I agree. Daigle was no Patrik Stefan. He had a solid NHL career. He didn't meet expectations, but he turned into a quality player. Unfortunately, we always remember him in relation to the expectations put upon him, which isn't really fair.
That's that my thought process as well pretty much, why I thought of him.
Now looking over the thread, there certainly seems to be difference of opinion on what is a "quality" career/player for players-and my qualifier was vague. My thought process on Alex for the thread went like this:
Top 10-15 draft pick: yes
High Expectations: Absolutely yes.
Did he meet those expectations: Obviously not at all.
Did he have a quality NHL career: now this is where maybe it was poor word choice on my part, but here was my reasoning. The guy played 600 games. First off how many NHL players who are drafted even get to 600 games? Now how many of those were first rounders in the top 15 who were considered not to have met high expectations? Alex failed to meet expectations placed on him and where he was drafted-that is undeniable. My point for him, and for the thread in general, is that after failing those expecations, going on to have a 600 game career and putting up almost 300 points anyways, I think is pretty good given all the qualifiers-hence my use of "quality". What his "motivation" was, or how "skilled" he was in reality as people debate, that wasn't what I was thinking-I was going with the whole top 15/expectations/games played/points ratio-in other words-the numbers.
TL
R lol: top 15 pick, large,yet failed expectations, played over 600 games anyway with 300 points. Most of the names/ideas in this thread are pretty much along the lines I'm thinking of (with variations obviously in opinion of said names, but this is a discussion board after all
).