Alexandre Daigle : Why was he hyped so much?

[Rorschach]

BS. What Kane had in spades was awareness and elusiveness, he rarely got his clock cleaned because of it. Knowing how to protect yourself, particularly as a smaller skilled player is a skill in and of itself, and it's something Kane never lacked. Lindros was a big guy that never had to learn it because he was used to overpowering small kids his whole life, Kane being a smaller guy likely had to learn it as a young age and knew exactly how to do it.

Kane is/was a fantastic talent that would have excelled in any era. Imagine had he not played in such a low scoring, tight checking era and instead played in and up and down 80s era. If Denis Savard could top out at 131 points, who knows what Kane might have done considering he was definitely superior (Blackhawks fan here, well familiar with both). Martin St. Louis (born 8 months after Paul Kariya) is a great example of a little guy that managed to weave his way passed all the goons at various levels of Hockey to have a pretty darn good career to put it mildly.

You missed both points rather wildly. But I’m not here to fix you, not my job. Guess you had to have been there.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I guess you had to be there. Leafs/Kings prospect Yanic Perrault in 90/91 QMJHL season scored 185 points in 67g.

Yanic off by 78 points in draft year and 17 more games played lol, so no even close to the same.

 

[WarriorofTime]

You missed both points rather wildly. But I’m not here to fix you, not my job. Guess you had to have been there.

So you made a ridiculous statement and don’t want to validate it?

 

[Nick Hansen]

I am a semi frequent listener of the cam & strick podcast, and since there has been a lot of speculation in this thread I thought some of you would be interested to hear the truth directly from Daigle.

On a note, some of their interviews are boring. Daigle is one of the better ones in my opinion.


Some notes without timestamps.

- Says he never lost the passion for the game, although at times he stopped enjoying himself

-Thinks Pronger and Kariya were better prospects, but Kariya was underrated due to playing in the NCAA. Thinks he was taken over Pronger due to him being more marketable in Ottawa.

- Says he had some troubles with stress and adapting to new environments. This started in Junior for him.

-Says Eric Lindros was a nice guy and good teammate, sat next to him in Philly.

- His biggest regret is not trying to turn into a better defensive player. Says he scored well playing with Brind'amour. Roger Neilson wanted to turn him into a defensive player the next year and he didn't want to. He wishes he had and thinks he would have had a better 2nd half of his career.

- His year with the rangers was the worst in his career, and the least enjoyable for him. Lead to him retiring and traveling for 2 years.

- Says he was into drinking and partying but he never did drugs. Had friends who had bad experiences with drugs growing up.

- He thinks he had a good mind for the game, and good speed but thought he hands weren't good enough at the NHL level.

-Says playing in Ottawa was hard due to him not being ready to play against other teams best defenders at 18. Says players on later expansion teams had it easier then Ottawa and Tampa did.

- Says the draft day quote is mostly due to him being really excited after going to the draft from a race car event and him barely speaking English.

- Best of all, when people call him a bust his go to reply is 'how many games did you play in the NHL'.


All in all very good interview, one of the better ones they've done.

Welcome to the board, I always appreciate when posters summarize (long) interviews like this.

 

[carjackmalone]

Daigle lucky for him just happened to be caught at the height of the sport card trading industry Topps,Upper Deck etc . For a few years in the early to mid 90’s the card industry carried far to much clout over sports leagues and players associations just to mention a few.

Overhyped to sell rookie cards was the result

 

[RR44]

I think the hype was warranted. He was clearly an insanely skilled player who didn't have the drive. He still put up pretty respectable points on some really bad teams until he eventually fizzled out. He took 2 full seasons completely off and still put up 51 points in 78 games on a pretty bad Minnesota team. He came in during the height of the clutch and grab era. He's a guy that would probably thrive in today's NHL.

Great post and Daigle admitted as much on the Prime documentary he felt he could never match the hunger and drive he had in midget AAA when he was shooting for 50 goals which he was able to accomplish despite an injury.