Top 50 Canucks players of all time: #45 Ivan Boldirev

Join us this summer as we count down the top 50 Vancouver Canucks players of all time! #45: Ivan Boldirev.

In terms of being the greatest Vancouver Canuck ever born in Yugoslavia, it’s going to be hard to beat Ivan Boldirev.

Part of the reason for that, of course, is that Yugoslavia doesn’t exist as a formal country anymore. Boldirev was born in modern-day Serbia on August 15, 1949, and immigrated to Canada at the age of two with his family. Boldirev grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and stayed there long enough to play some of his junior hockey for the Sault Ste. Marie. Marie Greyhounds of the NOJHL.

The 6’0” centre was selected 11^th overall in the 1969 Amateur Draft by the Boston Bruins after two years with the Oshawa Generals in the OHA. He moved up to the Oklahoma City Blazers of the CHL for his post-draft 1969/70 season, and also managed to get himself called up as a black ace for the Bruins’ run to the Stanley Cup that postseason. He didn’t play a playoff game, but he did get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup all the same, making him the only game-less skater to ever do so. The NHL changed their policy on this shortly thereafter.

The 1970/71 season saw Boldirev’s first NHL action – just two games with the Bruins – and the 1971/72 season saw him traded to the California Golden Seals for Richard Leduc and Chris Oddleifson, another Top-50 Canuck. There, Boldirev established himself as a full-time NHLer, notching 52 goals and 129 points through 191 games over three seasons.

A 1974 offseason trade sent Boldirev to the Chicago Blackhawks, where he’d really make his name. That first 1974/75 campaign with the Blackhawks saw Boldirev notch a then-career-high 67 points in 80 games. By his fourth season in Chicago, Boldirev was up to 35 goals and 80 points in 80 games.

A 1979 trade saw Boldirev and teammate Darcy Rota traded to the Atlanta Flames, where they’d both spend two seasons. However, a trade on February 8, 1980, brought them both from Atlanta to Vancouver in exchange for Don Lever and Brad Smith.

By this point, Boldirev was 30 and a veteran of more than 600 NHL games. To say he saved his best hockey for the Canucks is probably a bridge too far, but suffice it to say that Boldirev still had plenty in the tank when the Canucks acquired him.

He closed out the 1979/80 season with 16 goals and 27 points in 27 Vancouver games. His production dipped a little for 1980/81, down to 59 points in 72 games, but he rebounded in 1981/82 for 33 goals and 73 points in 78 games – and at the exact right time, too. That postseason saw the Canucks go on an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Finals, and Boldirev played a big part with eight goals and 11 points in 17 postseason games. That was the second-most goals on the team for the run, behind the nine scored by both Thomas Gradin and Stan Smyl.

When Boldirev got off to a slow start at age 33 in 1982/83, the Canucks thought his best years were behind him, and so they dealt him to Detroit for Mark Kirton. But they were wrong. Boldirev potted 30 points in 33 games for the Red Wings post-trade, and then the following season of 1983/84 saw the 34-year-old Boldirev post career highs of 35 goals and 83 points in just 75 games.

A year after that, he retired.

Boldirev’s career totals of 1052 games, 361 goals, 505 assists, and 866 points qualify him for the Hall of Pretty Good, and add up to a very respectable career. His Vancouver totals, specifically, are a case of quality over quantity. He played only 216 regular-season games in a Canucks’ uniform, but managed 80 goals and 184 points during that time.

That gives him a Vancouver points-per-game rate of 0.85, which is good for the 17^th best in team history. It places him right behind Todd Bertuzzi (0.87) and Markus Naslund (0.86), for context.

His 33 goals in 1981/82 is still tied for the 43^rd best goal-scoring season in franchise history. And those eight playoff goals he scored on the ’82 run are tied for the ninth-most in any Vancouver postseason run.

If there’s a trait that folks who saw him say stood out in Boldirev, it was his elegant, dazzling stickhandling. But, truthfully, Boldirev found a number of ways to make a lasting impact on Vancouver hockey. That’s why, despite only playing three-and-a-half seasons for the Canucks, he did more than enough to crack our Top-50 list.

Our previously ranked top 50 Canucks of all-time:

#50 – Curt Fraser
#49 – Dave Babych
#48 – Martin Gelinas
#47 – Chris Oddleifson
#46 – Jannik Hansen