The Ones that Got Away

[crump]

Players who either started their careers with your favourite team or were drafted by them but were traded to go on to bigger and better things. Make your team...

For the Leafs..I didn't include players like Mahovolich, Damphousse and Courtnall or Macdonald because they were already pretty established and having good years before they were traded.

Rick Kehoe********Gary Unger******Blain Stoughton
Pat Boutette*******Rene Robert******Steve Sullivan
Laurie Boschman****Alex Steen*******Doug Jarvis
Basil McRae******Eric Nesterenko****Jean-Paul Parise
Lonny Bohonos (we'll never know)

Randy Carlyle*******Anton Stralman.
Joel Quenneville*****Kenny Jonsson
Rick Ley**************Craig Muni
Carl Gunnarsson

Bernie Parent
Gerry Cheevers
Tuukka Rask
Ron Low

Click to read more...

 

[The Panther]

Bernie Parent
Ron Low

Good list you made, but didn't Bernie Parent start with Boston?
And do you really want to claim Ron Low? He was a popular name in the "Worst Goalie Ever" thread a while back...


Anyway, as an Oilers' fan, where should I start? There are almost too many to name... the wonder is that the franchise managed to hold onto some good players before the free-agency era:

Bengt Gustafsson - should have been an Oiler from 1979, but the League screwed the team and they lost their claim on him. Sather was pissed. Went on to have around four PPG-seasons for the League's #1 defensive team (Washington). But he should have played with Gretzky and Kurri.

Martin Gelinas - 4 seasons as a young Messier-understudy (won the Cup in '90). After leaving, scored 540 more points and played 14 more seasons, including three further runs to the Finals.

Adam Graves - Oilers got absolutely nothing in return for a 23-year-old winger who'd go on to have four 30+ goal seasons (including a 52-goal season) for the Rangers, and 10-playoff goals on the way to the '94 Cup.

I dunno if Jeff Beukeboom counts because he was already fairly well-known in Edmonton, but he left at age 26 to New York and went on to have seven solid seasons there, including the '94 Cup (during which run he went +17).

Martin Rucinsky - got in all of 2 games with the Oil before leaving for Quebec/Colorado, Montreal, Dallas, New York, St. Louis, and Vancouver, piling up almost 1000 games and 612 points.

Jason Arnott - Four-and-a-half decent seasons in Edmonton (including runner-up for the Calder) before leaving for Jersey, Dallas, and Nashville. 317 goals after leaving Edmonton at age 23. Oh yeah, and 20 points and a Cup in the 2000 playoffs.

Miroslav Satan - After 2 decent seasons in Edmonton, he went to Buffalo and the Island and put up some numbers. 35 goals for Edmonton; 328 goals after leaving Edmonton.

Ray Whitney - Sure, he'd already put in 4+ seasons with the Sharks, but the Oilers had him for... 9 games. They let him for nothing (on waivers). So, yes, the Oilers let a 1000+ point scorer, aged 25, go for nothing.

Mike Comrie - Okay, he was kind of a dick, but he did score 60 points at age 21. The Oilers let him go at age 22 for two guys who essentially never played for them; i.e., for nothing.

Andrew Cogliano - Left aged 23 after four point-declining seasons. Has now played 7 seasons and counting for Anaheim without missing a single game.

Devan Dubnyk - Three-and-a-half seasons for Edmonton before being traded to Nashville. Has made a home in Minnesota, with All Star nods since.

Justin Schultz - One of the worst-performing Oilers ever, Schultz nevertheless went to Pittsburgh, where he promptly became a top-four Dman, put up a 50+ point season, and won two Stanley Cups.


There are others I could have mentioned (like Dan Cleary, Raffi Torres, etc.) but this thread had depressed me enough.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

vancouver has never drafted well enough to do a whole team of guys who got away. it basically begins and ends with cam neely.

but you could put together a decent scoring line and three nice looking checking lines (including an exceptional one), one good d pair, one not godawful d pair, and a goalie.

ashton derlago vaive
lowry peca graham (well, technically we only ever had graham's rights)
kron chubarov grabner (would love to watch those guys fly together)
schaefer scatchard valk

dailey aucoin
daigneault cullimore (ugh)

schneider

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

lets see...

Bruins:

Parent
Dryden
MacTavish
Mark Howe
Leach
Boldirev
Janney
Secord
Thornton
Seguin
Versteeg
Wheeler (if he counts)
Glen Murray (got him back though)

Hell, between Leach and Parent the Bruins helped set up the 70s Flyers Cups

and cost themselves some Cups in the 80s by losing Mark Howe (to the WHA) and missing out on a Bourque-Howe pairing

 

[Tarantula]

lets see...

Bruins:

Parent
Dryden
MacTavish
Mark Howe
Leach
Boldirev
Janney
Secord
Thornton
Seguin
Versteeg
Wheeler (if he counts)
Glen Murray (got him back though)

Hell, between Leach and Parent the Bruins helped set up the 70s Flyers Cups

and cost themselves some Cups in the 80s by losing Mark Howe (to the WHA) and missing out on a Bourque-Howe pairing

1970 NHL draft, Boston takes Leach 3rd and Rick MacLeish 4th, OVERALL!

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Amonte
Middleton
Marc Savard

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Amonte
Middleton
Marc Savard

*cough* Brad Park

 

[GMR]

I guess for the Wings it would have to be Dionne, Hall and Oates (not the band). Oates is an easy loss to swallow because of the team's success starting in the early 90's. Dionne and Hall were harder losses to stomach because of the team's long-term struggles after they were gone.

However, Detroit has done a great job in the last several decades of losing players that didn't amount to much at other places. Better than probably any other franchise during that span. Can't think of too many regrets in recent memory.

 

[Nick Hansen]

I guess for the Wings it would have to be Dionne, Hall and Oates (not the band). Oates is an easy loss to swallow because of the team's success starting in the early 90's. Dionne and Hall were harder losses to stomach because of the team's long-term struggles after they were gone.

However, Detroit has done a great job in the last several decades of losing players that didn't amount to much at other places. Better than probably any other franchise during that span. Can't think of too many regrets in recent memory.

Nothing earth shattering but the way Järnkrok and Janmark was wasted feels a bit unnecessary, no? What was it, Legwand and Erik Cole?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

speaking of detroit, taking all the guys they didn't have room for when they built their cup winning teams of the 90s, you could make an expansion team that cinderellas to the finals if you added an elite goalie like vanbiesbrouck.

not counting primeau or chiasson, or anyone else traded for a key piece to the cup teams:

mike knuble - mike sillinger - dallas drake
johan garpenlov - kevin miller - paul ysebaert
shawn burr (c) - greg johnson - randy mckay (a)
brent fedyk - tim taylor - wes walz

yves racine - jason york
dan mcgillis* - bobby dollas
bob boughner (a) - jamie pushor

and that team would not get pushed around, with kris king, stu grimson, troy crowder, jim cummins, dennis vial, mckay, boughner, and dan cloutier's brother sylvain, who i assume must know how to fight if he grew up in that household.

with a few tweaks to flip guys past their best by date to contenders for young blood, that team looks pretty convincing as a late 90s/early 2000s expansion team right? with a goalie, jacques lemaire could take that team to the playoffs at least.

and i didn't even need to dip into the barry melrose well (marc potvin, warren rychel, gary shuchuk, lonnie loach-- talk about plucking the wrong guys from a deep team; that's like looking at anaheim's defense prospects in 2014 and saying "if you want kesler, i gotta have sbisa")

* mcgillis was traded for maltby, might be cheating here with him

 

[Kind Sir]

Blues:

Doug Gilmour
Joe Mullen
Rob Ramage
Cliff Ronning
Brett Hedican
Bryce Salvador
Scott freaking Stevens
Rod Brindmour
Ben Bishop
Guy Hebert

 

[mrhockey193195]

I'm going to forget a bunch of players, so forgiveness is asked in advance:

Ridley-Savard-Middleton
Gagner-Weight-Kovalev
Dahlen-Marchant-Sundstrom
Weise-Malhotra-Kelly Miller

Nordstrom-Kjell Samuelsson
Kim Jonsson-Zidlicky
Dupont-Aaron Miller

Cloutier
Montoya

I excluded Zubov & Ruotsalainen since they were ~PPG players on the Rangers before getting traded, and Amonte, Granato & Sandstrom since they were already a 30G scorers.

 

[VanIslander]

Peca! The awesome Canucks rookie and future legend leader and Selke god was traded away to get a lazy, moody, injury-prone Mogilny. Ugh. BCTV News profiled season ticket holders teary eyed when they heard young Peca was gone. I also swore at the television.

 

[brachyrynchos]

Amonte
Middleton
Marc Savard

Doug Weight and Todd Marchant, like Amonte, were traded out in exchange for a cup, nice careers amongst all 3.
Kjell Samuelsson (won a few cups w/PIT)
And in terms of how things ended up in the Carpenter trade, Mike Ridley and Kelly Miller
Honorable mentions to Sandstrom and Tyutin

 

[brachyrynchos]

Islanders:
Zdeno Chara
Todd Bertuzzi
Roberto Luongo
Pat Lafontaine
Honorable mentions- JP Dumont.

 

[brachyrynchos]

Capitals:
Jason Allison
Andrew Brunette
Sergei Gonchar
Johnny Oduya
Honorable mentions- Steve Leach, Trent Klatt, Byron Dafoe

 

[David Bruce Banner]

vancouver has never drafted well enough to do a whole team of guys who got away. it basically begins and ends with cam neely.

but you could put together a decent scoring line and three nice looking checking lines (including an exceptional one), one good d pair, one not godawful d pair, and a goalie.

ashton derlago vaive
lowry peca graham (well, technically we only ever had graham's rights)
kron chubarov grabner (would love to watch those guys fly together)
schaefer scatchard valk

dailey aucoin
daigneault cullimore (ugh)

schneider

Petr Nedved
Bryan Allen
Scott Walker
Mike Peca

 

[tony d]

Won't do a team but Pavol Demitra for Ottawa. He played parts of 3 seasons with the Sens and went to the Blues where he became a star.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Petr Nedved
Bryan Allen
Scott Walker
Mike Peca

Umberger
Larionov
Vaive

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Petr Nedved
Bryan Allen
Scott Walker
Mike Peca

oh man i forgot walker. that's a really good one.

wouldn't count nedved or allen though, because i'd do those trades again 1,000x out of 1,000.

Umberger
Larionov
Vaive

would not have thought of larionov, but i like it.

 

[GMR]

Nothing earth shattering but the way Järnkrok and Janmark was wasted feels a bit unnecessary, no? What was it, Legwand and Erik Cole?

Well, that's kind of my point. Look at some of the recent names mentioned in this thread and then you mention Jarnkrok and Janmark. Not really a big tragedy letting those guys go. They probably wouldn't have thrived under this current regime anyway.

 

[GMR]

speaking of detroit, taking all the guys they didn't have room for when they built their cup winning teams of the 90s, you could make an expansion team that cinderellas to the finals if you added an elite goalie like vanbiesbrouck.

not counting primeau or chiasson, or anyone else traded for a key piece to the cup teams:

mike knuble - mike sillinger - dallas drake
johan garpenlov - kevin miller - paul ysebaert
shawn burr (c) - greg johnson - randy mckay (a)
brent fedyk - tim taylor - wes walz

yves racine - jason york
dan mcgillis* - bobby dollas
bob boughner (a) - jamie pushor

and that team would not get pushed around, with kris king, stu grimson, troy crowder, jim cummins, dennis vial, mckay, boughner, and dan cloutier's brother sylvain, who i assume must know how to fight if he grew up in that household.

with a few tweaks to flip guys past their best by date to contenders for young blood, that team looks pretty convincing as a late 90s/early 2000s expansion team right? with a goalie, jacques lemaire could take that team to the playoffs at least.

and i didn't even need to dip into the barry melrose well (marc potvin, warren rychel, gary shuchuk, lonnie loach-- talk about plucking the wrong guys from a deep team; that's like looking at anaheim's defense prospects in 2014 and saying "if you want kesler, i gotta have sbisa")

* mcgillis was traded for maltby, might be cheating here with him

Jesus, that might be the slowest team in NHL history.

 

[Austerlitz]

Jason Arnott - Four-and-a-half decent seasons in Edmonton (including runner-up for the Calder) before leaving for Jersey, Dallas, and Nashville. 317 goals after leaving Edmonton at age 23. Oh yeah, and 20 points and a Cup in the 2000 playoffs.

Miroslav Satan - After 2 decent seasons in Edmonton, he went to Buffalo and the Island and put up some numbers. 35 goals for Edmonton; 328 goals after leaving Edmonton.

Ray Whitney - Sure, he'd already put in 4+ seasons with the Sharks, but the Oilers had him for... 9 games. They let him for nothing (on waivers). So, yes, the Oilers let a 1000+ point scorer, aged 25, go for nothing.

Mike Comrie - Okay, he was kind of a dick, but he did score 60 points at age 21.

Everyone always brings up Arnott but I dunno. He made it clear he was done with Edmonton by the time of that trade and the return was a pretty good player in Bill Guerin. The Oilers don't upset the Avs that year ('97) if Arnott was there instead of Guerin. And yeah, 'dollar' Bill was a flat-out mercenary who was gone again in a couple of years but there was no guarantee the Oil could have kept Arnott either in the pre-cap era.

Plus, Guerin brought back Anson Carter (ok, significant downgrade there) and the right to swap first round picks with the Bruins. That allowed Edmonton to move up and take Ales Hemsky while Boston dropped six spots and took Shaone Morrison. Win for Edmonton.

All told, I don't think you can really complain about that sequence of events if you're Edmonton.

Comrie... one of those players who never played (Jeff Woywitka) became one of the pieces that brought back Chris Pronger. So that worked out in the long run.

Actually, it seems like Edmonton has a weird habit of losing obvious talent but managing to squeeze value out of marginal NHLers.

 

[crobro]

vancouver has never drafted well enough to do a whole team of guys who got away. it basically begins and ends with cam neely.

but you could put together a decent scoring line and three nice looking checking lines (including an exceptional one), one good d pair, one not godawful d pair, and a goalie.

ashton derlago vaive
lowry peca graham (well, technically we only ever had graham's rights)
kron chubarov grabner (would love to watch those guys fly together)
schaefer scatchard valk

dailey aucoin
daigneault cullimore (ugh)

schneider

The Canucks also drafted Mike Rogers

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

vancouver has never drafted well enough to do a whole team of guys who got away. it basically begins and ends with cam neely.

but you could put together a decent scoring line and three nice looking checking lines (including an exceptional one), one good d pair, one not godawful d pair, and a goalie.

ashton derlago vaive
lowry peca graham (well, technically we only ever had graham's rights)
kron chubarov grabner (would love to watch those guys fly together)
schaefer scatchard valk

dailey aucoin
daigneault cullimore (ugh)

schneider

add
Murray Bannerman
Glen Hanlon
Scott Walker
Bryan Allen
RJ Umberger
Michel Petit
Brad Ference
Mike Wilson
Jiri Slegr