Players Whose Rookie Years Were Their Best

[DimitriL07]

Boeser has developed into a great 2 way player now and scored 40, but rookie Boeser before his back injury was different.

 

[Rorschach]

He lost his warp speed but thankfully was still pretty fast. And of course, it turned out he was not a one trick pony breakaway artist.

A HoF career despite losing what looked like his best asset early on is pretty amazing. I dunno about top 5 GOAT, but he'd almost certainly have finished top 5 all time in goals, which would have been incredible considering his prime was in the dead puck era.

If you saw him, you would see he was like David Robinson for the Spurs. The Jets went from a bubble, no-man’s land team into a huge threat. I watched the 92-93 season closely as it was the best Kings team I had ever seen until 2011 and they destroyed everyone in the first half of the season without Gretzky. The Kings were running just a bit faster than the Penguins. However, the Selannne Jets could keep up, and at times were better than the Kings.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Andrew Hammond fits the bill here.

Insane 20-1-2 record his first real stint in the NHL, .941 SV% 1.69 GAA and dragged the Senators to the playoffs, then went back to the AHL most of his career.

 

[LuckyDay]

Fabian Brunnström. Matter of fact it was kind of downhill after his first game where scored a hattrick.

Recall that Vancouver had him everything but signed as a last ditch effort for Dave Nonis to try to save his job. "The best unsigned/undrafted player in Europe" was going to be guaranteed ice team on the Sedin line. This may have sealed the deal for Nonis's end for ownership to make sure this never happened. There was a lot of hype about Brunstrum and Canucks fans were shocked they let him walk.
But then, Gillis...