Happy Trails Modano?

Last night Mike Modano may have had one of the most emotional games of his life. There is some doubt to whether or not Number 9 will have another season left in him. With last night being the last home game of the season and the Stars don't have a hope for the playoffs they stopped the game during the third period to pay tribute to his career. The score at the time was 1-1 and he had an assist on the Dallas goal. The Ducks then went ahead on a second Bobby Ryan goal to make it 2-1 and then in what seemed like a perfect script, Mike steps up for his time and tips in the game tying goal late in the game. If that wasn't enough, Mike then had a chance to win it in overtime but was stopped on a breakaway. So the game goes to a shoot out and Mike who is not known for any shootout abilities was given the chance to go out for his time and he scores the game winning goal in the shootout on what pretty much was Mike Modano Night.

What Mike has done for hockey cannot be measured. He is arguably one of the best American born players of all time and what he brought was more than just ability. He brought CLASS. I saw him in the same light as I saw Joe Sakic. Both were players who were team guys and stayed with their organizations for their entire career. They made players around them better and they lead by example and not by running their mouths. It is hard to say how many more players in the US started playing hockey because of Modano, but it is safe to say he put Dallas on the map in terms of hockey and many players like Bobby Ryan grew up idolizing Modano.

Mike never had a 100 point season, but he was the mark of consistency. Modano had 16 20+ goal seasons, and for a career he had 557 Goals, 802 Assists and 1359 Points in 1458 career regular season games plus a Stanley cup. His point production puts him at the top for American born players and there is no doubt in my mind he will be in the hall of fame when his time comes. With one game left to add to his totals the only question is will he be finished and possibly purchase the Stars with Hull and Gretzky or does he want to take one last crack at Lord Stanley's mug. If he does come back, it would be hard to see him do it with anyone other than Dallas.

Here is his OPC Premier RC, probably the most valuable of his RC's which came out during the 1990-91 season where all cards were produced like they were going out of style.

My favorite Modano RC is his 90-91 Upper Deck one. Not as valuable as his OPC Premier one, it does show case his solid rookie season and you have to love that old North Stars Jersey. I was lucky enough to see him in his second NHL season as a kid. He was playing against Fedorov that night and the two of them flying down the ice against each other I found absolutely impressive.