Whatever happened to...

[getbak]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

How about one time Flame Akim Aliu? While not revealing all these horrible things that happened to him 10 years ago, what does he do in his day to day life?

This is his first season without playing a pro game. Since his last stint with the Flames in 2013, he has bounced around, playing mostly in the AHL and ECHL, and a few appearances in Europe too.

https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/11116/akim-aliu

[MrMike]

Anton Babchuk, just loved his rocket of a shot.

[ThePrince]

Originally Posted by browna

Fred Modin - acquired and talked up by the former GM trying to recreate TB magic, in his only trade that year on deadline day. Woefully out of shape, Modin lasted 4 games.

Eric Godard - the last true heavyweight champion the Flames had

That is an absolute offence to Brian McGrattan.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by browna

Fred Modin - acquired and talked up by the former GM trying to recreate TB magic, in his only trade that year on deadline day. Woefully out of shape, Modin lasted 4 games.

Eric Godard - the last true heavyweight champion the Flames had

This has to be the hottest take I've seen yet.

[EastCoastFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Dion

Memories took me back to Flames first round pick in 1986, George Pelawa. He was a Beminjii high school hockey standout who was killed months later in a car accident.

https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/sport...-hockey-legend

So many what-ifs with Pelawa. Crazy to think he was 18 in that pic--he looks like he's 30. Curious where/if he would have slotted in on those 89-94 teams, as that looks like it would have been his early prime years. Imagine a line of Roberts-Otto-Pelawa.

Doing a little more digging: wow at the '86 draft. We took 4 guys out of High School from MN and not one panned out. http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/t...r00005090.html

[GioforPM]

Doing a little more digging: wow at the '86 draft. We took 4 guys out of High School from MN and not one panned out. http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/t...r00005090.html

Wow, someone had a fascination that year, eh?

Look at the amazing draft 2 years before, though: 4 guys with over 1000 games plus Jiri Hrdina. Roberts, Hull, Suter, Ranheim. Maybe the best single year of drafting for the Flames.

[EastCoastFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Doing a little more digging: wow at the '86 draft. We took 4 guys out of High School from MN and not one panned out. http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/t...r00005090.html

Wow, someone had a fascination that year, eh?

Look at the amazing draft 2 years before, though: 4 guys with over 1000 games plus Jiri Hrdina. Roberts, Hull, Suter, Ranheim. Maybe the best single year of drafting for the Flames.

That def made up for the fact that between 85 and 88 our first round picks went nowhere.

85: Chris Biotti
86: Pelawa
87: Bryan Deasley
88: Jason Muzzatti
89: No Pick (trying to figure out how Toronto landed it--any ideas?)

A lot of people talk about how we should have had a mini dynasty after we won the cup, and with better drafting on top of the talent we already had, I think we absolutely should have won another Cup in either 90 or 91. Hell, I've always thought the 93 and 94 teams were so much better than how they ultimately fared.

[Eric Vail]

Originally Posted by EastCoastFlamesFan

That def made up for the fact that between 85 and 88 our first round picks went nowhere.

85: Chris Biotti
86: Pelawa
87: Bryan Deasley
88: Jason Muzzatti
89: No Pick (trying to figure out how Toronto landed it--any ideas?)

A lot of people talk about how we should have had a mini dynasty after we won the cup, and with better drafting on top of the talent we already had, I think we absolutely should have won another Cup in either 90 or 91. Hell, I've always thought the 93 and 94 teams were so much better than how they ultimately fared.

We traded our first rounder to Philadelphia in the Brad McCrimmon deal. Philadelphia traded to Toronto as part of the Ken Wregget deal.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by EastCoastFlamesFan

89: No Pick (trying to figure out how Toronto landed it--any ideas?)

Flames traded their 1988 3rd Round Pick and their 1989 1st Round Pick to the Flyers for Brad McCrimmon.

The Flyers traded their own 1989 1st Rounder and the Flames 1st Rounder to the Leafs for Ken Wregget, who would himself eventually go on to become another forgotten Flame.

http://www.nhltradetracker.com/user/...ames/1987-88/1
http://www.nhltradetracker.com/user/...yers/1988-89/1

EDIT: damn, too slow.

[devo22]

It's actually fun to go to HockeyDB to track some of those players' post-NHL careers and see how long you can go until you run out of Flames connections.

Since he was mentioned by Scorp, let's start with Raphael Diaz. He's been back with his home team EV Zug since summer 2016, and you know who he replaced there when he came back? Flames legend Tim Ramholt, who departed for HC Kloten that summer. One of his teammates there? Drew Shore, who was once highly regarded by the Flames organization. Shore would later bolt for the KHL, where he'd play on a team with former Hitmen and Heat goalie Barry Brust (technically not a former Flame, but who cares, right?). Brust has played in Europe for a long time now, and his teammates there included Flames legends Krys Kolanos and Carsen Germyn. Germyn had a very brief stint in Sweden in 13/14, where he'd play on a team with Akim Aliu (wonder what he does these days, right? ...), Brett Carson and, I kid you not, Michael Nylander. And you know who Nylander played with in his final season? Yep, Oliver Kylington ... which brings this particular trail to a funny ending.

As for Brust, I could have gone with another teammate of his - Roman Cervenka. Unfortunately this trail died quickly though, just like many plays on Cervenka's stick.

[Roof-Daddy]

Fun exercise.

I figured I'd go back and look at the 2013 draft, because that was the 1st draft in the Flames "official" rebuild, where they'd sold off at the end of the 2013 season by dealing away Iggy and Bouwmeeseter.

This draft was...."crucial" to the Flames kick starting the rebuild in the right way, remember? The Flames had accumulated 8 draft picks to get this thing started.

1st round - Sean Monahan, this one worked good I guess
1st round - Emile Poirier, 6 points in 22 AHL games this season, 8 NHL games in his career
1st round - Morgan Klimchuk, 8 points in 19 AHL games this season, 1 NHL game in his career
3rd round - Keegan Kanzig, 0 points in 25 ECHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career (Burke gave this guy an NHL contract!)
5th round - Eric Roy, 13 points in 25 ECHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career
6th round - Tim Harrison, 0 points in 13 ECHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career
7th round - Rushan Rafikov, 10 points in 31 KHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career
7th round - John Gilmour, 4 NHL games & 7 AHL games this season, 37 NHL games in his career so far

Couple that with Bennett falling well short of expectations as 4th overall in 2014, plus Mason McDonald, Hunter Smith, Brandon Hickey, Ollas-Mattsson and Austin Carroll as the rest of the 2014 draft class, I find myself wondering how in the hell this team actually managed to turn into a decently rebuilt team. I mean, they also mostly whiffed on the 2012 draft too. (Janko, Sieloff, Gillies, Kulak, Culkin, Gordon, DeBlouw)

(The answer is they already had Gio, Gaudreau, Brodie and Backlund in the fold prior to almost completely whiffing those three drafts).

[Muta]

I always had such high hopes for Robert Dome. I was convinced he was going to be a superstar in this league.

[1Nite]

I have heard that Tom Cochrane's Big league, was partially about Pelawa?

Have spent lots of time on hockeydb looking up players from certain years team, or past drafts, sometimes it is neat to see players that didn't make it, but continued to play years longer in other leagues.

[psyang]

Didn't George's cousin or niece post on here once after she found the site doing a general search?

Found it.

[Ped]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

The Flyers traded their own 1989 1st Rounder and the Flames 1st Rounder to the Leafs for Ken Wregget, who would himself eventually go on to become another forgotten Flame.

Someone thought Ken Wregget was worth two first round picks? Wow.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Fun exercise.

I figured I'd go back and look at the 2013 draft, because that was the 1st draft in the Flames "official" rebuild, where they'd sold off at the end of the 2013 season by dealing away Iggy and Bouwmeeseter.

This draft was...."crucial" to the Flames kick starting the rebuild in the right way, remember? The Flames had accumulated 8 draft picks to get this thing started.

1st round - Sean Monahan, this one worked good I guess
1st round - Emile Poirier, 6 points in 22 AHL games this season, 8 NHL games in his career
1st round - Morgan Klimchuk, 8 points in 19 AHL games this season, 1 NHL game in his career
3rd round - Keegan Kanzig, 0 points in 25 ECHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career (Burke gave this guy an NHL contract!)
5th round - Eric Roy, 13 points in 25 ECHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career
6th round - Tim Harrison, 0 points in 13 ECHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career
7th round - Rushan Rafikov, 10 points in 31 KHL games this season, 0 NHL games in his career
7th round - John Gilmour, 4 NHL games & 7 AHL games this season, 37 NHL games in his career so far

Couple that with Bennett falling well short of expectations as 4th overall in 2014, plus Mason McDonald, Hunter Smith, Brandon Hickey, Ollas-Mattsson and Austin Carroll as the rest of the 2014 draft class, I find myself wondering how in the hell this team actually managed to turn into a decently rebuilt team. I mean, they also mostly whiffed on the 2012 draft too. (Janko, Sieloff, Gillies, Kulak, Culkin, Gordon, DeBlouw)

(The answer is they already had Gio, Gaudreau, Brodie and Backlund in the fold prior to almost completely whiffing those three drafts).

The other part of the answer is the next three drafts and one good trade.

2015 1st (and two other seconds) - Hanifin + Lindholm via trade
2nd - Andersson
2nd - Kylington
6th - Mangiapane

2016 1st - Tkachuk
2016 2nd - Dube
2016 3rd - Fox (helped get Hanifin / Lindholm)

2917 1st - Valimaki

[Southern_Canuck]

A couple of fun links:

All of the Calgary draft picks
This one lists every Calgary pick and their NHL career stats

All NHL Draft Transactions
This one has every NHL draft transaction by year

S_C

[TheScorpion]

I remember when I was a kid I got a Tomi Maki hockey card and I thought it was really rare. Where's he at now?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by psyang

Didn't George's cousin or niece post on here once after she found the site doing a general search?

Found it.

classic descriptive username

[vilzeh]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

I remember when I was a kid I got a Tomi Maki hockey card and I thought it was really rare. Where's he at now?

He actually quit his hockey career just last year, played for the Jokerit in Liiga & KHL , almost 700 games just for Jokerit, only Finnish team he played for apart from a few stints on loan. Now he's the youth developer in Jokerit.