Kevin LaVallee

Bluesguru

Registered User
Aug 10, 2014
1,957
823
St. Louis
Anybody know why his career came to a halt after the age of 25. Had pretty good production in his career, had 28 points in 33 games with Pens his last year and then never played again. Anyone know why he was out of league after that? The guy had a cannon of a slap shot too.
 

Staniowski

Registered User
Jan 13, 2018
3,506
3,055
The Maritimes
I remember LaVallee but I don't know a lot about him and I don't know precisely why he left the NHL at a young age.

According to the link the other poster provided, he suffered quite a few injuries during his NHL years. But he also played many years in Europe - and scored lots of points - so it appears injuries may not have been the reason, or at least the only one.

What I do remember about his play is that he was smallish and quite talented. Played on top lines. But, I think he was not very good defensively and considered quite easily replaceable.
 
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MS

1%er
Mar 18, 2002
53,211
82,939
Vancouver, BC
The simple answer is that the obsession with goons and fighting during the 1980s and 1990s pushed out many smaller skill players who should have been in the league on merit, but were instead replaced by AHL and ECHL-level knuckle-draggers.

Moreover, thanks to Alan Eagleson,+ NHL wages were seriously suppressed in the 1980s. So if you were a guy like Lavallee who was getting screwed around and kicked around from team to team, it was a lot easier to go to Italy or Switzerland and make more money living in a beautiful city and basically say 'f*** the NHL'. Guys like Dan Hodgson and JF Sauve did basically the same thing.
 

Theokritos

Global Moderator
Apr 6, 2010
12,537
4,906
So if you were a guy like Lavallee who was getting screwed around and kicked around from team to team, it was a lot easier to go to Italy or Switzerland and make more money living in a beautiful city and basically say 'f*** the NHL'.

Random find: In the 1989 preseason, Lavallee won a hardest shot competition by an Austrian TV broadcaster. His prize was that he got to move around in a rented Rolls Royce with a driver for three days.
 
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