Mark Messier is a fraud, the real leader was Trevor Linden. The truth behind the lies.

So,

The Mark Messier Leadership Award? What a complete farce and egregious example of NHL revisionist history, where should I even start?

Let's start with dispelling the myth that Messier was some tough guy power forward, he wasn't. There is a reason he is never mentioned in discussions about players like Lindros or Stevens

He was nothing like Lindros. Lindros was a force of nature who could run people over, Messier snuck up from behind and chopped their ankles or ribs, he was the beneficiary of being put in the middle of incredible talent and he picked up the garbage.

He was nothing like Stevens who was a skilled master of lethal body checking, Messier didn't have the skill or the balls to line guys up. He wasn't a hitter, again, he would chop you from behind.

"Ok" you say "I get that he was dirty" but didn't he stand up for himself and his teammates?"

No, he didn't, he never fought for his teammates, he fought when he had a non-fighter in a disadvantageous position.

if you look at his fight totals, he had his rookie year with 7 fights and sophomore with 6, then in 1984 he inexplicably jumped to 10 fights, but for all the rest of his career he had either one or two fights per season.

This was not a guy who regularly backed up his actions or defended his teammates. So why and when did he fight?

Well let's have a look ....

The most damning evidence disproving the myth of Messier being a tough guy is when you look at those whom he fought. 

Mark Begivan, Valeri Zelepukin, and the notoriously unskilled fighter Joel Otto.  Accounts of his fights show two things need to be in place in order to get Messier to drop his gloves:

 A.The opponent must not be a regular fighter or known tough-guy 

B. They ALWAYS began with his opponent distracted/ at a disadvantage, he never took guys on fair and square and the guys he did take on weren't fighters, to begin with. Totally dishonorable behavior and the reason you never hear about Messier being a respected tough guy. Like say a Wendel Clark, who produced offensively and took on all comers

The one time he fought a heavyweight, it was totally against his will, Marty Mc Sorley had had enough of his cheap shots one night in San Jose and proceeded to show the world what kind of "Warrior" Messier was, Messier was beaten down while trying to cover up and escape.

There again is your great leader Mark Messier, it's funny Trevor Linden who was never noted as any kind of good fighter, while teammates with Messier and under orders from Coach Keenan to fight more, went right after top heavyweight Rob Ray after Ray tried to clip Messier and injure him, Trevor broke his hand on Ray's face who wasn't expecting Linden to come for him like that. But never the less Linden came for Ray face to face, Ray had plenty of time to prepare, he didn't try and stick him when he wasn't looking.

But that tells you alot about the two guys, one spent all his time trying to cheap shot people and ran when faced with a real heavyweight fighter. The other was willing to risk fighting a guy way out of his class to defend the coward who tried to break his ribs from behind in the playoffs because he was his teammate at this point later down the line (I think that pissed Messier off, as he felt Trevor had shown him up, weeks later Trevor was gone)

So I don't know about you but having watched these two guys (And linden take injections directly into his broken ribs (guess who attacked him from behind after the final whistle in game 6 to break the ribs, and it was using his stick not his fists) before the game 7 in the 94' finals against Messier's Rangers. Trevor not only played with broken ribshe put the team on his back and scored the Canucks only two goals to almost single-handedly put the Canucks on his back and will them across the finish line to the Stanley Cup) I can say this, you want hype and B.S as to who a great NHL leader was, go buy into the false Messier narrative, you want to see a real leader who was willing to face pain and fight guys who should have destroyed him to defend a teammate, a guy who when it mattered most and was HURT the most dug down deep and gave you his BEST, go take a look at Trevor Linden.

By the way for that Stanley Cup game 7, sure Messier walked away with the cup, but a little-remembered fact is this: Game's first star: Trevor Linden. You want to see leadership? Watch that game. (Hint: It's not wearing a blue Jersey)