Selanne rookie season

Fewer than six months after his high school graduation, Barrasso debuted in the NHL for Buffalo.

Those are impressive totals, but not even in the same league as Selanne’s.

Selanne’s Rookie Season Aided by Great Teammates

While his numbers were incredible, Selanne had some talented teammates such as Phil Housley, Teppo Numminen, Keith Tkachuk, Thomas Steen, and Alexei Zhamnov feeding him the puck.

Players such as Ovechkin and Crosby, by contrast, were impressive but expected to carry the load themselves (there’s a reason the Capitals and Penguins got to select them first-overall: they were weak squads.)

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Crosby, for example, finished with 44 more points than any other Penguin and Ovechkin was 49 points above any other Capital.

While Selanne had a number of truly terrific seasons, it’s the first in which he was the most unstoppable and still gathers the most accolades.

Where do I shoot on him?” Not that he always listened, but he was obviously very coachable.

KING Once the game started, it was almost like there was a switch. Selanne saw that number and scoffed at it, recording his 54th goal on March 2 against the Quebec Nordiques, with more than a month of the season left to go. And while he was nobody’s definition of a rink rat, he certainly knew the value of discipline.

His prolific offensive skills played a big role in the Jets capturing a playoff berth.

It was as if Selanne couldn’t make a mistake with the puck: that season, he burned out the red lights with 76 goals, and added 56 assists for good measure, totalling 132 points in 84 games. Bourque went on to win the Calder Trophy and was a first-team All-Star selection in 1980 -- the first rookie to achieve both distinctions.

There have been four rookies who scored 50 or more goals in NHL history.

However, Selanne, selected 10th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft, did just that.

It was a personality that’s contagious and who wouldn’t like that?

CAMPBELL The problem with Teemu was he was so accommodating. For most players, that would be a career season. As he started to get closer to the record — I don’t think he really cared too much about it, at least he didn’t let on he did — it was us as a team that started to kind of focus in on the fact that this was really just an absolutely incredible, incredible run.

SELANNE I didn’t read the papers, not in Winnipeg, not in Finland.

76 goals in a rookie season.

Bossy was the first to do so, posting 53 for the Islanders. Notably because that was the debut season of two NHL greats -- still going strong today. His .893 save percentage ranked fourth in the league. But he’d always get out there on time and Dean would always say, “Teemu, you can’t be a pro if you’re never on time.” When he got on the ice, he just kind of had fun.

They tried to herd him and shepherd him around and manage his time, but he would never say no to anybody.

ESSENSA He sat beside me in the locker room, and this is long before the league had guys like myself [a goalie coach for the Boston Bruins now] who overanalyze opposition goaltenders. That point total ranks second among all NHL rookies for a season, while those assists are tied for the most.

I remember [defenceman] Dean Kennedy — who was a grumpy old bugger and one of my favorite teammates I ever had — would give it to him every single day before he got on the ice.