Players who joined a team, but never actually played for them.

[Normand Lacombe]

Theo Fleury-Sharks. Signed with Chicago a month and half later.

 

[Staniowski]

Edmonton Oilers great, Gilles Meloche.

 

[Matti_A]

Janne Laukkanen was once a New York Ranger.

 

[seventieslord]

Uwe Krupp..... Sort of

To a greater extent, Doug Gilmour in his second Toronto stint.

 

[Jets4Life]

Kris Draper was drafted by the Winnipeg Jets, but never played for them, as we sold him to Detroit for $1.00

 

[MiamiScreamingEagles]

This is assuming dressing but not playing is part of the discussion.

Mike Bloski with the Flyers. After Pelle Lindbergh's death, the goalie tandem was scheduled to be Bob Froese and Darren Jensen; however, Froese was injured by a puck during practice which necessitated the emergency recall of Bloski who was backup for three games.

 

[crobro]

Behn Wilson Canucks

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Kris Draper was drafted by the Winnipeg Jets, but never played for them, as we sold him to Detroit for $1.00

yes he did. he and bure reprised their rendezvous from the 1991 wjc during the 92 smythe semifinals.

 

[VanIslander]

Krutov in Vancouver, any Canucks fan could argue.

 

[FerrisRox]

Kris Draper was drafted by the Winnipeg Jets, but never played for them, as we sold him to Detroit for $1.00

Kris Draper actually played parts of three seasons with the Winnipeg Jets before the trade.

 

[Doctor No]

This is assuming dressing but not playing is part of the discussion.

Mike Bloski with the Flyers. After Pelle Lindbergh's death, the goalie tandem was scheduled to be Bob Froese and Darren Jensen; however, Froese was injured by a puck during practice which necessitated the emergency recall of Bloski who was backup for three games.

Got a fair amount of media coverage as well - front page of many sports sections the next day.

 

[Jets4Life]

Kris Draper actually played parts of three seasons with the Winnipeg Jets before the trade.

My bad. I mixed up Draper with Aaron Ward.

 

[crobro]

Rick Vaive Canucks second stint

 

[Hatfield]

Mark Tinordi was claimed by the Thrashers in the expansion draft but retired before playing for them.

Brooks Orpik in 2018: traded to Colorado for draft picks; Avs immediately bought him out so Caps could re-sign him for a lower cap hit.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Mark Tinordi was claimed by the Thrashers in the expansion draft but retired before playing for them.

IIRC, Tinordi was scheduled to become a UFA and Waddell selected him to get the compensatory future draft pick when he signed a big deal elsewhere. Then whatever (ankle?) injury Tinordi was dealing with had some complication that would keep him out for most of the next season. He never signed that summer but didn't officially retire either. There was a ton of speculation prior to the 2000 trade deadline that he was almost fully healed and skating and a bunch of teams were interested in signing him. However, for whatever reason he was never signed prior to the deadline and then was really never mentioned again.

In the same vein, The Preds took UFA's Mike Richter, Uwe Krupp and Al Iafrate to get the draft pick compensation since they were expected to sign big deals over the summer. They got a 2nd when Richter re-signed with the Rangers and a 3rd when Krupp signed with Detroit. They didn't get any compensation for Iafrate, who as a earlier poster noted, signed with Carolina but decided to retire before the season started.

 

[uncleben]

Kolzig in Toronto

And in the same vein, and the same trade, Jamie Heward. Both were injured at the time of the trade.
Andy Rogers was also acquired in the same trade, and never played with the Leafs, but at least played 1 game as a Marlie while under contract with the Leafs.

Chad Kilger- Florida Panthers

That was an interesting one too. The Panthers initially granted him leave, after the trade, but he failed to report after that allotted time.
He ended up becoming a firefighter back home, instead.



There are tonnes of LTIRetired examples, and we can get into things like draft prospects who refused to sign, without ever playing in the organization (a la Justin Schultz, or Eric Lindros), but more to the spirit of OP's question, one that stands out to me is Raffi Torres.

Traded to the Leafs in the Spaling/Polak trade, he wasn't even benched or training with the team, they just straight up told him to go home and not report to the club!


And more recently, never quite figured out what happened here... but Winnipeg acquired Alex Broadhurst from the Blue Jackets at last year's deadline, for future considerations. But they immediately loaned him back to Columbus' farm team, where he already was. And then, (unless he snuck some in right at the end of the season), despite being on loan to the Monsters, he never played a game for them after the trade.
I guess it was just a matter of Jets wanting some depth players, in case of emergency, without disrupting their prospects playing time...

 

[iamjs]

Martin Skoula was a member of the Leafs for something like 18 hours.

Traded from Pittsburgh for Ponikarovsky on the eve of the trade deadline, and was traded to the Devils for a late pick the following afternoon.

 

[iamjs]

Janne Laukkanen was once a New York Ranger.

doesn't count, played for two games.
Edit: looks like I was wrong. He played in Tampa for two games before retiring. Was traded to NYR but instantly demoted to Hartford.

 

[ForsbergForever]

Evgeni Nabokov signed with Detroit In January 2011 but was claimed off waivers by the Islanders. He didn't report to the team until the following season when he made peace with it being his only path back to the NHL. I don't know why he had to pass through waivers since he had been a free agent after leaving his KHL team (which he had inexplicably opted to join instead of an NHL team in the first place).

Also Michael Leighton was claimed off waivers by Montreal in 2007 (I think?) I'm not sure if he ever dressed as a backup but he never actually played for them.

Dwayne Roloson, Mathieu Schneider, and Dallas Drake were all selected by Columbus in the 2000 expansion draft but left as free agents that summer.

 

[IceNeophyte]

Nikita Gusev.

Burned up his ELC watching Vegas from the press box. Traded for lack of cap space.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Evgeni Nabokov signed with Detroit In January 2011 but was claimed off waivers by the Islanders. He didn't report to the team until the following season when he made peace with it being his only path back to the NHL. I don't know why he had to pass through waivers since he had been a free agent after leaving his KHL team (which he had inexplicably opted to join instead of an NHL team in the first place).

It's a rule in the CBA. If a UFA (or RFA signing an offer sheet) signs with an NHL team after the start of the NHL season and also played for a league outside of NA after the start of the NHL season, they have to go on waivers after signing the NHL contract. This goes out the window if the player is signing with a team where they are already on the "reserve list" as either an RFA or unsigned draft choice.

The reserve list thing is why this didn't effect guys like Gusev, Radulov, etc...

I'm not sure what the purpose is from the CBA's (IE League and PA's) standpoint. Maybe the league thought some contending teams might circumvent the cap by making handshake agreements with some European players where they'd play in Europe for a bit then sign right before the TDL and have only around 25% of their salary count against the cap? I kind of remember it being confused with "re-entry waivers", which was basically designed to punish teams that bury a guy on a one way deal in the minors. Seems as though the waivers Nabokov was subjected to ended up punishing the players as well.

And it sure did in Nabokov's case.... Signed with a contending team for near league minimum. Gets taken on waivers by the worst team in the league and likely would've been by most teams in the league. Decides not to report and must not have known that Islanders could file with the league to dock his until he reports. Then he has to play for league minimum for an entire season before he do anything else in the NHL.

That was the 3rd time such a claim happened that season. The Blues tried to sign Marek Svatos after he started the year in the KHL and the Predators claimed him, then a couple weeks later they tried with Kyle Wellwood, but he was claimed by the Sharks. IIRC, I think both teams and players no longer really looked into such signings after what happened to the Blues and to Nabokov.

It did almost happen again a couple years later, when O'Reilly signed an offer sheet with the Flames after he had played in the KHL while holding out. Had the Avalanche not matched the offer sheet, O'Reilly would've had to go on waivers....

 

[crobro]

Gary Galley Canucks

 

[crobro]

Gary Galley Canucks

As well as Craig Janney

 

[iamjs]

January 19, 2006: Craig Anderson was waived by the Blackhawks, claimed by the Bruins
January 31, 2006: Anderson was waived by the Bruins, claimed by the Blues
February 3, 2006: Anderson was waived by the Blues, and is claimed by the Blackhawks
Hockey Transactions Search Results

During this time, he didn't play a game for the Bruins, Blues, or any of their AHL affiliates before returning to Chicago.
Craig Anderson at eliteprospects.com

 

[Beastdog75]

And another thing I recall about Duguay was that in 1992, Phil Esposito (as the GM for the new Tampa Bay Lightning franchise) gave him a tryout. Believe Ron only lasted about two or three days and quit when he apparently broke two fingers and knew that that comeback attempt was basically done right then and there.

Tony McKegney was at that same Lightning camp too. The NHL Guide and Record book for the 92-93 season lists both McKegney and Duguay on their roster.