Brian Leetch
Brian Leetch
Brian Joseph Leetchis a retired American professional ice hockey defenseman who played 18 National Hockey Leagueseasons with the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Boston Bruins. He is generally considered one of the top defensemen in NHL history, being particularly noted for his skating, offense, and playmaking abilities. He and fellow Rangers teammate Mike Richter were inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008. Leetch was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto the following...
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth3 March 1968
CityCorpus Christi, TX
I just wore a cage my whole career coming up, and didn't feel a reason not to have some type of protection.
I was proud to be a Ranger for my entire career, and I wanted to be here when things got turned around. So I was disappointed and still am.
I'm not sure what it is. I've never had a knee injury as a pro. Eighteen years ago, or something like that, I hurt my left knee, but . . . we'll have to see, I'm not sure what it is.
I didn't know as a rookie coming in how long I'd be in this league, so to play this long is the thing I'm most proud of.
I'm not looking forward to it. I thought I'd be a Ranger for my entire career. So to go back, I'm not looking forward to it the first few times back. It's not something that I'm excited about. It'll be uncomfortable.
That's one of the reasons I took a one-year deal here. If the Bruins decided the best thing for the organization was for me to go somewhere else, I would only have the rest of this year in a different organization. And then I could make a decision again next summer. It would be Mike's (O'Connell) call, just like it was (Rangers GM) Glen's (Sather) call in New York.
It's been strong and I haven't had any so-called setbacks or real soreness in the last few workouts. If I can get through (today's) practice with the team, I'd like to play (tomorrow night against the Isles), but that would be up to coach (Mike) Sullivan. But I think the training staff is pushing for (tomorrow) to be my return date.
It's always exciting to come somewhere you wanted to, an 'Original Six' team, and of course, the Bruins, ... It means a lot to me.
The game was there to be won. We had three five-on-threes and didn't score. That can't happen. We had our chances, but we didn't put them in. Fifty shots against us shouldn't happen, either.
It's like I've been saying all year. The power play is based on results. It doesn't matter how many chances you get or how long you're in the zone. Tonight at a key time we got a deflection and it looks like the power play was the difference, and in the end it was.
It's not anything serious. But it makes more sense to miss a couple of days now than have it drag on through camp.
He looks like Shaq down there in the post. He just backs his way to the net. And he's too strong, with the new rules, for anybody to be able to do anything legally to stop it.
To get to 1,000 (points) is nice, but it was a disappointing game.
Eddie played good but with the position we were in there was no excuse for us not to have two points at the end of it. It was a bad result, to give up a short-handed goal and to not score on a 5-on-3.