Biggest Goaltending Bust of all time??

[connellc]

Canadian media hype had Justin Pogge because of his team Canada performance, but my friends and I never thought he would amount to much.

Thomas McCollum is someone I never thought highly of and did not warrant burning a late 1st round pick for.

Mark Visentin- Mentioned above, and out of hockey surprisingly quick for a 1st round pick. I always thought from his interviews that he didn't have the mental maturity to be a good goalie either TBH. His minor league stats are pretty bad too.

 

[reckoning]

I guess when this thread started in 2007, there was still hope Rick DiPietro would become a star, but now his career looks underwhelming for a #1 overall pick.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Troy Gamble

Gamble's one of those "oh I forgot about him" guys since he invariably shows up on NHL Network (making his NHL debut) in the game where Gretzky scored his 500th into an empty net (after scoring #498 and #499 on Gamble).

 

[MeHateHe]

Unrelated but what’s the record for zombie threads?

 

[Ghetty Green]

Brian Finley

 

[Moose Head]

Mike Torchia and Jimmy Craig deserve mention.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Chet Pickard, 2008 Draft. Stings for Predators fans because he was the pick when the Predators traded down while the Senators traded up for Erik Karlsson. At least Nashville got Josi in the 2nd round.

 

[Reaper45]

Craig Hillier, Jamie Storr and Brian Finlay are names that come to mind immediately.

Storr got his bell run being run by Courtnall. He was never quite the same afterwards.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Mason McDonald couldn't hold a rotation in the AHL. 5 AHL GP in his career against a hundred-some ECHL games before calling it quits. 1st goaltender off the board in 2014, two picks ahead of Thatcher Demko.

 

[HF007]

Leland Irving
Calvin Pickard

 

[Section 104]

Jack McCartan was the goalie for the 1960 USA team that won the gold medal in the Olympics (the one you never hear about and no one makes a movie about). Apparently he initially signed with the Rangers for $1,000 a game for 4 games in 1960(league minimum was $7,000 a year). He did fairly well with a 1-1-2 record and1.75 GAA. Rangers attendance was up about 10,000 people to 48,340. The next year he signed for more than $10,000, was initially platooned with Gump Worsley but went 1-6-1with a 4.77 and was sent to the minors. He stayed there until ended up on the WHA Minnesota Fighting Saints for 40 games in their first two years.

 

[ShelbyZ]

There's a couple of earlier posts that are almost old enough to buy a pack a cigarettes that already mentioned the first guy that came to mind for me:

Maxime Ouellet

I seem to remember some huge hype for him in the early 2000's. He was eventually penciled in for the Caps back up job coming out of the lockout. Then he had a brutal pre-season where the Caps basically gave up on him. Eventually ended up in Vancouver where he basically got to watch NHL games from the bench and after that barely played for 3 years before he was out of hockey at the age of 27/28.

 

[Fire Sweeney]

Carey Price ranks pretty low in terms of career stats and achievements compared to the hype he got throughout his career.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Carey Price ranks pretty low in terms of career stats and achievements compared to the hype he got throughout his career.

Do you really think that Carey Price - a player who has a number of top 5 Vezina finishes, won the MVP as a goalie, and retired like top 20 in wins all time - belongs in this thread where four of the last five names mentioned played 13 career games or less...?

 

[ViD]

Evgeny Ryabchikov. Was considered Russia's goalie of the future...1st rd pick of Boston in '94. Ended up in the ECHL then the WPHL - is now out of hockey.

Medvedev kinda too

 

[Czechboy]

Marek Schwarz was a Czech first rounder and he didn't even end up a top Euro goalie after busting out of NHL

 

[CuuuJooo]

Tyler Parsons.

Absolute money for the London Knights before going pro and falling down an alt-right conspiracy hole (at least that’s what it sounds like).

Necro-threads rule.

 

[HolyGhost]

For me a bust needs to be taken in the top.20

 

[MS]

For me a bust needs to be taken in the top.20

Yeah, this thread is basically just people listing every goalie ever taken in the top 2 rounds who didn't make it as an NHL starter.

Most of the answers here should be centered around the 1995-2005 period when it suddenly became trendy to draft goalies artificially high in the draft and basically all of them aside from Luongo and Price ended up being duds. Finley, Krahn, Montoya, etc.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Marek Schwarz was a Czech first rounder and he didn't even end up a top Euro goalie after busting out of NHL

Everyone thought Schwarz was better than Dubnyk at the time and Schwarz faded out of relevance without many noticing

 

[MS]

Everyone thought Schwarz was better than Dubnyk at the time and Schwarz faded out of relevance without many noticing

It seems crazy now that a 5'10 goalie went #17 overall and was considered such an elite prospect.

The sport in 2004 was already mostly shifted to big goalies but Schwarz had some very good performances at the U18s and WJCs and somehow became the very last sub-6'0 goalie to ever be considered a top prospect.

 

[Moose Head]

For me a bust needs to be taken in the top.20

Not necessarily. You can add guys who were drafted later, but who looked great at the Memorial cup, NCAA, wjhc’s or Olympics.

 

[MadLuke]

what about nothing special draftee but "great" nhl rookie a la Jim Carey, Raycroft, Steve Mason, hard to talk about bust, but maybe in many people eyes.

Mason great playoff + U20 before the nhl, calder finalist, many could get caught with huge expectation

 

[MadArcand]

what about nothing special draftee but "great" nhl rookie a la Jim Carey, Raycroft, Steve Mason, hard to talk about bust, but maybe in many people eyes.

Mason great playoff + U20 before the nhl, calder finalist, many could get caught with huge expectation

Blaine Lacher is the ultimate "looks good* for a season" bust.
* - or better said the stats look good, before @Michael Farkas comes and lists the 72245648 faults that Lacher had

 

[MS]

Not necessarily. You can add guys who were drafted later, but who looked great at the Memorial cup, NCAA, wjhc’s or Olympics.

A 3rd round pick who had a big Memorial Cup hardly belongs on a list of 'all time biggest busts'.

The only exception I might make is Jim Craig who came into the league with insane hype after the Miracle on Ice.