Pavel Vladimirovich Bure (Russian: Па́вел Влади́мирович Буре́, IPA: [ˈpavʲɪl bʊˈrɛ]; born 31 March 1971) is a Russian former professional ice hockey player who played the right wing position. Nicknamed "the Russian Rocket" for his exceptional speed and skill, Bure played for 12 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Vancouver Canucks, Florida Panthers and New York Rangers between 1991 and 2003. Trained in the Soviet Union, he played three seasons with the Central Red Army team before his NHL career.
Selected 113th overall in the 1989 NHL entry draft by Vancouver, he began his NHL career in the 1991–92 season, and won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league's best rookie before leading the NHL in goal-scoring in 1993–94 and helping the Canucks to the 1994 Stanley Cup Final. After seven seasons the Canucks traded Bure to the Panthers, where he won back-to-back Rocket Richard Trophies as the league's leading goal-scorer. Bure struggled with knee injuries throughout his career, resulting in his retirement in 2005 as a member of the Rangers, although he had not played since 2003. He averaged better than a point per game in his NHL career (779 points with 437 goals in 702 NHL games) and is fourth all-time in goals per game. After six years of eligibility, Bure was elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame in June 2012. In 2017, an NHL panel named Bure one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history.
Internationally, Bure competed for the Soviet Union and Russia. As a member of the Soviet Union, he won two silver medals and a gold in three World Junior Championships, followed by a gold and a silver medal in the 1990 and 1991 World Championships, respectively. After the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, Bure competed for Russia in two Olympic Games, claiming silver at the 1998 Games in Nagano as team captain, and bronze at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. Following Bure's retirement in 2005, he was named the general manager for Russia's national team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. Bure was later recognized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for his international career, and was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2012.
Bure was born in Moscow in 1971 to Vladimir and Tatiana Bure. Vladimir Bure, a Russian swimming legend, had dreams of Pavel becoming a professional swimmer, but he aspired to play hockey at an early age. He attended his first tryout with the CSKA Moscow hockey school at the age of six, despite his limited skating ability. Until that point, Bure had only played ball hockey on the streets. After Bure failed to impress in his first tryout, his father told him that if he did not show significant improvement within two months, he would withdraw him from the hockey school. By age 11, he was named the best forward in his league. Around that time, in July 1982, Bure was selected as one of three young Russian players to practice with Wayne Gretzky and Soviet national goaltender Vladislav Tretiak in a taped television special.
At age 12, his parents separated, and he remained with his mother. By the time he was 14 years old, he was named to the Central Red Army's junior team. In 1991, he joined his father and brother, Valeri in moving to North America as he embarked on a National Hockey League (NHL) career with the Vancouver Canucks. His mother arrived two months later. They settled initially in Los Angeles where Vladimir continued to train and coach both Valeri and Pavel in hockey and physical conditioning. However both became estranged from their father, along with his second wife and their half-sister Katya, by 1998. Neither brother has explained a reason for the split.
In December 1986, he embarked on a tour of Canada with the Soviet national midget team from Ottawa to Vancouver. Nearly five years before Bure made his NHL debut with the Vancouver Canucks in 1991 at the Pacific Coliseum, he played his first game at his future home rink as part of the tour. Bure also earned another opportunity to meet Gretzky, as well as defenceman Paul Coffey, when his team stopped in Edmonton to play at the Northlands Coliseum.
At age 16, Bure began his professional hockey career playing for CSKA Moscow. He was invited to the senior club's training camp for the 1987–88 season. Although he was deemed too young and not yet ready for the Soviet League, Bure earned minimal playing time filling in for absent regulars. He made his debut in September 1987, and played five games for the senior team, scoring his only goal in his first game.
Bure joined the club full-time in 1988–89 and amassed 17 goals, a Soviet League record for rookies. The record would last for 18 years until Alexei Cherepanov scored 18 goals in 2006–07. Bure added 9 assists for 26 points to earn the league's rookie of the year honours. His individual success helped CSKA Moscow capture their thirteenth consecutive Soviet championship and twelfth consecutive IIHF European Cup in 1989 (they repeated as European champions the following year).
As a member CSKA, Bure joined a lineup that featured several future NHL players, including linemates Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny, as well as Igor Larionov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Sergei Makarov, and Vladimir Konstantinov. The combination of Bure, Fedorov and Mogilny formed a promising combination for head coach Viktor Tikhonov, with expectations to replace the previous top Soviet line, the K-L-M combination of Vladimir Krutov, Larionov and Makarov. The trio was short-lived, as Mogilny defected to play for the Buffalo Sabres in 1989, and Fedorov joined the Detroit Red Wings the following year.
In his third and final season with the Red Army, Bure tied for the lead in team-scoring with Valeri Kamensky, tallying 46 points. His 35 goals was second in the league, one goal behind Ramil Yuldashev of Sokil Kyiv. Bure turned down a three-year contract extension in August 1991, which resulted in him being left off the roster of the Soviet team for the Canada Cup.
Transfer to the NHL (1989–1991)
Prior to the 1989 NHL entry draft, William Houston of The Globe and Mail wrote, "The best of the group is Soviet star winger Pavel Bure, a spectacular player with outstanding speed. He is compared to Vladimir Krutov and also the late Soviet superstar of the 1970s, Valeri Kharlamov." NHL organizations were afraid he would not leave the Soviet Union to play in the NHL thus deterring teams from selecting him early, although scouts and analysts believed he could have been selected as high as the second round had he defected. Many analysts compared him to Valeri Kharlamov. Edmonton Oilers' scout Barry Fraser commented, "From what I've seen of him, Bure can play on any team in the NHL right now... he's quick, real quick, small and very exciting. He may be the top player in this year's draft, but because he is from the Soviet Union, we don't analyze him the same way as a kid from the West... I don't expect him to go really early because it is still too much of a gamble to hope he will defect."
Bure was selected 113th overall in the sixth round Draft by the Vancouver Canucks, following his rookie season with CSKA Moscow. The pick was controversial, as the Canucks had chosen him seemingly a year ahead of his eligible draft season. At the age of 18, he was available to be chosen in the first three rounds of the draft, but to be selected any later, he would have needed to play at least two seasons—with a minimum of 11 games per season—for his elite-level Soviet club, the Central Red Army. While most teams believed he was ineligible, the Canucks' head scout at the time, Mike Penny, discovered Bure had played in additional exhibition and international games to make him an eligible late-round draft choice a year early. Jack Button, the Washington Capitals' director of player personnel, admitted "everybody would have taken him earlier. We assumed he was not eligible... you've got to give the Canucks credit for doing their homework."
Several other teams either had similar knowledge or had pursued Bure but there was confusion as to the legitimacy of the extra games. The Detroit Red Wings had asked league vice president Gil Stein about Bure's availability before their fifth-round pick but were told he was not eligible. They later decided to select him with their sixth-round pick, 116th overall, and settle his eligibility later. The Canucks selected Bure three picks ahead of Detroit's turn. Meanwhile, Winnipeg Jets general manager Mike Smith, claimed he made an offer to the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation that would involve three years of transfer payments before Bure would be allowed to join the Jets; however Smith did not have any plans to draft Bure in 1989 as he believed he was ineligible.