Guys who never got a chance in the NHL

[wetcoast]

Paul Gardner Played plenty of NHL games

Tom Reid(Vancouver minor hockey legend for Riley Park) rumour has it cause he was Black no junior team was brave enough to sign him) There are probably hundreds of examples of this, ie local minor hockey legends that peaked extremely early and never lived up to what some people thought

Pekka Rautakallio Plenty of NHL games

Tony Currie 290 NHL games, could be a scoring top 6 support type of guy on weaker teams

 

[kakeurpola]

Culture shock and skating style I would say. A young Raipe had alright speed, but his skating was choppy.

Plus by late eighties, around his stint with the Islanders he'd developed a back problem which took him few years to fully recover from.

 

[Seiza]

Czech Radek Hamr played a few games in Ottawa in his early 20's, excelled on the big ice in Europe and was a solid player in the SHL, NLA and national team.

Stefan Nilsson comes to mind, one of the best passers in the SHL during the 90's. A poor man's Joe Thornton, would have thrived with a good shooter on his wing.

Tom Bissett, damn this guy could score goals. Surprised he never got a shot. Got 5 games with Detroit early in his career but stayed in Europe until he retired.

I will also add two Swedes that I actually never liked as players, but they were definately good enough.

Magnus Johansson got a couple games in the NHL (45), but I believe he would be a dominant d-man in todays hockey. Was born two decades too early.

Jonas Bergqvist played only 22 games for Calgary. But was a clutch player for Leksand and Tre Kronor. A poor man's Mats Sundin.

 

[crobro]

Glen Goodall

Scott Driscoll

Dan Hodgson

Miles Zaharko

 

[Leafsfan74]

Kinda a two parter..

Someone mentioned this guy Chris Valentine in some other thread. Dude scored 30g 37a for 67 points in 60 games as a rookie in '81-'82. He then somehow played most of the next season in the AHL, torching that league and putting up 17 points in 23 games when he was called up. Next year, 11 points, 22 games, so definitely a bit of a slide but still seemingly serviceable, even if it was the high scoring '80s. Still spent most of that year in the AHL though. After that the dude shipped out to Germany and just wrecked house there for a decade (103 points in 45 games one year) before calling it quits.

So

1) Anyone know the story there? Was his D that bad? Problems with management? Crazy to me that he put up 95 points in his first 105 games and that wasn't good enough.
2) Any players you can think of that just didn't get a fair shake in the NHL? What about those dudes who torched the AHL but just couldn't quite play at the NHL level?

Only other name I can think of is Tim Kennedy. I liked his style in his first full season in the NHL, he seemed to slip off checks really well and I thought he could develop into a 20-20 guy. Instead he got into a contract dispute over a couple hundred K with management and was let go. Career just kinda nosedived after that, career journeyman and AHLer. So that's a case where he got his chance and seemingly just blew it.

Well, I didn't read the threat, no time unfortunately, so if it's a repeat, sorry.

Tony Hand. Interesting British hockey player who has been named the British Gretzky. He could have found his way and done some damage in the NHL

Tony Hand - Wikipedia

Also, a whoooole bunch of Russian, Czech and other former Eastern Bloc nation players.

 

[billybudd]

Nanana nah, nana nah nah nah

 

[carjackmalone]

Don Murdock

 

[Moose Head]

Kind of surprised Guy Rouleau wasn't even drafted. I know he was short, but you'd think being MVP of the QMJHL and setting the Memorial Cup record for scoring would get you drafted and a shot at the NHL.

Yeah, he had a better stat line than his teammate Luc Robitaille. He got a contract with the habs and did ok in his 86 games with the habs AHL affiliate, getting almost a PPG, but didn’t distinguish himself offensively over his competition for an NHL job, Gilchrist and Keane and those guys were far better all round players with much more bite to their game. Rouleau had to be on a scoring line or he was useless, whereas Keane and Gilchrist were much more versatile.

I also read he didn’t speak a lick of English. I know it’s Montreal, but the predominant language amongst players in the room is English and communication with teammates probably held him back.

 

[Overrated]

Dopita Prochazka & Patera were all excellent players who just didn’t get lucky in their NHL careers.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Mitchell Miller could be a player headed down this path. Possibly a USNDTP candidate (hard to say, not privvy to the inner-workings of the decisions on who to invite to Evaluation Camp) without the criminal stuff, then possibly a late 1st round pick based on level of play, then definitely a NCAA player, then definitely a player with an NHL contract and from there, who knows but a good shot to at least get some games and you see what happens.

Right or wrong (everyone has their thoughts) has had his hockey future derailed by stuff that happened outside of Hockey. His career is not over, still quite young and if he dominates the KHL, it's possible the cost/benefit shifts to where someone eats the PR and brings him on board, and if he plays well in the NHL, then well, let's just say people are more forgiving. But there is always a limited amount of time, and it's also very possible he is a player that never gets a chance in the NHL because of the stuff that happened.

 

[Brodeur]

It made me feel old when I found out his son is draft eligible this season, but one guy who came to mind was Christian Berglund. Although I'd classify it more as bad timing than never getting a chance?

For me, I always mentally attached Berglund with Brian Gionta. Both were taken by the Devils in the 1998 Draft, Berglund in the 2nd round while Gionta was a 3rd rounder. Both turned pro in 2001-02. At that point, Berglund was the more highly regarded prospect. Berglund outproduced Gionta in the AHL and NHL that season.

Lou swapped Petr Sykora for Jeff Friesen in the summer of 2002. This put another veteran LW ahead of Berglund on the depth chart. Berglund had a hard time finding a role with 4th line minutes. He'd get sent down and would suffer a season ending injury in the AHL which prevented him from being an option in the 2003 Cup run.

Berglund and Gionta started together on the 4th line to open the 2003-04 season. Gionta eventually worked his way up to the 1st line while Berglund battled injuries again. Lou dealt Berglund to Florida at the trade deadline for Viktor Kozlov.

In a short 10 game stint with Florida, Berglund scored 3 goals. I thought he'd get a chance to get middle six minutes there. Panthers GM Rick Dudley and head coach John Torchetti seemed optimistic about Berglund.

Christian Berglund, acquired earlier this month in the Viktor Kozlov deal with New Jersey, made his Panthers debut, playing for the first time since abdominal surgery in January.

Torchetti plans on giving Berglund, 23, eight to nine minutes a game before gradually increasing his ice time.

“He’s part of our future,” Torchetti said, “but we want to be careful. I just want him to come out and be gritty, competitive and a disturbance on the ice.”

But after the season, Florida fired Dudley/Torchetti and replaced them with Mike Keenan and Jacques Martin. And then the 2004-05 lockout happened.

When the league resumed, Keenan went on a spending spree and brought in Joe Nieuwendyk, Gary Roberts, Chris Gratton, Jozef Stumpel, and Martin Gelinas. They gave Berglund a qualifying offer but made no promises about him having an NHL spot. Berglund opted to stay in Europe.

Keenan abruptly quit as GM in September 2006 and was replaced by Martin. Martin had no connection with Berglund and wasn't interested in bringing him over. In the blink of an eye, Berglund went from promising 21 year old to 26 year old afterthought.

I don't think Berglund would have been a star player or anything, but I thought he could have been a 20-25 goal guy with sandpaper. The contrast between Gionta having 1000+ GP and Berglund only having 86 was always interesting to me.

Bad timing in ~five years, Berglund had: 4 GMs (Lamoriello/Dudley/Keenan/Martin), 4 coaches (Robinson/Constantine/Burns/Torchetti), and a lockout. And sadly he was a couple games short of getting his name on the 2003 Cup.

 

[Michael Farkas]

As the years go by, my brain is struggling to keep Christian Berglund and Niclas Bergfors from melding together and being just ~10 consecutive years of a Devils u22 forward that is ready to breakout if only he could get on a line with Elias...

I agree though, Berglund could have played in the league. I think it's bad timing for a few European players that just went "ah, forget it..." after things got back to normal here. I'm not sure if the information would be easy to find, but I wonder how slick some European clubs were with structuring deals for players who were NHL adjacent but right at that age where it was sort of make or break time...

The Panthers came back in '06 with dopey Anthony Stewart, Jon Sim, and also Juraj Kolnik who is more or less (for these purposes) the same thing as Christian Berglund...he could have played there. He would have made that team in my opinion. Or he gets shipped off to a place where he'd have a chance...Florida dealt Niklas Hagman to Dallas early that year I think...Dallas had Jaroslav Svoboda going most nights - I'm positive Berglund was better than Svoboda, with all due respect...but this is a game you can play all day haha

 

[Bear of Bad News]

And another annual Ari Ahonen appearance as alliteration absolutely annihilates.

 

[MeHateHe]

And another annual Ari Ahonen appearance as alliteration absolutely annihilates.

Aha aha aha

 

[kaiser matias]

And another annual Ari Ahonen appearance as alliteration absolutely annihilates.

It must have been really bittersweet for Ahonen and other goalies to be drafted by the Devils in those years. On the one hand you get drafted, and by a solid team. However you're behind Brodeur, so even if you end up the backup, you're playing 10-ish games a year, or hoping he goes down with an injury, which of course only really happened once (and saw Scott Clemmensen rewarded with a 3-year contract from the Panthers for it).

 

[Brodeur]

It must have been really bittersweet for Ahonen and other goalies to be drafted by the Devils in those years. On the one hand you get drafted, and by a solid team. However you're behind Brodeur, so even if you end up the backup, you're playing 10-ish games a year, or hoping he goes down with an injury, which of course only really happened once (and saw Scott Clemmensen rewarded with a 3-year contract from the Panthers for it).

Ahonen didn't outplay Clemmensen in the AHL, so that was probably more a case where he just wasn't good enough. Lou tried to cash in high on Ahonen in 2001 and dangled him to LA for Rob Blake at the deadline but the Kings wanted NHL talent back since they were still in the playoff race.

We take it for granted now that Brodeur stayed in New Jersey, but part of the reason the Devils took 1st round goalies in 1997+1999 was due to the tough contract negotiation with Brodeur in 1995. There was a point where it seemed like Brodeur was set to sign an offer sheet with St. Louis only for the league to step in and say that the Blues weren't permitted even though they had acquired their original 1st rounder back.

Brodeur signed a 4 year extension in October 1998. Brodeur could have potentially become UFA in summer 2003. So drafting a guy like Ahonen in 1999 was a bit of an insurance policy.

The guy who probably had the biggest gripe was Mike Dunham (same draft class as Brodeur). But in the end, he only had to wait an extra year before getting a chance to start elsewhere. Granted if there hadn't been a round of expansion, who knows if Lou would have held him hostage.