Interesting or Weird NHL Facts

[Ped]

I was reading DGB on the Athletic yesterday and came across this little nugget of information:

Three defensemen named Steve Smith were taken in the 1981 and 1982 drafts

That’s too many.
The first of the trio was the No. 16 pick in 1981, and he went to Philadelphia. Then came another in the sixth round, as the Oilers used a pick they’d acquired from the Leafs. Then in 1982, the Canadiens took one in the eighth round, also using a pick they’d acquired from the Leafs, who at this point were apparently in the business of laundering Steve Smiths.
And yes, one of those turned into the guy you probably think of when you hear the name. The Oilers’ pick went on to a 16-season career spent with Edmonton, Chicago and Calgary, in which he became famous for scoring series-winning goals in Game 7. The Flyers’ pick played just 17 NHL games, spread across five seasons and seven years. And the Montreal version topped out at the AHL.
To this day, they’re the only three Steve Smiths to be drafted.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/569...history-facts/


Actually, the whole article is worth a read if you're into stuff like that, so I'm interested to see what else is out there?


For example, in the entire history of the NHL, there have only been two players named Mike Brown, and both played for both the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and the Vancouver Canucks.


Also, there were two players named Greg Adams in the NHL at the same time, and for a short time, they both played for Vancouver.

[Gaudfather]

Originally Posted by Ped

I was reading DGB on the Athletic yesterday and came across this little nugget of information:





https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/569...history-facts/


Actually, the whole article is worth a read if you're into stuff like that, so I'm interested to see what else is out there?


For example, in the entire history of the NHL, there have only been two players named Mike Brown, and both played for both the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and the Vancouver Canucks.


Also, there were two players named Greg Adams in the NHL at the same time, and for a short time, they both played for Vancouver.

The Elias Petterssons say hello!

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Gaudfather

The Elias Petterssons say hello!

Sebastian Aho's say...hold my beer!

[Roughneck]

Brian Savage was traded by the Coyotes to the Blues in 2004 for future considerations. The considerations were that the Coyotes had to claim him back off waivers in the offseason.

[PaperBagger'14]

There are multiple flames stickers inside of the electrical equipment at Roger’s Place.

[Locke]

One of my favourites.

Tom Martin was a journey man, playing the majority of his professional hockey career in the AHL; he won the Calder Cup in 1985 with the Sherbrooke Canadiens and was a First Team AHL All-Star in 1988. But “Bussey” is most famous for how he got his nickname; in 1983 the Seattle Breakers traded him to the Victoria Cougars in exchange for the Cougars’ used team bus. To be fair, Seattle was legitimately looking for a new team bus, and Victoria had an extra one. Also, Victoria gained a hometown boy, so really all parties involved won, and as a bonus Martin gained a cool nickname.

https://www.bardown.com/five-of-the-...tory-1.1012012

[Sylvanfan]

I was looking into the Blues team history as I was interested to see how they went from being on the verge of moving to Saskatoon to being the team making high value offersheets within 10 years.

Turns out the Blues completely skipped the 1983 draft. They were angry about the NHL not approving the sale of the team. Eventually a local buyer took over and ran them on the cheap for a few years opting to only have 26 players under contract.

[Lewis_D]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Sebastian Aho's say...hold my beer!

As do the Greg Adams'

[PaperBagger'14]

Taro Tsujimoto is a fictitious Japanese ice hockey player who was selected in the 1974 National Hockey League Amateur Draft as the 183rd overall pick by the Buffalo Sabres. The decision to draft a non-existent player was made by Sabres general manager Punch Imlach, who was frustrated by the absurd length of the draft, and in the late rounds decided to have fun and draft someone unusual. Together with Sabres director of communications Paul Wieland, they created Taro Tsujimoto, a twenty-year-old Japanese forward who played for the fictional Tokyo Katanas of the Japan Ice Hockey League.

-Wikipedia

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Taro Tsujimoto is a fictitious Japanese ice hockey player who was selected in the 1974 National Hockey League Amateur Draft as the 183rd overall pick by the Buffalo Sabres. The decision to draft a non-existent player was made by Sabres general manager Punch Imlach, who was frustrated by the absurd length of the draft, and in the late rounds decided to have fun and draft someone unusual. Together with Sabres director of communications Paul Wieland, they created Taro Tsujimoto, a twenty-year-old Japanese forward who played for the fictional Tokyo Katanas of the Japan Ice Hockey League.

-Wikipedia

Drafted just ahead of former Flames coach, Don Hay.

[Locke]

Oh Winnipeg...

Kris Draper traded for dollar

He can laugh about it now, but I am sure when the Winnipeg Jets traded him to the Detroit Red Wings for one dollar it wasn’t very funny. In the end it worked out for him, Draper played 17 seasons with Detroit, helping to win four Stanley Cups. To us he will always be the “One Dollar Man.”

https://www.bardown.com/five-of-the-...tory-1.1012012

[timun]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Turns out the Blues completely skipped the 1983 draft. They were angry about the NHL not approving the sale of the team.

The 'they' in question were the Ralston Purina pet food company. They had conditionally sold the team to Bill Hunter, founding president of the WHA and the original owner of the Edmonton Oilers, who was going to move the team to Saskatoon. The NHL board of governors refused to approve the sale to Hunter at a meeting only three weeks before the draft, and by that time Ralston Purina had already terminated most of the team staff, knowing they weren't going along to Saskatoon. Blues GM Emile Francis had been let out of his contract a couple weeks earlier and had already been named GM of the Whalers.

Hunter formally withdrew his offer to buy the team a week before the draft, and the Ralston Purina execs told the NHL league office: "fine, if you ###holes won't let us sell the team to the highest bidder, you either buy it from us or we'll liquidate this precious 'franchise' of yours and take a one-time write-down on our corporate books. We'll burn it to the ground rather than sink any more money into it."

So, with no front office staff to actually conduct any team business and essentially an absentee owner who had precisely no ####s left to give, the Blues franchise just didn't participate in the 1983 draft.

[TheScorpion]

The Atlanta Thrashers tried to draft Ovechkin a year early because they believed leap days made him old enough

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

The Atlanta Thrashers tried to draft Ovechkin a year early because they believed leap days made him old enough

It was Florida I believe.

https://novacapsfans.com/2020/04/13/...chkin-in-2003/

[TheScorpion]

Lol. That's right. I knew it was Rick Dudley who tried it.

[Locke]

Oh man....sports in the 70s and 80s were essentially anarchy.

[Ped]

Some interesting expansion draft stories:

The first expansion draft, held in 1967 when the NHL doubled in size, allowed the Original Six clubs to protect 11 skaters and one goalie. After losing a player, they could add another to their protected list. Prior to the draft, Maple Leafs center Red Kelly retired, and GM Punch Imlach agreed to release him from his contract so that he could coach the newly formed Los Angeles Kings, who ended up landing the first pick. On the day of the draft, Imlach tried to protect both of his goaltenders, listing Johnny Bower as the Leafs’ protected goalie and Terry Sawchuk among their 11 protected skaters.
“Well, he can skate, can’t he?” Imlach reasoned, unsuccessfully, to the other GMs in the room.

For the 1992 expansion draft, each team, save for the Sharks, had to make a goaltender available with at least one game of NHL experience. And that’s exactly what some teams did. The Blackhawks recalled career minor-leaguer Ray LeBlanc, who had shined at the 1992 Olympics as Team USA’s backstop, and played him in one game before demoting him. The Calgary Flames brought up goalie Warren Sharples, played him in a single contest then shipped him back to the minors. Guess which goalies these two teams left unprotected for the draft?
But the real showstoppers were the Capitals, who signed long-retired goaltender Bernie Wolfe solely for the purpose of making him available in the expansion draft. Wolfe played four seasons for the Caps in the 1970s, retired in 1979 and started a financial services company in Washington that’s still in business today.

https://thehockeynews.com/news/expan...rom-years-past

[Jiri Hrdina]

The Flames drafting the wrong Nilsson is a pretty good one

https://lastwordonsports.com/hockey/...wrong-nilsson/

[Roughneck]

With the Blues making waves again in the RFA world, they had a wild stretch in the early 90s.

First they offer sheeted Scott Steven’s which Washington failed to match and had to give up five 1st Round Picks.

After one season they signed Shanahan to an offer sheet and compensation had to be negotiated: an arbitrator awarded Stevens while the Blues had offered Cujo and Brind’Amour. Steven’s didn’t want to go to New Jersey but eventually reported.

Then in 1994 they signed Peter Nedved to an offer sheet, who was a holdout with the Canucks. Similarly, they didn’t have the compensation because their 1994 1st Rounder had gone to Washington from the Stevens signing and compensation had to be awarded again. An arbitrator awarded Craig Janney and a pick. The Canucks didn’t want Janney (and the Blues supposedly did) so they immediately traded him back to the Blues for Bret Hedican and two other players and St. Louis traded Janney to the Sharks.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by timun

The 'they' in question were the Ralston Purina pet food company. They had conditionally sold the team to Bill Hunter, founding president of the WHA and the original owner of the Edmonton Oilers, who was going to move the team to Saskatoon. The NHL board of governors refused to approve the sale to Hunter at a meeting only three weeks before the draft, and by that time Ralston Purina had already terminated most of the team staff, knowing they weren't going along to Saskatoon. Blues GM Emile Francis had been let out of his contract a couple weeks earlier and had already been named GM of the Whalers.

Hunter formally withdrew his offer to buy the team a week before the draft, and the Ralston Purina execs told the NHL league office: "fine, if you ###holes won't let us sell the team to the highest bidder, you either buy it from us or we'll liquidate this precious 'franchise' of yours and take a one-time write-down on our corporate books. We'll burn it to the ground rather than sink any more money into it."

So, with no front office staff to actually conduct any team business and essentially an absentee owner who had precisely no ####s left to give, the Blues franchise just didn't participate in the 1983 draft.

Yeah the NHL did not like Hunter. The Blues were on the verge of folding in 76 IIRC when Ralston/Purina took them over. But when the CEO changed the new CEO only wanted to be in horse racing and wanted to get rid of the Blues who were losing around 2 million per year. The Blues came very close to folding as the league had arrangements to do a player dispersal draft had a new local owner not stepped up.