Brendan Shanahan is truly one of the great power forwards in the National Hockey League. He's tough, fast, and has a keen nose for the net. These talents have brought him much success in the NHL and wherever he goes, wherever he plays, he quickly becomes a fan favorite. Adoring fans from St. Louis to Detroit have affectionately referred to him by the nickname "Shanny." Brendan has been on three Stanley Cup teams and has represented Team Canada at the World Junior Championships, World Championships, World Cup of Hockey and even the Olympics.
Stats
Brendan Shanahan was born on January 22, 1969 in Mimico,
Ontario and stands at 6'3" tall and shoots right. His jersey number is 14. Through the 2006-2007 season, Shanahan has 627
goals, 667 assists (good for 1,294 points), and 2,425 penalty minutes in 1,417
NHL games played. His career plus-minus (through 05-06) was at a whopping +108. In 167 playoff games he has 58 goals, 68 assists (126 points) and 269 penalty minutes.
History/Highlights
Brendan Shanahan began his career in New Jersey, as he was drafted by them as the first pick, second overall, in the 1987 entry draft which was held in Detroit. In his very first NHL game on October 9, 1987 while playing the New York Rangers he scored his first point, an assist. The next season with New Jersey Brendan scored 40 points (18G, 22A) and his first career hat trick was on 2/13/89 versus the Toronto Maple Leafs. In the 89-90 season, Shanahan continued his amazing rookie scoring by amassing his 100th point and scored at least a point per game for 50 games. In 1990-1991, his final season in the Garden State, he scored 20 goals, which for him marked 3 straight seasons of scoring 20 or more goals.
In 1991, in a controversial deal, Shanahan was shipped to St. Louis where he played in all 80 games his first season there and scored 33 goals. Very quickly, hockey fans in the Show Me State began worshipping him; female fans swooned every time his signature post-goal smile was featured on the Jumbotron. During the Blues' Shanahan Era, record numbers of babies born in the Gateway City area were given the first name Brendan. Shanahan merchandise, particularly jerseys and posters, sold like hotcakes. Shanahan also created a lot of controversy while in St. Louis. He was always quite a charmer with the ladies, which gave credence to the rumor that he slept with teammate Craig Janney’s wife. Also giving credence to that rumor is the fact that, after Shanahan was no longer in St. Louis, he married Craig Janney’s wife. There was another rumor, though, that Craig Janney’s wife had slept with many other members of the team, but we're digressing there.
The fan worship was, for the most part, deserved, as in the 92-93 season he broke the 50 goal mark for the first time and broke the Blues record for most points in a season by a left wing. He had a five point game that year on January 26th while playing the Montreal Canadiens. The next season he again broke the 50 goal mark, netting 52 of them along with 50 assists and led the NHL with hat tricks with 4. He even had seven short-handed goals. He even put two biscuits in the basket in the 1994 All Star Game.
Yes, things were going well in St. Louis for Shanahan and the Blues, that is, until the 1994-1995 lockout-shortened season, and until GM/Coach Mike Keenan came to town.
Even with Shanahan's amazing stats and fan adoration, for some reason Keenan just didn't like him. He scored 20 goals that year, which was still impressive considering how short the season was and led the Blues in playoff points. However, in the summer of 1995, Keenan, in a move that caused all St. Louisans to call for "Iron" Mike's head, he traded their beloved player to the Hartford Whalers for rookie defenseman Chris Pronger.
While Blues fans groaned, Whalers fans cheered, as Shanahan was almost immediately named the team captain. On a club that was struggling financially and threatening to move elsewhere, Shanahan seemed like just the ticket and a good playoff run, or even the Cup, would again secure the franchise. That year he scored 44 goals and 34 assists for the Whalers. One of those goals was scored on his only return trip to St. Louis in the 95-96 season, on March 9, where he faced Wayne Gretzky and the Blues. He got a standing ovation after he scored it. That would be the last time, however, that Blues fans would cheer a Shanahan goal.
As it turns out, Hartford just couldn’t hold onto him and traded Shanahan to Detroit early in the 96-97 season with Brian Glynn from for Keith Primeau, Paul Coffey and a first round pick in 1997 Entry Draft (Nikos Tselios). Now Shanahan wows hockey fans in the Motor City, as he has scored at least 30 goals a season in every year but the 97-98 campaign; he scored 41 in the 99-00 season. Also, each season he has managed to largely avoid injury, playing in virtually every game scheduled. He won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 1997, 1998, and 2002, each time eliminating his former team, the Blues, on the way. (See the last sentence in the previous paragraph.) In the 2002 Cup run he helped the Wings, in the Finals, eliminate another former team, the Carolina Hurricanes, who used to be the Hartford Whalers, as they did in fact need to relocate shortly after Shanahan was traded.
Like in 03-04, in 2005-2006 he played another injury-free season where he played all 82 games, helping the Detroit Red Wings to an unsurprising President's Trophy. After the lockout that had wiped out the 2004-2005 season, he didn't miss a stride, playing as if nothing unusual had ever happened, picking up where he left off scoring 40 goals and 41 assists - 15 more goals than the previous year's total. However, his #1 seeded Red Wings fell unceremoniously to the 8th-seeded Edmonton Oilers in the first round of the playoffs (and, by the way, the Oilers shockingly made it all the way to the Finals that year).
In the 2006 offseason, Shanny waved goodbye to Detroit and went East to join the New York Rangers. In his first season with the Broadway Blueshirts he scored a respectable 29 goals and 33 assists and notched 5 goals and 2 assists in the playoffs.
Sources:
www.nhl.com
www.yahoo.com