I'm still speechless that people call this a fluke.
Muller 26 years old 959 career points - 108th all time
Damphousse 24 years old 432 goals and 1205 career points - 50th all time in points and 76th all time in goals
Bellows 28 years old 485 goals and 1022 career points - 51st all time in goals and 88th all time in points
Denis Savard 31 years old yeah he had slowed down but he was still a perfectly capable 2nd line center
LeClair 23 years old 406 goals and 819 career points in only 967 games - yeah he had not reach his prime yet but he was not playing a lot on a 2nd line and pretty much no PP. He was already a monster along the boards.
Desjardins finished top 10 norris voting 5 times. Was 4th in norris voting in 1999-2000. He was only 23 and had not reached his prime yet but he was good.
Schneider finished top 10 in norris voting twice. 743 career points which rank him 24th all time. He was also a vicious player very unpredictable and certainly not fun to play against. Was only 23 so had not reached his prime yet but already very good.
Roy.
Very underrated team imo. Good depth. Lot of physical players. Guys with loose cables like Schneider and Damphousse. Intimidating team to play against for sure. I wish young fans could have seen LeClair play. The guy was something even in Montreal. The the payoffs of 92-93 he was slowly starting to reach his prime and it was a beauty. Guy was built like a **** tank. Anderson is a care bear in front of LeClair.
Yeah, I think the defense at the time was very young, so maybe at that specific point, it didn't quite get the recognition it deserved.
But when you look at that defense in retrospect, those youngsters all went on to play for a very long time.
Desjardins played over a thousand games, and would be a guy you would find playing on team Canada in best on best tournaments.
Schneider played over a thousand games and was one of the better offensive dmen of his time.
Odelein played over a thousand games, and was a member of the 96 world cup team for Canada.
Brisebois played over a thousand games. I know it was a bumpy ride with him, but I don't think he was that bad. If he had been used as a #4 and a PP QB, I think it would have been more suited to him, and his montreal stay would have been smoother. I thought he was actually pretty good in a smaller role when he finished his career in Montreal.
Sean Hill didn't quite reach 1000 games. His journey took the long route but once he settled in, he became a decent nhler as well.
Aside from that you had depth guys like deigneault who was okay, but even he was only around 26 at the time and was a veteran compared to the guys I mentioned.
The only other guy worth mentioning is haller, who is the one person on that defense who kind of fizzled, and didn't have much of a career.
Irrelevant for 40? No.
