The Hockey Hall of Fame is welcoming seven new members into its prestigious halls on Monday, November 9, 2015. Join us here at Last Word On Sports as we take an in depth look at the new inductees. We start the series with a look at one of the highest-scoring defensemen of his era, Phil Housley.
2015 HHOF Induction Profile: Phil Housley
Of the trio of world-class defensemen heading into the Hall this year (and one might even include forward Sergei Fedorov, making it a quartet), Phil Housley seems a bit like the odd man out. The great Nicklas Lidstrom played a flawless two-way game from the blueline for two decades, winning seven Norris Trophies, multiple Stanley Cups, Olympic Gold, and earning the nickname “The Perfect Human.” Chris Pronger was the polar opposite, a behemoth who could control a game through sheer ferocity and intimidation and won a Norris, a Hart, a Stanley Cup and two Olympic Gold medals.
Contrast that with diminutive Housley, who never won a major individual accolade or championship. When thinking about Housley’s game, he certainly skews more towards Lidstrom than Pronger, standing at just 5’10” and not exactly known for racking up the penalty minutes. But how he is best remembered, for hockey fans of a certain age, was for being one of the most dominant offensive blueliners of his generation.
Buffalo Beginnings
Housley was one of the rarest cases of a player making the jump directly from high school to the NHL and not only surviving, but actually thriving. Drafted sixth overall in 1982 by the Buffalo Sabres, Housley suited up for the team right away in the 1982-83 season, joining a team lead by Gilbert Perreault and featuring a 19-year-old Dave Andreychuk. Housley would score 66 points in 77 games to finish second to Steve Larmer in Calder Trophy voting (and easily pacing all NHL rookie blueliners in scoring). He was also named to the NHL First All-Rookie Team.
For the rest of his tenure with the Sabres, Housley would not finish below 62 points in a full season, and he also proved quite durable, suiting up for at least 72 games each season he played in a Buffalo uniform. As a 19-year-old sophomore, Housley set a career-high with 31 goals, a number that still ranks tied (with the likes of Ray Bourque, Denis Potvin and Mike Green) for the 11th-highest total in a single-season by a defenseman (and making Housley one of just eight blueliners to crack the 30-goal barrier).
While his sophomore campaign was outstanding, earning him 5th place in Norris Trophy voting, his final year in Buffalo was just as scintillating, as he notched 21 goals and 81 points in 80 games during the 1989-90 campaign to finish fourth in scoring by defensemen that year (behind Coffey, Al MacInnis and Bourque) to again finish 5th in Norris voting.
Housley finishing behind those names became a common refrain during the 1980’s and beyond, and he often found himself playing second-fiddle to those all-time greats in terms of honors. However, make no mistake, Housley certainly belonged among them offensively, as evidenced by the fact he closed out the high-flying 80’s with a 0.918 points-per-game average, fifth among NHL blueliners.
Firing up Winnipeg
However, it wasn’t just personal accolades that had eluded Housley to this point in his career, and Buffalo struggled every year in the post-season, winning just one playoff series during his eight-year tenure with the club.
During the summer of 1990, Housley was dealt along with two other players (and a first round draft choice that would become Keith Tkachuk) from the Sabres to the Winnipeg Jets with Dale Hawerchuk and a first round pick (Brad May) going the other way in a deal which would prove fruitful for both clubs.
Housley lead the Jets in scoring during the 1990-91 season with a 76-point campaign, and saw his numbers skyrocket over the brief three seasons he played in Manitoba. In 1991-92, Housley set a new career high with 86 points (earning him a spot on the NHL Second All-Star Team and 3rd in Norris voting, the closest he would come to reaching that award) before going supernova with a 97-point season in 1992-93 on a Jets club that boasted uber-rookie Teemu Selanne. However, despite leading the NHL scoring parade from the blueline, he would again finish 5th in Norris voting (Chris Chelios, who scored 24 less points than Housley but finished with a plus/minus 21 points better, took home the award). Only five NHL defenseman in history have scored more than Housley’s 97 points that year.
The Other Side of the Apex
His 97-point season in Winnipeg would be his last for the Jets, and Housley quickly became somewhat of a journeyman during the mid-1990’s. A trade to St. Louis before the start of the 1993-94 season would prove frustrating for Housley, as he only manged to suit up for 26 games for the Blues (scoring 22 points) before he was on the move again in the summer of 1994, this time to the Calgary Flames in a blockbuster move that saw MacInnis heading back the other way.
His first of two stints with the Flames would be, as they all were, productive from an individual perspective, but disappointing in the lack of team success, as the Flames fell in the first round of the 1994-95 playoffs to the San Jose Sharks, a series in which Housley would rack up nine assists in seven games.
After moving on from Calgary and a brief layover with the New Jersey Devils, Housley ended up a Washington Capital at the start of the 1996-97 campaign. In Washington, Housley’s offensive game took it’s first very sharp slip, as he posted consecutive career lows in a 60+ game season, scoring just 40 points the first year and 31 points the second. His time in Washington was also marked as the nearest Housley came to the Stanley Cup, though he was largely ineffectual during the 1998 run to the final against Lidstrom’s Red Wings (a series the Capitals were man-handled in), scoring just four assists in 18 games.
Calgary Redux
Housley’s game had fallen so far by the summer of 1998 that he found himself on the waiver wire, only to be picked up again by the Flames.
At the height of the dead-puck era, and firmly in his mid-30’s, Housley proved there was still some gas left in the tank, posting consecutive 50-point seasons to begin his second run as a Flame, earning a spot in the 2000 NHL All-Star Game, his seventh and final appearance at the mid-season classic (and first since 1993). As he did during the 80’s, Housley would close out the 90’s with the fifth-highest points-per-game (0.841) among NHL blueliners.
However, as the 2000’s began, it was clear Housley was running out of rope. A 34-point season in his last season as a Flame was followed by a move to Chicago, where he played just a season and a half and again saw his points-per-game plummet back down to the levels he saw in Washington, before a March 2003 trade sent him to Toronto. He played just one game with the Leafs, his last in the NHL, recording zero points in 16:04 ice time. He retired officially from playing on January 16, 2004, after a 20-year career.
Legacy
Housley’s legacy may exactly be the reason why he’s waited for so long to receive his call to the Hall. On the one hand, he always seemed to be playing a notch below the truly elite defensemen in the NHL, from Coffey and Bourque in the 80’s to MacInnis, Pronger and Lidstrom in the 90’s. His highest individual accolade (the Second Team All-Star selection) was one of the least prestigious one can earn, and he never captured a championship.
On the other side of the coin is the numbers, which are just impossible to ignore. Among NHL defensemen, he’s hovering around the top five in nearly every career statistical category. His 1495 games ranks sixth. His 338 goals are fourth, as are his incredible 1232 points, while his 894 assists are fifth. His 48 game-winning goals are second. Even by points per game, which gives a boost to players with shorter but brighter careers, such as the great Bobby Orr and Paul Reinhart, his 0.824 is eighth.
Certainly any comment on his legacy must include his style of play. At a time when the NHL was full of big bruisers on the blueline, Housley excelled as an undersized (putting it mildly) defenseman with incredible wheels who could skate, pass, and score with aplomb and who was absolutely deadly on the power play (129 career power play goals), proving that you could defeat a team with finesse instead of a punch in the face. It’s hard not to imagine Housley in his prime absolutely destroying the post-lockout NHL.
Internationally, a section of the resume that always has some sway over Hall voters as well, Housley was no slouch either, suiting up for the United States in a number of tournaments, from multiple Canada Cups and World Championships to a turn at the 2002 Olympics when he scored five points in six games and captured a Silver Medal.
Therein lies Housley’s true key to Hockey Hall of Fame enshrinement: He is, simply put, one of the greatest American-born players of all time, at any position. He was a trailblazer, the first American to jump from the high school ranks to the NHL, and from 1994 when he passed Joe Mullen until 2007 when he was passed by Mike Modano, he was the highest-scoring American in NHL history. He would be passed by Brett Hull as well (a debatable, if official, fact) on the list to now sit third, but he far and away leads the category by American defensemen, a full 204 points ahead of Brian Leetch (the only other American defenseman to score 1000 points) and a whopping 870 points ahead of Ryan Suter, the active leader.
So while the upper echelon recognition eluded Housley for too much of his career, there’s no denying the impact he had, both on the scoresheet and in his country, which makes him an undeniable Hall-of-Famer.
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