Early in his career, he centered the only line opposing teams’ had to plan on shutting down and he still managed to average a shade under 60 points per season from 1996 to 2000. So while he’ll never be viewed as an “elite” point-producer, and his career-high of 67 points will obviously illuminate that assertion, it’s unfair to simply dismiss his offensive contributions as product of playing with skilled wingers. For Rucchin, centering the top line meant playing against the opposition’s best defensive pairing each night, due in large part to the obvious lack of depth new franchises suffer from. Many will posit that Rucchin’s point totals are inflated thanks to his cushy gig as Kariya and Selanne’s running mate, however playing on an expansion team brings about unique challenges for players. Steve Rucchin’s contributions to the Anaheim franchise are often overlooked. The tall order was made even taller once he was penciled in between Kariya and Selanne during the latter part of the 1995-96 season, after Anaheim acquired Selanne via trade, but if you had to identify a turning point in Rucchin’s career, there it is, in only his second NHL season. For Steve Rucchin, With Great Power Comes Great ResponsibilityĪs a 23 year-old, Rucchin was slightly more mature than many rookies in the game today, however the task of entering, and competing at a high level in, the NHL was no doubt a daunting one.
His 735 games played are the most of any player selected in an NHL Supplemental Draft, and his longevity was a result of his ability to play the game, not who his wingers were. Rucchin’s path to the NHL was a unique one, having been selected by Anaheim in the 1994 NHL Supplemental Draft out of the University of Western Ontario, and becoming one of the few to ever be selected from a Canadian university. Rather, he’s been victimized and labelled as a player whose contributions were predicated on the performance of the dynamic duo he had the luxury of centering. Thrust into a first-line role centering prodigious point-producers, and vaunted wingers, Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne for much of his time in an Anaheim Ducks jersey, Rucchin has rarely been credited for his contributions.
Generally, it conjures up images of being slightly talented enough to ascend from the bottom rung, but not capable enough to attain the heights one likely desires. Fancier monikers utilized might be “broker” or “intermediary”, but really, that’s simply sugar-coating the fact that the “middle man” is a go-between. The title “middle man” is rarely, if ever, viewed as a desirable one. This post was originally published in May, 2012.
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