8/21/25 - Doug Gilmour

 

Name: Doug Gilmour

Team: Toronto Maple Leafs

Position: Center (Hockey)

Card Year: 1996

Card Maker: Upper Deck

Card Number: 291

We're back on the normal schedule here and with a pretty stark pivot from last week's card. Despite the obvious difference of hockey versus basketball, last week's pick - Rich King had a brief, injury-filled career whereas this week's selection - 1994-95 Toronto Maple Leaf captain, Doug Gilmour had career longevity and success enviable by just about anyone. 

Doug Gilmour was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the 7th round of the 1982 NHL draft. Despite concerns regarding his small size for an NHL center, he was able to make his way onto the roster and played his first season for the Blues in 1983-84 playing in 80 games and tallying a respectable 53 points. He tallied his first 100+ point season in 86-87 with the Blues, scoring 42 goals and making 63 assists. It was during this time with the Blues that he was given the nickname of 'Killer' by then captain Brian Sutter, due to his aggression and defensive abilities.

He would be traded by the Blues to Calgary after the 1987-88 season where he would go on win the only Stanley Cup of his career with an absolutely dominant Flames team in 1989. He was traded by Calgary as part of a 10 player trade, the largest in NHL history, to Toronto midway through the 1991-92 season which was the starting season shown on this card, with stats both from Calgary and Toronto.

The following two seasons, 1992-93 and 1993-94, would be Gilmour's most productive with 127 and 111 points respectively and making the All Star Game in both seasons. In the 1992-93 season, he would lead the Leafs in assists and overall points, and was only two goals behind Nikolai Borschevsky for the lead in that category as well. This would also be the first and only time Gilmour would win the Frank J. Selke trophy for best defensive forward. Despite only finishing third in their division, the Leafs made it to game 7 in the Western Conference finals, but lost to the Los Angeles Kings, the eventual loser to the Stanley Cup Champion Montreal Canadiens.

1993-94 ended in similar fashion both for Gilmour and the Leafs. Toronto finished just two points behind the Detroit Red Wings in the new Central division of the Western conference and again made it to the conference finals, only to lose this time to the Vancouver Canucks, the eventual losers to the Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers. Gilmour was third on the Leafs in scoring this season, but still led the team in assists with 84 and overall points with 111. He would be named team captain at the start of the 1994-95 season, that of this card, though that season was significantly shortened due to a league lockout. 

The Leafs started to wane in that shortened season, finishing only 4th in the Central divsion. Gilmour remained in Toronto until rebuilding began, and was traded during the 1996-97 season to the New Jersey Devils. From there, he bounced around the league with stops in Chicago, Buffalo, and Montreal while never reaching the same statistical success he had achieved in Toronto and earlier on in his career.

In 2002, Gilmour returned to the Maple Leafs, but was injured in his first game, resulting in him missing the season and retiring in 2003 after a 20 year NHL career. His number 93 was retired by the Leafs in 2009 and he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011 alongside Ed Belfour, Joe Nieuwendyk, and Mark Howe. He spent ten years with the Kingston Frontenacs serving as head coach, general manager, and head of hockey operations, but stepped down from his role there in 2025 to serve in a community relations role back with the Maple Leafs.

While he didn't have a long list of individual awards earned, Gilmour's consistency and longevity solidified him as deserving of the Hall of Fame accolades. With the exception of goals, he is effectively top 30 in all major career offensive statistics including both assists (15th) with 964 total and overall points (21st) with 1414. Extremely impressive for any hockey player, especially a kid who almost didn't make the league because of his height. 

Sources

Pro Hockey Reference

The Internet Hockey Database

The Kingston Whig Standard

The Hockey Hall of Fame

ESPN

7/17 - Tom Barrasso

 Name: Tom Barrasso

Team: Pittsburgh Penguins

Position: Goaltender

Card Year: 1991

Card Maker: Upper Deck

Card Number: 116

We've gone from a draft bust last week to a Stanley Cup champion this week in the 1990-1991 Penguins' starting goalie, Tom Barrasso. 

Barrasso's career started in with the 1983-84 Buffalo Sabres where as a rookie, he won both the Calder Memorial Trophy and the Vezina Trophy. One of only three athletes to have ever won both awards in the same season.

He remained the starter in Buffalo through the 87-88 season until being traded to the Penguins in 1988 for a third round draft pick, with playing time split between several goalies and a general drop in performance. 

His life then took a dramatic turn during his first season with the Penguins, as his then two-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer and was given just a 10% chance of survival. He took a leave of absence from the team to be with her during treatment, and miraculously she survived. As her health improved and she was able to go home, Barrasso returned to the Penguins.

His performance rebounded significantly in the 1990-91 season with his GAA dropping to  3.59 and a team record 27 wins with an additional 12 wins in the playoffs. However, just purely on vibes - this GAA still seemed really high. With hockey being the relatively low-scoring sport that it is, it just seemed odd that the best team's goalie was still nearly giving up 4 goals per game. 

My first thought was well, this is the early 90s Pittsburgh Penguins. They might be giving up a lot of goals, but then presumably they're scoring a lot as well. They have Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr! But that wasn't entirely the case - Lemieux missed most of the season with a back injury (he was back for the playoffs which surely helped) and Jagr was a rookie with a very respectable 27 goals, but he was not yet the monster he would soon become. 

What really carried this team was - all the other guys who were scoring goals. Mark Recchi and Kevin Stevens both led the team with 40 goals a piece and they had 7 players with at least 20 goals. They were only second to the Calgary Flames in average goals scored which was good because their GAA led by Barrasso was also the 4th highest in the league. However, given their overall depth and with Lemieux's playoff MVP performance in the playoffs, it ultimately did not matter. 

So while Barrasso did enough to get the Penguin's the team's first Stanley Cup, I still wanted to see if there was a league-wide trend in scoring, especially as previously stated - this was the Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr (and Wayne Gretzky and Theo Fleury etc.) era so below you can see GAA over time where 1990-91 is where the peak starts to drop off, and seemingly every team had a goalie giving up over 3.5 goals per game. Defense apparently just did not really matter in the 80s and early 90s.

Data from Pro Hockey Reference

Tom Barrasso went on to win another Stanley Cup in the 1991-92 season as Pittsburgh repeated. He also led the league in wins that season, while ending up 2nd in Vezina trophy voting behind Ed Belfour who Barrasso ultimately bested in the Stanley Cup Finals. His 19-year career ended with limited time in Toronto, Carolina, Ottawa, and St. Louis. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023.

Sources:

Pro Hockey Reference

Sports Illustrated Vault

United States Hockey Hall of Fame