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.