Andrew Brunette scored what has been called the greatest goal in Minnesota Wild history in the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Still what made him such a great Wild player was his day-in-day-out reliability and strong scoring touch on the otherwise offensive challenged early Wild teams.
Like many of the early Minnesota Wild players, number eleven on our list of the fifteen greatest Wild players had to bounce around the league a bit before finding a home in Minnesota. When Andrew Brunette joined the Wild before the 2001-02 season, he had already spent six seasons in the NHL with three different teams. Brunette would find a consistency to his game with the Wild that would propel him to be one of the Wild’s top scorers in his two separate three-year stints with the club.
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Brunette begin his hockey journey like many do in the OHL with the Owen Sound Platters. With the Platters Brunette would rack up an amazing 128 goals in three seasons, to include the 1992-93 season where he scored 62 goals. That performance was good enough to catch the eye of the Washington Capitals who drafted him in the 7th round of the 1993 draft. It would only take Brunette two seasons to make his NHL debut, and he would play in 300 games for the Caps, Predators, and Thrashers before signing with the Wild.
In his first three seasons with the Wild Brunette would be a solid scorer posting 54 goals. Perhaps his single greatest moment as member of the Wild would come in the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoffs where Brunette scored the overtime series winning goal against the Colorado Avalanche in Game 7. That goal would propel the Wild to their best postseason performance in franchise history as the Wild reached but lost to Anaheim in the Western Conference Finals. Also Brunette’s game winner would be the last goal scored on Patrick Roy in his storied career, as he retired that next offseason.
After the lockout in knocked out the 2004-05 season, Brunette in a bit of irony would sign as a free agent with the Avalanche. He would take his goal scoring game up a notch with the Avs playing on a line with Joe Sakic and as a result tallied 70 goals in three seasons which was 14 more than he did in his three years with the Wild. Also in his time with the Avs he would tally his 500th NHL point on October 26, 2007.
When his contract with Colorado was over, Brunette took himself right back to Minnesota for another three seasons. During his second stretch with the Wild, Brunette would notch 65 goals and be a huge contributor to the Wild’s scoring attack.
Brunette would play one more season after his second three years with the Wild expired joining the Blackhawks for one season after which he would retire. What made Brunette such a great player was his durability as he played in 509 consecutive games from 2002 to 2009. Furthermore, he’s also in elite company as he is only one of 306 NHL players to have played in 1,000 games or more coming at 1,110 games played on his career. That’s good enough for 171st in NHL history.
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Brunette’s goal in the 2003 Avalanche series stands today as the top goal in the most important game in Wild history. Not only that but Brunette’s scoring ability and durability made him a top player in his time with the franchise. Like many of the Wild greats, he remains with the organization today as member of the Wild front office and former assistant coach. Brunette may have played for six NHL teams, but there’s no doubt he’ll always be remembered as a member of the Wild…one of the best.