Standing just 5-foot-7 and weighing just about as much as your typical shortstop from the 1980s, Johnny Gaudreau enters the professional ranks in earnest with a burden to bear –- and it has nothing to do with his particular dimensions that run smaller and lighter than your typical top-level players.
The Boston College product and enters his first training camp with the Calgary Flames as the latest in a string of undeniable Division I talents, feted with a Hobey Baker Award, who have been loosed upon the game with wild expectations attached.
He’s got the skills, he’s got the speed, he’s got the facile nickname "Johnny Hockey." It remains to be seen if the South Jersey native really has what it takes -- for all the meaning that vague cliché contains – to carve out a meaningful career at the NHL level.
The Hobey Baker has only been given out since 1981, but among the names which have graced the trophy in the 34 editions since, you’re not going to find many who are recognizable, and fewer who can be called "stars" once elevated to a spot in the best league in the world.
Its first winner was U.S. Olympic hero, University of Minnesota product and future Hall of Famer Neal Broten. Broten played more than 1,000 games in the NHL primarily in his home state, was the first American to crack the 100-point plateau (North Stars, 1985-86, 105 pts.) and finally won a Stanley Cup in 1995 with the Devils. The following year it was former Capitals GM George McPhee -- whose post-playing career proved more memorable and lasting than the years he spent scrapping for the Rangers after departing Bowling Green.
From there, the pickings are slim. Out of Minnesota-Duluth, Tom Kurvers (1984) spent a long but undistinguished career as a defenseman for seven teams over parts of 11 seasons. Tony Hrkac from the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota (1987) scored 116 points in his final college campaign, but was more notable for missing four NHL seasons in the middle of his career exiled to the minors, before reinventing himself as a durable bottom-six grinder.
Robb Stauber, the first of only two goaltenders to win the Hobey (Minnesota, 1988)? Just a footnote as a backup goalie on Wayne Gretzky’s 1993 Los Angeles Kings club which lost in the Cup Finals to Montreal.
Scott Pellerin was the first of two forwards from the University of Maine to capture the hearts and minds of the voting committee, back in 1992. The other was Paul Kariya, who put together what’s arguably the best single season on what should be considered the best college hockey team in the history of the sport.
Pellerin finished up four years in Orono having collected 106 goals and 223 points over 167 games, yet the third-round pick of the New Jersey Devils in 1989 ended up posting 72 goals and 198 points over 536 NHL appearances for seven franchises. His highest single-season point total was 82, for the AHL’s Albany River Rats in 1995-96, and his best NHL year came with the Blues in 1998-99 (20G, 41 pts.).
Kariya, though, set the world on fire. His 1992-93 freshman year under Shawn Walsh’s monolithic 42-1-2 NCAA champion Black Bears vaulted him into the spotlight, and he rarely disappointed over a 15-year career cut short by concussion issues.
Selected fourth overall by the Mighty Ducks in the 1993 draft, the Vancouver-area native topped the scoring list with 100 points in just 39 games on a squad laced with the following proto-NHL talent: Garth Snow, Mike Dunham, Jim Montgomery, Chris and Peter Ferraro and Dave MacIsaac. He departed for the Canadian Olympic team shortly into his sophomore season, then debuted with the Ducks in January of 1995.
As of today, he ranks second to Teemu Selanne in goals and points, and third in franchise history in assists. Upon retirement in 2010 while skating for the St. Louis Blues, Kariya ended up exactly a point-per-game player, having totaled 989 points in as many regular-season contests. He and the recently-retired Finnish Flash were the faces of the early days in Anaheim, and Kariya the captain on the gritty 2003 Mighty Ducks team which took the Devils to a Game 7 before losing in the Finals. His own iconic moment was blasting a slap shot from the left wing in a Game 6 victory on home ice, minutes after being knocked unconscious by a Scott Stevens shoulder to the head.
Moving forward, the talent becomes thinner once more. Brian Holzinger (Bowling Green, 1995) gained the most fame as a role player for the Buffalo Sabres, while Brendan Morrison (Michigan, 1997) rode in the middle seat with Todd Bertuzzi and Markus Naslund during the West Coast Express years in Vancouver.
Chris Drury (1998, Boston University) did win a Calder Trophy and a Cup with Colorado, then served as captain of the Sabres and Rangers, but never had a break-out season which elevated him to the realm of the stars despite a solid 12-year, four-team career. Jason Krog and Mike Mottau came out of the Hockey East explosion of the late 90s, but had their NHL dreams constantly deferred.
Which brings us to Ryan Miller, now patrolling the crease for the Vancouver Canucks after a stormy year split between Buffalo and St. Louis.
A 2001 winner as a sophomore guardan for the Spartans, Miller, who recently stated he had to learn the Michigan State fight song before learning to talk, has won 294 games and recorded 28 shutouts along with a 2.60 goals-against average through 11 seasons and 559 appearances. With the creation of the Richter Award to specifically honor goaltenders, Miller stands as the last non-skating member of a college team to be awarded Division I’s highest honor, ranks fourth in NHL history among American-born netminders, and has an MVP of the 2010 Winter Games in his back pocket despite a Silver medal.
Jordan Leopold’s (Minnesota, 2002) claim to fame was a balky groin and concussion issues which derailed a promising career. Matt Carle (Denver, 2006) has been the subject of endless debate over his worth in the shadow of Chris Pronger in Philadelphia, and is now suffering through a pairing with Radko Gudas in Tampa Bay.
Matt Gilroy (Boston University, 2009) is the last player to win the Hobey on a national championship team but wound up in the KHL this year after failing to stick with the Rangers, Senators and Panthers; 2010 winner Blake Geoffrion of Wisconsin -- a fourth-generation NHLer from the Morenz-Geoffrion family -- was forced to retire due to the lasting effects of a fractured skull and concussion.
All of this is to underscore the fact that the odometer has been officially rolled back to zero for Gaudreau, who defied the odds to decimate opposing defenses for 80 points last season and 175 over just 119 games in three seasons with BC.
The odds are now firmly against him in the next step, something which did not manage to hover over such talents as Brett Hull, Joe Mullen, Mike Richter, Jonathan Quick, and even former Union College blueliner Shayne Gostisbehere. The Florida native, who backed up endless hype as the best defenseman in the country last season, is scheduled to appear in a Flyers uniform for the first time tonight.