At even strength, he started to play consistently with Kozlov and Nilson, while his ice time dropped to 16:08 per game at ES (just 9th among forwards during that stretch) and 22:30 overall, even though PPs dropped in the second half and the ES ice time of all of his teammates except the 4th liners increased.

Bure was also averaging 24:11 per game in ice time, including a crazy 17:32 at even strength, which easily led all forwards (33 seconds above Jagr and 53 seconds ahead of Sakic) and would have been the 3rd highest mark of the entire Dead Puck Era, despite the huge spike in PPs in the first half of 2000-01.Īfter the coaching change and with Whitney first playing hurt and then missing a bunch of time before being traded at the deadline, Bure took over completely as the #1 option on the power play, scoring 21 PPP to more than double the next best on his team over that stretch (Kozlov/Dan Boyle at 9). Up to that point in the season, the two forwards that had combined the most with Bure on even strength goals were Greg Adams and Rob Niedermayer, while for Whitney it was Ivan Novoseltsev and a 22-year old, pre-breakout Olli Jokinen. Under Murray, it looks like both of Florida's offensive stars had a revolving cast of linemates. If Whitney had stayed healthy over the rest of the season, Bure's dominance over his team would probably have looked something like it did in 1999-00 (32% lead over 2nd place). At even strength Bure (22) and Whitney (14) stood well out from the rest of the team, which had eight forwards with between 6 and 9 ESP. Whitney was outscoring Bure on the PP, as he also done the season before. Up to that point, Bure had 31 points and was leading Whitney by just 9 points, even though Whitney had 7 fewer GP. I would add in the firing of Terry Murray and Ray Whitney's back injury as two significant factors in Bure's stats turning out as they did.Īfter Florida's slow start, Murray was fired after the December 27 game against the Flyers. I certainly agree that Bure's margin of scoring victory over teammates that season is very overrated by people who just pull up the team's Hockey Reference page.

Bure nhl stats