It was just that Teemu was SO fast and such a great scorer he lit it up. I loved his trademark goal celebration: he threw his glove in the air, then pretended his stick was a shotgun and shot it down! Hilarious to watch today!
zhamnov had five goals in one game that year. highlight reels as well. one of them was forsbergs stamp move - just prettier. zhamnov looked like he was going to be federov good that year.
 

God Bless Canada

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bleedgreen said:
zhamnov had five goals in one game that year. highlight reels as well. one of them was forsbergs stamp move - just prettier. zhamnov looked like he was going to be federov good that year.
Are you sure? I know that Zhamnov scored five goals in the lockout-shortened 1995 season, but that's it to my knowledge. He was also a second-team all-star that year. But injuries and spurts of apathetic play, when he looks like he isn't interested or willing to take the punishment to be an elite player have dulled his effectiveness over the last decade.
 

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