How common is it to play for 3 Canadian teams and no U.S teams?

[Master Radishes]

Well done guys, you've merited a passing reference in a Down Goes Brown article.

As best I can tell—and these guys appear to agree—Esau is the one and only NHL player in the modern era to spend his career with four or more teams, all of them Canadian.

 

[Iapyi]

Bobby Dollas played in Que, Win, Edm, Ott, Cgy


On a similar topic, I believe Dave McLlwain holds a record for playing for 4 different NHL teams in a single season.

bobby played on multiple USA based teams as well though.

 

[McGarnagle]

Jonas Hoglund hockey statistics and profile at hockeydb.com

I present to you Jonas Hoglund

Fun fact: Jonas Hoglund was traded to the Bruins right before the 2001 draft, but Pat Quinn's fax machine jammed and as a result the Leafs didn't get the paperwork into the league office before the deadline (the return piece from Boston was Kyle Wanvig, an unsigned prospect who was going to go back into the draft if not signed by a certain time). So the trade was nullified and Hoglund stayed in Toronto a few more years.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

another guy whose first three teams, like phaneuf’s, were all canadian: martin gelinas, edmonton, quebec, vancouver. finally ended up playing for a us team after he had the misfortune to meet mike keenan.

but he has to be the only guy to play for three different canadian teams in the finals, right?

 

[The Panther]

but [Gelinas] has to be the only guy to play for three different canadian teams in the finals, right?

Wow, good question!

I'm struggling to think of anyone else...

Gelinas' case is particularly rare in that he played for a Canadian team in the Finals in the era when a Canadian team made the Finals nearly every year (c.1976 -- 1990) and in the Dead-Puck/Lockout era when it was extremely rare for Canadian team to do so (2004). That is, 14 years between Finals' appearances...

Not forgetting his 2002 run with Carolina, Gelinas also appeared in the Finals 4 times for 4 different teams, which must also be some kind of record...