If you could start over any player’s career..

[Machinehead]

Bobby Orr covers all three of those.

 

[StrompTroller]

Easy choices Lindros and Bure.

Fanboy vote fedorov on eichel's wing would be something other worldly

 

[Nemesis Prime]

Paul Kariya

 

[Raistlin]

Alexander mogilny. The highest scoring Russian in one season.
Him without chronic hips

His problem is not his hips, hes too smart to take a game seriously.

 

[SI90]

Ovechkin......I believe Mcphee wasted the first part of Ovis career. When Mcphee was in charge he settled for mediocre deadline acquisitions of fading offensive stars, bargain bin Dman that had no business being in the league and journeymen/mediocre goalies. He was always unwilling to trade his precious prospects for players that mattered until he finally did out of absolute desperation in an attempt to save his job with the Erat trade. Winning the cup is such a fluky thing but Id bet Ovi would have atleast made it past the 2nd round a couple times in those first 6-7 years with a different architect.

What do you mean? Erat was a game changer!!

 

[boompuffboom]

i wish Gino was always angry

 

[CanadianSniper]

Paul Kariya please.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Other than the big ones who've already been mentioned, I'd love to see the Russian 5. Ideally all of them in their prime at the same time.

Kozlov with no car accident when he was 19. Vladdy and Fetisov no limo accident.

 

[Hattrickkane88]

Not one that i really need to see but i feel Crosby would do better with a redo because while i think he should have been better then Ovi it just didn't happen.

Both players teams have played the same amount of games therefore giving them an equal opportunity to produce and Ovi has almost double the goals and more points overall. Give Crosby a redo and he probably has WAY more points but that just isn't what happened for the poor guy.

 

[HanSolo]

Not exactly in the spirit of this thread but I think the Golden Knights really f***ed up Cody Glass' development rushing him into the NHL before he added more size. And forcing him to play off position on a line that was a possession disaster. I complained about this pretty much constantly this year and three significant injuries later, the last of which still has him unable to play in these upcoming playoffs, I really cannot stand that they opted to have him play on a broken line as a winger when he should have been getting first line center minutes in the AHL as he filled out his frame.

I get that sometimes a player is technically NHL ready and he was certainly NHL capable but they really messed up over-estimating how much physicality he could handle at his current size. Hopefully he finds away to hit his potential in spite of an absolutely bungled development start.

Besides that more recent example, Bure, Orr, and Lemieux would be real interesting to see in today's NHL.

 

[Mr Positive]

I can't resist making it about injuries.

For instance, Ales Hemsky was made out of glass, but later in his career he had a bit of resurgence with an elective surgery. It seems like they were developed relatively recently, but it seems a lot of players who were handicapped by permanent injury damage would have been better off today.

Oddly enough, Crosby qualifies, although it seems like it was the research into his own issues that created some advancement in that.

So as an Oiler fan, sure Hemsky qualifies, but the ultimate would be Lemieux for me, who was plagued with injury issues. Today, he'd get all kinds of elective surgeries and therapies. Not only that, he had the skills, skating and physique that he would no doubt be a top elite in today's game.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

I think it would be fun to reboot a bust like Nail Yakupov to see how he does starting out in a different system

 

[Artorius Horus T]

Probably wont hit the parameters but...

Raimo Helminen. He deserved to have great NHL career.
- had a promising start, but due to mysterious illness and an injury, he was denied of that

Yes, Finnish national team, Elitserien and Sm-Liiga thanks that he didn't but,..
Raimo Helminen could of been one of NHL legends.
- he did became a hockey legend, but he deserved to be more thou

To my books, Raipe was one of the (if not) most talented, skilled player
outside NHL, tho play hockey (i know, i know, the red machine players).

His 11 goals and 24 points in the WJC is still the 2nd best
of all time, it was only broken by one Peter "Foppa" Forsberg,
with his nuts 31 point display at the 1993 WJC

Raipe holds several WC, Olympics and international game records

 

[Iapyi]

Nels Stewart
Frank McGee
Mike Grant
Shorty Green
Moose Goheen
Newsy Lalonde
Jack Laviolette

 

[JAK]

Luc Bourdon.

 

[rea]

Like most I think I'd love to see the russians/euros of yesteryear play in this new era of speed minus clutch n grab. Top of list is obv Bure, Zigy palffy, maxim afino, would love to see hasek now. List goes on, so many. Would love to see gretz in his prime with his brain feeding these monsters now

 

[PAZ]

Shipachyov.

Not that I think he'd be a world beater, but Vegas literally tossed him aside an prevented any other team from taking a flyer on him.

Would also be interesting to see how Radulov's career went if he stayed in the NHL.

 

[mattihp]

Olli Jokinen. Pair him with a tough-as-nails coach from the get-go and you have a slick power forward good for 40 goals a season with some added leadership qualities.

 

[iCanada]

I think it would be fun to reboot a bust like Nail Yakupov to see how he does starting out in a different system

I think a lot of Yakupovs failure is on Yakupov. He's a guy who wanted to play his style, which was emulating Bure or Ovechkin. But he can't play that style against the best of the best because he's small and ultimately not that fast.

You get him to buy into being a Steven Stamkos though... A straight-line support player with a beauty of a shot, and I think there is a top line NHL forward there. You watch him in junior, he was a spittting image of Bure and a guy like Forsberg; end to end on his own, physical guy, and a total snipe show. Dominated defenders one on one with physicality. But you increase the size and gap control of the the defenders in question and he's not effective playing that game.

Thing is, he ultimately wasn't interested in not playing that game. But when you're 5'9 and 180 lbs that doesn't fly when defenders are 6'4 and 220 because you just can't win that one on one with your body like you can when the defenders are also all 180 lbs.

It's the same thing a guy like Gilbert Brule ran into. You can't be the sole line driver bull in the China shop without elite size and physically or elite speed & puck handling. Period. Yak had a chance to make that switch to be an elite forward with the tools he has with like six coaches, and ultimately he just wasn't interested.

 

[Statto]

Bobby Orr.

We never saw a 100% Orr and he was done by 26 because of his knee injuries.

He was a victim of the medical technology of the day. His injury today is a simple arthroscopic surgery and 6 months recovery

This... there is no telling how great he could have been, had injuries not hit him the way they did.

I’d also love to see Gretzky develop with modern fitness techniques... the lighter equipment, far better sticks and not having to focus on avoiding the head hunters... he’d be even further ahead than he was and we’d not have to put up with people not understanding just how much of an outlier he is.

And now the repeat of the perpetual debate ....

 

[43sfriends]

Not exactly in the spirit of this thread but I think the Golden Knights really f***ed up Cody Glass' development rushing him into the NHL before he added more size.

Answer for you guys is Shipachyov. Had he been given a chance to acclimate to the NHL, the 2018 SCF could have looked very different.

 

[Peat]

Beyond the obvious (Lemieux, Crosby, Orr etc.etc.) -

Michel Briere - Just a name from the history books for a Penguins fan, but it would have been nice to see what he could have become with a full career rather than the one year he had

Wouldn't mind seeing Olli Maatta's career without the cancer and major injuries either

 

[mattihp]

Beyond the obvious (Lemieux, Crosby, Orr etc.etc.) -

Michel Briere - Just a name from the history books for a Penguins fan, but it would have been nice to see what he could have become with a full career rather than the one year he had

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I've always thought this was unfounded. Yakupov's problems are substantial, not the sort of thing that just popped up because of his first NHL coach.

He looked good under Krueger, and also Nelson when he actually had a bit of a mentor in Derek Roy as his centre.

Do not underestimate the toxicity that Ekains brought to that team after Krueger left.


One of the biggest issues for Yak (and the rest of the team) was that they were left to their own devices to improve. Zero mentorship was ever provided.

Hall, Ebs, RNH, Yak, and Schultz; like Gagner, Nilsson, Cogliano, POS, and Brule before them, where all left to fend and learn for themselves. Hell you could even date that back further to the team failing to control Torres and Stoll when they broke into the league.

Bad habits and immaturity where never things dealt with under the Lowe/MacT Oilers. Well... unless Eakins' suit got wet.

When it came to leadership, management fell in love with tough guys who worked hard and set a good example, but didn't really do much to bring a room together (see Moreau, Horcoff, and Ference). The only "loud" veteran personalities those teams brought in (post drafting Hall) were Sutton and Hendricks. However, I think management actually avoided those guys, as they knew they'd be called out (see the spat with Souray)

Honestly for the topic of this thread, I'd be curious to see that entire 13/14 team had Krueger been retained and MacT not gone on a power trip thinking he'd re-invented the wheel.

It's the same story for the 08/09 team, which also featured a ton of wasted potential. Funny enough that team's falling apart was also due to MacT inability to manage a room.

*Rant over*

 

[PensandCaps]

Kovalev today....oh my.

Guys who left early like Frolov, Morozov, and Russians like Markov who didn't start their career until over 30.


Guys like Hemsky, Cheechoo, Michalek, without injuries