Link to Pierre Turgeon's "tin man" nickname

[Big Phil]

I guess my memory fails me here. Which year did the "tin man" reputation start with him? Was it 1990? 1991? And if there is an article or a link someone can post please do.

If this turns into a Pierre Turgeon HHOF thread then so be it, he always seems to make interesting conversation on both sides. But if someone can grab a source for that nickname that'd be great!

Click to read more...

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i don't have a date for you, but apparently it was buffalo sportswriter jerry sullivan who gave him the nickname.

http://www.mattbarr.com/archives/2006/07/my_25_least_fav.html

a search of http://www.buffalonews.com/ doesn't yield anything, but i bet if you did an old school catalogue search, you'd find your answer.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I thought most of his bad rap came from the dustup... Or is lack of participation in it.

 

[canucks4ever]

It's a shame he's treated as a whipping boy on this site, turgeon was a great offensive player in his heyday. If he stayed healthy, he would have challenged for the art ross in 1998 and 2000.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

^ it's not just hfboards. read what turgeon's teammates said about him in gare joyce's book when the lights went out. not just his teammates from the WJC either, he was always an unpopular guy on his teams because he played such a soft and cowardly game.

interestingly, his brother sylvain was also apparently generally disliked when he was in the league. there is a book called road games: a year in the life of the NHL that i read as a kid. it was partly about the senators' awful first season in the league. basically, it said sylvain was a loner and a malcontent and nobody had any time for him on his previous teams.

http://www.ottawasenatorsfansite.com/Road-Games-A-Year-in-the-Life-of-the-NHL-Product-70093

i think both turgeon brothers look bad in retrospect because they were traded for guys who were their polar opposites and it really showed. pierre was first traded for a smaller skill player who had heart for miles. plus, he was handsome, charismatic, and a beloved humanitarian. fair or not, guys can't help but be compared to who they were traded for, especially when it was a blockbuster.

and, while kirk muller was washed up when he was traded to the isles for turgeon, eric lindros publicly panned the trade, saying "turgeon will have to score 200 points to replace what muller brought to that team." the implication being that muller was a heart and soul guy who made the difference between winning and losing while turgeon, even as a 100 point scorer, wasn't really an impactful player.

sylvain was first traded for pat verbeek, who would go on to consistently match turgeon's offensive peak of 40 goals and 80 points and play a popular hardnosed gritty game doing it. then he was traded from the devils to the habs for claude lemieux, who would do anything to win and would take home the conn smythe when the devils won their first cup.

 

[unknown33]

and, while kirk muller was washed up when he was traded to the isles for turgeon, eric lindros publicly panned the trade, saying "turgeon will have to score 200 points to replace what muller brought to that team." the implication being that muller was a heart and soul guy who made the difference between winning and losing while turgeon, even as a 100 point scorer, wasn't really an impactful player.

Why did Eric Lindros comment on a trade that didn't involve his team?
And neither of those players was his former teammate.

 

[JSmith81x]

http://www.nhl.com/intheslot/read/impact/march/wigge.html

I'm sitting between Eric Lindros and John LeClair in the Flyers locker room when word comes that the Canadiens have traded captain Kirk Muller, defenseman Mathieu Schneider and center prospect Chris Darby to the Islanders for center Pierre Turgeon and defenseman Vladimir Malakhov in what proved to be the biggest deal before the NHI's trading deadline last Friday.

"No way," LeClair says. "No way would the Canadiens trade Kirk Muller. No way."

"Way," says the teammate who delivers news of the trade.

"I just can't believe it," LeClair rays. "Pierre Turgeon? He would have to score 150 points in Montreal to come close to doing for the Canadiens what Kirk Muller did."

Says Lindros: "Turgeon didn't give the Islanders the grit and leadership that Muller will. Except for the age, it's a very good trade for the Islanders."

 

[unknown33]

http://www.nhl.com/intheslot/read/impact/march/wigge.html

I'm sitting between Eric Lindros and John LeClair in the Flyers locker room when word comes that the Canadiens have traded captain Kirk Muller, defenseman Mathieu Schneider and center prospect Chris Darby to the Islanders for center Pierre Turgeon and defenseman Vladimir Malakhov in what proved to be the biggest deal before the NHI's trading deadline last Friday.

"No way," LeClair says. "No way would the Canadiens trade Kirk Muller. No way."

"Way," says the teammate who delivers news of the trade.

"I just can't believe it," LeClair rays. "Pierre Turgeon? He would have to score 150 points in Montreal to come close to doing for the Canadiens what Kirk Muller did."

Says Lindros: "Turgeon didn't give the Islanders the grit and leadership that Muller will. Except for the age, it's a very good trade for the Islanders."

But Turgeon's career best is 30 pts higher than Muller's.
Therefore he's way better. HFboards 101.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The funny thing is that after that trade, their careers went on different directions. Muller didn't want to be on the Island and it showed. He was never the same player after that trade.

 

[BlueSinceBirth]

One of my favorite players growing up. He showed grit later in his career with the Blues when he took a stick to the face with blood everywhere and came back and scored the game winner. He gets way too little respect on these boards. The guy banked 40 goals in off of Scott Youngs stick.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

But Turgeon's career best is 30 pts higher than Muller's.
Therefore he's way better. HFboards 101.

pfft, whatever. when they decide who the go-to scorer on a stanley cup winner will be, it's just a popularity contest. biased against turgeon. HE SCORED 38 MORE POINTS THAT YEAR.

The funny thing is that after that trade, their careers went on different directions. Muller didn't Rangel be on the Island and it showed. He was never the same player after that trade.

i think muller was already washed up before the trade. that seems to be the prevailing opinion among habs fans-- habs fans looking at it in retrospect, anyway.

 

[reckoning]

The Gare Joyce book was a real hatchet job on Turgeon. Joyce threw in his own opinion as if it represented what the entire team thought. Everett Sanipass did criticize Turgeon, and Joyce's man-crush on Sanipass in the book is unbearable.

Theo Fleury actually defended Turgeon in his book, saying that some guys just aren't fighters.

 

[Marotte Marauder]

The Gare Joyce book was a real hatchet job on Turgeon. Joyce threw in his own opinion as if it represented what the entire team thought. Everett Sanipass did criticize Turgeon, and Joyce's man-crush on Sanipass in the book is unbearable.

Theo Fleury actually defended Turgeon in his book, saying that some guys just aren't fighters.

Didn't read the Joyce book but Sanipass criticizing anyone is ridiculous! Sanipass was a HUGE bust.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

^ it's not just hfboards. read what turgeon's teammates said about him in gare joyce's book when the lights went out. not just his teammates from the WJC either, he was always an unpopular guy on his teams because he played such a soft and cowardly game.

interestingly, his brother sylvain was also apparently generally disliked when he was in the league. there is a book called road games: a year in the life of the NHL that i read as a kid. it was partly about the senators' awful first season in the league. basically, it said sylvain was a loner and a malcontent and nobody had any time for him on his previous teams.

http://www.ottawasenatorsfansite.com/Road-Games-A-Year-in-the-Life-of-the-NHL-Product-70093

i think both turgeon brothers look bad in retrospect because they were traded for guys who were their polar opposites and it really showed. pierre was first traded for a smaller skill player who had heart for miles. plus, he was handsome, charismatic, and a beloved humanitarian. fair or not, guys can't help but be compared to who they were traded for, especially when it was a blockbuster.

and, while kirk muller was washed up when he was traded to the isles for turgeon, eric lindros publicly panned the trade, saying "turgeon will have to score 200 points to replace what muller brought to that team." the implication being that muller was a heart and soul guy who made the difference between winning and losing while turgeon, even as a 100 point scorer, wasn't really an impactful player.

sylvain was first traded for pat verbeek, who would go on to consistently match turgeon's offensive peak of 40 goals and 80 points and play a popular hardnosed gritty game doing it. then he was traded from the devils to the habs for claude lemieux, who would do anything to win and would take home the conn smythe when the devils won their first cup.

You know I have owned that book for a long time and read it again the other week so I remember the part you talk about.

The author does mention Sylvain Turgeon as a quiet guy who'd keep to himself but he actually took his side and writes Sylvain fell victim to Anglo prejudices against francophones. He talks about Sylvain having a mystery injury and the Hartford team turning on him and calling him a lazy, cowardly frog etc. but later it was confirmed he actually had a torn abdominal muscle or something similar to that.

Pierre is a tough case. I think his bad reputation comes from the fact that he's just below the level in talent where you can get away with playing the way he did without people holding it against you. If he had a bit more talent to be, say, a constant 100+ point guy rather than an occasional one, he'd have been the next great Quebec superstar rather than the guy whose stats look Hall of Fame even if his name never sounded Hall of Fame.

 

[seventieslord]

MS, where are you? This thread needs you.

 

[Epsilon]

The Gare Joyce book was a real hatchet job on Turgeon. Joyce threw in his own opinion as if it represented what the entire team thought. Everett Sanipass did criticize Turgeon, and Joyce's man-crush on Sanipass in the book is unbearable.

Theo Fleury actually defended Turgeon in his book, saying that some guys just aren't fighters.

Not only that, but the idea that something that happened at a WJC should matter with regards to things like evaluating a player's NHL career and HOF worthiness is just laughable, and yet far too many people cannot display any level of objectivity when it comes to Turgeon because he wouldn't take part in a junior hockey brawl.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

You know I have owned that book for a long time and read it again the other week so I remember the part you talk about.

The author does mention Sylvain Turgeon as a quiet guy who'd keep to himself but he actually took his side and writes Sylvain fell victim to Anglo prejudices against francophones. He talks about Sylvain having a mystery injury and the Hartford team turning on him and calling him a lazy, cowardly frog etc. but later it was confirmed he actually had a torn abdominal muscle or something similar to that.

Pierre is a tough case. I think his bad reputation comes from the fact that he's just below the level in talent where you can get away with playing the way he did without people holding it against you. If he had a bit more talent to be, say, a constant 100+ point guy rather than an occasional one, he'd have been the next great Quebec superstar rather than the guy whose stats look Hall of Fame even if his name never sounded Hall of Fame.

many thanks to you and jayzinsmith above for fact-checking my half-remembered quotes from 15-odd years ago.

i did remember something about a faked injury but wasn't sure so i didn't want to mention it. in retrospect it seems true: sylvain turgeon's skills seemed already pretty compromised when he was traded to new jersey.

i guess my point was that hockey is a team game, and chemistry in the room is often as important as chemistry on the ice. a guy like claude lemieux, you play better when you know the guys you go into battle with will do anything to win. on the one hand, you feel a responsibility to match that. on the other, you play more fearlessly when you know your teammates will have your back no matter what. and, on a purely social level, if you're close with and respect everyone else in the room, you will go to the wall for them.

so while sylvain may have legitimately been injured, he'd been on that team for five years. why were the guys so ready to assume he was being lazy or cowardly? some of it may be him being french, but they knew him. they'd spent nine months with him day-in, day-out for five years. you have to think that some guys make it easier for you to believe that they'd bail on a team than others, based on what kind of teammate they are. i don't think any teammate would ever assume that guy carbonneau, ian laperriere, or sylvain lefebvre would do that.

so points are great, but it's very hard to win when your top offensive players are loners (i remember that book talked about how sylvain would always sit by himself on the bus, never go out with the guys, didn't really talk to anyone) or guys who won't have your back (in the piestany book, patrick roy's brother stephane was double-teamed by two soviets and was viciously kicked in the head-- he walks into the room afterwards and tears the paint off the walls, not naming names, but clearly talking about turgeon, as well as kerry huffman who was on the ice but only pretending to be involved.)

three guys on that WJC team didn't fight: jimmy waite the star goalie, steve nemeth, and turgeon.

Waite, the one player who didn't fight but remained above reproach, defends Nemeth. Stephane Roy takes it one step further. Yes, the player who took the worst beating. "You could see where he'd been kicked right in the forehead," Shanahan says. "He was lucky he didn't lose his eye. Or his nose."

After the brawl in Piestany, Stephane Roy came into the dressing room bruised, bloodied and venting. "Where the f___ were you?" he said to no one in particular. "Two guys are on me and I get no help." Some of the Canadians are sure he was saying it to Steve Nemeth. Roy says he wasn't going after Nemeth.

"When I jumped over the board, I skated out to centre ice and grabbed what I thought was a decent-sized Soviet guy and started throwing," Roy says. "Then I got suckered from behind. That's when the trouble really started. The guy who came in and helped me was Steve Nemeth. He pulled one of the guys off me. Maybe he wasn't throwing punches like the other guys, but I don't think it's fair to say that he bailed out or chickened out. He didn't leave me hanging."

it's not even necessarily a soft vs. tough thing, but a stick up for your teammates thing. but again, i don't necessarily want to dwell on what happened when turgeon was 17... this perception of him among the players followed him his entire career. and the guys on the ice know who will go to bat for his teammates and who stands back.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

You know, I didn't even think of that WJC brawl and still didn't think Turgeon was a particularly effective player. I think it's more than that.

I think it's the fate of the scorer when his teams don't end up doing much and he's clearly not really doing a whole lot but score. He was on the Isle when the Islanders were the sort of team that hopes to just sneak into the playoffs, he was on the Habs when they were mediocre and not used to it yet. St.Louis was a good team when he was there, but in the shadow of the Western powers and of course in 2000 a President's Trophy team going down in the first round. And his stints with Dallas and Colorado weren't particularly noteworthy.

It's like a less talented Yzerman who never transformed his game.

 

[Zen Arcade]

I think my most vivid memory of Turgeon's "grit" was him fighting Tony Hrkac with his gloves on and getting KOed.

 

[MXD]

i think muller was already washed up before the trade. that seems to be the prevailing opinion among habs fans-- habs fans looking at it in retrospect, anyway.

Well, he actually lost a step (skating-wise), and was never a great skater to begin with, which means that as a (passable, I might add) 1st liner, he was done.

The Gare Joyce book was a real hatchet job on Turgeon. Joyce threw in his own opinion as if it represented what the entire team thought. Everett Sanipass did criticize Turgeon, and Joyce's man-crush on Sanipass in the book is unbearable.

Theo Fleury actually defended Turgeon in his book, saying that some guys just aren't fighters.

I actually had that impression about Gare Joyce and Turgeon as well. The part about Turgeon "getting excited at the thought of Samantha Fox (don't quote me on that...) was a bit useless, and he indeed looked like a guy who liked Sanipass a little too much.

Actually, Joyce looks like a guy who has a negative opinion on everything "Quebec" as a whole (and you can quote me on that). If he, at least, had bother to write as much on Stéphane Roy in his book than he did about Everett Sanipass (Roy was badly hurt in the punch-up, and was as much as a bust than Sanipass)... It's barely if Joyce didn't criticize Jimmy Waite for not fighting, while Waite was actually the only healthy goaltender on TC... And nobody knew that the game would be stopped, so the guy had a gold medal to win.

Waite actually deserved praise for what he did.

Didn't read the Joyce book but Sanipass criticizing anyone is ridiculous! Sanipass was a HUGE bust.

Well, he was pretty good in juniors and the book was about junior stuff.

 

[MXD]

I think it's the fate of the scorer when his teams don't end up doing much and he's clearly not really doing a whole lot but score. He was on the Isle when the Islanders were the sort of team that hopes to just sneak into the playoffs, he was on the Habs when they were mediocre and not used to it yet. St.Louis was a good team when he was there, but in the shadow of the Western powers and of course in 2000 a President's Trophy team going down in the first round. And his stints with Dallas and Colorado weren't particularly noteworthy.

First, Turgeon was a bit done when in Colorado.

Second, the Habs weren't exactly mediocre either. Really lacking in D (that's bound to happen when your go-to guy is inconsistent and not a great 1st D anyways), but their center-line was

Turgeon
Damphousse
Koivu (rookie, but still a very good player)
Bureau

That's probably the best C-line I witnessed as a Habs fan.

 

[tarpilot]

Gare Joyce's wife (or partner I guess, as they aren't married) was one of my instructors in college, and Gare would come in and sub like half the time. He talked about his Crosby book quite a bit. And he always wore sandals.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

First, Turgeon was a bit done when in Colorado.

Second, the Habs weren't exactly mediocre either. Really lacking in D (that's bound to happen when your go-to guy is inconsistent and not a great 1st D anyways), but their center-line was

Turgeon
Damphousse
Koivu (rookie, but still a very good player)
Bureau

That's probably the best C-line I witnessed as a Habs fan.

3rd place division finish and 1st round playoff loss is rather mediocre.

 

[reckoning]

A google search revealed that the nickname originated from Jerry Sullivan, a columnist with The Buffalo News, around 1990.

Any posters in Buffalo would probably be able to give a more accurate account of Sullivan's reputation; but from what I've read online he seems to be more of a football guy than a hockey guy, and his solution to every problem is "Fire the coach or GM".

 

[MXD]

3rd place division finish and 1st round playoff loss is rather mediocre.

See the D-Men point.