Throughout the 1990s, few players in the NHL were the offensive force that Pierre Turgeon was.
Even in the latter stages of his career, Turgeon’s reputation still carried him once his legs and skill no longer could.
Tonight, 16 years after he stepped away from the game, Turgeon will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Turgeon’s induction is certainly long overdue. Despite the fact he never hoisted the Stanley Cup or was named the winner of the Hart Trophy, mostly because he played in an era that also featured the likes of Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier, his resume supersedes all other accolades.
Eclipsing both 1,300-point and 500-goal plateaus, Turgeon ranks top 50 all-time in the history of the NHL. Twice was he a 40-goal scorer in a season and with six others of 30 or more.
However, his greatest season of all, which was in the midst of the best stretch of his career, came in 1992-93 when he totaled 132 points and 58 goals for the New York Islanders.
So that begs the question: now that Turgeon is entering the Hockey Hall of Fame, when will the Islanders induct him into there’s?
The Islanders are a team full of rich history and, because of that, don’t hand out such high recognition to players with lesser achievements like other teams in sports.
However, even though Turgeon is the only player on their all-time single-season scoring leaderboard not named Bossy or Trottier, the Islanders still haven’t officially recognized him as one of the best players in their history.
As their mid-80s dynasty began to fade, the Islanders’ playoff runs in the years since their last Cup victory all ended in either the first or second rounds.
But a massive trade with the Buffalo Sabres in 1991 that brought in Turgeon soon helped the Islanders make it back to the conference final for the first time in nearly a decade.
Granted, Turgeon only played 255 of his 1,294 career games for the Islanders, as he bounced around the league his entire career. But in that small stretch, Turgeon made a huge impact.
After he left the organization in 1994, the Islanders fell into a seven-year playoff drought and didn’t make it back to the conference finals until just recently…
