Another bronze statue to be unveiled at the Thunder Cloud Arena!

[I_Shall_Return]

I knew that this statue would be coming some day & to do it on the 10 year anniversary of the Bolt's Lord Stanley Cup victory is just plain out class! Andy, our Captain during that time, you deserve this hands down! He will be the 2nd statue behind the Great Phil Esposito's statue! Hopefully the night that his statue ceremony is on will also be the night that they retire his number (we have plenty of room in the rafters)! If this happens, he will be the Bolts first retired sweater. Way to go Andy, thank you for the great memories, you are so deserving of this honour!!!!!!!!


April 5th, 2014 @ 6:30 is the ceremony!

 

[I_Shall_Return]

Maybe we can get a Kelly Nash statue too!????

 

[Bolt Fore]

Andy was a rental who came to us just when we were primed to win it all. True he helped but not to the extent he deserves a Statue.. Statues are for Esposito, Orr and Howe.

 

[I_Shall_Return]

Andy was a rental who came to us just when we were primed to win it all. True he helped but not to the extent he deserves a Statue.. Statues are for Esposito, Orr and Howe.

I can definitely agree with you Bolt on the rental player but I also believe he brought a leadership to this team far more than Coach Torts. If you view his stats for the 4 years he was here, they were pretty solid for an accomplished player in his age bracket except for his +/-. With the way this Organization has been going with "franchise players", they would never get another statue built period. Hey, I give them an "e" for effort, at least he was a Bolt when he retired! Statue of Marty (who asked for a trade) or Vinny or Nik (who went for more money)? Two out of those three mentioned above had no loyalty & the third was among trade rumours every year! I agree that they are grasping at aire but they better grasp for something! I really would be very very very surprised to see Stamkos retire here healthy. I say the only reason he'd retire as a Bolt is if God forbid he had a career ending injury here! At least Dave hoisting the Cup for the Bolts is an iconic image! Other than that, Bolt, I agree with you!

 

[I_Shall_Return]

From thehockeynews.com:

Hall Monitor: Andreychuk’s 640 goals will get him in

By:*Brian Costello*on*April 7, 2014

Filed under:*Hall of Fame,*NHL,*Tampa Bay Lightning

They unveiled a statue of Dave Andreychuk just outside the Tampa Bay Times Forum the other day. Maybe one day, they’ll roll out the red carpet at the Hockey Hall of Fame for him.

If it were strictly about numbers, Andreychuk would be in the Hall already. He first became eligible in 2009 and has been overlooked five times now. And why is that?

Most of Andreychuk’s credentials revolve around his durability, goal-scoring and leadership. On the surface, it’s remarkable that the 14th*all-time goal-scorer in the history of the game isn’t in the Hall. His 640 career regular season goals are 200-plus more than HoFers Pavel Bure, Yvan Cournoyer, Steve Shutt, Bill Barber and Cam Neely. They’re 150-plus more than Norm Ullman, Darryl Sittler, Denis Savard, Pay LaFontaine, Alex Delvecchio, Peter Stastny and Doug Gilmour, all honored members.

And get this: Andreychuk’s 274 power play goals rank*first*all-time, nine ahead of Brett Hull and 19 ahead of Teemu Selanne.

So why isn’t this guy in the Hall of Fame yet?

Members of the Hall of Fame selection committee obviously look at the numbers, but perhaps the No. 1 criteria they use in determining who becomes a Hall of Famer is that gut feeling question they ask themselves: “Was he great?”

The perception with Andreychuk is he was very, very good for a lot of seasons, but never really great.

The people of Tampa will tell you differently. Andreychuk showed tremendous character and leadership in guiding the Lightning to the 2004 Stanley Cup, even though at 40 he was no longer the team’s primary offensive weapon.

There’s also the unfair perception that 43 percent of his goals came with the man advantage, when it’s easiest to score. But he scored on the power play better than anyone in the history of the game. That must be worth something, no?

Andreychuk ranks sixth in all-time regular season games at 1,639. That should be a feather in his cap, not used as rationale for explaining all the goals he scored.

Another misconception is Andreychuk scored all his goals in the live-puck era, when even your Uncle Albert was a 20-goal scorer playing blindfolded. Truth is, of the 11 consecutive seasons when NHL scoring hit its peak at seven goals per game or higher, Andreychuk was a full-time NHLer just the last six of them.

When NHL scoring was at its modern-day high-water mark of 8.025 goals-per-game during the Wayne Gretzky peak years, Andreychuk was still in junior with the Oshawa Generals.

Twelve of his 23 NHL seasons were played when scoring was trending down to below the six goals-per-game mark.

Andreychuk never won an individual award and was never named an NHL first or second-team all-star, obvious strikes against him in his Hall of Fame quest.

But sometimes, it should be strictly about the numbers, the way it was for Mike Gartner, Dino Ciccarelli, Mats Sundin, Michel Goulet and other 500-goal snipers, who also lacked the award credentials.

Andreychuk’s day at the Hall of Fame will come. He may have to wait another half decade or so, but eventually the numbers will become too loud to tune out.