Who was the better sniper in their prime? Luc Robitaille or Pavel Bure?

[vadim sharifijanov]

Bure quite easily. Who would you want on a penalty shot? On a breakaway? Bursting down the wing with speed? Robitaille was called "Lucky Luc" for a reason. Hey, he was a good player, a HHOF player, but if I described Robitaille as a player who scored some goals on his stomach on the third rebound with the goalie way out of position is that wrong? He had his share of those "ugly" goals.

So from a pure sniper standpoint, and a guy who could score goals at will and on a much more individual basis, you've got to pick Bure here.

Luc Robitaille and sniper shouldnt even be in the same sentence, unless you are saying "luc is not a sniper"...

He was like a super version of burrows, great hockey sense, but in no way a sniper...

Players like kovy and stammer are snipers, not burrows.

If you actually look at a lot of Bure's goals, not just the highlight ones weve all seen 100 times, he had a lot of goals based purely on his shot therefor hes a sniper

anyone who votes luc.. just smh

Um... wtf? Robitaille in a "sniper" poll? Against Bure, no less? Wow. I don't care what kind of statistical Merlin alchemy suggested someone pose this question, it's just wrong.

i'm not necessarily siding with robitaille, and you won't find a bigger bure supporter than me. he was my favourite player growing up in vancouver and i remain amazed by the things he did.

but i do wonder whether we are going by a limited definition of sniper here. is a great shot necessarily a quick mid-stride release, hard, and with crazy accuracy in the mogilny/sakic/mario mould? or a stationary blast from the dot in the brett hull/stamkos mould? or is a great shot just a shot that finds the back of the net a lot?

robitaille, i think, had a great shot. that's not even counting kerr/andreychuk-type goals via deflections and tip-ins, which luc was also great at. but in close, he got it off as fast as almost anyone (though it couldn't break a pane of glass), his timing was ridiculous, and he found the goalie's openings. when he bats the puck out of the air on the backhand just as it's bounced off the goalie's chest, that's a shot to me. and a pretty amazing one. they called him "lucky" because he scored goals that very few others could. and 668 is an incredibly number for any era.

(and to those who laud bure for being able to do it himself, and i myself loved that about him, both bure and robitaille needed the same thing: a good offensive defenseman. bure never had an elite center, unless you count messier's corpse or those twelve games with lindros. but he had some decent ones: larionov, craven, ridley, kozlov. robitaille had nicholls (easily better than anyone bure ever had, but not exactly adam oates), a resurgent kurri, and bryan smolinski in his second LA tour. so it's not like robitaille some glen murray-type player who becomes average without an elite set-up man. you just had to get the puck to the net, and luc would do the rest. bure was at his best with a PMD. lumme, slegr, jeff brown, robert svehla. robitaille was at his best with a d-man who could get a shot through to the net: steve duchesne, rob blake.)

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

but i do wonder whether we are going by a limited definition of sniper here.

IMO, sniper is already a fairly limited definition. I mean, there are power forwards, 2-way forwards, play-makers, goal scorers ("compilers" appear often in this "list"), and there are snipers/shooters. Without expanding too much further into each category, I'll just say that I consider Robitaille more of a goal scorer than a shooter/sniper, and I consider Bure to be top notch either way. Similarly, Dino Ciccarelli was an excellent goal scorer, while Brett Hull was an excellent shooter/sniper.

I guess the difference is that you can still be a goal scorer without the best shot if you have the right hockey I.Q./instincts/compete level. Need that shot ("heavy", quick release, accurate, whatever) and "shoot first mentality" to qualify for sniper, though, imo. Luc was way more willing to make the extra little dump off move to a teammate in order to generate scoring opportunities, whereas Bure did whatever it took to make sure he was the guy who had the puck and got into a shooting opportunity whenever possible. That difference in mentality/approach is significant, I think.

 

[barneyg]

Bure quite easily. Who would you want on a penalty shot? On a breakaway? Bursting down the wing with speed? Robitaille was called "Lucky Luc" for a reason. Hey, he was a good player, a HHOF player, but if I described Robitaille as a player who scored some goals on his stomach on the third rebound with the goalie way out of position is that wrong? He had his share of those "ugly" goals.

I take it you don't know who Lucky Luke is? He's a French-language (Belgian) comic book character whose main feature is accuracy, not luck. Very well-known in Quebec and I assumed with at least some exposure elsewhere in Canada and in the US, maybe I'm wrong.

I voted Bure without thinking much about it but Killion's answer made me reconsider my position. Obviously Bure had a much more complete toolbox but Robitaille's game was much more similar to Brett Hull (his generation's quintessential sniper) -- accurate, mostly stationary, "right spot right time" kind of guy. He didn't have Hull's signature one-timer but they both weren't flashy skaters, both needed someone to carry the puck and get the D to sleep on them.. I think Robitaille fit the "sniper" definition better, because Bure wasn't a sniper.

 

[Pepe Silvia]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAwYhqXFVvA

one of my all time favorites. bure could knock someone on their ass and score a highlight reel goal in the same shift

robitaille is the **** too but bure>robitaille

 

[Sentinel]

Bure wasn't a sniper.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I get confused when people use the word "sniper".

To me, sniper means shooter and is different than goal scorer.

For example, Yzerman was a better goalscorer than Sakic but Sakic was a better sniper.
Same as Hull was a better sniper than Gretzky but Gretzky was a better goal scorer.

With that in mind, Bure was a better goalscorer but Luc was a better sniper.

At the end of the day, a player like Bure would of benefited from having a better first pass D-man over a better playmaking center imo.

Except Bossy , was there a better sniper than Lemieux?

 

[BenchBrawl]

I take it you don't know who Lucky Luke is? He's a French-language (Belgian) comic book character whose main feature is accuracy, not luck. Very well-known in Quebec and I assumed with at least some exposure elsewhere in Canada and in the US, maybe I'm wrong.
.

I loled at his post

You are right , Lucky Luke was a ''sniper'' himself and I still read it from time to time on the crown , it was quite a decent comic book.I can't believe at least two posters thought he was called Lucky Luke because they thought he was lucky

I thought Lucky Luke was well known around the world , just like Asterix.But Maybe Asterix isn't either.

Lucky Luke was a cowboy who had the greatest accuracy with guns for people who don't know who he is.

 

[RECsGuy*]

I take it you don't know who Lucky Luke is? He's a French-language (Belgian) comic book character whose main feature is accuracy, not luck. Very well-known in Quebec and I assumed with at least some exposure elsewhere in Canada and in the US, maybe I'm wrong.

I loled at his post

You are right , Lucky Luke was a ''sniper'' himself and I still read it from time to time on the crown , it was quite a decent comic book.I can't believe at least two posters thought he was called Lucky Luke because they thought he was lucky

I thought Lucky Luke was well known around the world , just like Asterix.But Maybe Asterix isn't either.

Lucky Luke was a cowboy who had the greatest accuracy with guns for people who don't know who he is.

Joke's on you, motha****as.

Prior to Robitaille's rookie season ('86-'87), the Kings had been referring to teammate Morris Lukowich as "Luke," therefore preventing Robitaille from being called by his first name. Not long after Robitaille arrived, Tiger Williams started calling Luc "Lucky" because Luc lived in the nicest house on the team (Marcel Dionne took him in), drove Dionne's Mercedes Benz, and scored his first NHL goal on the first shot of his first shift.

 

[Ringmaster]

Bure easily

 

[Slapshooter]

Clearly an objective viewer.

Well, there isn't such thing.

And if Bure was as unathletic as Luc, he'd have parked himself in front of the goal just like Luc, and would have outscored Lucky that way as well.

Having a deficiency doesn't immediately give you the superior "hockey IQ," it just means, in this case, Luc was a ****** skater.

All speculations, but I disagree. I don't believe a second that Bure would have been succesful goal scorer had he been as bad skater as Robitaille. Bure lacked both size and hockey sense to play the role Luc did.

 

[Sentinel]

Hmmm... Bure had a great hockey sense. Puck came to him. A crappy playmaker, a selfish player, but a great sniper with a great hockey sense and the quickest player (doing things while at full speed) in history

 

[RECsGuy*]

Well, there isn't such thing.



All speculations, but I disagree. I don't believe a second that Bure would have been succesful goal scorer had he been as bad skater as Robitaille. Bure lacked both size and hockey sense to play the role Luc did.

Bure lacked hockey sense? LOL

 

[Fred Taylor]

Bure's teammates actually praised his playmaking abilities, although you'd never know it by his assist totals. Bure was a better sniper than Robitaille who was very good himself.