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Wayne Gretzky in 1994-95?

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Pominville Knows

Pominville Knows

Registered User
Sep 28, 2012
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Down Under
Hi. I'm interested in hearing about what older Kings fans have to say about Gretzkys performance during the lockout season 1994-95. He scored 48 points in 48 games which seems ok but 19 of the assists came on the PP and only 15 on even strenght. His -20 in the 48 games seems like a concequence of this, what do you remember having for feelings about him this year?
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Darth Yoda said:
Hi. I'm interested in hearing about what older Kings fans have to say about Gretzkys performance during the lockout season 1994-95. He scored 48 points in 48 games which seems ok but 19 of the assists came on the PP and only 15 on even strenght. His -20 in the 48 games seems like a concequence of this, what do you remember having for feelings about him this year?
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i felt there was a huge decline in his game, i considered him to be old despite him being only 33... and even the year after his numbers didn't impress me since most of us i think were use to see him score 100+ pts a season

i felt he didn't have the drive anymore to carry a team
 
It wasn't just Wayne who was on the decline as well. They had acquired Rick Tocchet, who had a bad back, and Jari Kurri's best days were long behind him. The team had also killed its depth thanks to the ineptitude of Barry Melrose. Then they dealt Zhitnik to bring in one of Gretzky's buddies in Grant Fuhr, Rob Blake was out injured, and the team had zero offensive depth, and you had your makings for a horrible hockey team with very little hope for the future. That pretty much was the Kings in a nutshell after 1993.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
It wasn't just Wayne who was on the decline as well. They had acquired Rick Tocchet, who had a bad back, and Jari Kurri's best days were long behind him. The team had also killed its depth thanks to the ineptitude of Barry Melrose. Then they dealt Zhitnik to bring in one of Gretzky's buddies in Grant Fuhr, Rob Blake was out injured, and the team had zero offensive depth, and you had your makings for a horrible hockey team with very little hope for the future. That pretty much was the Kings in a nutshell after 1993.
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Pretty much this. Gretzky definitely took a step back after '93, but the team crumbled after that as well. We traded Robitaille in '94 for Tocchet (I remember being absolutely livid about the deal at the time) and the Fuhr trade was absolutely brain dead as he was now well past his prime and out of shape. We played Storr way too early and then had to rely on Fuhr to backup Hrudey, which was ridiculous.

Gretzky really had nothing to work with after that, Melrose was trash and the rest of the team floundered. The roster was atrocious, we dealt Rychel, Donnelly, Huddy, and Zhitnik, and after Gretzky and Tocchet we had players like Dan Quinn, Kurri, Granato, Sydor, and McSorely relied upon for secondary scoring. It was just a disaster. Brain dead management and a fixation on becoming the LA Oilers.
 
A little off-topic: Did the Oilers first ask for Robitaille to send Gretzky to LA? I'm still surprised that Luc wasn't traded there considering we were trying to get the best player ever.
 
Rafa Nadal said:
A little off-topic: Did the Oilers first ask for Robitaille to send Gretzky to LA? I'm still surprised that Luc wasn't traded there considering we were trying to get the best player ever.
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I think Carson was looked upon as the more valuable player considering he was also a center and that he had a 50 goal season as a teenager. He had a very impressive first year in Edmonton but eventually the pressure for him to perform at a higher level made him crumble and he pretty much plateaued as a 20 year old. After that his career went downhill, fast.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
I think Carson was looked upon as the more valuable player considering he was also a center and that he had a 50 goal season as a teenager. He had a very impressive first year in Edmonton but eventually the pressure for him to perform at a higher level made him crumble and he pretty much plateaued as a 20 year old. After that his career went downhill, fast.
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Yes, and also, Nicholls was the best player.
 
Don't forget losing McSorley thanks to the Blues offer sheet. Basically, from about midway through the 92-93 season almost every move the Kings made turned out really bad.
 
Tikkanen said:
Don't forget losing McSorley thanks to the Blues offer sheet. Basically, from about midway through the 92-93 season almost every move the Kings made turned out really bad.
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Yeah the organization was a bit of a mess by that point. They scrambled to replace McSorley by acquiring Doug Houda and thinking that Brent Thompson would be next in line to replace Marty. Acquiring Marty back hurt the team more as they ended up including Tomas Sandstrom along with Shawn McEachern, so the Kings end up losing two forwards and bring in two defensemen in Marty and Jim Paek.

The Coffey trade blew up in their face as Carson pretty much played his way into Barry Melrose's doghouse and the Kings had to dump him off to Vancouver for Dixon Ward. It didn't help that Melrose and Nick Beverley didn't see eye-to-eye and the organization pretty much killed off its own depth when they got rid of integral role players such as Donnelly, Millen, and Rychel, with nothing noteworthy in return (I guess a washed up Randy Burridge was the biggest gain there).

I think trading Luc not only struck a nerve with the majority of fans here but kind of sent the message that Gretzky had some pull in some of these decisions, or team management was just completely incompetent. By the end of the 1994-95, the Kings iced this shoddy lineup of washed up players and has-beens with sprinkles of youth and minor leaguers:

Kurri-Gretzky-Tocchet
Burridge-Quinn-Granato
Lacroix-Lang-Druce
Conacher-Todd-Crowder
Perreault
Shuchuk

McSorley-Blake
Sydor-Petit
Cowie-Snell
Tsygurov

Hrudey-Fuhr

Towards the end of his tenure as a King, Gretzky did more harm than good to the Kings organization. And I'm saying this as a huge Gretzky fan who owns a ridiculous collection of Gretzky memorabilia. The series of transactions that were made from 1993 to 1996 really set the organization back by many years.

I'd say the turning point came after Gretzky was dealt, but it was the Kurri, McSorley and Churla trade to New York that really kick started that, and then the following season with the addition of Glen Murray for Ed Olczyk. Then when Taylor came on, he fixed a huge mistake by bringing Luc back and made a huge move to bring in Jozef Stumpel.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
Yeah the organization was a bit of a mess by that point. They scrambled to replace McSorley by acquiring Doug Houda and thinking that Brent Thompson would be next in line to replace Marty. Acquiring Marty back hurt the team more as they ended up including Tomas Sandstrom along with Shawn McEachern, so the Kings end up losing two forwards and bring in two defensemen in Marty and Jim Paek.

The Coffey trade blew up in their face as Carson pretty much played his way into Barry Melrose's doghouse and the Kings had to dump him off to Vancouver for Dixon Ward. It didn't help that Melrose and Nick Beverley didn't see eye-to-eye and the organization pretty much killed off its own depth when they got rid of integral role players such as Donnelly, Millen, and Rychel, with nothing noteworthy in return (I guess a washed up Randy Burridge was the biggest gain there).

I think trading Luc not only struck a nerve with the majority of fans here but kind of sent the message that Gretzky had some pull in some of these decisions, or team management was just completely incompetent. By the end of the 1994-95, the Kings iced this shoddy lineup of washed up players and has-beens with sprinkles of youth and minor leaguers:

Kurri-Gretzky-Tocchet
Burridge-Quinn-Granato
Lacroix-Lang-Druce
Conacher-Todd-Crowder
Perreault
Shuchuk

McSorley-Blake
Sydor-Petit
Cowie-Snell
Tsygurov

Hrudey-Fuhr

Towards the end of his tenure as a King, Gretzky did more harm than good to the Kings organization. And I'm saying this as a huge Gretzky fan who owns a ridiculous collection of Gretzky memorabilia. The series of transactions that were made from 1993 to 1996 really set the organization back by many years.

I'd say the turning point came after Gretzky was dealt, but it was the Kurri, McSorley and Churla trade to New York that really kick started that, and then the following season with the addition of Glen Murray for Ed Olczyk. Then when Taylor came on, he fixed a huge mistake by bringing Luc back and made a huge move to bring in Jozef Stumpel.
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If you think about it within about a seasons worth of time the Kings lost Paul Coffey, Marty McSorley and Alez Zhitnik and basically had nothing to show for it. The frustrating part is I was excited when they got Marty back and I was thrilled when they got Fuhr, he was the man in Buffalo and I thought it would finally end the Kings woes in net. Little did I know those woes wouldn't end until Quick came to town. I was also a huge Tocchet fan and still have his Kings jersey to this day so I was snake bit when it came to thinking I knew a damn thing about being a GM. Now of course I know a little bit more than nothing, so I have that going for me.
 
I actually really liked Tocchet as well and was happy to see him join the Kings, just not at the expense of Luc Robitaille. When I first heard the Kings had acquired Tocchet I was excited, then I learned that Luc went the other way, I was pissed. Didn't hold it against Tocchet, just thought management made a stupid mistake and removed one of the only left handed wingers who was capable of scoring for another right handed shot, thus creating a hole on LW on the top two lines.

What's sad about the Fuhr trade was that it came at a time when Hrudey was playing at his best in a Kings uniform. Check out his numbers, his save percentage was unreal given how terrible that team was in 94-95. Those were some trying times for us Kings fans, so I scoff and laugh at those who label Kings fans as bandwagoners. They don't know the crap most of us had to suffer through growing up, and we didn't abandon ship!
 
Telos said:
Pretty much this. Gretzky definitely took a step back after '93, but the team crumbled after that as well. We traded Robitaille in '94 for Tocchet (I remember being absolutely livid about the deal at the time) and the Fuhr trade was absolutely brain dead as he was now well past his prime and out of shape. We played Storr way too early and then had to rely on Fuhr to backup Hrudey, which was ridiculous.

Gretzky really had nothing to work with after that, Melrose was trash and the rest of the team floundered. The roster was atrocious, we dealt Rychel, Donnelly, Huddy, and Zhitnik, and after Gretzky and Tocchet we had players like Dan Quinn, Kurri, Granato, Sydor, and McSorely relied upon for secondary scoring. It was just a disaster. Brain dead management and a fixation on becoming the LA Oilers.
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This says it all right there.
 
I'm getting a proper history lesson here, thanks guys. I could only track the Kings from a year-to-year basis back then, based on what players were on the hockey cards :)
 
I'll never forget Melrose and his fascination for "courageous" players, which was code for tough guys who couldn't play hockey.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
I think McNall wrote in his book that Bernie was one of the players he would not trade as he was close to him. Of course that would change years later, but mostly due to Tom Webster's frustrations with him and his lack of work ethic.
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Robitaille was one of the players that McNall wouldn't trade either. When Sather found out Pocklington was trading Gretzky he told him he wanted Robitaille and McNall refused. One reason why even to this day the relationship between Luc and Bruce is really really close(Hence why Mr. McNall has a Stanley Cup Ring)
 
Since we're already on the topic, here's Rick Tocchet's 4 goal game against the Red Wings from Feb. 4, 1995:



Aside from a great pass to Jari Kurri to set up Darryl Sydor, Gretz looked pretty bad this game.
 
tsanuri said:
Do we have to try and go back there. I have tried so hard to forget some of those years.
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Seriously......

But at least Tocchet was trade fro Stevens who was traded for Luc. Eddie O for Glen Murray was the one successful trade out of that whole era of hell.
 
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