Nieuwendyk to be honored Saturday at Lynah

[Trotsky]

[quote RatushnyFan]One question on Nieuwendyk.  I missed him at Cornell (I was '88-'92) but saw him play quite a bit in the NHL.  How on earth did NCAA teams hold him to <70 goals in 3 years?  I know he only played something like 75 games in 3 years, but how did they do it?  Was it a case of just a tremendous amount of defensive focus on him, to the benefit of other Cornell players?[/quote]

In his junior year (1987), Cornell hockey basically was Joe.  I've never seen such a talent difference between one player and the entire remainder of his team, in any sport, at a level above middle schoolers.  Even as a marked man he managed to score a lot of goals (including memorable back-to-back hat tricks in his farewell weekend).  However, he had no help at all that year.

The other years, Joe played with some very talented forwards (Gary Cullen, Duanne Moeser, Pete Natyshak), so teams couldn't totally key on him.  Cornell played up-tempo then (no, really!) so it's actually a little surprising that eye-popping numbers weren't there.  I don't recall him having any injury troubles at Cornell.  He wasn't helped by the loss of Moeser for a significant interval during the stretch in 1986.

As I've said before, Joe's the only guy who ever convinced the Lynah crowd from his first shift in the red-white that he was a Towering talent.  He was so damn good there's pretty much no way to describe it if you didn't see it -- miles and miles beyond anybody (on offense) I've ever seen from Cornell (I just missed Lance and Brock), and among the best college players of all time.

[dag14]

Remember the length of the college hockey season v. the NHL season....If you are playing less than 30 games a year, even a prolific college goal-scorer isn't likely to have 100 points.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote RatushnyFan]One question on Nieuwendyk.  I missed him at Cornell (I was '88-'92) but saw him play quite a bit in the NHL.  How on earth did NCAA teams hold him to <70 goals in 3 years?  I know he only played something like 75 games in 3 years, but how did they do it?  Was it a case of just a tremendous amount of defensive focus on him, to the benefit of other Cornell players?

Consider:
Niewendyk (first 2 pro seasons, '87-'89) - 102 goals

My goodness Joe.  Similar analysis will hold probably for first 4 years of his career (192 goals).  Joe was instantly among the best, no transition![/quote]
Two thoughts:

1.  "No transition!"  Joe went from Lynah direct to the Flames and scored five goals in the nine NHL games he played that spring.

2.  At the time, he was one of only two players to score 50 or more goals in each of his first two full NHL seasons.  The other?  Mike Bossy.  He made the All-Star team as a rookie.

[Pete Godenschwager]

[quote dag14]Remember the length of the college hockey season v. the NHL season....If you are playing less than 30 games a year, even a prolific college goal-scorer isn't likely to have 100 points.[/quote]

But you would think his per game scoring would be through the roof in college given what it was his first two years in the NHL.  Heck, he had five goals in only nine games for the Flames immediately after his junior year season.  If you put 1988 Gretzky in college back then he'd get three goals a game right?

[RatushnyFan]

[quote Pete Godenschwager]But you would think his per game scoring would be through the roof in college given what it was his first two years in the NHL.  Heck, he had five goals in only nine games for the Flames immediately after his junior year season.  If you put 1988 Gretzky in college back then he'd get three goals a game right?[/quote]
Guys in the ECAC who overlapped Joe at least somewhat like Lane MacDonald and Scott Fusco from Harvard (loaded Harvard squads though), Peter Lappin from St. Lawrence and Randy Wood of Yale seemed like equal or more prolific collegiate scorers but didn't do much in the pros (I personally think that Lane would have been a solid NHLer if he didn't have concussion problems), which is why I asked the question.