Sabres mourn loss of Hall of Famer Dale Hawerchuk

Hockey Hall of Famer Dale Hawerchuk passed away Tuesday at the age of 57.
Hawerchuk, the first overall pick in the 1981 NHL Draft, recorded 1,409 points in 1,188 games over 16 NHL seasons with Winnipeg, Buffalo, St. Louis and Philadelphia from 1981 until 1997. At the time of his retirement, he ranked 10th all-time in scoring.
With the Sabres, the 5-foot-11, 196-pound center averaged over a point per game, posting 385 points (110+275) in 342 games. Buffalo qualified for the playoffs in each of Hawerchuk's five seasons with the club. He was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in November 2011.

The Sabres issued the following statement:

By the time he arrived in Buffalo in 1990, Hawerchuk had already established himself as one of the best players in the game.
As an 18-year-old rookie with the Jets, he put up 45 goals and 103 points to become the youngest player in League history to hit the 100-point plateau. He won the 1982 Calder Memorial Trophy and finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting. He led the team in scoring in each of his nine seasons, averaging 1.30 points per game. He amassed 929 points (379+550) in 713 contests and was team captain for five seasons.

The Sabres acquired Hawerchuk in a blockbuster trade during the 1990 NHL Draft. Buffalo and Winnipeg swapped first-round picks, and the Jets also acquired forward Jeff Parker, his good friend Scott Arniel and future Hall of Fame defenseman Phil Housley.
Hawerchuk immediately added firepower to the Sabres lineup. During his tenure in the blue and gold, "Ducky" led the Sabres in regular-season games played and assists, and he was also first in playoff points (9+24 in 30 GP). He led the Sabres in regular season scoring for three of his five seasons with the club and his 1.13 points per game ranks third in franchise history.

"My game was pretty, I'd say, tenacious on the puck. I always tried to play hungry," Hawerchuk told Sabres.com in 2011. "I think it was just an aggressive game I had in the sense of puck pursuit. It doesn't matter what size you are. The puck doesn't know who's bigger; it's a matter of who wants it more. I always played the game with that kind of edge. I wanted the puck more than my opponent."
During the 1992-93 season in which Pat LaFontaine recorded a franchise-record 95 assists and 148 points, and Alexander Mogilny scored a franchise-record 76 goals, Hawerchuk finished third in team scoring with 96 points (16+80).

Hawerchuk became the 31st player in NHL history to record 1,000 points in 1990-91 and during the 1995-96 campaign, he became the 23rd player to score 500 goals. He scored the 7,000th goal in Sabres franchise history on Jan. 27, 1995 in a 7-3 win over the Quebec Nordiques.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001, his No. 10 was retired by the Arizona Coyotes in 2007 (Winnipeg relocated to Arizona in 1996) and the current Jets franchise inducted Hawerchuk into its Hall of Fame in 2017.
"I never played a game to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame," he told WinnipegJets.com in 2017. "I played the game to win. The one thing I understood, was it was a team game. Everybody has their strengths and their shortcomings, but you had to find what your niche needed to be for that team."
In 2010, he was named the head coach for the Barrie Colts of the OHL. In his time with the Colts, defenseman Aaron Ekblad was selected first overall in the 2014 NHL Draft and right wing Andrei Svechnikov was drafted second overall in 2018. Sabres prospect Matej Pekar played for Hawerchuk in 2018-19 and part of the 2019-20 season.
In the summer of 2019, Hawerchuk was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He announced that he was taking a leave of absence from the Colts in September and went public with his fight in November.

He made special note of the support he'd received from his wife Crystal and their children Eric, Alexis and Ben.
"My family's been great and it's kind of like hockey," he said in November. "It's a team effort to beat this. You can accomplish a lot yourself, but you can accomplish so much more when you do it as a group."
He also talked about the wonderful messages he had received from friends within the sport.
"It's been incredible," he said. "So many people. People have been reaching out from the hockey world, outside the hockey world, so many people that I've come in contact with. A lot of people that have beaten cancer and people I don't even know. It's encouraging and I can tell you, it helps a lot."
In April, Hawerchuk completed his chemotherapy treatments and rang the "Bell of Hope" at a hospital in Barrie.

But in July, the cancer returned.
"My dad is back in his fight against cancer due to a resurgence of this terrible disease," his son Eric tweeted. "We are praying for him and he will continue to fight hard #HawerchukStrong"
Friends, family and fans have been rallying around the #HawerchukStrong hashtag since. HawerchukStrong.com launched with the goal to inspire, raise awareness and raise money for the continuing fight against the disease and for causes important to Hawerchuk.

"I tweeted out the 'Hawerchuk Strong' logo and it took off earlier this week," Andrew Jackson, Hawerchuk's friend who created the website, told NHL.com late last month.
"Dale's a quiet guy but he can be emotional and he's certainly proud of what we've done raising money and awareness over the years. He wants this to go ahead, believes it's an important thing to continue to do. That's just him -- all he cares about is somebody else."