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Archives: Canucks sign Russian Rocket

This day in Vancouver history: Oct. 31, 1991
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Pavel Bure played for the Canucks in 1991-98.

Russian winger Pavel Bure signs a four-year contract worth a reported $2.7 million with an $800,000 signing bonus and immediately becomes the Vancouver Canucks' second highest paid player behind team captain Trevor Linden.

Bure was selected 113th overall in the 1989 NHL Entry Draft and the move drew controversy due to teams not being most teams believing he was ineligible. However, the Canucks' head scout at the time, Mike Penny, discovered the 18-year-old Central Red Army star had played in additional exhibition and international games to make him an eligible late-round draft choice a year early. His first practice with the team three days later drew an estimated 2,000 fans to the Britannia rink.

 

Bure won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league's best rookie before leading the NHL in goal-scoring in 1993-94 and helping the team reach the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals with 31 points in 24 games. “The Russian Rocket” is ranked number five on the team’s list of all-time goal scorers with 254. He is also the only Canucks player to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Despite departing under controversial “personal reasons” in 1998 with a year left on his contract, the team retired his No. 10 jersey in 2013.

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