Most undeserving player to get their name on the cup.

[WarriorofTime]

Plenty of random guys that spent the season down in the AHL got into a random Stanley Cup Finals game. Ben Smith played 1 game in 2012-13 (last game of the season with the President's Trophy secure, when all their stars were resting). Then in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Hossa took the ice for warmups but was a very late scratch with an upper body injury, and Ben Smith got the insert (after being scratched for the entire postseason to that point) as a homeless man's version of Hossa. Smith played about ten minutes, the Hawks lost the game 2-0 but went on to win the Series, so Smith automatically qualified for inclusion of his name on the Cup.

Michael Del Zotto is an interesting case. His name is on the Cup with the 2018-19 St. Louis Blues despite only appearing in 7 regular season games and 0 postseason games for the team. He did, however, play 23 games with the Canucks and 12 games with the Ducks that season before adding his 7 with the Blues for a total of 42.

Due to confusion about the automatic qualifiers, Blues beat writer Jeremy Rutherford relayed a fan question about Del Zotto's engraving to Phil Pritchard, and despite a lot of sources suggesting a player must play a half-season of games with the winning team to automatically qualify, Pritchard confirmed that it was just a half-season overall.

It feels a little cheap, but good for him. And the way he qualified makes for a funny story nonetheless.

Isn't Del Zotto a bit of a POS though?

 

[TheSilverSkeeter]

Isn't Del Zotto a bit of a POS though?

There was that whole Lisa Ann thing in 2014 that certainly didn't do him any favors, but I'm not aware of anything suggesting he's been a bad teammate. Maybe there have been some stories, but I think he's generally been pretty well-liked, and given his position as a depth defenseman, there has to be some reason he sticks around the NHL.

Regardless, I'm not sure what any of that has to do with his name being on the Cup due to a technicality. Unless it's a reference to me saying "good for him," which was meant in more of the literal sense rather than the pat-him-on-the-back, "way to go, Michael," sense.