Comments (0) Best St. Louis Blue - 2001
Scott Young
Readers' Choice: Chris Pronger
Sure, Chris Pronger is a 6-foot-6, 220-pound banger who in the 1999-00 season won both the Hart and Norris trophies, the first person to do that since Bobby Orr won them in 1972. Yes, we know that Al MacInnis has the fastest slapshot in the Milky Way and won the Norris Trophy in 1998-99 as the National Hockey League's best defenseman. But what happened last year? Both Pronger and MacInnis were oft injured, and who was there to step into the breach? Scott Young, a forward who ended the season with 40 goals, tops for the team. He played in 81 games, second-highest on the team, and was third for the Blues in points, second when you consider most of the points Keith Tkachuk scored happened in Phoenix. The 34-year-old Scott "Forever" Young has bounced around a bit, passing through Hartford, Pittsburgh, Quebec, Colorado and Anaheim before signing on as a free agent with the Note back in '98. His 40-goal total is a career high, though he scored 20 or more goals five times and netted 30 goals back in 1992-93 for the Nordiques, before they moved to Denver. Young may have found a home with Blues boss Joel Quenneville; it looks as if his journeyman persistence is paying off in Quenneville's starless system. And to think, Young's been on two Stanley Cup winners -- Pittsburgh in '91 and Colorado in '96. Is a third too much to ask?
