Mark Madden: Tom Barrasso is a worthy Hall of Famer, but there's a reason it took him 17 years to get in
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Ex-Penguins goaltender Tom Barrasso made the Hockey Hall of Fame. It took him 17 years of eligibility. Former New York Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist made it on his first ballot. After just three years.
Lundqvist had the advantage of playing in New York, North America’s top media hub.
But Barrasso has a slightly better resume.
Each won a Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie. Each finished in the top three of Vezina voting five times. Barrasso made the postseason NHL All-Star team three times, Lundqvist twice. Barrasso won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year. Barrasso won two Stanley Cups. Lundqvist won Olympic gold.
Lundqvist’s stats are better. But he used bigger equipment and played in a much more defensive time.
Barrasso’s era was high-octane, especially in his early years. He played behind a Penguins team that was concerned with offensive stats, not defense, at least not till the playoffs.
Barrasso’s puck-handling was revolutionary. He holds the NHL’s career record for points by a goaltender, 48 (all assists). You couldn’t play dump-and-chase against the Penguins with Barrasso in net. He’d get the puck and pass it right back out. He saved his defensemen countless steps.
Barrasso is a worthy Hall of Famer.
So why did it take him 17 years to make it?
It’s because he’s an execrable human being who treated everyone horribly. It’s difficult to find anybody who has anything good to say about him.
If that kept him out of the Hall of Fame this long, that’s unfair. It’s also reaping what you sow.
Let the stories provide evidence:
• Barrasso swung the butt end of his stick at my head, narrowly missing. I was in the runway that connects the dressing room to the ice at Mellon Arena, waiting to do an interview for the post-game show on WDVE-FM. It seemed an accident, him just walking by. One of his teammates later told me it wasn’t, that Barrasso laughed about it.
• Assistant coach Troy Ward had just joined the Penguins. Before the start of training camp’s first practice, Ward casually took a shot on Barrasso. Barrasso charged from his net, got in Ward’s face and asked, “Did you play in the NHL?” Ward hadn’t and said so. Barrasso said, “Until you play in the NHL, don’t ever shoot on me.”
• At another practice, Jaromir Jagr beat Barrasso on a breakaway by shooting from between his own legs. A trick shot. Barrasso was visibly seething. But he wasn’t going to rebuke a star like Jagr. But when lesser light Aleksey Morozov did the same thing moments later, Barrasso exploded. He chased Morozov around the ice, repeatedly screaming, “DO THAT IN A GAME!”
• Phil Bourque was Barrasso’s teammate for four seasons in Pittsburgh. They won two Stanley Cups together. When Barrasso returned to Pittsburgh as Carolina’s goalie coach, Bourque — by then an announcer — sought him out to say hello: “Hey, Tommy, how’s it going?” Barrasso wearily said, “Same old, same old” and barged past him into Carolina’s locker room.
• Barrasso declined participation in the Penguins’ 50th anniversary video. He didn’t return to Pittsburgh for any Stanley Cup team reunions or for any of the ceremonies celebrating the closing of Mellon Arena.
• Jean-Sebastien Aubin started a game in goal, with Barrasso as backup. Aubin was concussed late in the game with the Penguins holding a lead. Barrasso entered the game, leaked in a bunch of goals, and the Penguins lost. Afterward, Barrasso confronted Aubin while the latter was prone in the trainer’s room, berating Aubin for not having the guts to finish the game. Aubin was out of it and barely understood Barrasso.
• Barrasso was an avid golfer but a club-thrower and prone to cursing loudly and frequently. He was in a foursome with legendary Steelers coach Chuck Noll at a celebrity outing in West Virginia. After the round, Noll — usually a wine drinker — went to the course’s bar and slammed two shots of Wild Turkey. Noll then looked around and said to nobody in particular, “That Tom Barrasso is one intense young man.”
• When then-Penguins owner Howard Baldwin used the team and Mellon Arena as the backdrop for the Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie, “Sudden Death,” all the Penguins players gave Baldwin the rights to use their names in the movie. Except Barrasso. He crumpled the release form, threw it to the floor, and said, “If they want to use my name, they can pay me for it.” Barrasso’s salary that season was $2.5 million.
Stories like these are endless. Those that put Barrasso in a good light are in short supply.
I can’t wait to hear Barrasso’s induction speech. If there’s ever a time for him to be humble and gracious, that’s it.
But Barrasso won’t be. He just can’t help himself.
Great goalie. Absolutely rotten human being.
You should love Barrasso. He won Stanley Cups for Pittsburgh. Be glad you never met him.
Source: TribLIVE
