PuckToons: Honoring the 4-S Club

Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity.

I was inspired by this week's column by the Globe and Mail's Eric Duhatschek that contemplated the short-term future of the members of the 4-S Club: Joe Sakic, Brendan Shanahan, Teemu Selanne, and Mats Sundin. All four remain unrestricted free agents that for various reasons have not signed for the coming season and may even end up hanging up their skates and retiring from the NHL.

These four superstars have been lighting up the league for the greater part of two decades, combining for 5,225 regular season games played, 2,380 goals scored, and 5,448 points. All are among the top 50 point-scorers and the top 25 goal-scorers in NHL history, and are members of the exclusive 500 goal club and the 1,000 point club. Collectively, it's not like their game has slowed down considerably, either. If you tallied all their seasons before the 2004-05 lockout and pro-rated the results to an 82-game schedule, the pre-lockout 4-S Club averages 38 goals, 48 assists, 86 points. If you did the same exercise with the same group's post-lockout results, the foursome averages 36 goals, 48 assists, 84 points. Not a noticeable drop-off at all.

I don't know who among that group has really played their last NHL game, but it would be stunning if all four heroes rode off into the sunset together. After the break, I'll point out where these 4-S members stand on the all-time and active scoring lists, thanks to the resources at Hockey-Reference.com. (Note: for rankings among active players, I am not considering Jaromir Jagr as active. That's another significant loss for the NHL: the 2-J Club.)

Points
Joe Sakic, 1,629, 8th all-time, 1st active
Brendan Shanahan, 1,340, 24th all-time, 3rd active
Mats Sundin, 1,321, 30th all-time, 4th active
Teemu Selanne, 1,158, 46th all-time, 7th active

Goals
Brendan Shanahan, 650, 11th all-time, 1st active
Joe Sakic, 623, 14th all-time, 2nd active
Mats Sundin, 555, 22nd all-time, 3rd active
Teemu Selanne, 552, 23rd all-time, 4th active

Power Play Goals
Brendan Shanahan, 235, 6th all-time, 1st active
Joe Sakic, 205, 11th all-time, 2nd active
Teemu Selanne, 190, t-16th all-time, 4th active
Mats Sundin, 155, 32nd all-time, 7th active

Game-Winning Goals
Brendan Shanahan, 108, 4th all-time, 1st active
Mats Sundin, 94, 6th all-time, 2nd active
Teemu Selanne, 87, 15th all-time, 5th active
Joe Sakic, 86, t-16th all-time, t-6th active