What Made Joe Pavelski Such a Special Player? (+)

At first glance, it might be hard to believe that Joe Pavelski scored as many goals as he did.

Smaller, slower, and a seventh-round pick, Pavelski didn’t look the part of a future 400-goal scorer when the San Jose Sharks made him the 205th pick of the 2003 Draft.

And even though he tore through the USHL, NCAA, and AHL, the doubts persisted. For example, Pavelski was never a Hockey News pre-season top-10 Sharks prospect.

Sharks Top-10 Prospects Rankings: 2000 to 2009

But 476 goals with the San Jose Sharks and Dallas Stars later, Pavelski retired last month as the 2003 Draft’s top goal and pointscorer.

What made Pavelski, for an athlete average-looking, so unstoppable?

As part of a summer tribute to the San Jose Sharks legend, San Jose Hockey Now reached out to Doug Wilson, Peter DeBoer, Todd McLellan, Brenden Dillon, and Jason Demers to answer that question.

SJHN also spoke with ex-Los Angeles Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi, who squared off against Pavelski in many memorable Sharks-Kings battles.

“The thing that I think people have to understand about Joe Pavelski, his tipping was all-world, maybe the best of all time, but his game was so much more than that,” DeBoer, who coached Pavelski from 2015 to 2019, said.