Bure electrified the league after arriving in South Florida with his incredible speed and propensity for scoring goals

Just when it looked like the shine was rubbing off the Cinderella Florida Panthers in the early years of the franchise, a man nicknamed the Russian Rocket came along and carried the team back into the spotlight.

In January of 1999 the Panthers acquired Pavel Bure, along with Bret Hedican, prospect Brad Ference and a third-round pick for Ed Jovanovski, Dave Gagner, Kevin Weekes, prospect Mike Brown and a first-round pick.

Bure made a huge splash immediately following the blockbuster trade, scoring a pair of goals in his first game with the Panthers and another the following night, invigorating the Florida fanbase and capturing the attention of the NHL.

Not long after the trade went down, The Hockey News highlighted Bure’s impact in both the short term and long term during its Feb. 5, 1999, edition: Vol. 52, Issue 21.

In the THN story, then-Panthers GM Bryan Murray discussed wanting to “accelerate the development of the program” due to the progress of developing some top prospects “going OK, but just OK.”

Authoring the cover story was legendary hockey journalist and former THN Editor-In-Chief Bob McKenzie. 

THN Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com.

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