Ray Bourque playing wing?

[SealsFan]

I'm watching a North Stars-Bruins game on Youtube from the 80-81 season and 20-yr old Ray Bourque is playing wing on the powerplay only. Was this an early experiment or something he did throughout his career?

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[PB37]

Can you mark where in the video you saw it? I fast forwarded around a bit and at 1:23:53 of the video, Bourque is at the point on the PP they eventually score on.

 

[SealsFan]

Can you mark where in the video you saw it? I fast forwarded around a bit and at 1:23:53 of the video, Bourque is at the point on the PP they eventually score on.

At 16:00, a powerplay starts and he lines up at RW and stays there.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yes, Bourque spent time at wing in the early days. I did a shift chart on Bourque here: Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 2

I note how often he played wing in that particular game. The legendary Fred Cusick didn't take note of it, so, that suggests that this happened fairly often...

 

[Crosby2010]

Housley is the one we tend to remember had some forward assignments back in the day. But I would guess that with Park still there he's still likely QBing the PP. Still figure Bourque would be back there on D though. All I can think of is looking at the 1981 Bruins you had Park, Bourque, O'Connell and McCrimmon as the d-men who seemed to play on the powerplay. It could be that they wanted Park, Bourque and O'Connell on there as the first unit. Which is why they shifted Bourque to wing. Who knows. Cheevers was the coach then, so he may have been experimenting. Obviously the end result it was much better to have Bourque on the point for the PP.

 

[reckoning]

On the Flyers DVD box set there's a game between Philly and Boston from the 79-80 season (Bourques rookie year) where he plays on the wing for the second half of the game. Philadelphia had the game wrapped up by then, and the Bruins had been ineffective offensively in it, so it may have just been an experiment.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Housley is the one we tend to remember had some forward assignments back in the day. But I would guess that with Park still there he's still likely QBing the PP. Still figure Bourque would be back there on D though. All I can think of is looking at the 1981 Bruins you had Park, Bourque, O'Connell and McCrimmon as the d-men who seemed to play on the powerplay. It could be that they wanted Park, Bourque and O'Connell on there as the first unit. Which is why they shifted Bourque to wing. Who knows. Cheevers was the coach then, so he may have been experimenting. Obviously the end result it was much better to have Bourque on the point for the PP.

Oddly enough, at least once in juniors Cheevers' coach put Dave Dryden in net and had Gerry play left wing.

 

[The Panther]

Basically, anyone who can play defense at the NHL level can play forward, right? I mean, if you have some offensive skill.

I often think more coaches / teams should experiment with this. As an example on my team, I'm of the opinion that Darnell Nurse would make a very good 2nd or 3rd line center (he's a great distance passer, though he has a muffin shot), but as a top-4 defenseman, he's extrememly unreliable.

But I guess it's harder to groom and develop D-men, so once teams get one, they tend to leave him there. But hey, if Wendel Clark can do it...

 

[Crosby2010]

Basically, anyone who can play defense at the NHL level can play forward, right? I mean, if you have some offensive skill.

I often think more coaches / teams should experiment with this. As an example on my team, I'm of the opinion that Darnell Nurse would make a very good 2nd or 3rd line center (he's a great distance passer, though he has a muffin shot), but as a top-4 defenseman, he's extrememly unreliable.

But I guess it's harder to groom and develop D-men, so once teams get one, they tend to leave him there. But hey, if Wendel Clark can do it...

Normally on the power play you hear about the forward at the point. Bill Barber is an example, I know Brad Richards did it a lot too. So it isn't often the other way around. However, you are right that it is an easier transition full-time for a defenseman to go up on the wing. That isn't a hard transition. It is much more taxing for a winger to fall back and play as a defenseman.