Best change of scenery stories?

[Chainshot]

A couple more - Markus Naslund being dealt from Pittsburgh to Vancouver was a big boost in his career. Similarly, Danny Briere went from Coyote waiver bait to considerable success after moving from Phoenix to Buffalo in a trade for Chris Gratton.

 

[SEALBound]

A couple more - Markus Naslund being dealt from Pittsburgh to Vancouver was a big boost in his career. Similarly, Danny Briere went from Coyote waiver bait to considerable success after moving from Phoenix to Buffalo in a trade for Chris Gratton.

I don't think mere development and progression is the same as needing a change of scenery. No doubt Naslund exploded a year or two after being traded but it's not like he was a bum in Pittsburgh.

I will add these from the Penguins perspective:

Matt Niskanen - from the Gogo for Neal/Niskanen swap.
Jussi Jokinen - wasn't doing great in Carolina and found his way again in Pittsburgh.
Justin Schultz - pretty bad time in Edmonton, came to Pittsburgh and was more or less reborn.
Carl Hagelin - wasn't bad but Anaheim at the time was not a good fit. Found his way with the Penguins.
Trevor Daley - wasn't bad but he was garbage in Chicago.
Mike Matheson - wasn't going well for him in Florida and he rounded out well in Pittsburgh.

 

[Suntouchable13]

How about Joffrey Lupul? Injured lots and slowing down with Anaheim in 2010. Gets traded to Toronto as purely a cap dump, with little to no expectation that he'd contribute much. He was an all-star the following year, ending the season over a point-per-game.

Sergei Samsonov is an example of bad and good change of scenery. He was productive with the Bruins and Oilers. Then came the bad change of scenery. He was lousy in MTL, and then so bad with Chicago that he went 24 games without a goal and then was demoted to the AHL. Then came the good change of scenery. He got dumped to Carolina and was immediately an impact guy again, scoring 32 points in 38 games and stayed a productive guy for 3 more years.

Unfortunately, it was very short lived with Lupul. Just a very brittle guy. Too bad.

 

[Chainshot]

I don't think mere development and progression is the same as needing a change of scenery. No doubt Naslund exploded a year or two after being traded but it's not like he was a bum in Pittsburgh.

I will add these from the Penguins perspective:

Matt Niskanen - from the Gogo for Neal/Niskanen swap.
Jussi Jokinen - wasn't doing great in Carolina and found his way again in Pittsburgh.
Justin Schultz - pretty bad time in Edmonton, came to Pittsburgh and was more or less reborn.
Carl Hagelin - wasn't bad but Anaheim at the time was not a good fit. Found his way with the Penguins.
Trevor Daley - wasn't bad but he was garbage in Chicago.
Mike Matheson - wasn't going well for him in Florida and he rounded out well in Pittsburgh.

He was getting scratched as a Penguin. That wasn't development, that was escape.

 

[PB37]

Patrick Sharp

Drafted in the 3rd round by the Flyers in 2001
Doesn't do much in his limited time there over 3 seasons:
66 games - 10 goals

Traded at age 24 to Chicago in December of 2005

-becomes an All-Star and Selke candidate
-key part of 3 cup wins
-fan favorite
-Seasons with 40, 38, 38, and 37 goals

Sharp had some solid years putting up goals but never scored more than 36 in a season.

 

[SEALBound]

He was getting scratched as a Penguin. That wasn't development, that was escape.

He played 66 year he was trade with the Penguins, then got another 10 with Vancouver. He was a regular. The Penguins thought they lost toughness with the departure of Stevens and a few others and dealt from a position of strength. Naslund was typically on the third line with top 6 spot duty here and there.

I would suggest a "change of scenery" is when a player does well (or is close to meeting full potential) and then their play starts to dip well below expectations and ability. They are then traded and get back to their initial performance. I don't know if that fits with Naslund but I will agree that getting trade was a big boost for him.

 

[banks]

Unfortunately, it was very short lived with Lupul. Just a very brittle guy. Too bad.

True. His tenure didn't end well. But the thread isn't about players who are durable.

Lupul went from a cap dump to an all star in one year, and was quoted as saying "I was born to play in Toronto". Great change of scenery story.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

Am I missing something? Where did you get those goal totals? I don't think he's ever scored 40 goals....for that matter, he hasn't scored 38 or 37 goals either.

I'd have to give this some more thought. The Sharp example, could simply be natural progression vs. total change in career due to change in scenery, but same could be said for a lot. When he was traded to CHI, he had 5 goals and 8 points in 22 games....not far off of the 9 goals and 23 points he scored in 50 games with CHI. The following full season he had 20 goals and 35 points....very small improvement and then took a big jump the following year.....to me, that's probably just a guy going from 24 to 25 to 26 and advancing his game.

Other examples are guys that just have a bad year and bounce back the next year, or guys that move to new place and are hot for a period of time but then settle back to their norm.

Sharp had some solid years putting up goals but never scored more than 36 in a season.

You're correct. For someone reason I was looking at adjusted stats on Hockey Reference rather than the standard stat box.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

Was Dylan Strome just mismanaged in Arizona and Chicago? He was the first guy I thought of when I read the title.

 

[yeaher]

Ray Bourque

 

[Panteras]

Anyone Bill Zito did a reclamation project on. Bennett, Verhaeghe, Reinhart, Forsling, Montour, Mikkola, Marchment

 

[NyQuil]

Ray Bourque

Went from being a big choker to being a Stanley Cup champion.

 

[ScottyMascotty]

 

[Chainshot]

His defensive metrics are still pretty rough. But as a lacrosse short-stick mid-fielder who handles transition, errr as a puck rushing defenseman, his opportunity to step into Ekblad's skates when Ekblad invariable got hurt certainly jump-started his success. He just needed the opportunity.

 

[NyQuil]

This entire thread could be dedicated to Mad Mike Milbury

Roberto Luongo
Olli Jokinen
Todd Bertuzzi
Zdeno Chara
Jason Spezza
Bryan Berard
Brian McCabe
Wade Redden

My Oilers had some horrible giveaways:
Miro Satan
Adam Graves

Canucks had some notable horribad ones:
Mike Peca
Cam Neely

But they also got Marcus Naslund from Pittsburgh, and Todd Bertuzzi from Mad Mike.

Spezza and Redden never played for the Islanders so it's hard to argue that being traded to Ottawa was a "change of scenery" that turned their careers around.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Zach Bogosian. I'm not sure if there was a signle Sabres fan who didn't celebrate his departure, and a few moments later he was a very well liked player in Tampa's Cup winning team.

That dude can still f*** himself. He played like dogshit for us, seemingly didn’t put in the effort, then was mad about being on the trading block or scratched- one solution bro, play better.

/rant. Sorry, that dude just bugs me. Oh, and every former Sabre plays better except for Girgensons, and maybe now Mittlestadt.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

He was getting scratched as a Penguin. That wasn't development, that was escape.

Do we count Hasek then? Wasn’t really around for the start of his career, was never too clear on whether he showed promise/why Chicago dealt him. Then he found greener pastures in Buffalo. Then went for greener pastures still, but that’s kinda a career accomplishment matter.

 

[NyQuil]

Do we count Hasek then? Wasn’t really around for the start of his career, was never too clear on whether he showed promise/why Chicago dealt him. Then he found greener pastures in Buffalo. Then went for greener pastures still, but that’s kinda a career accomplishment matter.

Goalies are a bit funny since a lot of them don’t necessarily get a real shot at a job for awhile.

 

[Chainshot]

Do we count Hasek then? Wasn’t really around for the start of his career, was never too clear on whether he showed promise/why Chicago dealt him. Then he found greener pastures in Buffalo. Then went for greener pastures still, but that’s kinda a career accomplishment matter.

He was amazing in the last game of the Hawk-Penguin SCF game coming in to relieve Belfour which was how he returned to Buffalo's attention. They, the Jets, and the Hawks then worked around the expansion protection rules to shuffle players around so that teams could fulfill exposing at least one goaltender to the selection process (it had to be someone with at least 1 NHL game per team IIRC). The Caps tried signing some guy who hadn't played in the NHL since the 70's too just to get around it. Jim Kelley had reported back then about Buffalo wanting to get Hasek in the season but the SCF game pushed Muckler into making sure it happened. Even still, he would waste a bunch of assets the next year getting his old pal Grant Fuhr out of Toronto so it's not like they were 100% sold on Dom at that point either.

So in the end Beauregard went from Winnipeg to Buffalo to Chicago to Winnipeg in the round-robin. What Buffalo dealt to Winnipeg for him (Christian Ruuttu) got used to trade him from the Jets to the Hawks while really the only thing of future value that moved in the dealings were the 3rd rounder (that became Eric Daze) to the Hawks and Hasek who was behind Belfour already with first rounder Jimmy Waite waiting (badumtish) in the wings. Dom had been great in the Czech leagues and international play, then had eye-popping stats in the IHL but he wasn't going to displace Belfour. It wasn't until Fuhr arrived and then hurt himself that Dom really took off in Buffalo.

 

[miscs75]

Spezza and Redden never played for the Islanders so it's hard to argue that being traded to Ottawa was a "change of scenery" that turned their careers around.

By his theory, same could be said about Berard with Ottawa. I guess he never realized both were traded a month after the draft for eachother while Spezza was drafted with the Isles pick from a trade.

 

[Brodeur]

My Oilers had some horrible giveaways:
Adam Graves

Maybe not entirely the Oilers fault in losing Graves. New Jersey lost Brendan Shanahan and Vancouver lost Petr Nedved because of the quirky rules.

That era's CBA had a couple different categories (Group I vs. Group II) for RFA offer sheets. Teams could match a Group II offer, but oddly were not permitted to match a Group I offer sheet. Instead of predefined draft pick compensation, teams had a short window to work out a de facto trade (process was called equalization). If the two teams couldn't agree, the league would bring in an independent arbitrator and both sides would present their offer/demand. The arbitrator would choose between the two.

The Brendan Shanahan Group I offer sheet had been done earlier that summer but the arbitration process took awhile to get settled. The arbitrator would rule in favor of the Devils who were awarded Scott Stevens.

This THN blip mentioned that the Rangers were confident that they wouldn't lose Brian Leetch, Mike Gartner, Bernie Nicholls, or Mike Richter if Edmonton requested them to the arbitrator.

The Rangers offered up Troy Mallette while Edmonton asked for Steven Rice and Louie DeBrusk. The arbitrator chose the Rangers offer although I think he later admitted that he didn't know how to 'value' Rice/DeBrusk since they were still prospects.

Group I equalization was messy so it's probably not a coincidence that it would get merged into Group II in the 1995 CBA.

 

[The Nuge]

I seem to identify Marchessault to be in the same vein as Verhaeghe. Marchessault was league minimum guy bouncing around for a while. He took off after being taken by Vegas.

I wonder if there's a few more stories that OP is looking for, for guys taken in the VGK expansion draft.

Not really. He took off before Vegas. He was a 30 goal scorer who was only 3 points back of leading the Panthers in scoring.

Devan Dubnyk!

Dubnyk was slowly getting worse for years in Edmonton. Then he bounced around a bit even hitting the AHL and looked like he was out of the league.

He gets traded to a desperate Wild team and starts 38 consecutive games going 27–9–2, making the playoffs when it seemed impossible. That year Dubnyk was 3rd in Vezina voting, 4th in Hart voting, and won a Masterton! He went on to be a workhorse goalie for Minny for the next 4 years, was a 3 time all-star, and started more games than almost anyone league wide while posting great numbers.

You won't find many bigger swings than going from AHL cast off to Vezina and Hart votes after a change of scenery.

Very much so. He couldn’t even succeed in Nashville who might have had the best defense ever that year (Weber, Josi, Ekholm, Jones, and Ellis).

False. This narrative needs to die, it's so god damn annoying.

Toronto loved the shit out of Phil Kessel, apart from that dumbass Steve Simmons everyone here loved him. He had 3 consecutive years of 80+ points, going PPG in that span and was a top 5 scoring winger.

It was literally fans of every single other team, telling us how much Kessel sucks, that he's fat and eats hot dogs, that he's 1 dimensional.

There was even a poll done on HF, Hossa vs Kessel, Hossa won in a landslide. 1 week later Kessel was traded, same poll was re-done, Kessel won in a landslide.

Die hard fans tended to support him more, but he was absolutely the whipping boy for more casual Leaf fans. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fanbase rip on their star player more than Kessel in Toronto.

.

Bonus: Pat Maroon went from fourth line scrapper with the Ducks and Oilers to winning three straight Cups

.

Maroon literally never had a better stretch of hockey than in Edmonton. He even had a 27 goal season, and never topped 28 points in a season after leaving. In Edmonton he was a second line powerforward. In Tampa he was a 4th line grinder. You literally have it backwards.

Petry to Montreal from Edmonton.

Nope. Edmonton fans constantly said he was a top pairing dman. It was every other fanbase that said Edmonton’s defense as a whole was bad so he couldn’t be good.

 

[MattMartin]

Michael Grabner

Michael Grabner - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BLNY]

Nope. Edmonton fans constantly said he was a top pairing dman. It was every other fanbase that said Edmonton’s defense as a whole was bad so he couldn’t be good.

Sure, the fans thought he could be. But, he wasn't and the numbers weren't there. What the fanbase thought wasn't a criteria in the OP. Can't deny that he blossomed in Montreal.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Lower tier one in but Habs acquiring Weise from Vancouver. He went on to be a solid depth player for the Habs.

Brian Boyle and Brandon Prust.

Boyle was viewed as a bust and Prust was just a scrappy player. They went to New York and became a pretty good pk duo and brought a lot of physicality and toughness to the Rangers.

Brett Kulak was acquired in a deal for two AHLers and started in the AHL when the Habs acquired him. Worked his way up and he's built himself a solid career with 2 cup final appearance, lost both.