Vancouver Canucks fans tuning in to tonight's home game against Cory Schneider and the New Jersey Devils will no doubt see a touching tribute to Pat Quinn, who died Sunday night at age 71.
As team president of hockey operations Trevor Linden pointed out Monday, Quinn's fingerprints remain all over the Canucks and the city of Vancouver.
Quinn turned Vancouver from a hockey backwater and the Canucks from a second-class organization within the NHL into a hockey-obsessed city and the Canucks into a sought-after destination for top-level players and coaches. He did that just as Vancouver was transforming itself into Canada's jewel on the Pacific Rim and a major world city.
Some of Quinn's fingerprints are on Linden himself.
"I wouldn't be the person I am today if it weren't for Pat. He was a great leader and always a teacher," Linden said. "He taught me how to be a professional on and off the ice. He taught me how to play hockey the right way, how to win, and about the importance of respect and loyalty."
A tough guy during his playing career (knocking out Bobby Orr and playing for the Canucks were some of the highlights), many of Monday's tributes, including Linden's, forgot to mention how clever Quinn was.
His first trade as an NHL general manager was to get Kirk McLean and Greg Adams, both instrumental players in the 1993-94 run to the Stanley Cup final, from the New Jersey Devils for Patrick Sundstrom and a fourth-round pick.
He pulled a fast one on the entire league by drafting future Hall of Famer Pavel Bure late in the 1989 NHL entry draft. The common belief was that the Russian Rocket wouldn't be eligible until the following year but Quinn and his staff understood the rules affecting Bure's eligibility better than anyone in the league, seizing the opportunity no one else saw.
In 1991, Quinn should have been charged with robbery for the theft he pulled on the St. Louis Blues, getting Geoff Courtnall, Cliff Ronning, Sergio Momesso and Robert Dirk, all key players for the Canucks over the following years, in exchange for just Dan Quinn (no relation) and Garth Butcher.
Believe it or not, St. Louis agreed to get fleeced again by Quinn just three years later, getting Craig Janney but giving up Bret Hedican, Nelson Lafayette (he hit the post in the frantic final minute of Game 7 in 1994 against the Rangers) and Jeff Brown. Everyone remembers Bure scoring of overtime of Game 7 that spring against the Calgary Flames but not everyone remembers that breakaway was the result of a tape-to-tape pass from Brown.
Quinn's draft record was more mixed. Although he hit home runs taking Linden second overall in 1998 and Bure in 1991, he took Petr Nedved second overall in 1990, three picks ahead of Jaromir Jagr, who went to the Pittsburgh Penguins instead. Quinn atoned for that error by trading away his first-round pick from the 1991 draft, Alex Stojanov, to the Penguins for Markus Naslund, a trade even more lopsided than the St. Louis heists.
Although Quinn's front-office work as a general manager was incredible, he's best remembered for his work as a coach. The Philadelphia Flyers went 35 games without a loss (25 wines, 10 ties) in the 1979-80 season, Quinn's first full year behind the bench. That's an NHL record that will likely remain untouched.
While he never won a Stanley Cup (the 1994 Game 7 with the Canucks was the closest he ever came), Quinn earned international gold medals for his work with the men's Olympic team in 2002 in Salt Lake City and in 2009 with Canada's world junior team.
The city of Vancouver, the Vancouver Canucks organization and the entire sport of hockey owe a great debt of gratitude to big, gruff Pat.
