Playing Career
Pierre-Marc Bouchard appeared in professional play for the first time in the 2002–2003 NHL season in which he posted 7 goals and 13 assists for a total of 20 points in 50 games for the Minnesota Wild, which has been regarded as decent by NHL standards. During the 2004–2005 NHL lockout, Bouchard played for the Wild's minor league team, the Houston Aeros. Within this time period, Bouchard vastly improved his game. This was proved in the 2005–2006 season while he posted 17 goals and 42 assists for a total of 59 points in 80 games.
Bouchard is regarded as a creative playmaker and strong team player who often attempts unorthodox techniques during play. An example of one of these techniques was performed during an overtime shootout attempt in which he converted by utilizing a variation of a spin-o-rama against Chicago Blackhawks goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. He repeated this move several years later, again against Khabibulin, though he did so during regulation play on a breakaway, rather than during an overtime shootout attempt. Bouchard later credited the move to his younger brother François Bouchard.
On July 25, 2008, Bouchard signed a five-year, $20.4 million deal with the Minnesota Wild. After suffering a hit to the head late in the 2008-09 season, Bouchard missed the rest of that season and all but the season opener of the 2009-10 season with post-concussion syndrome. Bouchard resumed play on December 1, 2010, against the Phoenix Coyotes after a 13-month absence, having missed 112 games. Bouchard scored a goal in his second game back, a loss to the Calgary Flames by a score of 3-2 in a shootout.
Read more about this topic: Pierre-Marc Bouchard
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or career:
“Andy passes through things, but so do we. He sat down and had a talk with me. “You gotta decide what you want to do. Do you want to keep just playing museums from now on and the art festivals? Or do you want to start moving into other areas? Lou, don’t you think you should think about it?” So I thought about it, and I fired him.”
—Lou Reed (b. 1944)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)