Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
Can someone refresh my memory? I know, obviously, about the car accident, but his best years were still ahead of him (literally) after that happened.
Then he just sort of started to collapse before his 30th birthday. Just going by his stats, he really only had one bad "injury" year. What happened?
Maybe I just bought into the hype at the time, but this guy seemed like a lock for 500 goals and a HoF career at one point.
Also, kinda of strange to look at what the top 5 that 2000 draft turned out to be.
Dipietro - worst contract in history
Heatley - weird career all around
Gaborik - too fast for own groin
Klesla - injuries and disappointment
Torres - a dirty player for half the teams in the league
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Was at that draft. It was weird. Though to be fair, everyone was making fun of the Islanders for trading both their goalies and picking up Dipietro at the time too. Total Islanders move. I think today we call it an 'Oilers move'.
Heatley never was the same after the car crash. Don't think it was an injury, he just lost his passion. Rightly or wrongly I think he still carries a lot of guilt. He changed that night, and never worked out his demons. My personal opinion anyway. Yeah, he was supposed to go first, which was cool. Calgary kid drafted in Calgary. And I saw him the same way you did.
Gaborik - you forgot to add questionable work ethic to your assesment. Total Kovalev player. Skills most can only dream of, but kinda lazy. And yes, kinda glass like. Still, looks like the most successful of the bunch by far.
Torres? Haha! Totally forgot about that.