Coffey took part in the Heritage Classic in Edmonton in Nov., 2003.

Coffey could flat-out fly
By John McGourty | NHL.com
Nov. 2, 2004

Paul Coffey, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame's Class of 2004, finished his stellar career as a four-time Stanley Cup winner and three-time Norris Trophy winner.

And bear this in mind, Coffey, whose records fill a couple of pages in team media guides, is the 10th-leading scorer in NHL history, as a defenseman!

Coffey tallied 396 goals and 1,135 assists for 1,531 points in 1,409 regular-season games. He added 196 points, on 59 goals and 137 assists, in 194 Stanley Cup Playoff games. He set the single-season goal-scoring record for defenseman with 48 goals in 1986.

Very few players have ever had Paul Coffey' skating skills. His shot, scoring techniques and passing were top shelf as well.

The Hockey Hall of Fame selection came as no surprise to those who follow the game. Coffey was glad to get the call and shared his feelings recently with NHL.com.

"I feel great but it's pretty overwhelming. Some people said it was a no-brainer, but I feel like I've been admitted to a very elite crowd and it's something I'm proud to be a part of," said Coffey, whose induction class includes fellow defensemen Raymond Bourque and Larry Murphy and team executive Cliff Fletcher.

"I played with Larry Murphy on the Toronto Marlies minor bantam team and the Pittsburgh Penguins when we won a Stanley Cup and I also played against Murph on a lot of minor and professional teams," Coffey said. "I played with and against Larry Murphy for a long, long time. He's an old friend and it is really special for me going into the Hall of Fame with him. Ray Bourque was a great opponent to play against and we did that for many years.

"Ray's a very unique talent, a great player and a friend. I first met him at Canada Cup in 1981 and he's been a player and a person that I've always admired and respected. Same thing with Cliff Fletcher, with whom I've also had a long, great association. I watched him build that team in Calgary and turned it into a championship team. Then, I saw the great work he did in Toronto. Now, I'm working with him for the Phoenix Coyotes."

Coffey played the first seven years of his career with the Edmonton Oilers, winning Stanley Cups there in 1984, 1985 and 1987. He also won the Norris Trophy in 1985 and 1986. He added another Norris Trophy with Detroit in 1995.

"My father used to tell me the game is not privileged to have you, you're privileged to have hockey," Coffey said. "Nobody is bigger than the game. When you're a kid and you hear that, you say, 'Yeah, right, Dad,' but he was right. You have to respect the game so much because it is a great game. That team we had in Edmonton, we breathed the game. We all came in to the dressing room talking about tonight's game and what we had to do to win. That's why good things happened. The Edmonton team was like that to a man, starting with Lee Fogolin, Craig MacTavish, Don Jackson, Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, just about everybody. We couldn't get enough of the game."

Former teammate Kevin Lowe is now general manager of the Oilers. He remembers Coffey's earliest days, including the shyness, and how Gretzky drew Coffey into the team's camaraderie. What Lowe remembers best though is the talent.

"The first time I saw Paul was in the Oilers' training camp my first time up," Lowe said. "He was a strong, powerful skater, more powerful than quick at that point because he hadn't streamlined his body yet. When he got a little room, he had plenty of power. As the years went by, he matured and got stronger and quicker. In the early days, he had to get open ice to show his speed. Then it got to a point where if he got one step on you in practice, he'd look back at guys as if to say, 'You're kidding me. You're not going to catch me.'

"Just look at the goal, his final goal in that 48-goal season, against Vancouver. They play it on highlights all the time. It looked like rec hockey the way he glided through everyone. It looked like a Bobby Orr highlight. You wondered what was wrong with the rest of the League. It's incredible. I remember that goal and it just felt like fate that he was going to score it. It's too bad he didn't get 50 goals because no defenseman has done it and would have put an exclamation point on his prowess."

"Joining the Oilers was a great opportunity for me to get a chance to play on a young team that had a lot of talent," Coffey said. "I was always a good skater, but I was not as offensively oriented as a junior as I was as a pro. That was the style Glen Sather wanted me to play. My first partner was Gary Lariviere and he gave me a lot of confidence. I had the green light every time I was on the ice. Then, working with Charlie Huddy, we took it to another level. He allowed me to play the way they wanted me to play. Charlie was a very good defenseman and we had a lot of fun playing together."

"It was exciting to be on the ice with him and watch the way he could skate," Huddy said. "The great thing was he would take a few strides and then he'd just glide most of the time. He would glide by people, which is fairly unusual. He was such a powerful skater that it was fun to watch. He could come out of our end and find guys in the middle of the ice and the pass would be right on the tape. There weren't very many times that it wasn't right on the tape.

"His ability to see the ice and make those kinds of plays was remarkable. You know, it was something different every game. You never knew what was going to happen. It was exciting for me to be part of it."

Coffey was traded to Pittsburgh after the Oilers were eliminated in the 1986 Playoffs. It was a blockbuster deal that gave Pittsburgh a top-notch offensive defenseman and Edmonton a good scorer in Craig Simpson.

"Going to Pittsburgh was a great opportunity and great challenge for me," Coffey said. "GM Eddie Johnston acquired me and that was awesome. I saw him play with the Bruins and the Maple Leafs and now I was getting a chance to play with a superstar in his own right in Mario Lemieux, but we didn't know how to win yet. I went from a team that was a perennial Stanley Cup champ to a last-place team, but one with all the right people in place. They didn't know quite how to get to first-rate status. My first week there I realized what a big challenge this was for me. I was thinking, 'What the heck have I done?' I kept my nose to the grindstone and management kept acquiring players until we had a team that could win."

"It was a very easy trade for us to make," Johnston said. "We had the big guy, Mario, and we didn't have anyone who could lug the puck out of our end like Paul Coffey. He was quite a player, one of the game's superstars at that time. He was the greatest skater I ever saw. A few strides and he was in full gear. He was also a great passer.

"I was fortunate in Boston to play with Bobby Orr. One rush could change the course of the game. Paul changed our whole concept as a team. We became a threat every time he was on the ice."

Coffey developed a real fondness for the city and its people.

"Pittsburgh is a great place to play and it holds a special place in my heart. It's funny but early in my career, I'd hear veteran players say Pittsburgh wasn't a great place to play, but all of a sudden I went there and to see the city from a different perspective than a visiting player's perspective, the place had everything, and great people. I really hope they can find a way to keep that franchise afloat. It would be a great loss to the city, the fans and to hockey."

To you, he's Paul Coffey, Hall of Famer. But Coffey can't live off memories. He's establishing an auto dealership in the Toronto area and consulting for the Phoenix Coyotes.

"The records are kind of great but at the end of the day, I feel I was most fortunate that I got to play on the championship teams because a lot of great players didn't have that chance," Coffey said. "You know, the records, the goals, the playoff points, etc., well, you're a product of what is around you and I had the chance to play with great players. It just goes hand-in-hand with who you had the chance to play with. I'll tell you, now that I'm retired, if I'm playing golf or just talking with my buddies and the subject of my career comes up, which it doesn't very often, the goals and the records are never the topic. The topic is the championships. The records, trust me, are not that big a deal to me. The championships and the guys I got to play with are what I remember and treasure."