Prospect Info: Most Disappointing Prospects in Hurricanes History

[DaveG]

f*** it. I've talked about doing this for a while and this f***ing virus finally has me at the point where this is a good time. So here it is, and I'm sure this particular poll is going to spark some debate because f*** it, if there's anything that heats us up when talking hockey it's in talking about just how much we suck.

So here's the criteria I'm working with here, you don't necessarily have to follow:
1 - how hyped was the prospect? (IE: not all first round picks are created equal, a guy that was hyped with multiple award potential that turned into a middling player could be seen as more disappointing to me than a random mid 1st rounder that never pans out)
2 - how was their career with the team?
3 - the "oh of course that's how that would go" factor: who was selected within a reasonable vicinity (say the next 5 picks for skaters or the next 2-3 goalies off the board). Bonus if the guy taken after was a prospect the armchair GMs loved that year (IE: Tatar)
4 - were there any mitigating circumstances that short-circuited their career? (IE: major injuries before they even really reach the show)
Bonus - was there anything the prospect did that just really stood out to ruin their own chances?

some standout candidates for me:
Igor Knyazev
Nikos Tselios
Jeff Heerema
Zach Boychuk
Zac Dalpe
Philippe Paradis

guys I'm not going to consider:
Anyone drafted in the last 5 drafts unless they have done something REALLY spectacularly stupid to derail their career. So Fleury and Ned? You're fair game, though I doubt either makes my list. Whereas Goat and Bean? you get a reprieve for now. Whether or not you want to consider them is up to you, but any obvious "not enough time" selections (IE: Ryan Suzuki) I'll be dismissing right out.

Going to do top 10 list from people and post cumulative results similar to how we do for the top prospects pool.

Click to read more...

 

[DaveG]

reserved for results list

 

[WreckingCrew]

Basically all our 1st/2nd round draft picks pre-2011 qualify...kinda sad actually. Ryan Murphy, Phillipe Paradis, I remember some hype around Mark Alt, Dalpe, Boychuk, McBain. I don't remember much before that as I didn't follow prospects at all, just Hurricanes & Checkers (ECHL then) players. I didn't really start following drafts/prospects much until about 2010 when I started paying attention more (so I can't comment on guys like Heerema, Tselios, Knyazev, Richmond, Zigomanis, Kurka). But yea, our track record for drafting pre-2012 or so was putrid.

 

[Canes]

Boychuk for me. I thought he would be a legit top 6 guy at the very least.

Knyazev, Tselios, and Heerema were a bit before my time. Guys like Dalpe were just 2nd round picks and longshots to make it on that alone. I knew Paradis would be a "bust" as soon as we made the pick.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Paradis would be last on my list. He was a reach from the moment the pick was made and there wasn't any hype at all for him. It was a disappointing pick, but not prospect.
Dalpe would be next to last. Regardless if we may have hyped him (simply because we didn't have any great prospects), he was a good, but not great AHLr and frankly, for where he was picked had a reasonable pro career.

Unfortunately, I wasn't a Canes fan when Knyazev, Tselios and Heerema were picked so I don't know how hyped they were so I can't rank those guys.

Boychuk, by default would be #1 therefore, but again, I have no perspective on the other 3.

 

[A Star is Burns]

Given what we spent on them and what we got out of them (just as players, not trade value), you can make an argument for guys like Hanifin, Lindholm, Johnson and Tanabe. Johnson was getting some crazy hype before and after being drafted, and obviously most of us know how that played out.

 

[2Minutes4Surging]

David Tanabe, Ryan Murphy and Noah Hanifin come to mind as disappointments. I never expected much of Boychuk/Dalpe/Paradis..

 

[Unsustainable]

Boychuk
Murphy

But:
Lindholm and Hanifin never lived up to their hype.

Lindholm is 100% on the rush to put him in the league, and Hanifin was all raw talent.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Murphy is probably the most correct answer. Boychuk and Hanifin come in 2nd and 3rd for me.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

Hanifin is probably the most disappointing and that's really because the pedigree/hype column was just so damn high. He's not a terrible NHLer by any means but he was supposed to be a slam dunk rockstar dman with with his ceiling as high as a franchise cornerstone and his floor as good top pairing guy. Adequate 2nd pairing wasn't in the conversation from what I remember.

He had/has all the skills but the only questions mark was that the defensive side would need some work to get up to speed. Everything else was supposed to be top tier. He hasn't shown any of that except for his skating from time to time. He's still young and all that b'lah blah blah, but even using the 'Dmen take longer to develop, especially those with a bit of size' he hasn't shown that potential at the NHL to come close to those lofty expectations for him. But we got Dougie out of it who is a top 10 dman so it's all good I guess.

Agreed with the above post that Tanabe and Ryan Murphy were all highly touted busts. Paradis is the worst 1st round selection I can remember. Hated how Francis was so smug when he made the pick and acted like he just robbed a bank.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

Boychuk
Murphy

But:
Lindholm and Hanifin never lived up to their hype.

Lindholm is 100% on the rush to put him in the league, and Hanifin was all raw talent.

Lindholm is doing good stuff in Calgary though. He was a 40-50 point, good all around player for us which was below expectations but he's excelled in a larger role in Calgary. Maybe he's not the 70+ point player we saw two years ago but if he winds up being a consistent 55-60 point guy who you can trust in all situations then he's worth his number #5 selection.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Yeah, Murphy is a good example as well. Personally, I'd put him slightly below Boychuk because I had higher expectations for Boychuk. Small, offensive minded defensemen always made me a bit wary.

What's funny is we Canes fan pined over Monahan when Lindholm struggled here and Monahan was playing great for Calgary. Now that Calgary has both guys, they love Lindholm and want to rid themselves of Monahan. I guess the grass is always greener.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

I mean one guy was so disappointing he hasn’t been mentioned yet.

Drayson Bowman ended up being very, very bad. Not much draft pedigree, yada yada, but we worked his way up to being somewhat well thought of (at least here) and ended up being a nobody.

 

[DaveG]

So stay with me on this one, but the number 1 most disappointing prospect in Canes history for me:

Jack Johnson

Should be no shock since I alluded to it, but he simply checks every f***ing one of my criteria boxes.

1 - Hype: In terms of pure hype this guy may be the most hyped prospect the Canes have ever drafted. More hyped than Hanifin, even more hyped than Staal or Svech. The phrase "multiple Norris trophies" was tossed around frequently by pundits. The guy was considered to be the next f***ing Chris Chelios. And he never even came close, he would top out as a 2nd pairing defenseman with terrible defensive awareness who would go out of his way to make a bad pinch when he had the puck, or to miss on a big hit attempt leaving the guy he should have been covered available to destroy the Kings defense.

2 - Canes Career: What career? He (or more, his dad) decided he was never going to sign with us long before he was traded and he turned down the chance to win a Cup he still hasn't even gotten remotely close to in his career. I mean f*** we WON that trade hands down since Gleason ended up being a superior player

3 - Opportunity Cost: Yeah I get it, this is stretching the definition here. We had Marc Staal (who would have some solid years as a top pairing defensive dman until he was injured) next on our list that year, and we passed on Kopitar (as did too many other teams) who was considered the top Euro prospect that year. Both would have been reasonable picks even if they went later in the first than they should have in retrospect.

4 - Mitigating Circumstances: None. It's inexplicable outside of stupidity how he didn't sign here and how his career turned out as it did.

Bonus: How he decided not to be a Cane. Just holy shit level stuff. Nearing training camp the year we drafted him there were signs he might sign, and then soon as he's on campus Jack Sr takes over as the guy everything goes through. All the speculation about wanting to play in a bigger market on a bigger stage comes out repeatedly after that. Meanwhile Jack Sr is living it up vicariously as BMOC, and spurns the Canes time after time. After the WJC, after the season at Michigan ends, at the start of the NHL playoffs, and even right before Game 1 of the f***ing SCF. And of course the second he's traded from Carolina to LA the noise coming out of the Johnson camp changes instantly from "well he wants to win a National Championship so he may be at Michigan all 4 years" to "of course it was always our intention to turn pro following this season at Michigan". That his career ended up with him being one of the most disappointing "elite" prospects in hockey history is f***ing karmic justice. The shit his family pulled on him afterwords is not and I do legitimately feel for Jack in that instance. His parents make the Lindros family look like f***ing saints by comparison.

 

[bleedgreen]

I hated the 97 draft, we traded down didn’t we? We got Tselios and Defauw. Both picks were bad and cemented how I felt about trading down. I’ve understood the perceived value in picking up an extra pick but it just rarely seems to turn out that you get good players out of it.

That followed by the 98 draft and Heerema. Those two years were my most annoying for the high picks, but that 98 draft also brought Cole, Vasicek, Westland and Svoboda. That’s ironically one of our best drafts overall.

I don’t mind the Hanifin pick, I think he’s a great player just not the one that was hyped. Easy to second guess now but he was the obvious choice to everyone there. I still have zero problems with the Fleury pick, never have.

Knyazev. Woof. I think that brought on JR’s fear of Russians.

I loved the JJ pick. I believe in no conspiracy theory that he wouldn’t sign with us after the second year. He promised Red Berenson he would stay two years after committing to play at his dream school at 14. He did exactly what he said he would do and his career showed he made the right choice by not rushing. I think his career could’ve gone completely different if he hadn’t been traded and I only believe he was traded because JR panicked after winning the cup and our D was decimated going into the next year. JJ has shown himself to be a character guy the whole time, it completely fits him even now that he promised he would stay two years and did - and that’s the only reason he didn’t sign at that time. I love ya Dave and believe his dad was certainly a detriment at that time and obviously his career.

 

[HisIceness]

I think Murphy could have been something decent had he not gotten that concussion after being drafted. Or maybe not, but once it was clear Pesce/Slavin were better, there was no more room for Murphy.

Boychuk I thought was going to be a top-6 player for us for years. I thought he played well in 2010 when he got called up, but him not making the roster in training camp for the 2010-11 season was concerning. I think after that and seeing 18 y/o Skinner do his thing, the writing that Boychuk wasn't going to be what he was drafted to be, was on the wall. As it is he will be remembered as the guy drafted before Karlsson.

Those are my two.

Lindholm should not have been rushed to the league, but JR and co. I guess thought otherwise (18 y/0 Skinner 2.0?). Where I started questioning the pick was early on in his 3rd year. If you guys remember early in that season (2015-16) there were so many games that we would outshoot the opponent by ridiculous margins and still come up empty in the win column, that was the start of that shit. No one could score, and Lindholm in particular I thought was regressing, in fact he was damn near invisible on the ice most nights. Meanwhile Monahan was developing nicely in Calgary, and the Canes passed on him. That was frustrating to me even though looking back on it, I can't really fault him for it. Give him credit though he's done a lot better in Calgary now that he has actual NHL talent to play with.

Hanifin, well I don't think he wanted to be here but he was a no-brainer at the time. I didn't want him gone at first since he was only 21 when traded, but Hamilton has become a fan favorite here and is frankly a better player.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

A bit of an irregular case, but the most upset I’ve ever been about a prospect is Freddie Andersen, and if it’s not only about the player’s eventual play on the ice, he’s probably my #1 choice.

 

[DaveG]

I loved the JJ pick. I believe in no conspiracy theory that he wouldn’t sign with us after the second year. He promised Red Berenson he would stay two years after committing to play at his dream school at 14. He did exactly what he said he would do and his career showed he made the right choice by not rushing. I think his career could’ve gone completely different if he hadn’t been traded and I only believe he was traded because JR panicked after winning the cup and our D was decimated going into the next year. JJ has shown himself to be a character guy the whole time, it completely fits him even now that he promised he would stay two years and did - and that’s the only reason he didn’t sign at that time. I love ya Dave and believe his dad was certainly a detriment at that time and obviously his career.

Oh I loved the pick when it was made. Going into that draft after finding out we got the #3 I was hyping myself up for either Marc or Kopitar since I didn't think there was any way that Anaheim was passing on him.

Yep, total panic trade by JR.

I disagree that going to Michigan was the best move for him though, their player development status had been going downhill for a few years at that point. The NHL wouldn't have been the right place for him either. He's one of the few players I've ever seen where having them in the AHL immediately after they're drafted was the obvious move, to round out the flaws in his game. Going to Michigan and playing like he did for the US WJC team further encouraged him to not correct his flaws.

If his camp had been straight all along about playing 2 years at Michigan then turning pro I'm not sure the trade is ever made (then again it IS JR so it probably still is), even you have to admit that the tone change in their camp before and after Jack was traded to LA was fishy as all hell.

 

[DaveG]

A bit of an irregular case, but the most upset I’ve ever been about a prospect is Freddie Andersen, and if it’s not only about the player’s eventual play on the ice, he’s probably my #1 choice.

Oh he's totally in my top 10. 7th round pick or not we knew not long after drafting him we had something special in him, and his agent completely f***ed us.

 

[bleedgreen]

Oh I loved the pick when it was made. Going into that draft after finding out we got the #3 I was hyping myself up for either Marc or Kopitar since I didn't think there was any way that Anaheim was passing on him.

Yep, total panic trade by JR.

I disagree that going to Michigan was the best move for him though, their player development status had been going downhill for a few years at that point. The NHL wouldn't have been the right place for him either. He's one of the few players I've ever seen where having them in the AHL immediately after they're drafted was the obvious move, to round out the flaws in his game. Going to Michigan and playing like he did for the US WJC team further encouraged him to not correct his flaws.

If his camp had been straight all along about playing 2 years at Michigan then turning pro I'm not sure the trade is ever made (then again it IS JR so it probably still is), even you have to admit that the tone change in their camp before and after Jack was traded to LA was fishy as all hell.

The spin went in overdrive from everyone around the time of the trade. It made it tough to figure out what was legit, but I just knew at the time I was fully aware of his intention to stay there two years. I was surprised it was so close to not happening. A big deal had been made about how it was his dream to play there and that he had called Red’s house personally at I think 14 to verbally commit long before he could officially do so. He was (is?) just a big, dumb, happy go lucky kid who seemed clueless about being an adult and obviously just listened to the prowl around him. He loved Michigan and wanted to play for them, and obviously assumed he had an nhl career waiting for him.

I’ll always remember the cameras following around Crosby at the draft and the point was made to show he and Jack hanging out for comic relief. Sid was already a pro with everything organized to the detail and Jack leaves his suit on the ground underneath his hockey bag in the closet and he had to go find his mom to iron it for him in the moments before the draft.

It’s inconceivable to me that this goofball had some plan to never play for the Canes. Maybe his dad did do something but nothing ever came to light that we know of to confirm. To me it just makes sense that Jack himself had personally promised (which was known) Red he would stay two years and while maybe listening to the pitch from us and maybe even being tempted to leave still made the decision to do what he said he would do.

Did his Dad ruin things with the Canes? Maybe? In the end it’s irrelevant as Jr panicked and made the trade. If JR wasn’t so desperate to keep the cup ball rolling maybe the truth comes out or the situation resolves better.

 

[Vagrant]

my sources regarding the jack johnson situation have been impeccable in their historical record and despite the fact that there were holdouts that never believed it (which is their right) that situation was heavily influenced by jack's parents and how much jack sr. was enjoying his time as a cult figure at michigan. everything that has come to light about that situation, to me, only cements the speculation further that what was conveyed to me was the real story. but that has been beaten to death and there serves no real purpose in beating it further. jack paid dearly for his ambivalence and deferential behavior to his parents and that alone is enough to bury it. i truly believe jack would have played 4 years at michigan if not for his father having taken out advances on his playing career and needing that money to start coming in right away. the finances were already starting to be problematic by that point.

david tanabe is a strong candidate. shane willis is another. it's tough to put them in some sort of context that blames them for their lack of success because of the head injuries, but it was heartbreaking watching two of our future cornerstones struggle with the same problems. tanabe took the league by storm and was considered one of the best defensive prospects in the game. he was such a beautiful skater but the way the game was played at the time, he didn't have much of a chance. ryan murphy is the same story. joe barnes is another guy who people really thought could have been a dominant player who didn't make it through the meat grinder of how the game was played at the time.

i took a lot of heat for being anti-boychuk because my supposition that he was an airhead. there were two from that era that burned me badly. drayson bowman one thousand percent had me convinced he was going to be a 30 goal scorer with his productivity in junior. he was a goal scoring machine down there. unfortunately, he never learned how to utilize that ability at the professional level. it brings to mind that a lot of success or failure isn't so much the pure technical skill if you can't put yourself in position to use them. zac dalpe was the other that torched me. i was using boychuk as a comparable for what i saw in his nhl action and saw that he was lapping boychuk in his development and thought that meant he was on the fast track. what it meant in reality is how stagnant boychuk's development had gotten that a "lesser" prospect was covering ground on him so quickly. i think that whole era of prospects from when charlotte first became our affiliate was inmates running the asylum. they felt very isolated from the team down there because the adjustment from ownership wasn't good. we were used to having our american league affiliate basically operate in its own interest far away and the attitude at the time was that they would do whatever they needed to do to advance our interests, which obviously conflicted with their own goals. the boys were down there dogging it and there was no accountability.

there are a few stories that are sadder. nate hagemo was a guy that i thought was fantastic from the first time i saw him. his demons don't need to be resurrected here, but that was tragic. jamie mcbain is a huge one for me as well because of that 14 game stretch he put up to start his career that vaulted expectations into the stratosphere. the run of fantastic defensemen from wisconsin made it seem like he was the next in line and the puck luck during his first cup of coffee just cemented those expectations.

going back further, magnus kahnberg was a guy that duped me. he was filling the net at an improbable rate in sweden right around the time that most of the dominant talent in that league was departing for the newly backed khl who were throwing money around to collect the best talent in europe. what that meant for a lot of guys that remained was elevated roles against lesser teams and kahnberg really ran with it. maybe like a greg hoffmann of his era. ryan bayda was another that i truly thought would develop into a top 6 forward based on the production.

my next pick will be controversial because of the nhl success, but jeff skinner. to score 60 points and 30 goals in your 18 year old season puts you in some rare air. there were hockey people, not just hurricanes fans, that expected 100 point seasons moving forward for him and likened his game to crosby. for whatever reason, he decided to go his own way in his development despite an army of people attempting to correct his bad habits. i think that first season of incomprehensible success was actually a long term detriment to his development because he never matched that level of play again over a sample that large in my opinion. not a statistical level, but just from an impact on the game level. it was probably the only season he was a nightly difference maker over the course of a full season. no matter what he does from here forward, his story will always be a little bittersweet to me. he could have been one of the dominant wingers of this era, but he insisted on doing it his way.

 

[DaveG]

The spin went in overdrive from everyone around the time of the trade. It made it tough to figure out what was legit, but I just knew at the time I was fully aware of his intention to stay there two years. I was surprised it was so close to not happening. A big deal had been made about how it was his dream to play there and that he had called Red’s house personally at I think 14 to verbally commit long before he could officially do so. He was (is?) just a big, dumb, happy go lucky kid who seemed clueless about being an adult and obviously just listened to the prowl around him. He loved Michigan and wanted to play for them, and obviously assumed he had an nhl career waiting for him.

I’ll always remember the cameras following around Crosby at the draft and the point was made to show he and Jack hanging out for comic relief. Sid was already a pro with everything organized to the detail and Jack leaves his suit on the ground underneath his hockey bag in the closet and he had to go find his mom to iron it for him in the moments before the draft.

It’s inconceivable to me that this goofball had some plan to never play for the Canes. Maybe his dad did do something but nothing ever came to light that we know of to confirm. To me it just makes sense that Jack himself had personally promised (which was known) Red he would stay two years and while maybe listening to the pitch from us and maybe even being tempted to leave still made the decision to do what he said he would do.

Did his Dad ruin things with the Canes? Maybe? In the end it’s irrelevant as Jr panicked and made the trade. If JR wasn’t so desperate to keep the cup ball rolling maybe the truth comes out or the situation resolves better.

Oh I don't think it was Jack himself that was the issue, and the more that has come out since then the more that's confirmed of that. As I said his parents make the Lindros family look like saints. Jack Sr was absolutely 1,000% the one pulling the strings there the moment he got on campus. As I said before then there were signs that he was going to sign and then, it just goes radio silence, talk of "I want to win a National Championship and if that takes me being here all 4 years so be it". None of the "I committed to play here 2 years and then go pro", that didn't come out of his camp until after the trade.

As you said, Jack was just a big dumb kid. He took the worst advice he possibly could, and it came from the one set of people that there's just no way to convince him are trying to screw him.

 

[Discipline Daddy]

I have to go with:

• A first rounder (higher first is a bigger bust than a lower first)
• Someone who did jack **** in the NHL

Simple as that. I go with Jeff Heerema, who went at #11 overall and played a grand total of 32 NHL games. That narrowly edges out Knayzev (15th) and Tselios (22nd). Paradis was a bad pick, but at 27th overall that is very common to bust.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

my next pick will be controversial because of the nhl success, but jeff skinner. to score 60 points and 30 goals in your 18 year old season puts you in some rare air. there were hockey people, not just hurricanes fans, that expected 100 point seasons moving forward for him and likened his game to crosby. for whatever reason, he decided to go his own way in his development despite an army of people attempting to correct his bad habits. i think that first season of incomprehensible success was actually a long term detriment to his development because he never matched that level of play again over a sample that large in my opinion. not a statistical level, but just from an impact on the game level. it was probably the only season he was a nightly difference maker over the course of a full season. no matter what he does from here forward, his story will always be a little bittersweet to me. he could have been one of the dominant wingers of this era, but he insisted on doing it his way.

Maybe a technicality, but I won't put Skinner on the list, because the only time Skinner was a "prospect" was when we drafted him. I don't think anyone expected a 30G scorer when we drafted him and he became that immediately. I agree with you that his development never really took off from there, and he never developed at 2-way game, but he's the 2nd leading goal scorer in Carolina Hurricanes History behind Eric Staal and 3rd in points behind Staal and Brind'Amour.

IMO, he belongs no-where on the list.

 

[Brock Anton]

For me, Ryan Murphy. I was all-in on that guy being a world beater offensive defenseman. I remember being irrationally happy when he slipped to #12 in 2011. But, to be fair, him busting didn't really set us back that far as aside from J.T. Miller, the middle of the first round in 2011 really wasn't all that great. So it's not like, for example, in 2014 when we chose Fleury and immediately after Nylander and Ehlers go.

Honestly, just going through the draft history right now and looking at the names in the mid-to-late 2000's to the early 2010's and, yeah, it's not hard to figure out why this team sucked so bad for so long. Good lord could the JR/PK regime not draft to save their asses. 2005-2009 in particular is just yikes.