Player Discussion: Dave Christian and Brian Mullen
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Joe Hallenback
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- Mar 4, 2005
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Money is the answer. The Jets were really cheap back then. Shenkarow couldn't afford to keep too many guys that wanted to much money back then
The 2nd answer was probably Toughness. The Jets got bullied by the Oilers 84/85 and again in 86/87 and I guess they felt they needed to make changes
The 2nd answer was probably Toughness. The Jets got bullied by the Oilers 84/85 and again in 86/87 and I guess they felt they needed to make changes
Drafting McBain over Cam Neely was one of the most consequential decisions by Jets 1.0.
voyageur
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- Jul 10, 2011
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Starts right with their first pick Jimmy Mann. Next up Goulet, then Kevin Lowe.
2nd round pick was Christian. Players drafted after him were Dale Hunter, Neal Broten, Guy Carbonneau, Mark Messier.
Ferguson wanted toughness. Why else would you trade Dave Babych for Ray Neufeld? We never really had that tough forward, other than Boschman. Our toughest defensemen weren't very good. I agree Neely would have made a difference.
I don't know what the exchange rate was back in the 80s, but two Americans players getting paid in Canadian money, as the American dollar didn't become standard until Bettman, probably wanted to get paid more elsewhere. Christian was a captain here, so he must have been respected by the organization. Went on to make some good hockey sticks. Mullen was probably Hawerchuk's best left winger over his career.
PaulPooley
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Pretty sure Mullen was going to be a free agent when they traded a 25 goal scoring winger for picks.
cbcwpg
Registered User
Dave Christian got traded because he wanted nothing to do with playing in Canada.
'At the end of the season, we got rid of our apartment, packed up everything and headed for Minnesota,' said Christian, a member of the gold medal 1980 U.S. Olympic team. 'I wanted to play in the United Stated and I'm tickled to death to be in Washington.'
'Basically, the Canadian tax laws take half of what you make and give nothing back. Then, there's the 20 percent drop in the exchange rate when you come back to this country. Plus, Americans don't have a future after hockey in Canada and that's an important consideration.
'There was no way I would have re-signed with the Jets without going through free agency,' he said. '
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/0...son-ended-Dave-Christian-didnt/2619425793600/
Joe Hallenback
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Its funny he talks about taxes because I think the 1986 tax reform bill slashed taxes to the wealthy in the states by a lot back then. They were likely paying higher taxes in the US then Canada back then at least the wealthy were
voyageur
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All the way until 1995 Canadian teams paid their players in Canadian dollars. From 1995 until the lockout I believe American players could opt to be paid in whichever currency they wanted. After the lockout it was strictly American dollar as the currency. You can imagine that many an American player would feel disadvantaged earning 65 to 80 cents on an American dollar playing in Canada at any point over his career.
A lot of American players didn't want to play in Canada for this reason, and that didn't change until the lockout.
Fergie traded Christian. He didn't want to be here.
Fergie took all the Christian sticks outta the room. "If he doesn't want to play here, we don't want his sticks"!
As far as Babych goes, he asked for the trade for personal reasons.
Mullen was a good player, but playing with Dale Hawerchuk made him a 25-30 goal scorer. He was never anywhere that good after he left Winnipeg.
The Blue Baron
Registered User
Poor drafting and trades made it hard to build a team around Hawerchuk.
They drafted Arneil in the 2nd round after taking Ducky in the 1st.
Kyte was their 1st round pick thenext year although they did get Ellet in the 3rd.
Few of their top draft picks played a lot of games for them while Ducky was here.
They drafted Arneil and Hawerchuk from the same team yet somehow missed Doug Gilmour.
Rabid Ranger
2 is better than one
Scheifele55
Registered User
The argument of the Jets taking Scott Arniel I am assuming was supposed to be a bad thing. The problem is that Scott Arniel was the 2nd most offensively productive player taken in rounds 2, 3, 4, 5 in that draft behind only Chris Chelios. Want to see busts... check out 4 rounds of wasted draft choices. What I found amusing was round 4 we took Kurk McCaskill who played 1 year in the AHL and switched over to MLB. In that round we could have picked up a decent goalie in Wendell Young, Clint Malarchuk, and John Vanbiesbrouck. Kind of a good year for goalies because Mike Vernon was also available along with Greg Stefan, Peter Sidorkewicz, and the goalie with the coolest hockey sticker... Kari Takko!
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Scheifele55
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The Jets were kind of like the Atlanta Thrashers in that they rushed their 1st rounders to the NHL. Cam Neely didn't crack the 40 point mark until season 4, and he was dealt along with another 1st rounder (Glen Wesley) after season 3. In hindsight we could have also had Claude Lemieux and Rick Tocchet. There would have been our toughness.
A few teams missed him...he wasn't picked until the 7th round...the next year...the same year the Jets took Kyte with their 1st pick!
They were drafted a year apart.
Arthur Fonzarelli
"aaaaay"
Gilmour was on the same Memorial Cup winning team that Hawerchuk & Arniel played on.
Let's remember Hawerchuk scored 183 points for Cornwall in his draft year. Gilmour tallied 177 points in his draft+1.
Perhaps there were reasons beyond his talent that had him go in the 7th round...
Ducky10
Searching for Mark Scheifele
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If that was the case, none of them seemed to surface and they were all a bunch of idiots who valued the wrong things. Ferguson being idiot in chief.
Arthur Fonzarelli
"aaaaay"
Oh they surfaced all right. You really don't know why Gilmour left St. Louis? It was front page news everywhere in 1988. While its true Gilmour was never indicted, mostly due to Jane Doe's family lawyer bungling the case by attempting extortion, a civil suit followed where a settlement was reached.
Following his divorce, Gilmour then went on to date a high school girl when he was 30 year old during his tenure with the Leafs. Sure he'd marry her, but the optics aren't great considering the civil suit & criminal charges just 5 years prior.
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