Best late Bloomers

[carjackmalone]

Here’s my top 5 in no particular order

Brad Marchand
Ray Whitney
Zdeno Chara
Johnny Bower
Martin St Louis

Click to read more...

 

[buffalowing88]

Brad Marchand is my nightmare as a Buffalo fan. Back when we were still relevant he would just pester our soft lineup and it sucked. He's definitely a good example.

I'd put Danny Briere up on this list.

 

[WatchfulElm]

J.T. Miller
Sheldon Souray
Maybe Dylan Strome?

 

[SillyRabbit]

Daniel Sedin
Henrik Sedin
Alex Steen
Robert Lang

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

the early 2000s canucks were a calamity of late bloomering

naslund and bertuzzi late-bloomed into superstars, and jovo belatedly went from stalled former first overall to all-star and olympian

but the sedins bloomed too late to provide the secondary scoring that team sorely needed

and they kept waiting for cloutier to bloom but he never did

 

[carjackmalone]

Were the Sedins like 25-26 when they finally put it all together

 

[VanIslander]

"The Original Ranger", Bill Cook was the first captain of the New York Rangers, scored the first goal in franchise history and led the NHL in goals and points as a 30-year-old NHL "rookie".

Just like Bower dominated a well-paying then-competitive non-farm system AHL, before being forced - threatened - to join the NHL in his thirties, so was Cook forced to leave the Western league - as it folded - going into his thirties.

 

[Crosby2010]

Here’s my top 5 in no particular order

Brad Marchand
Ray Whitney
Zdeno Chara
Johnny Bower
Martin St Louis

Is Chara really someone who belongs here? He didn't hit the road running at 20 years old and for a few years was best known for just being the tallest player in the NHL. But it normally takes a defenseman a while to hit star status. Ray Bourque hit the ground running, obviously Orr did. Chara I would say started to take off around 24 years old once he was in Ottawa. I don't know if Whitney belongs here either. He never peaked very high to begin with, not at a star level anyway, and he was in the NHL right after he was drafted.

The rest no doubt. Bower represents the epitome of a late bloomer. Enough to still make him an all-time great. St. Louis takes the cake here too. Both didn't do anything until their late 20s (Bower his 30s) but both ended up rightly so in the HHOF. Marchand likely gets in too. But to be honest if you take a deep dive with him he was a stellar 5on5 player even as a rookie. It wasn't until he got power play time and 1st line minutes that he started to put up the numbers. For whatever reason the Bruins didn't do this to him early on even though they should have.

I am going to say Tim Thomas is another name.

Gerry Cheevers could be another name.

 

[VanIslander]

Bower represents the epitome of a late bloomer. Enough to still make him an all-time great.

No.

As i explained, he and Cook had blossomed in other leagues that were pretty good in their eras (like the ex-Soviets).

The epitome of a late bloomer would be a long-time (at least 5+ years) NHLer who suddenly became great, who DEVELOPED, from whatever budding genius they may have been,... into a full-blown rose.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Off the top of my mind, Mike Knuble, Johan Franzén and Brian Rafalski are mentionable, with various qualifying statements.

 

[Crosby2010]

No.

As i explained, he and Cook had blossomed in other leagues that were pretty good in their eras (like the ex-Soviets).

The epitome of a late bloomer would be a long-time (at least 5+ years) NHLer who suddenly became great, who DEVELOPED, from whatever budding genius they may have been,... into a full-blown rose.

You can only judge him based on the era he played in. Obviously there were still good players in the minors in the original 6 era. But the truth is Bower wasn't an NHL regular until he was almost 34 years old.

 

[Dingo]

Tim Mufuggin Thomas

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Here’s my top 5 in no particular order

Brad Marchand
Ray Whitney
Zdeno Chara
Johnny Bower
Martin St Louis

Was Chara really considered a late bloomer? He was a top young defenseman in the league even on the Islanders. He just wasn't a household name like he would be a few years later. Marshall Johnston specifically targeted him and claims that he would have done the trade just for Chara and a later pick.

 

[McGarnagle]

Adam Oates, Tim Thomas, Brad Marchand

 

[VaporTrail]

Forgot to add another Bruin to that list - Tim Thomas

 

[Michael Farkas]

He was a top young defenseman in the league even on the Islanders.

Not really. He was still quite raw. His awkwardness died down, but he was still a giveaway machine with the Isles. He was closer to be one of the poorest top-4 d-men in the league than being a "top" anything...

##

Ooh, and if Tim Thomas was a "late bloomer", I guess Roman Cechmanek was too.

Or...whatever...haha

 

[Ishdul]

Marc Giordano, Johnny Bucyk, Joe Pavelski, Daniel Alfredsson

For more recent cases, J.T. Miller, Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart

 

[JianYang]

Thread needs more Robert Lang.

He's was bouncing around alot from nhl to out of nhl for most of his 20s.

His 30s on the other hand were very productive. He ended up playing until 40, and looked like he could have played more had he not had his achilees sliced at age 39.

 

[Brodeur]

I'm always reminded of Philippe Boucher. 1st round pick who played some NHL games as a 19 year old. He is the often forgotten part of the Alexei Zhitnik / Grant Fuhr trade. But upon coming to LA, Boucher was just a depth D for several years.

Then suddenly at age 28, Boucher had a break out season. Unfortunately for LA, Boucher qualified for early free agency being a 10+ year pro who was making under the average NHL salary. Dallas hired Kings assistant coach Dave Tippett after that season and Boucher would follow Tippett and sign with the Stars. Boucher would have his peak offensive seasons in the years after.

 

[Brodeur]

While I'm in the mindset of early 00's Kings D, Jaroslav Modry made his NHL debut at 22 with the Devils. Bounced around with the Senators and Kings while spending a considerable amount of time in the IHL. Finally becomes an NHL regular again at age 29 and has a breakout 42 point season at age 30. He had a few more good seasons after that.

 

[MadLuke]

Daniel Alfredsson

Could be the Calder winner with the strongest case.

 

[MadLuke]

Was Chara really considered a late bloomer? He was a top young defenseman in the league even on the Islanders.

Height aside, how many people would have known his name at the time ?

NHL Stats

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Third in ice time on the Islanders, not bad for a 22 years D, but relative to his prime that quite the step.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I'm always reminded of Philippe Boucher. 1st round pick who played some NHL games as a 19 year old. He is the often forgotten part of the Alexei Zhitnik / Grant Fuhr trade. But upon coming to LA, Boucher was just a depth D for several years.

Then suddenly at age 28, Boucher had a break out season. Unfortunately for LA, Boucher qualified for early free agency being a 10+ year pro who was making under the average NHL salary. Dallas hired Kings assistant coach Dave Tippett after that season and Boucher would follow Tippett and sign with the Stars. Boucher would have his peak offensive seasons in the years after.

While I'm in the mindset of early 00's Kings D, Jaroslav Modry made his NHL debut at 22 with the Devils. Bounced around with the Senators and Kings while spending a considerable amount of time in the IHL. Finally becomes an NHL regular again at age 29 and has a breakout 42 point season at age 30. He had a few more good seasons after that.

those kings were kind of lousy with puck movers and PPQBs emerging out of nowhere

in the year rob blake was traded away, mathieu schneider (age 31), who had been a productive offensive dman for a long time, entered his peak as a true number one

the year after, with schneider out for 1/3 of the season, both modry (30) and boucher (28) broke out for 30 pt seasons (they each scored almost half of their season totals in the seven weeks schneider was out of the lineup in the fall)

the year after that, when they cashed in on schneider at the deadline, visnovsky (26) comes out of nowhere to average a pt every other game in the second half

and in the last year before the lockout, joe corvo (26) scores 25 pts and then jumps to 40 on the other side of the lockout

so over four seasons that’s schneider, modry, boucher, visnovsky, and corvo all jumping a level after the age of 25. part of that is probably opportunity, ie someone has to play the PP, but was there also something happening with the system? or a great developmental assistant coach?

weirdly, these were the seasons immediately after larry robinson left.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Height aside, how many people would have known his name at the time ?

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Third in ice time on the Islanders, not bad for a 22 years D, but relative to his prime that quite the step.

The way I look at Chara is that he was a relatively high pick whose development trajectory wasn't that "late" for a defenseman. It would be like calling Lane Hutson a late bloomer assuming that he continues to play top pairing minutes.

He certainly reached another level after the trade to Ottawa and became one of the top defensemen in the league, but I don't think he qualifies as a late bloomer given how even his trajectory was since he was drafted.

I think that the perception with the lore of that trade is that Chara was some unknown straight off the boat from the 4th tier Slovakian floor hockey league, and then he became amazing. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but I think with where things were with the internet still being young, your average fan back in 2001 is not going to be very familiar with a young defenseman from the Islanders who wasn't a Bryan Berard type big name.

So I think there was always this assumption that Chara wasn't a valuable piece at the time, when the reality is that he was already something of a star who just so happened to become a superstar later on. Part of why he was in the trade was because he had a contract dispute with the Islanders the year previous and turned down what at the time was a pretty big contract for a defenseman his age, and they were going to sit him for the entire year until veterans from the team intervened, so the well was already poisoned with the Islanders and Chara.

An example of someone I would consider a late bloomer would be Dylan Demelo. He was a late round pick who failed to stay in the San Jose lineup. When he did stay in the lineup, he played minimal minutes. He went unqualified by them. Eventually re-signed. Then he was flipped to Ottawa as a throw-in as part of the Karlsson deal. I think he was 25 or 26 at this time and had played pro hockey for 5 seasons. Then after going to Ottawa, he cemented himself as top 4 defenseman on both Ottawa and Winnipeg.

That's a very unusual career arc that I think would qualify as a late bloomer. Chara was very raw with his size and such, but I don't think he was a late bloomer in the same way. Nobody playing 20+ minutes a night in the NHL at 20 years old or however young he was could be seen as a late bloomer, even if he did end up improving at a rate that was unexpected.

 

[Brodeur]

those kings were kind of lousy with puck movers and PPQBs emerging out of nowhere

And comically I went all in with Jere Karalahti in my keeper league. It was kinda odd, Larry Robinson had a great reputation for developing D with the Devils but he struggled as a head coach for the Kings. Namely him and Darryl Sydor was rough. Robinson would later admit that he preferred being an assistant coach so he could focus on teaching, whereas as a head coach he had to be more of an authoritarian which didn't fit his personality.

Dave Tippett was an assistant coach with the Kings from 1999-02 and had a decent reputation but not sure if he worked with the D. But probably not a coincidence that Boucher followed him to Dallas.