One man was known for punching faces, the other was known for punching home goals. One man is the Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations for the NHL, the other just recently teemed up with Patrik Laine to play some tennis.

Kris King joined the Winnipeg Jets in a trade from the New York Rangers that sent him along with Tie Domi to Winnipeg for Ed Olzcyk and the pair of rugged, hard nosed players instantly became fan favorites and were linked in everything from playing style to off ice promotions.

King spent three and a half seasons with the Jets before their move south and while he didn’t score a ton of points – just 25 goals and 54 points in 260 games wearing Jets colors – fans loved him all the same as he and Tie scrapped their way into the hearts of Winnipegers almost literally.

While Kris King was busy punching in people’s faces, Teemu Selanne was torching goalies at a record rate. It almost came to pass that the Jets would have never had the Finnish Flash as a member of the team as contract negotiations to get Teemu to Winnipeg were dragging and it was an offer sheet signed with the Calgary Flames that forced the Jets hand to match and bring him to the NHL club. The Jets may have paid him more than what they had wanted, but after a year where he set records for goal scoring and points by an NHL rookie, hardly anyone ever remembered what the fuss was the previous fall.

Teemu spent two more seasons with the Jets – not quite matching the astounding highs he hit in his rookie season, but still a dependable 20+ goal scorer – before being traded to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim midway through his fourth season with the Jets in a move that shocked both fans and Teemu alike.

The move was an even bigger gut punch to fans who never got to give Teemu one final send off. The Ducks didn’t play in Winnipeg for the rest of the 1994-95 season and the Jets moved south that following summer.

Years later, upon the NHL’s arrival back in Winnipeg, one of the biggest highlights of the 2011-12 season was the return of Selanne to Winnipeg – still a member of the Ducks albeit with stops in Denver and San Jose in the middle of all that – with one of the loudest most sustained ovations heard.

If this was a hockey fight, Kris King would win hands down. If it was a goal scoring contest, Selanne would win easily. But it’ll be an on-line twitter poll to see who moves on to the second round of our Fan Favorite Tournament.