Mike Bossy

Basic Details

Full name: Michael Dean Bossy
Born: January 22, 1957, Montreal, Canada
Height: 6 ft 0 in (183 cm)
Weight: 185 lb (84 kg)
Position: Right Wing
Shot: Right

NHL Career

Goals: 573 (regular season), 85 (playoffs)
Assists: 553 (regular season), 75 (playoffs)
Points: 1126 (regular season), 160 (playoffs)
Seasons played: 10
Games played: 752 (regular season), 129 (playoffs)
Played for: New York Islanders
Stanley Cup: 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983 (all with New York Islanders)
Hall of Fame: 1991

International Career

With the team Canada, he won Canada Cup in the 1984. In this tournament, he scored 5 goals and added 4 assists.

Career Details

Mike Bossy is one of the best hockey players in the history of this game. He was drafted in 1977 NHL Amateur Draft as the number 15 by the New York Islanders. He spend all his career in the New York Islanders and along with Bryan Trottier and Clark Gillies he created line called “The Trio Grande“.

Mike Bossy scored in his rookie season (1977-78) 53 goals and set a new record. This record was taken by Teemu Selänne in 1992-93 season by 76 goals! Mike Bossy was awarded by the Calder Trophy (for rookie of the year) in 1978.

In his second NHL season (1978-79), Mike Bossy scored 69 goals. This is his personal record in his whole NHL career. He tied Maurice Richard’s 50 in 50 in 1980-81 season for the first time in the NHL history.

In the first 9 seasons (out of his 10), Mike Bossy was able to score more than 50 goals. This is still NHL record! In the last season, 1986-87, Mike Bossy was able to play only 63 games because of a chronic bad back. Still, he was able to score 38 goals. Problems with back forced him to take the next season off (at the age of 30) and officially retired after this season.

If we want to compare players, we should take into account that the played different number of games. Therefore, a good statistics is achievement per one game.

Goals per game: 0.762 (best in the history among the players who were able to score at least 200 goals, i.e., 416 players as of December 2012).
Assists per game: 0.735 (17th in the history among the players who were able to record at least 300 assists, i.e., 430 players as of December 2012).
Points per game: 1.497 (3rd in the history among the players above, i.e., players with at least 200 goals or 300 assists, 530 players in total as of December 2012).

As we can see, we can consider him as the best scorer in the whole NHL history.

Mike Bossy is also three times winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for the gentlemanly play (1983, 1984 and 1986). In his whole career, he collected only 210 PIM.

His jersey #22 was retiered by the New York Islanders on March 3, 1992.

Youtube Videos

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iROGrf6aYjI

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyxAOAwPlBk

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kO13fXgGSk