Category: Brendan Shanahan
Posted by Mike Wilkinson (The Detroit News) on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:05 AMShanahan's Detroit career
A quick look at the career of Brendan Shanahan, who retired on Tuesday after 21 NHL seasons, reveals a surprising consistency as a Wing.
Shanahan came to Detroit in 1996 in a trade with Hartford that sent Paul Coffey and Keith Primeau to Connecticut. Shanahan would then spend nine seasons in Detroit, playing 716 regular season games.
Here's the odd part: that's 47 percent of his career. His 309 goals for the Wings accounts for 47.1 percent of his career total. Assists? The 698 account for 46.4 percent. The only substantial departure is in penalty minutes; he played a lot rougher game earlier in his career in New Jersey; his Wings total of 1,037 minutes accounts for just 41.7 percent of his career.
The upshot: Detroit caught Shanahan for much of his prime. It didn't get him at his absolute peak, like when he scored 51 and 52 goals in conseuctive seasons in St. Louis, nor did it get the 7 and 6 goal seasons that began and ended his career.
Over his nine seasons in red and white, Shanahan averaged 34 goals a season, hitting a high of 46 (in his first year in Detroit) and a low of 25 (in 2003-2004).
Shanahan helped the Wings to three Stanley Cups, scoring 33 times in 106 playoff games. That's over half of his career playoff goals, which makes sense because he missed the playoffs four times with his other teams.
