Curt Fraser (NHL 1978-1990, Canucks 1978-1983) | LW | 24

[Kevin Biestra]

Curt Fraser is a name unfortunately not that known among Canuck fans these days but he was something like an early model of the power forward had the term existed in hockey in his heyday.  I would say his closest comparables would be Bob Probert in the 80s or Terry O'Reilly in the 1970s.  And people might know how glowingly Don Cherry speaks of Terry O'Reilly and the role he played on his Bruins of the 1970s.  Like those guys, Curt Fraser could score at a pretty reasonable pace (good for 25ish goals) and was also one of the team's top fighters and enforcers.  The Canucks of Fraser's day had no 100+ point superstars but had a platoon guys who could score 30 goals and 60 points and also several of their scorers could also punish the other team physically (Tiger Williams, Stan Smyl, Darcy Rota etc.).

 

Fraser was part of the 1982 run to the Stanley Cup Final and a significant contributor with 10 points in his 17 playoff games that year.  King Richard was allowing so few goals in the first three rounds that all the Canucks needed was for Smyl and Gradin to go a point a game and then have a handful of guys with around 10 points (Fraser, Boldirev, Tiger).

 

Curt Fraser had five seasons with 25 or more goals, two with the Canucks and three with the Hawks.  He had seasons with 67 and 68 points and was known for squaring off with the other team's top fighters.  He had multiple bouts with Bob Probert, fought Jim Peplinski, Terry Carkner, Stan Jonathan, Behn Wilson, Terry O'Reilly, Jay Wells, Big Willi Plett (MANY times - they were like Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia), Chris "Knuckles" Nilan, Terry Ruskowski, Basil McRae, Gerard Gallant, Wendel Clark, Shayne Corson, Kris King, Troy Loney, Bob McGill and Richard Zemlak.

 

And perhaps the highlight of his career was that I stopped a few shots from him on the ice way back in the day.  But to be fair he was warming me up and probably trying to hit my pads.

 

In the end he scored 193 goals and 432 points in 704 NHL games.

 

Heck of a player...

 

 

 

[Bell]

For not the biggest guy in the league he was one tough SOB.  As a kid I enjoyed watching him play for the Victoria Cougars.  Heck of a player

[Kevin Biestra]

1 minute ago, Bell said:

For not the biggest guy in the league he was one tough SOB.  As a kid I enjoyed watching him play for the Victoria Cougars.  Heck of a player

 

Yeah and both Stan Smyl and Tiger Williams were smaller guys and probably fought even more (Tiger certainly did and there was a great picture from around 1982 of him facing off with the aforementioned Willi Plett...it looked like Rocky and Drago in Rocky 4).

 

Tiger and Stan were middleweights but Fraser was at least a cruiserweight and he was like Jerry Quarry in boxing, took on the top heavyweights (fortunately without anything like the same horrible consequences for later life as far as I know).

[Alflives]

Right up there with the Neely trade for bad. Fraser for Tanti. Terrible for us. 

[Kevin Biestra]

15 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Right up there with the Neely trade for bad. Fraser for Tanti. Terrible for us. 

 

Interesting take.  I didn't want to see Fraser go and he had some good years for Chicago after he left.  But Tanti was hardly a disappointment.  He was arguably the team's star / top player in his time in Vancouver and he had five straight seasons with 39-45 goals.  The list of players in NHL history who have had five straight seasons with 39 or more goals is actually extremely short.  Hall of Fame short.  Tanti just burned out by age 30 like so many of the old great Canucks...McCarthy, Skriko, Lanz, Ververgaert, Sedlbauer, etc.  Even Smyl was physically shot at 30 but held on a couple more years.  I think if Tanti had been on a team like the Oilers he would have probably had multiple 60 goal seasons.  Tanti was being fed by Patrik Sundstrom who peaked with around 91 points in a season (our team record until Pavel Bure).  But the rest of the division alone had Gretzky (215 points), Dionne (130-something), Hawerchuk (130-something) and Kent Nilsson (130 points) as their #1 centers.  And that's leaving out Denis Savard, Steve Yzerman, Mario Lemieux, Peter Stastny, etc.

 

That said...it could well be that the team would have won more games / playoff rounds with Fraser.  He certainly proved his mettle in 1982.

 

Edited Saturday at 11:44 PM by Kevin Biestra

[Gurn]

Ask Willie Pless if Fraser could hit with power

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=hockey+fights+curt+fraser+one+punch+willie+plett&mid=C0912C95E1962FBF2A84C0912C95E1962FBF2A84&FORM=VIRE

 

should mention Fraser was a 'golden gloves' boxer

 

 

Edited Saturday at 11:34 PM by Gurn

[Jess]

3 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Right up there with the Neely trade for bad. Fraser for Tanti. Terrible for us. 

 

Fraser was well-loved for sure, but Tanti was the best scorer we ever had prior to Bure. I'd take Tanti over Fraser every day.

[VegasCanuck]

Will always remember him for his fights with Willie in the 82 playoff run and this one. Yes, it's age restricted because of the KO, but it shows Frasers true punching power:

 

 

Edited Saturday at 11:34 PM by VegasCanuck

[Gurn]

Will add- if the Canucks could find a guy, close to Fraser's abilities- he be well worth trading for/drafting.

The real deal.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

10 minutes ago, Kevin Biestra said:

 

Yeah and both Stan Smyl and Tiger Williams were smaller guys and probably fought even more (Tiger certainly did and there was a great picture from around 1982 of him facing off with the aforementioned Willi Plett...it looked like Rocky and Drago in Rocky 4).

 

Tiger and Stan were middleweights but Fraser was at least a cruiserweight and he was like Jerry Quarry in boxing, took on the top heavyweights (fortunately without anything like the same horrible consequences for later life as far as I know).

Fraser had a "knockout" calibre punch as well.  It must be noted he was suffering from an untreated diabetic problem during his playing days (he didn't know he had that problem for a while) that no doubt effected his consistancy.

 

 

[Alflives]

11 minutes ago, Jess said:

 

Fraser was well-loved for sure, but Tanti was the best scorer we ever had prior to Bure. I'd take Tanti over Fraser every day.

Fraser was a more impactful player. We were on a trajectory of winning with Gradin, Fraser, and Smyle. The league was tough as hell back then. Fraser was hugely important. Tanti was a nice player; a lot like Skreiko. But definitely not a player a team builds a winner with. 

[VegasCanuck]

6 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

Fraser had a "knockout" calibre punch as well.  It must be noted he was suffering from an untreated diabetic problem during his playing days (he didn't know he had that problem for a while) that no doubt effected his consistancy.

 

 

Yup, I remember that. I think he also had a background in kickboxing. For younger Canuck fans, they will likely never know the sheer joy (did I just say that) of regularly watching bench clearing brawls

 

The only player I've seen in Vancouver since Fraser who had similar punching power without being a really big player would be Rick Rypien (RIP)

 

[Kevin Biestra]

20 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Fraser was a more impactful player. We were on a trajectory of winning with Gradin, Fraser, and Smyle. The league was tough as hell back then. Fraser was hugely important. Tanti was a nice player; a lot like Skreiko. But definitely not a player a team builds a winner with. 

 

I do have to agree that mid-way through the season immediately following the run to the Stanley Cup was a strange time to trade away Curt Fraser.  It was a bit of a strange decision from 1979 through 1981 to trade away the future (Vaive, Derlago, Brent Ashton, Murray Bannerman, etc.) and load up for "right now" with guys like Tiger Williams, Boldirev, Hlinka, etc.  But it actually paid off with the 1982 run.  But then 1983 was a bit of an odd time to start trading away the present (Fraser) for the future (Tanti).  And the Canucks didn't have much success for the rest of the 80s right through until the arrival of Trevor Linden in 1988-89.

 

But the Canucks did get five terrific seasons out of Tanti and then some more decent ones.  Fraser was more or less done as an impact player by 1987 or so.  Tanti I guess lasted until about 1990 as a significant scorer.  Not that much longer than Fraser's run and after a terrific peak Tanti was actually done in the NHL before he turned 30.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 12:06 AM by Kevin Biestra

[VegasCanuck]

7 minutes ago, Kevin Biestra said:

 

I do have to agree that mid-way through the season immediately following the run to the Stanley Cup was a strange time to trade away Curt Fraser.  It was a bit of a strange decision from 1979 through 1981 to trade away the future (Vaive, Derlago, Brent Ashton, etc.) and load up for "right now" with guys like Tiger Williams, Boldirev, Hlinka, etc.  But it actually paid off with the 1982 run.  But then 1983 was a bit of an odd time to start trading away the present (Fraser) for the future (Tanti).  And the Canucks didn't have much success for the rest of the 80s right through until the arrival of Trevor Linden in 1988-89.

 

But the Canucks did get five terrific seasons out of Tanti and then some more decent ones.  Fraser was more or less done as an impact player by 1987 or so.  Tanti I guess lasted until about 1990 as a significant scorer.  Not that much longer than Fraser's run and after a terrific peak Tanti was actually done in the NHL before he turned 30.

 

 

We really had bad overall management up until Canucks went and got Pat Quinn. We drafted some good players but had no idea how to develop them and as a result, we made some HORRIBLE trades.

[Kevin Biestra]

Just now, VegasCanuck said:

We really had bad overall management up until Canucks went and got Pat Quinn. We drafted some good players but had no idea how to develop them and as a result, we made some HORRIBLE trades.

 

 

I think Jake Milford worked magic to make 1982 happen and he's in the Hall of Fame for a reason.  But that said...what he tried to do was a real longshot...kind of like drawing for an inside straight in poker.  But he ended up hitting the cards he wanted in 1982 and there were some really good moves in there to make it happen (e.g. getting Richard Brodeur as a throw in for simply switching 5th round picks with the Islanders) and also drafting Smyl and getting Thomas Gradin for a 2nd round pick.

 

Pat Quinn was a legend though.  The Ronning / Courtnall / Dirk / Momesso trade was unbelievable even though way gave up good players to make it happen.  And acquiring Kirk McLean and Greg Adams as well, never mind Lumme and Babych and so on.  And drafting Linden and Bure.  Pat Quinn really reached in and built that 1994 team with his own hands.

 

I think in the first 20 years of our history in terms of individual success as players, people could easily look at trading away Rick Vaive early (three straight 50 goal seasons in Toronto, kind of the prototype for Cam Neely and the Cam Neely trade) but that said, Tiger and the Canucks went to the Cup final and despite Vaive's scoring heroics, the Maple Leafs never did anything as a team the entire time he was there.

[VegasCanuck]

Pat Quinn was an excellent GM, I didn't think we should have fired him at the time. I thought we should have put him back behind the bench and told him to fix the team.

 

Quinn was a coach who had the ability to inspire average teams to great play.

 

His work as a GM was incredible, especially snagging Bure when we did and doing the research to find out that he was actually available that season. All other GM's thought he would likely be the first overall pick the next season instead of us snagging him in the 6th round of 89, just fricken phenomenal. 

[Kevin Biestra]

13 minutes ago, VegasCanuck said:

Pat Quinn was an excellent GM, I didn't think we should have fired him at the time. I thought we should have put him back behind the bench and told him to fix the team.

 

Quinn was a coach who had the ability to inspire average teams to great play.

 

His work as a GM was incredible, especially snagging Bure when we did and doing the research to find out that he was actually available that season. All other GM's thought he would likely be the first overall pick the next season instead of us snagging him in the 6th round of 89, just fricken phenomenal. 

 

 

Pat Quinn basically just needed to clone himself.  Have Pat 1 be the coach and Pat 2 be the GM.  He was able to be "three hat Pat" as coach, GM and President for a while but nobody can pull that off indefinitely and he had to start delegating (hence Rick Ley as coach right after 1994).

 

He really was a master in both capacities, but very few can actually do both of these extremely full time jobs at once.

[Zimmyparttwo]

3 hours ago, Kevin Biestra said:

Curt Fraser is a name unfortunately not that known among Canuck fans these days but he was something like an early model of the power forward had the term existed in hockey in his heyday.  I would say his closest comparables would be Bob Probert in the 80s or Terry O'Reilly in the 1970s.  And people might know how glowingly Don Cherry speaks of Terry O'Reilly and the role he played on his Bruins of the 1970s.  Like those guys, Curt Fraser could score at a pretty reasonable pace (good for 25ish goals) and was also one of the team's top fighters and enforcers.  The Canucks of Fraser's day had no 100+ point superstars but had a platoon guys who could score 30 goals and 60 points and also several of their scorers could also punish the other team physically (Tiger Williams, Stan Smyl, Darcy Rota etc.).

 

Fraser was part of the 1982 run to the Stanley Cup Final and a significant contributor with 10 points in his 17 playoff games that year.  King Richard was allowing so few goals in the first three rounds that all the Canucks needed was for Smyl and Gradin to go a point a game and then have a handful of guys with around 10 points (Fraser, Boldirev, Tiger).

 

Curt Fraser had five seasons with 25 or more goals, two with the Canucks and three with the Hawks.  He had seasons with 67 and 68 points and was known for squaring off with the other team's top fighters.  He had multiple bouts with Bob Probert, fought Jim Peplinski, Terry Carkner, Stan Jonathan, Behn Wilson, Terry O'Reilly, Jay Wells, Big Willi Plett (MANY times - they were like Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia), Chris "Knuckles" Nilan, Terry Ruskowski, Basil McRae, Gerard Gallant, Wendel Clark, Shayne Corson, Kris King, Troy Loney, Bob McGill and Richard Zemlak.

 

And perhaps the highlight of his career was that I stopped a few shots from him on the ice way back in the day.  But to be fair he was warming me up and probably trying to hit my pads.

 

In the end he scored 193 goals and 432 points in 704 NHL games.

 

Heck of a player...

 

 

 

Loved this guy. Biggest claim to fame (other than beating the crap out of Willie Plett) is getting traded for Tony Tanti in January of 1983 ( IMO! )

[NewbieCanuckFan]

42 minutes ago, Zimmyparttwo said:

Loved this guy. Biggest claim to fame (other than beating the crap out of Willie Plett) is getting traded for Tony Tanti in January of 1983 ( IMO! )

 

Clean knock-out of a Laff player at Maple Leaf Gardens on Hockey Night in Canada.

[Zimmyparttwo]

39 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

 

Clean knock-out of a Laff player at Maple Leaf Gardens on Hockey Night in Canada.

I don’t know what Farrish was thinking here. He was not a scrapper at all and decided to drop them with one of if not the best straight up punchers in the league. Curt Fraser didn’t hold you or tousle with you. He hit you.