Todd Bertuzzi

Lore & Background

Selected 23rd overall by the New York Islanders in the 1993 NHL entry draft, Bertuzzi played junior hockey with the Guelph Storm of the OHL for four seasons. He made his NHL debut with the Islanders in 1995–96. After 2+1⁄2 seasons with the Islanders, he was traded to the Vancouver Canucks, where he enjoyed his most successful seasons, including NHL first team All-Star honours in 2003. In 2006, after 7+1⁄2 seasons with Vancouver, he was traded to the Florida Panthers, then to the Detroit Red Wings. He later played single seasons with the Anaheim Ducks and Calgary Flames before returning to Detroit in 2009 and finishing his career there. Internationally, he played for Team Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics and the 1998 and 2000 World Championships. On April 7, 2025, he was announced as head coach of the Cambridge Redhawks of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League.

In Their Own Story

The Pacific Coliseum hummed with that particular Vancouver electricity, the kind that builds in the third period when the home crowd senses a win slipping away. Bertuzzi skated the blue line, stick dragging, eyes tracking the play two passes ahead. Then the puck changed hands, a cross-check went wide, and something in his shoulders locked. He turned. The follow-through was a single, ugly arc of maple and fiberglass. The sound it made against Moore's helmet was not a crack but a thud, dense and final. The coliseum didn't cheer. It exhaled. Bertuzzi stood over the motionless figure, stick still raised, and for three seconds the only sound was the faint hiss of his skates on the ice and the distant, confused murmur of twenty thousand people who had just watched something they could not unsee. Then the linesman's whistle cut the silence, and the night split into before and after, never to be reassembled.

Reader's Guide

Bertuzzi is the uncle of Tyler Bertuzzi, who plays in the NHL. He is best known for his role in the Steve Moore incident, which led to suspensions by the NHL and IIHF and criminal charges. He never played for the Los Angeles Kings.

Did You Know?

• Bertuzzi was drafted 23rd overall by the New York Islanders in 1993.
• He recorded 119 points in his final OHL season with Guelph, setting a single-season team record with 54 goals.
• He was traded from the Islanders to the Canucks in 1998 along with Bryan McCabe for Trevor Linden.
• Bertuzzi scored his first NHL hat trick on December 30, 2000, against the San Jose Sharks.
• He was named head coach of the Cambridge Redhawks in April 2025.