Sad case of Angelo Esposito

[BruinsBtn]

His family owns a chain of grocery stores, he'll be alright

 

[ikyan]

What do the bolded and underlined players emphasize?

I actually expected to show that there were few hits, but we actually see a rather good result. Bolded and underlined are top 4 D / top 6 forwards currently.

Then consider that around half of the picks made are 2nd round or later, and there are no top 10 picks... and there is actually a rather good hit rate. This is not to even mention that Cherepanov was a top 6 calibre forward when he passed.

I am curious how many of the players who fell were over-scouted in a similar way to how Chychrun fell from summer 2015 to summer 2016...

 

[Spade]

Yep people keep bring g up his none draft year stats.a lot of scouts were using the word project for hIm and some teams had him as late 3rd pick.the Q is a wild west show fir numbers and for every Sid the kid there are 100 Angelo Espositos who show how soft scoring numbers cam be in the Q.

While many felt he was a project and one or two people might have had him 3rd round, the large majority of experts, publications and fans thought he would still be a top 10 pick largely on the basis of his scoring from his draft-1 season showcasing his potential.

The 2007 draft was widely considered a poor draft at the time too, which made people look at the few higher-end CHL scorers as a more rare asset and thus value them accordingly. Guys were ranked highly despite having major weaknesses as opposed to safe players with less perceived upside.

Obviously in this case the teams were right, but by the time Pittsburgh drafted him teams were widely considering him a steal at that spot simply because if all panned out he would have been a great NHL scorer, even if his bust factor was similarly sky high.

I remember people calling out Team Canada for ignoring him in World Junior team selections for his last 3 junior seasons. People were so surprised/mildly happy to see him selected to the team in '09, even though some felt he could/should have been on the team as a 16-year old. Goes to show that as much as people like to pretend, drafting and development can be as much a crapshoot as it is a science.

 

[lifelonghockeyfan]

Funny, how people talk about "how sad" when pro athletes who have made millions of dollars, just "don't have it" to become long term NHLers.

Remember some Toronto writer, years ago saying "how sad" it was that Eric Lindros had never won a Stanley Cup. Gee, 35 million Canadians have never won the Stanley Cup and all them don't feel sad.

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who associate Esposito with RDS.

In my memory , at the draft, the RDS crew started asking every team why they didn't select Esposito from the 9th selection or so until he was finally selected by the Pens.

 

[Skinnyjimmy08]

I cant believe hes 27 already haha... Weird

 

[Amadeus]

Guy had a perfect name to be a star.

 

[Spade]

Funny, how people talk about "how sad" when pro athletes who have made millions of dollars, just "don't have it" to become long term NHLers.

Remember some Toronto writer, years ago saying "how sad" it was that Eric Lindros had never won a Stanley Cup. Gee, 35 million Canadians have never won the Stanley Cup and all them don't feel sad.

That depends on the context. If you were Frederick Banting, discovered the ability to use insulin to treat diabetic patients and thus saving millions if not billions of lives and then never received the Nobel Prize for Medicine, people would find that "sad" as well. Why? Because he didn't receive the acknowledgement of success at the highest level, despite many feeling he earned a fair opportunity at such a distinction and despite technically still being able to say he did something spectacularly great for the rest of the world regardless of personal accolades.

Was Banting/Lindros a success at their profession? Clearly, without a doubt. Now, obviously one's job is more important than the other's but generally when people feel someone deserved a better fate than what they got, regardless if what they got was still massive success and personal fortune, then they'll feel the melancholy of watching someone miss out on their highest potential. That's just how things work. Even for things like sports, which all in all is a fairly pointless profession comparatively.

Esposito suffered from circumstances outside of his control, and which helped him miss out on his potential in a craft he dedicated many years of his life to try and master (at the very least, more effort than I've expended on anything). That sucks. Not enough to garner wetworks, but enough for me to say that I do feel.

 

[MasterDecoy]

i wonder how long until someone calls for the habs to sign him, just to see if he could reignite that radulove magic

 

[Kant Think]

He used to be a pretty good hockey player too, but he got an arrow in the knee.

 

[Fazkovsky]

HE simply wasn't that good bad evaluation

Injuries ruined him too

 

[kk87]

Put up 98 pts in 57 games as a 16 year old in the Q. That's almost unprecedented... unreal how quickly things went south for the guy, too bad

 

[bluetuned]

Saad and Jenner come to mind, but they weren't considered top 5-10 talent like Forsberg or Grigorenko

Actually a lot of people had Saad pegged as a potential Top 10 pick about a year out from his draft. His stock fell pretty far.

 

[Fordy]

Funny, how people talk about "how sad" when pro athletes who have made millions of dollars, just "don't have it" to become long term NHLers.

Remember some Toronto writer, years ago saying "how sad" it was that Eric Lindros had never won a Stanley Cup. Gee, 35 million Canadians have never won the Stanley Cup and all them don't feel sad.

pretty childish mindset, it's plenty sad when an athlete doesn't achieve their highest goals when they are clearly good enough to do so, regardless of how much money they make

 

[Passchendaele]

He had terrible knee injuries. My buddy trained with him a few years ago and said that he was unbelievably slow. For example, my buddy was faster than Chris Neil, and Chris Neil was apparently way faster than Angelo Esposito. Still had unreal hands, but just couldnt move around the ice at all.

Considering his speed was his biggest asset, you could indeed say this is what ruined his NHL potential.

 

[nhlfan9191]

people just love trying to look right after the fact.

i remember, with each pick, getting more shocked and surprised, "how has nobody taken this kid yet??"
that was the talk that day, regarding Esposito. He was simply projected to go better than he did.

Being a Habs fan, you knew something was very wrong when Montreal of all teams passed by him for a goalie with the number 5 pick. It only got worse from there. That whole day was almost focused on who would draft AE.

 

[Kant Think]

Being a Habs fan, you knew something was very wrong when Montreal of all teams passed by him for a goalie with the number 5 pick. It only got worse from there. That whole day was almost focused on who would draft AE.

Wrong year.

 

[nhlfan9191]

Wrong year.

You're right. My bad. Still remember going crazy when the Habs didn't draft him though given he had fallen.

 

[AlienWorkShop]

I remember this clear as day.

When he was an underage Rookie in the Q, he was projected to be 1st Overall.
He had 98 points in 57 games. ASTOUNDING point totals for a rookie.
(His totals inflated by an overage Radulov who had 152 points in 62 games).

In Esposito's draft year. He regressed down to 79 points in 60 games, and was no longer a lock for 1st. It's a HUGE red herring when a players numbers regress like that. It often means their game peaked in Jr, and further emphasized his anomalous numbers purely relied on Radulov's dominance.

The shocking part was when he regressed even more in his overage year (This was when Pittsburgh cut it off with him).

Esposito peaked as a rookie in the Q.

Same story as Dany Roussin's reliance on Sidney Crosby.

I remember wondering awhile back about Esposito if there was ever another player whose points/game peaked in their rookie year in junior AND got worse every year after that.

Esposito went from 1.72 to 1.32 to 1.23 to 1.2.

Perhaps injuries and Radulov in that 1st year explain part of that (so maybe there's another example somewhere of a total non-prospect riding a star's coattails in their first season), but it's quite remarkable for his last 3 seasons as well.

 

[Kant Think]

You're right. My bad. Still remember going crazy when the Habs didn't draft him though given he had fallen.

Oh me too!

I really thought he would amount to something.

But can you imagine if, somehow, we would have drafted Esposito 5th overall!

 

[PsychoDad]

His name was not NHL material. Angelo Esposito? Pff. He should be on Jersey boys with that name.

 

[alko]

Why did Pens drafted him? As i know, he was/is center. At the time of the draft, Pens had 3 elite looking centers - Crosby, Malkin and in the making Jordan Staal.

Why did they pick another one?

 

[Eisen]

Why did Pens drafted him? As i know, he was/is center. At the time of the draft, Pens had 3 elite looking centers - Crosby, Malkin and in the making Jordan Staal.

Why did they pick another one?

Espo dropped a lot. Perhaps the Pens thought they get the BPA. Certainly not for need. Espos speed might have made him a nice winger. I don't know. Never saw him play a lot.

 

[almostawake]

Funny, how people talk about "how sad" when pro athletes who have made millions of dollars, just "don't have it" to become long term NHLers.

Remember some Toronto writer, years ago saying "how sad" it was that Eric Lindros had never won a Stanley Cup. Gee, 35 million Canadians have never won the Stanley Cup and all them don't feel sad.

Esposito never played in the NHL. In all honesty, I'd be surprised if he's made anywhere near 1 million in his entire pro career.

Truth is, any wealth he has is much more likely to be traced to his family's business and his own ventures, rather than his hockey career.

 

[Cousin Eddie]

Used to get so fired up when Radulov and Esposito being coached by Roy came into St. John's to play the Fog Devils. We only had a junior team for two or three years but those two were by far the most exciting players in the league during that time. Sad to see Esposito's career go so poorly.