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Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue
The first line was the best last year and who didn't think sticking Sakic between Selanne and Kariya wouldn't produce one of the best lines ever? Kariya and Selanne were amazing together for years in Anaheim without any really quality centerman (I like Rucchin, I think he's good, but he was always hurt back then).
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It's true, he was constantly playing through injuries, but it was nothing like later on. Rucchin was the kind of gritty player who would pick up little bangs here and there and miss a few games each season, but he didn't really start to pick up the injury-prone reputation until 2000 when he played in 16 games, and 2001, when he was in 38. The 2000-01 season (the one in which he played 16 games) was the last season with the Kariya-Selanne pairing, and that was even broken up midway through that season when Selanne was shipped to San Jose.
In the seasons before that where Rucchin was centering Kariya and Selanne, he appeared in 79, 72, 69 and 71 games-- a total of 291 games. He put up 78 goals and 239 points. Sure, he wasn't always healthy, but I don't think he was honestly hurt enough in that time period at any time to say that health issues dropped him from being a quality centreman.
Now, if you mean a quality centreman as in a superstud like Sakic or Yzerman or Federov, well, yeah, okay, but Rooch wouldn't have been up to those guys' levels even if he never missed a single game to injury. If that's what you mean, I concede that as true.
If not, though, I would regard Rucchin as a fairly high quality center in comparison to most centers in the NHL, not first or second tier (i.e. Top 10 at the position), but certainly worthy of being in the Top 20 centers or so in the league, especially back when he was centering those two guys (and he did all the dirty work they wouldn't or couldn't do).
Incidentally, Rooch, who was our captain this season, has appeared in 82 games each of the past two seasons. Go figure, eh?
I'm sure you understand who I am rooting for in the Dallas-Colorado series. Nothing could bring me more satisfaction than to see the Avs get bounced in the first round, and I think the Stars can do it. I was pretty happy to see both Selanne and Kariya play as poorly/as little as they did this season. It's called karma.
CR