Guys who never should have played a single game

[blundluntman]

Nate "The General" Guenin

 

[GlitchMarner]

Rickard Wallin.

Played for the Leafs in 09/10. 60 games and 9 pts. He was a good player in Sweden but he didn't have the skating or athleticism to work out in the NHL, especially as he was having a bottom six role as he wasn't skilled enough for more than that. Those were dark days for the TML.

My favorite memory of Wallin is seeing him have an open net against the Penguins, tee up a slapshot and fire the puck well wide.

 

[Tall Morty]

Christian Hanson... maybe I’m remembering wrong, but it felt like his signing was more of a gimmick than anything (because of the Slap Shot connection) and partially due to his size, since the Leafs were going through the whole ‘truculence’ debacle at the time.

 

[Brodeur]

What was the deal with Jared Staal? Didn't Eric call him the most talented of the Staal brothers or something? Did he just feel sorry for the guy? Didn't he put up garbage stats in the OHL?

Pic courtesy of HabsFan18's awesome thread of old THN Draft Previews: https://hfboards.mandatory.com/thre...-at-past-thn-draft-previews-1986-2004.516093/

As I understand it, the "Jared might be the best of the bunch" was a throwaway quote from THN's 2003 Draft Preview article on Eric Staal. The quote was attributed to his father. And also keep in mind that Jared was 12 at the time. I vaguely recall that later there was some sentiment that their dad was misquoted/misunderstood in that he was referring to Jordan not Jared.

 

[crobro]

Dan Cloutier
Ian Kidd
Victor Nachaev
Tim Hunter

 

[Michael Farkas]

Ooh, I missed one...

Almost all of the Generation X Penguins...especially Shane Endicott.

 

[Brodeur]

The early months of the 2010-11 season for the Devils was a calamity. There was a rash of injuries on defense and suddenly guys who were 12th/13th on the depth chart were being called into action. Our AHL defenders were average at that level, so it was brutal to watch them take on NHL caliber forwards. And many of them were lefties who were forced to play their weak side.

New Jersey Devils 2010-11 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com

Andy Greene
Henrik Tallinder
Anton Volchenkov
Bryce Salvador
Colin White
Anssi Salmela
Mark Fraser
----------------------
Matt Corrente
Jay Leach
Matt Taormina
Tyler Eckford
Olivier Magnan
Mark Fayne

There was a 20 game stretch where 3 guys from the bottom group were getting regular time out of necessity. Perhaps predictably, John MacLean was fired after the team stumbled to a 9-22-2 start. But for some reason the media never seemed to attribute the struggles to the AHL caliber defense. While the NHL regulars weren't a sexy group on paper, the Devils finished up 29-17-3 with everybody getting healthy.

But out of that group, those were Magnan's only NHL games. Taormina/Eckford got cups of coffee in other seasons.

 

[TMLegend]

Andy Wozniewski. He was horrible, not surprising he only had a couple cups of coffee after leaving Toronto.

 

[Stephen]

Justin Pogge? Super hyped up goalie prospect kept over Tuukka Rask was given the obligatory cup of coffee even though his development stalled and probably wasn't a viable goalie option.

 

[Sentinel]

Half of Detroit's d-corps over the past five years qualify, but I'll start with Brian Lashoff. Simply nowhere near NHL level.

 

[therealkoho]

Boris Valabik

1st round pick, as it turned out mostly because of his size.

His being taken so high and given a run in the NHL is almost purely an exercise of "lets find the next Chara" (tall, strong, Slovakian defenseman)

his pre draft years werent exactly great either...14pts in 46 games in Slovak juniors, and 16pts in 68 games in the OHL

he's the guy that Sid punched in the yarbles, from behind no less

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Justin Pogge? Super hyped up goalie prospect kept over Tuukka Rask was given the obligatory cup of coffee even though his development stalled and probably wasn't a viable goalie option.

even worse...the Bruins would've taken Pogge instead of Rask for Raycroft but Toronto said no

 

[FerrisRox]

In the past decade who are some examples of players who truly didnt earn the right to play a single NHL game.

These guys are professional athletes and worked their asses off to get into the best league in the world. Who are you, or anyone here, to say they "didn't earn the right" to play.

This thread is brutal.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

These guys are professional athletes and worked their asses off to get into the best league in the world. Who are you, or anyone here, to say they "didn't earn the right" to play.

This thread is brutal.

the person that would go to their local rink if they wanted to see crap hockey, not pay 100 bucks a seat to see it in the best league in the world

 

[FerrisRox]

Peter Worrell skill wise was about the worst I've seen. I mean he could barely skate

I won't say he never should have played, but if the question is who is the least talented player you ever saw at the NHL level it is easily Peter Worrell.

I've never seen another player where there were multiple hockey skills (skating, shooting, passing) that I was clearly better at them than the NHL player was.

 

[FerrisRox]

Boris Valabik

1st round pick, as it turned out mostly because of his size.

He went tenth overall, which means there were three absolute legends taken in the top ten, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Boris Valabik.

 

[mikemar1]

Paul Higgins..early 80's Leafs enforcer..couldn't even cut it in echl

 

[Johnny Engine]

These guys are professional athletes and worked their asses off to get into the best league in the world. Who are you, or anyone here, to say they "didn't earn the right" to play.

This thread is brutal.

I mostly agree with you, though there are two distinct classes of answers in this thread. Wartime guys like Buzinski, or ECHL talents with family connections like Jared Staal, those guys didn't exactly work themselves up to become the best thousand or so athletes in their field at any point, though phrasing it in a moralistic way ("didn't deserve to...") is still unnecessarily disrespectful. So identifying guys like that is at least worth a thread if we're cool about it.

Guys like Worrell though, still managed to become marginally useful at something that NHL GMs used to value, so there's no point in going on about how every single 13th forward employed by a team from the 70s to the 2010s shouldn't have been there. And names like Sjostrom, Yakupov, Cloutier...beyond out to lunch, whether you like those guys or not.

A question on Fukufuji - my impression was that he was the Kings' 5th or 6th goalie, in a season where they were wracked with injuries and not even strong in the crease in the first place. Were there any extenuating circumstances leading to him even getting that far on LA's depth chart? Obviously his Japanese origin made a stir when he played an NHL game, but was there any reason he'd have been out of his depth even in the ECHL? Or were the Kings just in an ordinarily bad place with their goaltending pre-Quick?

 

[FerrisRox]

A question on Fukufuji - my impression was that he was the Kings' 5th or 6th goalie, in a season where they were wracked with injuries and not even strong in the crease in the first place. Were there any extenuating circumstances leading to him even getting that far on LA's depth chart? Obviously his Japanese origin made a stir when he played an NHL game, but was there any reason he'd have been out of his depth even in the ECHL? Or were the Kings just in an ordinarily bad place with their goaltending pre-Quick?

The year he got called up, he had the best numbers on their ECHL club.

 

[Ceremony]

I present: The 2008/09 Colorado Avalanche

2008–09 Colorado Avalanche season - Wikipedia

Ray Macias
Aaron MacKenzie
Mike Vernace
Wes O'Neill
Derek Peltier

O'Neill was the worst of the lot. Large. Slow moving.

 

[Michael Farkas]

A question on Fukufuji - my impression was that he was the Kings' 5th or 6th goalie, in a season where they were wracked with injuries and not even strong in the crease in the first place. Were there any extenuating circumstances leading to him even getting that far on LA's depth chart? Obviously his Japanese origin made a stir when he played an NHL game, but was there any reason he'd have been out of his depth even in the ECHL? Or were the Kings just in an ordinarily bad place with their goaltending pre-Quick

Fukufuji was a PR pick that stumbled into the show because of a bunch of injuries...just a mess of a goalie, he played like his equipment was too heavy for him, like when you put an 8 year old in net for the first time...fine for the Cheese Toast league I guess, but anything above that is well above his skill level.

If your top goalie coming into the year is Dan Cloutier, you know you have absolutely zippo going on in the crease...

 

[Doctor No]

Fukufuji was a PR pick that stumbled into the show because of a bunch of injuries...just a mess of a goalie, he played like his equipment was too heavy for him, like when you put an 8 year old in net for the first time...fine for the Cheese Toast league I guess, but anything above that is well above his skill level.

If your top goalie coming into the year is Dan Cloutier, you know you have absolutely zippo going on in the crease...

This chart:
2006-2007 Los Angeles Kings Goaltender Game-by-Game Performance

Shows decently well Los Angeles' problems in net that season.

Of course, their next season:
2007-2008 Los Angeles Kings Goaltender Game-by-Game Performance

Was arguably even worse.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Oh man, I forgot all about Jason LOLBarbera...if I remember, he had the record for shutouts in an AHL season or some kind of record like that...but just couldn't hack it in the show. With all those young, inexperienced players in the net, their trade value on these boards must have been through the roof...

Danny Taylor and LaBarbera for Jarome Iginla anyone?

 

[Doctor No]

Danny Taylor resurfaced with the Senators this past season!

 

[Michael Farkas]

According to science, I read that he will next play in March of 2023...

Oh and while I see his name, maybe you throw this in your most trivial of trivia pile...

Jean-Sebastien Aubin played 54 seconds of playoff hockey in his NHL career. It was in game 6 of the 2001 Eastern Conference Semifinal against Buffalo. The Penguins had used their time out earlier in the game and needed to rest some players, so they swapped out Johan Hedberg and put in Aubin. Some accounts say that the home fans booed the move, while other believe they were chanting the familiar "Moose" call...Aubin believes the former.