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...

 

[StLewis11]

For Jordan Binnington, his year as a rookie has been his best so far.

 

[HighLifeManIsHigh]

Joe Juneau
Dion Phaneuf
Marek Svatos

Nah Phaneuf was better in his second season than he was his rookie season. Runner up for the Norris if I remember correctly

 

[Albatros]

Came here to say BJ.
Technically not an NHL rookie/first year though since the stupid league denied rookie status to anyone who came in from the WHA. Though he was made captain in Vancouver the myth in the city that he seemed lost/was not good enough without Gretzky as his center but the truth was he had many great years in the WHA before Wayne signed as an underager - Wayne just made him that much better. Had he stayed in Edmonton on Wayne's line no one doubts he'd have ended his career as famous as Jari Kurri.

Kurri had a record-breaking rookie year as a 20-year-old playing with Matti Hagman initially, MacDonald was an above average WHA player that went on to have one very good NHL season at 26. He fell off and lost to a 20-year-old because the substance wasn't there, he was the proverbial fire hydrant. Kurri was a Selke-level two-way forward that could outproduce him from early on and that's how he made his name.

 

[Brodeur]

Will Butcher looked like a steal in his rookie year (44 points as a rookie defenseman), but it turned out that he was just in the right place at the right time and came back down to earth. No longer in the league.

One of things where the points made him look better than he was. Butcher was given very sheltered minutes and a heap of PP1 time. They tried giving him more even strength time in subsequent seasons and his defensive limitations were harder to hide. When the Devils got P.K. Subban in 2019 (eventually Sami Vatanen took over PP1), that relegated Butcher to PP2. So definitely a weird spot to be a pseudo PP specialist who didn't get PP1 time.

Devils had something similar a few years before that with Eric Gelinas. 29 points in 60 games as a rookie, but his defensive warts were more evident the following year. Gelinas was a bit of a one trick pony with his slap shot but it was a hell of a shot.

And then Ty Smith unexpectedly followed Butcher's career path after putting up 23 points in 48 games as an NHL rookie. Smith wasn't great defensively but I didn't think he was as bad as Butcher but Smith has cleared waivers the past two seasons. Perhaps similar in that Smith isn't cracking PP2 on most clubs and not really a PK option either.

 

[BMOK33]

Trent Hunter 25 goals 50+pts Rookie year

13 year old me was ready for our next great power forward/sniper on Long Island

Dude was pretty good but simply could not skate at all

 

[FinLurker]

Kurri had a record-breaking rookie year as a 20-year-old playing with Matti Hagman initially, MacDonald was an above average WHA player that went on to have one very good NHL season at 26. He fell off and lost to a 20-year-old because the substance wasn't there, he was the proverbial fire hydrant. Kurri was a Selke-level two-way forward that could outproduce him from early on and that's how he made his name.

Yeah. Kurri is quite unique in a way that he is both sniper and great defensively. His good defensive game helped Gretzky and Coffey to cheat a bit defensively. When you saw Kurri highlights or Oilers games from early 80's quite a lot of his goals come from the second wave of Oilers (counter) attack. Usually wingers are in the first wave and it's center or d-man coming in the second wave. This of course partly because Coffey and Gretzky were such a effortless skaters that nobody could keep with them.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Bryan Berard, due to injuries mostly. His sophomore year was nearly as good offensively as his rookie year, but he fell apart defensively. Then he had a few partial seasons, and the eye injury occurred, and he had a hard time staying healthy for the rest of his career. Had his best ppf in 03/04, but didn't play the full season, and never played a full season again after that.

 

[Agent Zuuuub]

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.

Not really fair to say that he dragged the Sens. The whole team dragged themselves including incredible performances by Karlsson and Stone.

He played great behind a team that was playing great in front of him.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Not really fair to say that he dragged the Sens. The whole team dragged themselves including incredible performances by Karlsson and Stone.

He played great behind a team that was playing great in front of him.

Ehh, they were well out of a playoff position when Hammond took over.

Stone, Hoffman, and Karlsson finished the year with spectacular numbers, of course.

"Dragged" could be the wrong word to use, but I'm not confident they would have turned the season around without Hammond coming in at that point.