My Favorite Player: Wendel Clark

The Athletic is asking us to write about our all-time favorite players, and I’m going to save you the suspense: I chose Wendel Clark.

That may not be a surprise to you if you’ve been reading my stuff since the very early days over a decade ago when I did a gushing 17-part tribute to him. Or if you’ve read me more recently and noticed that I keep finding ways to link to the All Heart video for the 10,000th time. Or if you live near The Athletic’s Toronto headquarters and have seen me marching outside holding a sign reading “Wendel Was Robbed” and loudly demanding to speak to the manager. Or if you’ve ever met my two lovely children, Wendel and Also Wendel.

OK, that last one isn’t true. (My wife vetoed it.) But you get the point. Wendel Clark was my first favorite player as a kid, arriving in Toronto not long after I was old enough to enter life as a real sports fan. And in 35 years since, nobody’s really come close to knocking him off the throne.

If you’re a Leafs fan, you get it. Wendel might be your favorite player too. And even if he isn’t, you understand why he could be. To this day, if you go to a Leafs game in Toronto and watch the various hype-up videos that play on the scoreboard before the game, the biggest cheer still comes when Wendel shows up. Leafs fans know.

But if you’re a fan of some other team, you might be confused by this decades-long cult of Wendel Worship. It’s not like the guy made the Hall of Fame, or was even a serious candidate. He never scored 50 goals or won a major award. He’s a modern-day Maple Leafs icon, so we know he didn’t win the Cup. He wasn’t especially fast or good in the defensive zone or much of a playmaker and he always seemed to be hurt. We’re talking about a team that’s been around for over a century and has produced more Hall of Famers than any other franchise – how does this guy show up near the top of every list of most beloved Maple Leafs? Is it just because he punched a lot of people?

No. Well, yes, the punching is part of it. But there’s a lot more to it than that, and to understand, you have to know the history.

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Remembering some of the NHL’s greatest one-hit wonders

I love a good one-hit wonder.

Honestly, I don’t even really need the “good” qualifier. One-hit wonders are one of my favorite genres of music, and they don’t even have to be all that good. My playlist is clogged with these things, especially from the 80s and 90s.

Some people would make the argument that this is because I’m “old” and “uncool” and “have bad taste in music.” None of that rings especially untrue. But those people can criticize me as much as they want. I get knocked down, but I get up again. You can’t steal my sunshine.

I also love a good one-hit wonder story when it comes to sports, especially the NHL. A lot of fans seem to want to look down on a player who only managed one memorable season as if the rest of their career was a disappointment. But the odds of even making the big leagues are so slim that it seems like getting all the way there, and then having it all come together for one magical season, is a story worth celebrating.

That’s what we’re doing this week at The Athletic. Today we’re looking at the NHL, with features on players like Guillaume Latendresse, Dave Hindmarch, Joe Juneau and Kjell Dahlin. I’m going to cover a few of my favorites, with a twist: I’m going to raid my awful playlist and try to find a musical one-hit wonder that best matches the NHL version.

Can we make beautiful music together? Not really, no, but we can find a few hits. Let’s do this.

Jim Carey

The player: Carey was an American goaltender who debuted for the Capitals with a very good rookie showing in the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season. He seemed set for big things, and we didn’t have to wait long.

The season: In his first full season, Carey played 71 games for the Caps, winning 35 while also leading the league in shutouts. He won the Vezina and was voted a first-team All-Star. He even finished eighth in Hart Trophy voting.

The one-hit wonder: “Informer” by Snow.

Why it fits: Two reasons. First, because Carey’s more famous namesake pretty much ended Snow’s career with one of the most vicious parodies in music history. Good lord, Jim, the man has a family. There was no coming back from that.

But more importantly, Carey’s Vezina season is Snow-like in that it doesn’t hold up well in hindsight. Sure, he won a lot of games, ranking second in the league, and he was third in goals-against average. But his .906 save percentage was well outside the top ten, so even by what would be considered basic metrics, he wasn’t close to being the best goalie in the league.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that Carey’s success didn’t last. What was shocking was how quickly it all fell apart. The Penguins lit him up in the playoffs — one version of the story says that they realized he couldn’t go side-to-side and made sure to make cross-ice passes before shooting — and the book was out. One season later, he was traded to the Bruins. A season after that, he played 10 games. A season after that, he was back in the minors before being cut altogether. By the end of the 1998-99 season, just three years after his Vezina win, his NHL career was over.

Ken Hodge

The player: No, not that Ken Hodge. The two-time Cup winner and first-team All-Star who scored over 300 goals for the Hawks, Bruins and Rangers wasn’t a one-hit wonder. But his son was. Ken Hodge Jr. was drafted by the North Stars but only managed to crack the NHL for five games before he was traded to the Bruins for a fourth-round pick in 1990. (Fun fact: The Stars used the pick on franchise mainstay Jere Lehtinen.)

The season: Hodge Jr. stepped into the Boston lineup almost immediately. He didn’t score as a Bruin until his 10th game, but once the goals started coming they didn’t stop. He had two goals on the season’s final night to hit the 30-goal mark, an impressive enough total that he finished third in Calder voting, ahead of Hall of Famers Rob Blake, Mats Sundin and Jaromir Jagr.

The one-hit wonder: “She’s So High” by Tal Bachman.

Why it fits: Both Bachman and Hodge Jr. did some solid work in their career. But when dad is a legend, it can be tough to live up to expectations.

Hodge Jr. went on to cap off his strong season with a decent playoff run. But he followed that year up with just six goals in 1991-92, spending half the year in the minors, and was traded to the expansion Lightning (whose GM, Phil Esposito, had been a longtime teammate of his father). Even on an expansion roster, Hodge Jr. couldn’t regain his touch; he scored two goals in 25 games and never saw the NHL again.

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Grab Bag: More jersey number trivia, an awards idea and Foligno swings at a fan

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- A follow-up to the jersey number trivia post, in which I answer some of your many questions
- An idea for how the NHL should announce this year's awards
- An obscure player who shared the net with two Hall-of-Famers in one game
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at Mike Foligno using his dad-vision to try to murder a Bruins fan

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Puck Soup: Who is this guy playing for?

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We break down what the NHLPA got right and wrong in their player poll
- Our thoughts on The Athletic's Top 100 sports movie ranking
- How this year's draft might work
- Zdeno Chara overshares about Tuukka Rask
- A new quiz called "Who is this guy playing for?"
- And more...

>> Stream it now:

>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

Remembering the dramatic tying goals that went to waste (aka the Zelepukins)

With no new NHL action these days, the league’s broadcast partners have been dipping into their archives to fill airtime with memorable games from the past. And it’s been pretty cool. We all miss live hockey, but getting to rewatch some old classics isn’t a bad way to spend an evening.

For example, over the weekend Canadian viewers were treated to replays of a pair of classic Canucks Game 7s: their showdown against the Flames in 2004 and their grudge match against the Blackhawks in 2011. A few days earlier, both Sportsnet and Fox Sports West showed the Kerry Fraser game between the Leafs and Kings from 1993.

All memorable games. But they had something else in common, and you may have noticed it. They all featured a very specific type of goal. They all had a Zelepukin.

OK, I’m guessing you don’t call it that, since that’s a label I’ve been using in my own head over the years. But you know the moment. A Zelepukin is when a team scores a dramatic goal to tie a crucial game at the end of regulation but then goes on to lose that game in overtime.

A Zelepukin goal is always a weird moment in hindsight. When the tying goal happens, it’s euphoric for one fan base and crushing for the other. But then the script gets flipped in overtime, and you realize that the Zelepukin just prolonged the misery. Sometimes, the tying goal itself is all but forgotten, replaced in the collective memory by the overtime goal it spawned.

And that’s where the paradox of the Zelepukin kicks in – if your team scored it, you might end up wondering if you’d rather it had never happened at all.

That question has always kind of fascinated me. So today, let’s look at those three Zelepukin goals we’ve been able to relive in recent days, as well as a few more famous ones from hockey history. We’ll start with the one that might have been the most memorable in NHL history. If you’re not sure which one that is, well, the name might give you a hint.

May 27, 1994: Devils vs. Rangers

The setup: It’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, with the Rangers hosting the Devils at Madison Square Garden. New York has won the Presidents’ Trophy and is looking to punch a ticket to the final and a chance to end a 54-year Cup drought. But the underdog Devils are giving them all they can handle. The series is already legendary, having featured Mark Messier’s infamous Guarantee that kept the Rangers alive in Game 6. Now it all comes down to one winner-take-all showdown.

The situation: Game 7 turns into a fierce defensive battle, with Mike Richter and Martin Brodeur trading saves in a 0-0 tie until Brian Leetch gets the Rangers on the board midway through the second. As the third period ticks away, it starts to look like that goal will hold up as the winner.

The Zelepukin: With Brodeur on the bench and 18 seconds left, the teams line up for a faceoff in the Rangers’ end. Messier wins the draw but the Rangers can’t clear, and a goalmouth scramble leads to a golden scoring opportunity. Richter makes what seems like an impossible save, but a certain Devil is there to hack away at the rebound: Tom Chorske!

No, just kidding. It is, of course, Valeri Zelepukin.

And just like that, 18,000 delirious Rangers fans go dead quiet. For at least a little while.

But then: In arguably the most famous overtime of the era, the two teams don’t score through one period before Stephane Matteau’s harmless-looking wraparound attempt ends it. The goal isn’t especially pretty, but the call will live forever.

Do you wish it never happened? If you’re a Devils fan, it’s quite possible that Zelepukin’s goal, at the moment it happened, was the highlight of your entire life as a sports fan. But in hindsight, if you could wave a magic wand and make it disappear, I think you’d have to. Sure, losing 1-0 on a Brian Leetch goal would have been painful. But if you never had to hear Stephane Matteau’s name screamed at you ever again, I think it would be worth it.

April 26, 2011: Blackhawks vs. Canucks

The setup: By 2011, the Hawks and Canucks had managed to brew up a surprisingly heated inter-division rivalry, one that had seen Chicago eliminate very good Vancouver teams in both 2009 and 2010. The Hawks had gone on to win the Cup after that second series, but the Canucks were the favorites heading into their 2011 rematch after a franchise-record 117-point season. All they had to do was slay the dragon.

And through three games, they did. The Canucks built a 3-0 series lead, one that the history books said should be all but insurmountable. But then the Hawks fought back with a blowout win, and then another, and then an overtime win in Game 6 to tie the series. That set up a Game 7 in Vancouver where the Canucks would either fight back with one of the biggest wins in franchise history, or suffer a loss so devastating that they’d have no choice but to detonate the roster. No middle ground.

The situation: Alex Burrows opened the scoring early in the first, and it seemed like that might be enough as Roberto Luongo held off a surprisingly toothless Chicago attack. Late in the third, the Hawks’ chances went from bad to worse when Duncan Keith took a tripping penalty to leave them shorthanded. All the Canucks had to do was play keep away for two minutes, then take it home.

The Zelepukin: A neutral zone turnover led to a harmless looking 2-on-4 rush for the Hawks. But as it turns out, Jonathan Toews is pretty dangerous, even from all fours.

And just like that, the Canucks were headed to sudden death on the verge of what would have been viewed as one of the most epic chokes in NHL history.

But then: Five minutes into overtime Chris Campoli’s failed clearing attempt wound up in Burrows’ glove, and he hammered one past Corey Crawford for the winner.

Do you wish it never happened? Watch that overtime winner again. Do you see how happy Burrows is? It’s the highlight of his entire career. If you were a Hawks fans, would you want to take that away from him? Of course you would. It’s not even a hard question. This Zelepukin clearly needs to go.

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