Born in Weston, Ontario, on a Thursday of this date in 1961, Paul Coffey is 60 today, so many returns of the day to him. A three-time Norris Trophy winner, he helped the Edmonton Oilers win three Stanley Cup championships in the 1980s and added another to his CV with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991. He was named to the NHL’s First All-Star Team four times. Other than Bobby Orr, he’s the only NHL defenceman to score over 100 points in a season more than once: Orr did it six times, Coffey five. In 1986, Coffey broke Orr’s seemingly unassailable record for most goals in a season by a defenceman when he scored his 47th. (Coffey finished the season with 48, a record that still stands.)
Writing in 2004, when Coffey was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, Jim Matheson of The Edmonton Journal recalled Coffey’s remarkable mobility. “With apologies to Orr, who could spin and bob and weave his way through traffic,” Matheson wrote, “no-one had Coffey’s breathtaking ability to sail effortlessly by checkers like they were construction zone cones.”
Matheson went on to recall the night in Edmonton in ’86 that Orr’s broke in an 8-4 Oiler win over their visitors from the coast.
Coffey rolled back to pick up the puck in the Oilers end and skated through the entire Vancouver Canucks team before lifting a shot past goalie Wendell Young.
Funny thing was, Coffey had nothing left in his tank before the play started.
“I haven’t told this to anybody but I actually was looking to get off the ice,” Coffey [told Matheson].
“I was exhausted when I went to get the puck in the left corner. The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Geez, it’s a long way to the bench.’ I was trying to get to centre so I could dump it in. But I picked up some speed, looked up and said, “Whoa, there’s some room here.”
He went by five Canucks like they were inanimate objects.
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