Best playoff rookies?

vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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goalies usually take the prize here. dryden, roy, hextall, ward, were all conn smythe winners. other notables include howard last year, ryan miller, martin brodeur, felix potvin, sean burke, mike vernon, and andy moog.

memorable rookie skaters that come immediately to mind are scott gomez (along with rookies john madden and colin white), ed jovanovski, alexei zhitnik, jaromir jagr, jeremy roenick,* and claude lemieux.


* roenick was a weird case because he'd played, and played well, in 10 playoff games the year before, but still qualified as a rookie in the '90 playoffs, which was his breakout performance.
 

TheDevilMadeMe

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Brian Rafalski was the most impressive rookie on the Devils in 2000, Vadim, though Gomez, Madden, and White were quite good too.

Agree with most of your list - Roy and Dryden are obviously the two most famous.
 

unknown33

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Dec 8, 2009
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Dino Ciccarelli deserves a mention.
3rd in goals scored (14) in the 1981 playoffs.
 

vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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Dino Ciccarelli deserves a mention.
3rd in goals scored (14) in the 1981 playoffs.

nice one.

Brian Rafalski was the most impressive rookie on the Devils in 2000, Vadim, though Gomez, Madden, and White were quite good too.

Agree with most of your list - Roy and Dryden are obviously the two most famous.

i thought rafalski was too old to qualify as a rookie-- makarov rule?

but that crop of guys really revived the devils. how often does a team that already has a hall of fame core get to bring in four new players of that calibre without losing anything? would be even more amazing today, in the cap era.
 

TheDevilMadeMe

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Rafalski was on the NHL all-rookie team that year, so I think he qualifies. I'm not sure what the age limit was.

And yeah, that Devils team was probably a Ray Bourque feelgood story from being a dynasty.
 
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tony d

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Jun 23, 2007
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Dryden in his rookie year is the top choice here. He won the Conn Smythe trophy before he played in the regular season.
 

Big Phil

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Jean Beliveau 1954
Also, would Maurice Richard still have been considered a rookie in 1944? A five goal playoff game and 12 goals and 17 points probably would have given him the Conn Smythe had it been around
 

Hardyvan123

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Jul 4, 2010
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Jean Beliveau 1954
Also, would Maurice Richard still have been considered a rookie in 1944? A five goal playoff game and 12 goals and 17 points probably would have given him the Conn Smythe had it been around

Sure Richard would qualify as a rookie in 44. Amazing that his 12 goals and 17 points were career highs but it was the War years.
 

Big Phil

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Sure Richard would qualify as a rookie in 44. Amazing that his 12 goals and 17 points were career highs but it was the War years.

He led the playoffs in goals 5 times and in points twice. I don't think he needed the War years to inflate his totals. To this day, Richard is 8th in playoff goals with 82 and this was done in a low scoring era with a maximum of two playoff rounds
 

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