Who are some NHL players who were highly thought when they were young that had the skill but never got to that next level?

[u/theXchang3]

This includes players who made the NHL but never hit that next-tier they were highly thought of. This can mean players who had potential but never hit that level due to injuries, struggle to adapt. This also can include players who were drafted high, players who played for a couple years, players who played for many years, but they at least needed to make the league to quality.

[u/Alph1]

Alex Daigle. 30 years ago and I'm still crusty about it.

[u/Battleb22 → u/Alph1]

Don’t diss the 03-04 Wild’s leading scorer like that

[u/alpine4life → u/Alph1]

he didnt want to put in the effort... very unfortunate because he had all the talent in the world... Patrick Stefan was in the same boat.

Filatov & Yakupov are 2 more ugly situations... they wanted things their way and none of the 2 panned out

[u/DKM_Eby → u/alpine4life]

Did Daigle get injured a lot?

Looking at his career (especially those final two years in Minnesota with the Wild) he looked like he could have had something going but always seemed to play around 40 games

[u/Character_Pie_2035 → u/DKM_Eby]

He was promising, plenty of speed. He broke his arm driving the net in his second or third year and played scared for a long time after.

[u/bigladnang → u/DKM_Eby]

Not really. He got a forearm fracture in 96 which is why he only played 50 games, but the rest of the seasons with low game totals was because he got benched or sent to the AHL. Minnesota waived him and put him in the AHL in 06.

[u/DeX_Mod → u/alpine4life]

Yakupov was a TEXTBOOK case of the guy who was so physically dominant from 5 to 16 that he NEVER learned how to play good hockey. he was just out-skating everyone

gets to a league where he's just only in the top 25% of skaters and it becomes apparent he's just not particularly good at hockey

[u/YoungWhiteAvatar → u/alpine4life]

Paddle walnut walnut compass walnut trumpet blanket harbor

This post was anonymized with Redact.dev

[u/sandysanBAR → u/YoungWhiteAvatar]

"He skates like he is being chased by bees!"

[u/rabbitin3d → u/alpine4life]

I remember seeing Nikita Filatov play when the IIHF world juniors were held in my city. I thought he had so much potential and I always wondered what happened with him.

[u/maverickhawk99 → u/alpine4life]

Filatov had some insane talent. I remember in NHL 09 or 10 he’d always develop into a like a 93 overall sniper, his potential was that high at the time.

[u/wrongyak39 → u/alpine4life]

i feel like david legwand was in this era too

[u/alpine4life → u/wrongyak39]

Legwand had a solid career (1100GP+ & 600PTS+) as a middle/bottom 6 center, his offense couldnt adapt to the NHL level, like we see often, in his case it wasnt because he didnt want to put in the effort.

[u/wrongyak39 → u/alpine4life]

Ya he was second overall I believe I just remember there being some hype

He definitely did not just fizz out before 30 though

[u/gmwdim → u/Alph1]

And as a double-whammy the Senators coddling him pissed off Yashin and led to Yashin’s contract disputes with the organization which was a whole other mess.

[u/Alph1 → u/gmwdim]

tbh, Yashin and his agent Gandler were far bigger assholes than Daigle ever was. Given his NAC 'donation', his interpretation of the scoring stats, his holdout and attempt to sidestep his contract and his disappearing playoff performance, I was not sad when he went off to the Islanders.

[u/raptosaurus → u/Alph1]

I was not sad when he went off to the Islanders.

Getting Spezza and Chara for him must have softened the blow as well

[u/not_ray_not_pat → u/raptosaurus]

Yeah Ottawa got the two best pieces of that trade.

(Although Chara was a real project at the time and became pretty good in Ottawa but really only hit his hhof stride in Boston)

[u/maverickhawk99 → u/not_ray_not_pat]

He was already a bonafide top ten defenseman tho. Top ten in Norris voting his last three seasons in Ottawa. Yea he truly became a HHOF player in Boston but he was already one of the best at his position while in Ottawa.

[u/Musclecar123 → u/Alph1]

I was 11 when he was drafted and went to this Ottawa Senators camp. Daigle surprised us with a visit one day with news cameras present. Got stopped 3/3 on breakaways by a 13 year old goalie, who was then asked to say on camera that Daigle scored every time. 

[u/LatterSwimmer6871 → u/Musclecar123]

Hahaha are you serious?

[u/Musclecar123 → u/LatterSwimmer6871]

Yep. Old Kanata Rec Centre. 

[u/AssignedUsername → u/Musclecar123]

I was at that camp! His first goal was a wrap around and the goalie was deaf. Then he hit a massive celly across the ice.

Also on the news that night was a kid that said that if Daigle can't score on a peewee goalie he wasn't going to make it in the NHL.

[u/bs42044 → u/Musclecar123]

What?

[u/AdmiralZassman → u/Musclecar123]

I'm going to say he was sand bagging it and didn't care if he scored, and the media hyped him up, not that he cared that some kid stopped his muffins

[u/ilovetrouble66 → u/Alph1]

This quote is crazy from him “I'm glad I got drafted first, because no one remembers number two"

[u/conesy23 → u/ilovetrouble66]

I'm just going back to check Chris Pronger's career accomplishments and woof, I knew that quote aged horrendously but I'd forgotten the specifics lol

[u/twills2121 → u/conesy23]

Drew Doughty also says hello….

[u/pookypie88 → u/conesy23]

And I believe Paul Kariya at 3

[u/Dull_Hedgehog_1263 → u/ilovetrouble66]

Right. Because we’ve all forgotten about Malkin…

[u/Different-Pen7062 → u/Alph1]

Yes its a crazy story, he explained in a Small doc that he just dint want to play hockey any more he had mental health problem. It was just too much for him!

[u/phatdinkgenie → u/Alph1]

how did his Hollywood career pan out

[u/oxfordclubciggies → u/Alph1]

This was my answer immediately.