Players Who Became The Opposite Of What They Were?

[DitchMarner]

I don't mean players who rounded out their games or became better two-way players over time but rather players who became completely different from and opposite to what they once were (for instance prolific goal scorers who became elite playmakers, big scorers who weren't very good defensively that became shutdown players who didn't score much, finesse players who became enforcers or tough guys etc).

From what I remember, Kadri started off as a finesse playmaker (he wasn't soft per se but was light and easy to push around and far from intimidating) and morphed into a gritty goal scorer by the end of his stint with Toronto.

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[MadArcand]

Jeff O'Neill kinda went from fast, defensively responsible playmaker* to slow, fat, defensively bad sniper.
*-

 

[Michael Farkas]

Stan Mikita from "don't tread on me" to Lady Byng.
Joe Thornton from net-driving, power forward-ish to softer playmaker type.
Sergei Gonchar from defense-less offensive defenseman to balanced two-way d-man towards the end of his career
Rick Nash from power-goal scorer, then adapted to become more of a NZ playmaker and facilitator in New York

 

[Johnny Engine]

I don't mean players who rounded out their games or became better two-way players over time but rather players who became completely different from and opposite to what they once were (for instance prolific goal scorers who became elite playmakers, big scorers who weren't very good defensively that became shutdown players who didn't score much, finesse players who became enforcers or tough guys etc).

From what I remember, Kadri started off as a finesse playmaker (he wasn't soft per se but was light and easy to push around and far from intimidating) and morphed into a gritty goal scorer by the end of his stint with Toronto.

When it comes to Kadri, his junior playmaking didn't immediately translate to the NHL to the degree where you'd say "that's what Naz does, give him the puck, get open and watch out". Earlier Kadri was more like a comprehenively skilled forward who could create or finish if he had the puck, but a lot of his moves didn't work against real defensemen and his production was...decent.
When Babcock and Hiller arrived, they had him dial in a specific power play role, and threw he and Komarov at tough competition, and I think he responded pretty well. I think he was the same guy the whole time, but made use of his hands and chippy demeanor in a way that made sense.
Don't really know what precipitated his 59-assist outburst in his last year in Colorado, but he certainly never set guys up to that degree in Toronto.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Jeff O'Neill kinda went from fast, defensively responsible playmaker* to slow, fat, defensively bad sniper.
*-View attachment 908475

I remember seeing Doug Gilmour as a draft comp on here one time. I just can't imagine.

 

[carjackmalone]

Brad Marchand was a Marty Gelinas type player who morphed into a Bobby Clarke type player

 

[Soundgarden]

Scott Stevens was an offensive defenseman in his time with Washington.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Joe Thornton went from a physical guy who put up big numbers a la Cam Neely to a pure finesse guy after Lindros KO'd him.

From 2001 to 2004 he had 313 pts, 441 PIM in 292 games

The Lindros fight was in 04 and after that season he barely sniffs 40 PIM in a season

 

[MadLuke]

Going more by reputation maybe (i.e. maybe he was super solid defensively), but Hamrlik was the first name that came to mind.

1st overall offensive star turned defensive star in calgary-mtl.

Joe Thornton being named is such a big turnaround he was post Bruins-Lindros for such a long time that we can forget.

Thornton missed a top 10 in goals finish by a single goal in 2003, by 3 in 2001.

Among people with 100 points or more from 01-03:

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6th in pim per games, 20th in goal per games (like a Sundin-Hossa-Bertuzzi, Glen Murray, ONeil of that era, in that group just below the most elites)

 

[Crosby2010]

First name that came to mind for me was Stan Mikita. Scrappy type of player who put up a lot of points and turns into a back to back Lady Byng winner. Check this out, here are his penalty minutes around his transformation:

1964: 146
1965: 154
1966: 58
1967: 12
1968: 14
1969: 52

He won the Art Ross and Hart in 1967 and 1968 as well. Had another year of 85 PIM after this, but was generally around 40-45 PIM a season the rest of his career. I have no idea what happened after 1966. Did he just feel like he was better off being on the ice as opposed to the penalty box and he cleaned up? It sure helped the Hawks in the standings, they had 94 points in 1967, far and away the best in the NHL. I am just not sure why those two seasons stick out. He didn't rack up the PIM after 1968 or anything, but he also wasn't close to having that few of PIM in a season. Either way, a heck of a transformation.

Scott Stevens was already rightly mentioned but how about Red Kelly? Guy literally changed positions despite already having a lock cinch Hall of Fame career as a defenseman. Goes onto win 4 Cups as a forward and cements himself as the player with the most Cups in NHL history of a player who never played for the Habs. And look at those playoff numbers, 1962, 1963, 1964 especially. Red was a machine on that team.

How about Yzerman? Would post-1995 or 1996 come into play here? Goes from the wild offensive numbers to being still good offensively but willingly sacrificing offense for better team play and defense. But let me also throw this in here that Yzerman was never one dimensional. Killed penalties throughout his whole career, led the NHL in shorthanded goals 3 times, etc. Blocked shots and was probably a rare star that did it. And this is all before his mid 1990s change. He just sacrificed his offense and played a more well rounded game, but I never thought he was bad defensively.

Eric Lindros after the Stevens hit was different. I'll admit though he could still fight. We saw this in 2004 when he belted Thornton and probably ironically propelled him into his own transformation. But in a bad way Lindros became a shadow of himself after 2000. This was a Lindros that played the perimeter as a New York Ranger. Not the overpowering guy that threw his body around and struck fear into everyone even without the puck. He could still fight as we know, but he very much played like a guy on the ice who didn't want to get hurt again.

 

[DitchMarner]

First name that came to mind for me was Stan Mikita. Scrappy type of player who put up a lot of points and turns into a back to back Lady Byng winner. Check this out, here are his penalty minutes around his transformation:

1964: 146
1965: 154
1966: 58
1967: 12
1968: 14
1969: 52

He won the Art Ross and Hart in 1967 and 1968 as well. Had another year of 85 PIM after this, but was generally around 40-45 PIM a season the rest of his career. I have no idea what happened after 1966. Did he just feel like he was better off being on the ice as opposed to the penalty box and he cleaned up? It sure helped the Hawks in the standings, they had 94 points in 1967, far and away the best in the NHL. I am just not sure why those two seasons stick out. He didn't rack up the PIM after 1968 or anything, but he also wasn't close to having that few of PIM in a season. Either way, a heck of a transformation.

According to The Hockey News' Top 100 Players of All-Time publication, Mikita was picked on and teased when he was young. He was called "DP" by his schoolmates; it was a racist epithet that stood for "Displaced Person."

The publication has a quote from him saying, "I was basically hostile and so I was rough and often downright mean. It helped me in one way because I always believed that, being a so-called DP, somebody people picked on and looked down on, I could only succeed by being better than everybody else. As a hockey player, I always tried that much harder."

It also says that after he came home from a game one night, his daughter asked him why he spent almost the whole game sitting down while the other players were skating around, and he woke up to reality, thinking that if a two-year-old could see that something was wrong, why couldn't a supposedly intelligent 26-year-old figure it out?

 

[David Bruce Banner]

IIRC, Bobby Carpenter went from an offensive phenom as a youngster to a defensive forward as an older veteran.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Jeff O'Neill kinda went from fast, defensively responsible playmaker* to slow, fat, defensively bad sniper.

I have a hard time imagining O'Neill being described as defensively responsible at any time lol

 

[JianYang]

Guy Carbonneau was a prolific scorer in junior, and he was the top scorer on his ahl team, but he turned himself into a shutdown player very early in his career.

He may have carved a very different path somewhere else, but he recognized the niche that would fast track him on that habs roster especially under a coach like lemaire.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

jt miller in the playoffs, 2014 to 2019: 61 games, 3 goals, 23 assists, 3.2 SH%

jt miller in the playoffs after coming to vancouver: 30 games, 9 goals, 21 assists, 15.0 SH%

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

the biggest mid-career about face i think i have ever seen is sean burke. he was a classic 1980s style standup goalie, a guy blessed with a huge frame relying on his reflexes and athleticism, and he was pretty successful. more 200 wins and 500 games, over a decade as a starter. that’s longer than most careers.

then as a 33 year old he transforms into a textbook blocking goalie, using his size to play the percentages, and rattles off by far the best seasons of his career, both statistically and in terms of award recognition.

 

[MadArcand]

I have a hard time imagining O'Neill being described as defensively responsible at any time lol

I know, right? That's why I included a proof.

 

[The Panther]

Believe it or not, Kevin Lowe was considered an offensive defenceman in the QMJHL. His last year of junior, he scored 86 points in 68 games (incl. 26 goals) -- the highest PPG on his team. He scored more goals than Ray Bourque that season, and only 7 fewer points.

 

[Moose Head]

Guy Carbonneau was a prolific scorer in junior, and he was the top scorer on his ahl team, but he turned himself into a shutdown player very early in his career.

He may have carved a very different path somewhere else, but he recognized the niche that would fast track him on that habs roster especially under a coach like lemaire.

Apparently one of the reasons the Habs didn’t draft D Savard, was because they felt they had a similar prospect in Guy Carbonneau. Guy Lafluer liked the young Carbonneau's offensive game so much, he proposed to management that Carbonneau and Mats Naslund be his line mates.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Great to see folks quickly working their way into a fairly uncommon concept...hockey sense is bilateral. No such thing as "offensive hockey sense" and "defensive hockey sense"

Defense is the inverse of offense. While it is true it is easier to destroy than it is to create, the very best defensive players had very strong offensive skills and deceptive qualities. They apply the mental and technical aspects combined with the physical to prevent offense by cutting lanes, mirroring movement, etc.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Great to see folks quickly working their way into a fairly uncommon concept...hockey sense is bilateral. No such thing as "offensive hockey sense" and "defensive hockey sense"

Defense is the inverse of offense. While it is true it is easier to destroy than it is to create, the very best defensive players had very strong offensive skills and deceptive qualities. They apply the mental and technical aspects combined with the physical to prevent offense by cutting lanes, mirroring movement, etc.

How do you (and I have my own answer here that I think is the right one, but I just want to hear you expand on that) account for players who appear to see passing options and gaps in coverage no one else does, but then look like complete dopes when they have to cover someone?

 

[Michael Farkas]

How do you (and I have my own answer here that I think is the right one, but I just want to hear you expand on that) account for players who appear to see passing options and gaps in coverage no one else does, but then look like complete dopes when they have to cover someone?

Great question. There are several forms and components of defensive play.

Mental/anticipatory defense. Like you said, identifying lanes and openings (again, in reverse). These guys tend to be very positionally sound..."in the right spot". Think Gretzky, Crosby, etc.

There's "compete" defense. Guys that work their way to the puck all the time. If they don't have the mental game, these players are often "chasing the puck" around...think about the working wingers that you've seen over the years...Tyler Kennedy, Andrew Cogliano, whoever...

There's physical defense...guys that get it done by disabling folks...Radko Gudas and the like.

But then there's also the techniques of technical defense. How to really execute a check, basically. Body position and timing, stick position and timing, etc.

So, you can be very smart and choose not to compete defensively and not accomplish anything. You can be very smart and not really understand how to technically play defense and they'll be less effective...you can be smart, competitive, AND know what you're doing, but you could be Rocco Grimaldi's size and not be able to execute physically. You can easily see the patterns here, no doubt.

One of the better examples of what you're talking about is Mario Lemieux. Lemieux didn't play much defense...but when he had to, he was the best at it.

We see this adaptability with others...Joe Thornton internationally is not asked to play a top line role because of Canada's center depth. He comes in as a fourth liner and he checks...and he's damn good at it because he has adaptable, transferable skills.

 

[mrhockey193195]

Thornton was the first player who came to mind. I thought of Scott Stevens, but I'm not sure he fits since he wasn't a bad defender in his early days with Washington when he was putting up points.

There are plenty of examples of big, lumbering, "shut down" defensemen finding their offensive legs (usually stemming from a bit slap shot) and developing into threats who put up lots of points. Chara & Pronger are immediate examples, though they are all-time greats so I chalk that up more to natural development. I'm more thinking about players like Souray, McCabe, Aucoin, etc.

 

[Stephen]

Apparently one of the reasons the Habs didn’t draft D Savard, was because they felt they had a similar prospect in Guy Carbonneau. Guy Lafluer liked the young Carbonneau's offensive game so much, he proposed to management that Carbonneau and Mats Naslund be his line mates.

Looking back on the whole legend of Guy Carbonneau, I'm sort of not getting why he turned himself into a defensive specialist in the first place. Here was a French Canadian junior scoring sensation coming up in the early 80s, puts up nearly 100 points in the AHL and is poised to inherit that torch from Guy Lafleur... and he becomes a shut down center? Based on lineage, organizational need you'd think his quickest and most direct path to success would have been to harness those offensive gifts and lead the Habs into the second half of the 80s. And he turns himself into Bob Gainey the next generation? I just don't get that shift in mentality, especially at the height of those high flying 80s seasons.

 

[seventieslord]

Thornton was the first player who came to mind. I thought of Scott Stevens, but I'm not sure he fits since he wasn't a bad defender in his early days with Washington when he was putting up points.

There are plenty of examples of big, lumbering, "shut down" defensemen finding their offensive legs (usually stemming from a bit slap shot) and developing into threats who put up lots of points. Chara & Pronger are immediate examples, though they are all-time greats so I chalk that up more to natural development. I'm more thinking about players like Souray, McCabe, Aucoin, etc.

Actually, Souray is kind of a good one. At least the way I remember his reputation before his big year in montreal, he was just a defensive bottom pairing zero scoring kind of guy. And then next thing you know he was playing on top pairings and top power play units and scoring 15 goals and 60 points. And in those days he was definitely not known as a defensive guy. He was quite bad at it if I remember correctly.

It's kind of a strange one because hockey sense is one of those things you either have or don't have. And if he was actually effective defensively at all prior to 2004, it mustn't have been because of an abundance of sense, perhaps it was believed that he had limitations offensively that he had to be one of those simple meat and potatoes kinds of guys. And then once he proved that he had the skills to transcend that role, it's like it went to his head and he figured "I'm a superstar and this is my meal ticket". And then it became obvious how little sense he had.