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With the split of Czechoslovakia into two sovereign nations in 1993, this resulted in two hockey-rich countries in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. From the likes of Jaromir Jagr and Patrik Elias on the Czech side and Marian Hossa on the Slovakian side, each nation has produced a plethora of elite NHL players and in particular, is renowned for offensive talent. Two of the best goal-scorers to emerge from each half of the formerly unified countries have been Peter Bondra of Slovakia and Milan Hejduk of the Czech Republic – both 50-goal scorers and NHL scoring leaders during their illustrious careers, each racked up over 800 career points, thus prompting the question:
Who was better – Peter Bondra or Milan Hejduk?
The Beginning
Despite hailing from different sides of the former Czechoslovakia, Bondra and Hejduk were both stars in their native leagues as teenagers; neither was highly drafted, though would nevertheless contribute as rookies at the NHL level.
Born to a Czechoslovakian father and a Polish mother in the former Soviet Union in what is now Ukraine, Bondra began his professional hockey career with HC Kosice in the First Division of the then-Czechoslovak League for four seasons and quickly established himself as one of the league’s top scorers. However, he was not a highly touted prospect and was drafted 156th overall in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft by the Washington Capitals, putting together a so-so rookie year in 1990-1991 with 12 goals and 16 assists for 28 points and a -10 +/- rating in 54 games played. In terms of his Slovak heritage, he would not become a Slovakian passport holder and citizen until 1994.
As for Hejduk, he was born in Czechoslovakia (the part that is now the Czech Republic) and originally played for HC Pardubice in the Czech Extraliga, where he won Rookie of the Year honors. Though drafted 87th overall in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft by the then-Quebec Nordiques, he did not come over to the NHL until the 1998-1999 season – as a rookie with the Colorado Avalanche (the Nordiques had relocated and rebranded since he was drafted), he tallied 14 goals and 34 assists for 48 points and a +6 +/- rating to finish third for the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie.
Career Comparison
In their respective primes, Bondra and Hejduk were among the NHL’s most explosive offensive players, with each having at least one 50-goal season to their name and leading the league in goals.
During the 1990s, Bondra established himself as one of the NHL’s top scorers; after improving to 56 points (28 goals and 28 assists) with a +16 +/- rating in his sophomore campaign, he posted his first 30-goal season in 1992-1993 with 37 goals and a career-high 48 assists for a career-best 85 points with a +8 +/- rating. Moreover, during the lockout-shortened 1994-1995 season, he led the league with 34 goals in 47 games, though only had 9 assists for 43 points total. The next year, Bondra soared to even greater heights with a 50-goal season: 52 goals and 28 assists for 80 points and a +18 +/- rating.
In the later half of the decade, Bondra continued to be among the league’s elite at scoring goals. Following a 46-goal season in 1996-1997 (along with 31 assists for 77 points), he once again paced the league in goals in 1997-1998 with 52 goals and 26 assists for 78 points and a +14 +/- rating, finishing a career-best sixth for the Hart Trophy as league MVP. However, his scoring prowess declined the next couple of years (31 and then 21 goals) before rebounding in 2000-2001 to the tune of 45 goals and 36 assists for 81 points and a +8 +/- rating. Over the next two seasons, Bondra would have his last couple of 30-goal campaigns (39 goals in 2001-2002 and 30 goals in 2002-2003).
Midway through the 2003-2004 seasons, a rebuilding Capitals team traded Bondra to the Ottawa Senators for Brooks Laich and a second-round draft pick, though he only played 23 goals with Ottawa; for many years, Bondra was Washington’s all-time career goals leader, but has since been far surpassed by Alex Ovechkin. During the 2004-2005 lockout, Bondra briefly played with HK SKP Poprad in the Slovak Extraliga and later considered rejoining Washington, but instead signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Thrashers. A year later, he signed with the Chicago Blackhawks and would score his 500th career goal in an otherwise quiet 2006-2007 season before announcing his retirement a year later at age 39; among NHL players with 500 career goals, Bondra has the fewest career points.
Meanwhile, Hejduk built upon his rookie season and improved to 36 goals and 36 assists for 72 points with a +14 +/- rating in 1999-2000. The next year, he reached the 40-goal mark with 41 goals and 38 assists for 79 points and a +32 +/- rating. After declining to just 44 points (21 goals and 23 assists) in 62 games played in 2001-2002, Hejduk posted a career-best year in 2002-2003: playing on a line with Joe Sakic and Alex Tanguay, he edged out Markus Naslund to win the Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal-scorer with career-highs of 50 goals and 48 assists for 98 points and a league-leading +52 +/- rating, though only placed 12th for the Hart Trophy. As an encore, he had another outstanding season with 35 goals and 40 assists for 75 points and a +19 +/- rating.
During the 2004-2005 NHL lockout, Hejduk returned to the Czech Republic to play for his original professional team HC Pardubice. Upon returning to the NHL, his production declined to 58 points (24 goals and 34 assists) in 2005-2006, but rebounded to 35 goals and 35 assists for 70 points and a +10 +/- rating in 2006-2007. Overall, though, Hejduk was no longer the explosive player of the early 2000s and settled into the 50-60 point range annually. In fact, between 2007-2008 and 2010-2011, he posted between 20-30 goals each year and with the exception of 2009-2010 (44 points), tallied between 54 to 59 points annually. In 2011, after Adam Foote’s retirement, Hejduk became just the third player to wear the captain’s “C” in Avalanche history (after Sakic and Foote); however, his offensive impact continued to decrease and after becoming the first player in Colorado history to play 1,000 career games with the franchise, he retired at age 36 post the 2012-2013 season.
With an NHL career difference of two seasons and around 60 games in Bondra’s favor, the Slovak scored more career goals and had more total points than his Czech counterpart, but Hejduk tallied more assists and had a better +/- rating. On a season-by-season basis, Bondra has the edge in 30-goal seasons (9x to 5x, including a 4 to 2 advantage in 40-goal seasons and a 2 to 1 edge in 50-goal seasons) and 80-point campaigns (3 vs. 1, though Hejduk has the lone 90-point season), with a slightly better career points-per-game average at 0.83 vs. 0.79. Moreover, this resulted in more All-Star Game selections (5x to 3x); while Hejduk won a Richard Trophy, Bondra also led the league in goals scored 2x before the advent of the award (which was introduced in 1998-1999). Overall, both players had NHL careers that were long enough and productive enough to warrant Hall of Fame consideration, but neither is currently in the Hall.
Regular Season Statistics
| Peter Bondra | Player | Milan Hejduk |
| 16 (1990-2007) | Seasons | 14 (1998-2013) |
| 1,081 | Games Played | 1,020 |
| 503 | Goals | 375 |
| 389 | Assists | 430 |
| 892 | Points | 805 |
| +74 | +/- | +101 |
| 5x | All-Star Games | 3x |
| – | Hart Trophies | – |
| – | Ross Trophies | – |
| – | Stanley Cups | 1x |
| – | Conn Smythes | – |
| – | Other Awards | 1x Richard |
| – | Hall of Fame Induction | – |
Source: Hockey-Reference.com
In addition to their regular season production, both Bondra and Hejduk were cornerstones of Stanley Cup contenders in their prime, as well as valuable team members for their respective national teams.
Though Bondra played in the postseason 11x (10x with the Capitals and once with the Senators), most of these appearances resulted in first round exits. By far his most memorable playoffs came in 1997-1998 when an upstart Washington team advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals before being swept by Steve Yzerman’s Detroit Red Wings – it was also Bondra’s most productive individual postseason with 7 goals and 5 assists for 12 points and a +4 +/- rating.
A perennial playoff participant with the Avalanche (9x in 14 seasons), Hejduk advanced to the Western Conference Finals with Colorado for four straight seasons from 1998-1999 to 2001-2002, though Colorado would lose 3x. Nevertheless, in 2000-2001, the Avalanche came back from a 3-2 deficit in the Stanley Cup Finals behind Patrick Roy’s heroics to beat Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils in seven games (the championship is perhaps most notable for trade acquisition Ray Bourque finally lifting the Cup); individually, it was Hejduk’s best postseason performance, as he tallied 7 goals and a playoff-leading 16 assists for 23 points with a +8 +/- rating.
On the international stage, Bondra represented Slovakia at both the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan and the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, but the team did not medal either time; nevertheless, he helped guide the team to a gold medal and a bronze at back-to-back World Championships in the early 2000s. At those same Olympics, Hejduk won both gold (Nagano) and bronze (Turin) for the rival Czech Republic team, in addition to bronzes at both the World Cup and the World Championships.
Playoff Statistics
| Peter Bondra | Player | Milan Hejduk |
| 80 | Games Played | 112 |
| 30 | Goals | 34 |
| 26 | Assists | 42 |
| 56 | Points | 76 |
| +5 | +/- | +7 |
Source: Hockey-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; while they were explosive playmakers in their prime, both Bondra and Hejduk (in particular, the latter) fell off in production on the back half of their NHL careers. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.
Decade of Dominance
| Peter Bondra | Player | Milan Hejduk |
| 1991-1993, 1994-1999, 2000-2003 | Decade of Dominance | 1998-2004, 2005-2009 |
| 722 | Games Played | 783 |
| 394 | Goals | 312 |
| 287 | Assists | 345 |
| 681 | Points | 657 |
| +74 | +/- | +137 |
Source: Hockey-Reference.com
Across their decades of dominance, the trends are similar to their career totals – Bondra was the better goal-scorer and overall point producer with a higher per-game scoring rate (0.94 vs. 0.84 points per game), while Hejduk had more assists with a better +/- rating.
My Thoughts
With less than 100 unique NHL players scoring 50+ goals in a season throughout the league’s history and even fewer leading the league in goals scored in any given season, Peter Bondra and Milan Hejduk are certainly in rarified company. While neither had the longevity and/or versatility to reach 1,000 career points, each was nevertheless an incredible player at his peak; in fact, despite Bondra being somewhat one-dimensional, that one dimension was elite, as he was the offensive engine for the Capitals and arguably one of the top five goal-scorers in the league during the mid to late-1990s. As for Hejduk, outside of a few seasons in the early 2000s, he was consistently excellent, but rarely mentioned among the cream of the crop and instead, more of a strong supporting player on the Avalanche to the likes of Sakic and Peter Forsberg. In terms of the Hall of Fame, ultimately, I would say both players fall shy of the mark, though Bondra has a much stronger case as a member of the 500-goal club – among eligible players, the only other players with 500+ goals not in the Hall are Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick, Pat Verbeek, and Pierre Turgeon.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Peter Bondra
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
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