One of hockey's longest running oversights will end next month. Finally, Glenn Anderson will go into the Hall of Fame, nine years after he was first eligible and who knows how long after he really should have been in.
So maybe he wasn't a first-ballot shrine guy. But he should not have been held up for nine years (he retired in 1996, and there is a three-year wait before eligibility starts). In any case, the wait will not matter any more after his induction in Toronto. And it probably will make the ceremony that much sweeter.
He said as much Monday, when he was on Long Island for Pat LaFontaine's Companions in Courage Foundation golf outing at Deepdale in Manhasset.
"It's all kinds of things. You're excited, you're overwhelmed. I don't know how to describe it," he said after playing in the event that raises funds for high-tech playrooms at children's hospitals. "It comes from the stomach, more than the heart. It's excitement, but it's also butterflies."
That sounds like the playoffs, which was Anderson's time to shine. The right wing was on six Stanley Cup winners, five with the Oilers and one last sentimental one with the Rangers.
A devil's advocate could point out that Anderson never was the best player on his team and rarely if ever the second best. A cynic could say that Anderson really benefited from teammates' greatness. For sure, it doesn't hurt to be in the same lineup as Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey. But Anderson did have two 54-goal seasons and you can't chalk all of those goals up to someone else. What's more, he did it when it counted. His five playoff overtime goals rank third all time. Anderson also is fifth in career playoff goals with 93 and fourth in career playoff points with 214.
So he wasn't just along for the ride.If anything, he deserves credit for not ever demanding to be treated like a star. "If it's not one guy, it's the other who's contributing. That's how you become successful," he said. "Especially in Edmonton, it wasn't about one individual's stats. It was about the whole team."
He was part of the dismantling of the Oilers dynasty, having been traded with Grant Fuhr to the Maple Leafs in 1991. Anderson knew that deal was coming before it happened. He couldn't say the same for his next trade.
"None, zero," he said about advance warning he would become a Ranger on March 21, 1994 in a deal that involved Mike Gartner. "It turned out pretty good."
Anderson had no idea until he was told of it Monday that, because of scheduling quirks, he played 85 regular season games. Only 12 of those were with the Rangers, who raised eyebrows for a dramatic makeover on the fly in the final weeks. It did turn out fine for them.
Could they have done it without Anderson? Who knows? He was there not so much because of the six points he had for the Rangers in the regular season and six more in the playoffs. He was there because he was a champion. Considering the semifinal series went to double overtime in Game 7 and the final series also went to a Game 7, you'd have to think he did something, somewhere that made a difference in his brief stay.
"What's difficult in today's game is that the movement is so great, you don't get to appreciate the jersey that you put on, you don't know the history," he said. "Basically, I had to go and study the history of it, and learn from Adam Graves and Mark Messier and Leetchie [ Brian Leetch] and Rickey [ Mike Richter] about what it meant.
"I had just started to figure out Toronto and I had been there three years," he said. "But I did learn about the New York Rangers and the tradition and the fans and how much longing they had for a Cup. There were the chants and everything, that built the pressure up.
"And I learned about the way people here treat their sports teams, like a roller coaster. There was no `medium' whatsoever here," he said with a laugh. "Either you're a hero or a bum. As an athlete in New York, you've got to learn to balance and control it."
Even though he was here less than three months, he had a share in something that, as Sam Rosen said at the time, "will last a lifetime."
It was personal for Anderson, too. Playing the Islanders in the first round recalled when he and the Oilers were young and their great nemesis played at Nassau Coliseum. The Devils series was one of the best he ever had played in. And meeting Vancouver in the Stanley Cup Finals was maybe the best part of all.
"That's where I grew up. That was extra special," he said. "Mom and dad were able to watch, right there."
His family and everyone close to him will be right there again next month in Toronto at the Hall, which is likely to accept Leetch, Brett Hull and Steve Yzerman next year and Eric Lindros and Joe Nieuwendyk the year after that.
"If it didn't happen this year, it wasn't going to happen for a long time," said Anderson, his wait over.
Here's hoping that the automatic two-game suspension handed down this week to Ryan Hollweg of the Maple Leafs will be the last for him.
The former Ranger, who seems a good and earnest fellow, has a reputation for ramming players into the boards. Reputations like that don't spring up by accident. He did it again last Wednesday in a preseason game against the Blues. Because it was his third penalty for boarding or checking from behind in a 41-game span, the suspension kicked in automatically. The previous two were in the Rangers games against the Oilers Jan. 5 and the Canadiens Feb. 3.
A suspension is a better way to mete out justice than a two-handed slash to the neck, which Chris Simon, then of the Islanders, tried after Hollweg rammed him into the boards March 8, 2007. That response was reckless, ill-timed and a clear violation of the enforcers' code (which says never use your stick). It ended the Islanders' mojo that season (from this observer's vantage point, it looks like they never have gotten it back).
But it also obscured the fact that someone has to get Hollweg to change.
