Dave Andreychuk, who waited 22 years to hoist the Stanley Cup, is 61 years old today
Dave Andreychuk, who helped turn the lowly Tampa Bay Lightning into champions, was born on this date in 1963.
The Lightning were a cellar-dwelling club when Andreychuk signed with them as a free agent in 2001. They had won only 24 games the previous season, finishing last in the Southeast Division. Their 59 points ranked them second-last in the entire league.
The Bolts had only reached the post-season once in their history, losing their only playoff series to Philadelphia in 1995-96. They missed the playoffs again in Andreychuk’s first season, but he stuck with them as they began to build toward something. Tampa Bay won its division and returned to the playoffs in 2002-03, advancing to the second round for the first time.
The following year, 2003-04, they put up 106 points in the regular season and went all the way to the championship, clinching the title in the seventh and deciding game against the Calgary Flames. Andreychuk, by now the team’s captain, happily accepted the Stanley Cup from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. It was his 22nd season in the league, tying Raymond Bourque for the longest wait by any player to finally win Hockey’s Holy Grail.
Andreychuk retired in 2006 after waiting out the lockout to play a 23rd season. He played in 1,639 regular season games and 162 playoff contests, scoring a total of 683 goals and 1,436 points. A two-time 50-goal scorer with the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs, his NHL record of 274 power play goals stood until December 2021, when Alex Ovechkin broke it.
Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2017, Andreychuk still works for the Lightning as their vice president of corporate and community affairs.
Also born on this date:
1928 – Ray Timgren was born in Windsor, Ont. He played parts of six seasons with the Leafs and the Chicago Black Hawks and was part of the Leafs’ Stanley Cup teams in 1949 and 1951. He later worked for many years as a teacher and administrator in Toronto and area, and was 71 years old when he passed away in November 1999.
1947 – Walt Tkaczuk was born in Emsdetten, Germany. The first German-born player to play in the NHL, Tkaczuk came to Canada with his family when he was two years old. He grew up in Timmins, Ont., and played junior in Kitchener, where he was chosen the OHA Junior A Series’ most valuable player in 1967-68. He earned a berth with the New York Rangers in 1968-69 and spent his entire NHL career in Manhattan, appearing in 945 regular season games and 93 playoff matchups before he retired in 1981.
1964 – John Tucker was born in Windsor, Ont. Drafted by Buffalo in 1983, he had an interesting hockey career that took him to the NHL, to Italy, back to the NHL, back again to Italy, and finally to Japan. After scoring 31 times in 1985-86, Tucker notched four goals during a playoff game against Boston in 1988, a team record that still stands. He was later effectively traded for himself, when the Sabres sent him to the Capitals for future considerations in January 1990 and then bought him back from the Caps six months later. Tucker retired in 2000 after 687 NHL games, having also played for the Islanders and the Lightning.
1977 – Jon Sim was born in New Glasgow, N.S. A third-round pick by Dallas Stars in the 1996 NHL Entry Draft, Sim earned a Stanley Cup ring only 11 games into his NHL career. The Stars called him up near the end of the 1998-99 regular season, and he dressed for seven games. He then played in four playoff games, including two in the final series against Buffalo, as the Stars won their first championship. His career was up-and-down after that, as he wore the uniforms of eight NHL teams, six teams in the American and International leagues, and four teams in the Swiss, Czech, and German leagues before retiring in 2014.
1986 – Benoit Pouliot was born in Alfred, Ont. A late bloomer as a teen, Pouliot waited until the 11th round of the 2002 OHL draft before his name was called by the Sudbury Wolves, but he was the league’s top rookie of 2004-05 and was then chosen fourth overall in that year’s NHL Entry Draft by the Minnesota Wild. He played for six NHL teams, dressing for 625 regular season games and 67 more in the playoffs.