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Grant Fuhr—Just Win, Baby

Grant FuhrGrant Fuhr is one of the best clutch goaltenders in the history of the game. However, any modern fan who looks at Fuhr's career numbers may wonder about his ability: a career 3.38 goal against average and 25 career shutouts over 19 seasons do not seem like such great goaltending numbers.

Fuhr’s glory years came at the height of what some pundits called the "Air Hockey Years" of the 1980s. The Oilers’ run-and-gun style, which saw them score over 400 goals a season, created an offensive revolution in the game. In 1983-84, the Oilers’ first championship season, 13 of the NHL’s 21 teams scored more than 300 goals in the regular season. In the 21st century, none of the NHL’s 30 teams even got close to the 300-goal mark.

Because of the rise of end-to-end hockey, goalies were constantly under duress. Shutouts were rare, and a goalie could be outstanding and still allow four goals in a night. The real measure of Fuhr’s importance to the Oilers comes by simply looking at his career win totals, which include 403 regular-season triumphs and an amazing 92 career playoff wins.  Most of Grant Fuhr and Kevin Lowethe career victories came by playing for the team he cheered for as a boy growing up in Spruce Grove, Alberta. His recognition as a great goaltender also includes five Stanley Cup rings,  three-time representative of Canada Cup tournaments, and goaltender for the NHL in the famous ’87 Rendezvous tournament, which pitted the League’s all-stars against the Soviets.

As a teenager, Fuhr impressed scouts with two standout seasons. He was the top player on the Western Hockey League’s Victoria Cougars in both 1979-80 and 1980-81, winning 72 games over that span while only losing 20 times. Fuhr’s ability to pile up wins impressed the Oilers, who selected Fuhr in the first round of the 1981 entry draft. Fuhr still considers that draft day to be the biggest hockey moment of his life.

"I would have to say the best moment was getting drafted into the NHL by the Oilers," he said. "Yes, the Stanley Cups and Canada Cups were great, but there was something special about getting picked by the team that I followed since day one. I knew that I was going to get the chance to play at home. Playing in front of family and friends, it made things easier for me, I didn’t have to go to a city where I had to deal with strange places and people. Everything was familiar to me."

When he arrived in Oilers’ camp in the fall of 1981, Fuhr was thrown into a goaltending troika with veteran Ron Low (his roommate on the road) and Andy Moog, who had led theGrant Fuhr And Andy Moog Oilers to their shock first-round playoff upset over the Montréal Canadiens the previous spring. Still, Fuhr impressed Oilers’ general manager and coach Glen Sather enough that he got the lion’s share of the games that season, playing in 48 of the team’s 80 games. The next season saw Fuhr struggle, and Moog wrested the starting job from him. Fuhr played in just 32 games that season and even spent time in the minors to work on his game. The next season saw Moog and Fuhr work together as a unit, and the pair’s play was a major reason the Oilers’ could sip from the Stanley Cup. Fuhr shut out the defending champion New York Islanders in Game 1 of the 1984 final, and Moog finished off the Isles with a Game 5 win at home.

Grant FuhrThe Edmonton Oilers, as far as the regular season was concerned, used the platoon plan until 1987, when the Oilers traded Moog to Boston. However, as far as the playoffs were concerned, Fuhr was the Oilers’ number-one goalie from 1985 on. When the Oilers’ defended their Cup title in 1985, Fuhr dazzled, out-dueling Philadelphia star goalie Pelle Lindbergh and becoming the first net minder in history to stop two penalty shots in one Stanley Cup final series.

Fuhr would lead the Oilers’ to two more Cups in 1987 and 1988—later, Wayne Gretzky would tell the media that if there was a game that his team needed to win, his first-choice goaltender would be Fuhr. The 1987-88 season was Fuhr’s finest; he won 40 games and played more minutes than any other goaltender. He won his only Vezina Trophy as the League’s top net minder and was nominated for the Hart Trophy as the League’s MVP, but finished behind Gretzky in the voting.

Grant FuhrDue to an injury, Furh could not play in the 1990 Stanley Cup final against former-Oiler Bill Ranford and his Boston Bruins.  After the Cup win, the Oilers sent Fuhr to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and he began a 10-year odyssey that would also see him suit up for the Buffalo Sabres, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues and Calgary Flames. In 1995-96, as a member of the Blues, Fuhr set a new standard for endurance when he set the NHL record for net minders by playing in 79 games that season.

Playing in St. Louis in the modern era of tight defence, Fuhr put up microscopic goals against averages, but he admitted that he would trade it in for 7-4 shootouts if it would have made the Blues a contender.

"I think I would have had better stats (starting my career in the 1990s), but then we maybe wouldn’t have won as much," said Fuhr. "The style of hockey we played, it was a lot of fun. A 7-4 or 7-3 game is a lot of fun to play in and it’s exciting for the fans. When I got to St. Louis, the game had already changed and I was putting up much better stats, but we weren’t as successful as a team as we should have been. I would much rather have the team success."

Fittingly, Fuhr played his last NHL game in the final regular-season match of the 1999-2000 in the Battle of Alberta. His Flames lost to the Oilers that night, but the thousands of Oilers fans who had travelled south to the Saddledome to see the game continually chanted Fuhr’s name throughout the evening and gave him a series of standing ovations to salute a special career.

In 2003, Fuhr was selected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

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