1993-1994: SO CLOSE...
In the summer, plans were announced to build a new 20,000-seat arena adjacent to BC Place between the Georgia and Dunsmuir Street viaducts to open in the fall of 1995. In addition, Northwest Sports (the Canucks parent company, now run by Arthur Griffiths) would pursue an NBA franchise to be co-tenants with the Canucks. For the second straight year, the Canucks would lose one of their top centers. Petr Nedved, who had a breakthrough season in 1992-93, was not happy with the Canucks' contract offer and opted to hold out and play for Canada's Olympic Team instead. Suddenly, with the retirement of Ryan Walter and the loss of C Anatoli Semenov to Anaheim in the Expansion Draft, the center-ice position was one of a great question mark.
There didn't seem to be any problems right away, though, as the Canucks jumped out to a 7-1-0 start. But slowly the team started to fall back and on January 2, the Canucks lost 2-0 to Montreal to even their record at 19-19-0. From that point on, the Canucks did not waver more than four points from the .500 mark. After a relatively average first half (missing eight games due to injury), Pavel Bure exploded in the second half-scoring 40 goals in his last 42 games. Bure's stellar numbers in March (19 goals and 30 points in 16 games) earned him NHL Player of the Month honours. On March 23, he scored his 50th of the season into an empty net in a 6-3 win in Los Angeles, but this event was overshadowed by Wayne Gretzky's 802nd NHL goal, which came in the second period, to make him the league's all-time leading goal scorer. Two days prior to that game, the Petr Nedved fiasco was finally settled. Weeks earlier, Nedved was signed to play in St. Louis, but the mediated compensation (C Craig Janney) refused to report to Vancouver. Finally, the Canucks traded Janney's rights back to the Blues in exchange for D Jeff Brown, D Bret Hedican, and C Nathan LaFayette. On April 7, Canucks owner Frank Griffiths passed away after a lengthy illness. For the remainder of the season and the playoffs, the team wore a patch that read "2 PTS F.G." in recognition of his signature phrase, "Two points." On the final game of the season, Bure once again reached the 60-goal plateau, which was enough to earn him the NHL goal-scoring title. His 107 points was good for fifth place in league scoring. The Canucks beat Anaheim in the game 2-1 to finish one game over .500, with 85 points. The win was G Kay Whitmore's 36th in two seasons with the Canucks, moving him into fifth place in the franchise wins category. In the new conference-based playoff format, the seventh-seeded Canucks would face the second-seeded Calgary Flames in the first round.
Click here to re-live the magical playoff run of 1994...
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