Players you remember absolutely nothing about (or, who was Steve Poapst)

[seventieslord]

What was Ed Ward doing in an NHL skills competition?

I don't know for sure how many years they did it, but I know that in 95-96, everybody was eligible to participate in the skills competition. it was based on the results from the individual team competitions.

This was my grade 9 year and my first year as a THN subscriber. I probably nerded out about hockey more than I ever did before or since, during this season. Another strange factoid I can tell you, is that Jamie Heward had the hardest shot in the AHL that season, and Len Esau won it in the IHL. Heward had the hardest shot overall, ahead of both Manson and Esau.

This is something that probably stuck in my head all this time because Jamie Heward was a St John's Maple leaf that year, and because my dad had coached him (and converted him to D) when he was 15. Being that he was someone my family knew personally, we were rooting hard for him to make the show, and following his AHL progress pretty carefully.

 

[seventieslord]

.....all three were Saskatchewan born defensemen, 6-2 or 6-3, drafted within 4 years of each other, who all spent one of the least memorable periods of their careers with the leafs.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

That's definitely how to pronounce the player's name. As for the skates, is it possible they were just known for years by the incorrect pronunciation because most people just saw the name on the skates and in newspaper ads and pronounced it like it was English?

I don't remember people pronouncing the skates that way. Maybe some kids. Daoust skates were well-known, worn by Gretzky.

Yeah, probably the case, because I had Daoust skates years before Dan Daoust was on the scene, and I "retired" from hockey by that time. My Dad called them that and so did kids on my hockey teams in the 70s. I don't recall TV or radio ads, but definitely a lot of print ads in the 70s, so I guess I'm remembering other peoples' misprounounciations.

 

[MadArcand]

I found Ed Ward always very memorable simply because of his name. Agent 008, Ward, Ed Ward.

 

[torontoblood]

Ladislav Kohn definitely played in at least one playoff game! The reason I know this is because that's the only thing I remember him for - unexpectedly beating the hell out of Tyler Wright in a fight in the 1999 playoffs.

Montreal Canadiens vs. Toronto Maple Leafs Box Score: February 20, 1999 | Hockey-Reference.com

Get the latest box score updates on the Montreal Canadiens vs. Toronto Maple Leafs game played on February 20, 1999 on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

I remember that Kohn had an assist on the first ever overtime goal scored in the brand new Air Canada Centre/now called Scotiabank Arena. It was actually Steve Thomas who scored in overtime for the Leafs to win this Saturday night game against the Montreal Canadiens . Mats Sundin and Ladislav Kohn had each an assist on that winning overtime goal

Final score Toronto 3, Montreal 2 (Overtime)

February 20, 1999 (exactly a week after the last game at maple Leaf gardens against their former original 6/Norris division rival Blackhawks on Saturday February 13,1999. They lost that game 6-2 on national TV.



They permanently closed the old Maple Leaf Gardens with a loss but opened the new building with a win against their forever rivals, the Habs.

 

[JianYang]

Brad bombardir.

Played 7 seasons in the nhl. Averaged about a goal per season.

 

[MadArcand]

Brad bombardir.

Played 7 seasons in the nhl. Averaged about a goal per season.

Extremely memorable name with extreme disassociation between it and his play style. It's what Souray should've been called during his scoring days.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Brad bombardir.

Played 7 seasons in the nhl. Averaged about a goal per season.

He mentioned in this thread already...read up!

 

[VanIslander]

A dman from my Vancouver Island?

I recall Bombardir.

I was in the same room as him but never met him.

 

[ShelbyZ]

The only thing I remember about Ladislav Kohn was his small part in the Red Wings 2002 season...

He came to camp on a PTO, got signed and assigned to the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks. Then maybe not even two weeks later he's sent to Espoo in Finland. Then he comes back to Detroit late in the regular season, gets dressed as a warm body mostly to rest up some vets for a west coast road trip and is scratched for the entirety of the playoffs. He got to lift the Stanley Cup (not sure if he got a ring) and went with Jiri Slegr, Jiri Fischer and Hasek when they took it back to the Czech Rep. that summer.

 

[Air Budd Dwyer]

Joe Sacco.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Extremely memorable name with extreme disassociation between it and his play style. It's what Souray should've been called during his scoring days.

Speaking of that (a disconnect between a player's name and style of play) - how about Larry Playfair? He had ten straight seasons of 100+ PIM (maxing out at 258). He spent a lot of time in the sin bin for someone who should know how to "play fair"!

 

[Golden_Jet]

Former Chicago Blackhawks, etc. goaltender Denis DeJordy leaps to my mind. As a tweener in the late 1960s, I saw an intriguing photo of him in some hockey publication at the time. It was a shot from the end zone glass with DeJordy on the front tips of his blades & stretching his glove hand above his head to snag a puck. I immediately sketched that scene & had it tacked to my bedroom wall for many years. I had no idea he had won the Vezina Trophy in 1966-67 with the Hawks, nor did I know where he went in hockey after that or that he logged 300+ NHL appearances over his career (with a couple more stints in minor pro hockey before retiring from play at the end of the 1973-74 season in Baltimore). Now I wish I still had that sketch.

Forgot about him, good one, I think he was Espo’s backup for a bit.
Don’t recall his video game rating though.

 

[Puhis]

Ladislav Kohn. The guy knew how to randomly show up on a teams roster. Thats basically all I know about him. Oh, and that he never played a playoff game.

Ed Ward is another one.

He spent four seasons in Liiga, playing for some ho-hum Espoo Blues rosters before moving across the eastern border. Shame too; Blues made the Liiga finals in the season after (2007-08) and I think Kohn could've definitely contributed to that team.

Strangely, I just remember him mostly as "our skilled Czech guy". Back then when you had a Czech guy playing in Liiga, they were often the most skilled guy on the team and sure enough, Kohn was one of Blues' top 3 goal scorers in each season, topping it off in 06-07 with 23 goals (6th most in Liiga and most in Blues) and 45 points. Curiously, he was often centered by Kent Manderville (another name for this thread?) if memory serves me right.

I have fond memories of those teams. They were never quite at the level of our 07-08 team, with names such as Oskar Osala, Erkki Rajamäki, and Arto Laatikainen, but damnit, they were my team. And, in the typical rotating cast of foreign players who spent a season or two at most with us before moving to greener pastures, Kohn stuck around for a bit longer and helped contribute each year.

---

As for this thread, Minnesota Wild definitely has some candidates. But for me, after some roster watching, Chris Porter stands out. I have... no memory of this man. He played 61 games for us in 2015-16, relatively recently and during a time I was actively following the league (more so than these days), but he just fails to ring any sort of bells. I'm gonna guess a gritty, two-way, bottom six type based on stereotypes and Harrison-Stetson method, yet there's not a single memory of him in a Wild jersey. Nada.

 

[Hobnobs]

He spent four seasons in Liiga, playing for some ho-hum Espoo Blues rosters before moving across the eastern border. Shame too; Blues made the Liiga finals in the season after (2007-08) and I think Kohn could've definitely contributed to that team.

Strangely, I just remember him mostly as "our skilled Czech guy". Back then when you had a Czech guy playing in Liiga, they were often the most skilled guy on the team and sure enough, Kohn was one of Blues' top 3 goal scorers in each season, topping it off in 06-07 with 23 goals (6th most in Liiga and most in Blues) and 45 points. Curiously, he was often centered by Kent Manderville (another name for this thread?) if memory serves me right.

I have fond memories of those teams. They were never quite at the level of our 07-08 team, with names such as Oskar Osala, Erkki Rajamäki, and Arto Laatikainen, but damnit, they were my team. And, in the typical rotating cast of foreign players who spent a season or two at most with us before moving to greener pastures, Kohn stuck around for a bit longer and helped contribute each year.

---

As for this thread, Minnesota Wild definitely has some candidates. But for me, after some roster watching, Chris Porter stands out. I have... no memory of this man. He played 61 games for us in 2015-16, relatively recently and during a time I was actively following the league (more so than these days), but he just fails to ring any sort of bells. I'm gonna guess a gritty, two-way, bottom six type based on stereotypes and Harrison-Stetson method, yet there's not a single memory of him in a Wild jersey. Nada.

Thats interesting.

As for Porter. The only thing I remember about him is that he typically only scored goals against Chicago. The team that drafted him. Other from that he was basically Tyler Wright from wish as far as I remember.

 

[MS]

Joe Sacco.

Joe Sacco, Tim Sweeney, Peter Douris, Shaun Van Allen, Bob Corkum all kind of blend together to me as this blob of 30 point grinders filling up half of Anaheim's roster for their first few years.

Garry Valk would be in there too if I didn't remember him as a Canuck before that.

Speaking of that (a disconnect between a player's name and style of play) - how about Larry Playfair? He had ten straight seasons of 100+ PIM (maxing out at 258). He spent a lot of time in the sin bin for someone who should know how to "play fair"!

My favourite example of this is Bart Crashley who had literally the greatest name ever for a big, physical, in-your-face power forward ... but was a small, softish skill defender instead.

 

[ShelbyZ]

That 2003 Red Wings thread helped me discover another player for this one:

Dmitri Bykov

Though to be fair, what I remember absolutely nothing about was his play on the ice, despite me watching lots of Red Wings hockey at that time.

From what I can recall, he was the only new addition to the Red Wings defense going into that season after they lost Olausson, Duchesne and Slegr (and technically Uwe Krupp) from the 2002 team. He pretty quickly jumped over Maxim Kuznetsov and Jesse Wallin on the Wings depth chart, both being first round picks that had mostly been warm bodies on the Wings NHL roster since the previous season (well, in the rare instances Wallin was healthy that is). He became a regular in the line-up and ended being a pleasant surprise as a rookie, though overshadowed by fellow rookie Henrik Zetterberg. I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall that the high point was Bykov being paired with Lidstrom for some stretch of the season.

After the disappointment against Giguere's huge pads the Ducks, Bykov signed a contract with his old team in Russia. It was supposed to be for leverage to get the Wings to sign him quick because it imposed some kind of deadline for players signed in Europe to be under NHL contract or be ineligible for the next season. However, the Wings ultimately ended up not coming to terms with him and he was pretty quickly forgotten

 

[Mike C]

Former Chicago Blackhawks, etc. goaltender Denis DeJordy leaps to my mind. As a tweener in the late 1960s, I saw an intriguing photo of him in some hockey publication at the time. It was a shot from the end zone glass with DeJordy on the front tips of his blades & stretching his glove hand above his head to snag a puck. I immediately sketched that scene & had it tacked to my bedroom wall for many years. I had no idea he had won the Vezina Trophy in 1966-67 with the Hawks, nor did I know where he went in hockey after that or that he logged 300+ NHL appearances over his career (with a couple more stints in minor pro hockey before retiring from play at the end of the 1973-74 season in Baltimore). Now I wish I still had that sketch.

He is also the bar trivia answer to the question of who replaced Glenn Hall after 502 consecutive complete games. (One of sports all time amazing records, especially since he didn't wear a mask back then)

 

[Hobnobs]

That 2003 Red Wings thread helped me discover another player for this one:

Dmitri Bykov

Though to be fair, what I remember absolutely nothing about was his play on the ice, despite me watching lots of Red Wings hockey at that time.

From what I can recall, he was the only new addition to the Red Wings defense going into that season after they lost Olausson, Duchesne and Slegr (and technically Uwe Krupp) from the 2002 team. He pretty quickly jumped over Maxim Kuznetsov and Jesse Wallin on the Wings depth chart, both being first round picks that had mostly been warm bodies on the Wings NHL roster since the previous season (well, in the rare instances Wallin was healthy that is). He became a regular in the line-up and ended being a pleasant surprise as a rookie, though overshadowed by fellow rookie Henrik Zetterberg. I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall that the high point was Bykov being paired with Lidstrom for some stretch of the season.

After the disappointment against Giguere's huge pads the Ducks, Bykov signed a contract with his old team in Russia. It was supposed to be for leverage to get the Wings to sign him quick because it imposed some kind of deadline for players signed in Europe to be under NHL contract or be ineligible for the next season. However, the Wings ultimately ended up not coming to terms with him and he was pretty quickly forgotten

Wallin kinda lost his spot during the 02 season as his career was destroyed by injuries. While Wallin had a slow start to the 03 season as he was eased into the line-up he quickly earned more ice-time before running into more injuries.

Bykov got a lot of ice-time but mainly because the defense was hampered by injuries as Fischer went down early as well.

The reason we don't really remember Bykov is because he never played that well and eventually was replaced with Woolley and Schneider

Bykov was offered two contracts (a one-year and a three-year deal) which was non-negotionable iirc. Wings had bigger FAs to sign that season so Bykov got offered two take it or leave it deals and he left. I remember there was an interview with Holland where they touched on Bykov resigning, Holland just mentioned the contracts already offered and a deadline date and quickly moved onto talking about Grigorenko and negotiations with the other FAs (Shanny, Stevie and Larionov iirc)

 

[TheBig08]

Wayne Gretzky, does anybody know who that is? I've heard of him doesn't sound like anybody special.

 

[DitchMarner]

Wayne Gretzky, does anybody know who that is? I've heard of him doesn't sound like anybody special.

He's best known for being the brother of the legendary Brent Gretzky.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I think he played a couple of seasons for the Edmonton Crusaders in the late 70s.

 

[TheBig08]

He's best known for being the brother of the legendary Brent Gretzky.

heard he put up 200 points, something slight.

 

[sr edler]

With all the recent whining about (or focus on) Mike Sullivan, the coach, I found out that he was also apparently a player, in the NHL, playing 700+ games between 1991–2002 for 4 different clubs. By the stats and description it looks like he was a 4th line C, but I don't remember this guy at all. Most ironically he played (in all 7 games) for the Calgary Flames in the 93–94 1st round SC playoff series against Vancouver, which is an iconic series for Canucks fans, scoring 1 goal.

Next two seasons (94–95 & 95–96) there were some type of statistical high-points as he had 8 points in 7 games in the 95 playoffs, and then 9 goals and 21 points in the following (95–96) regular season.

What is funny about the Flames in the 95 playoffs is that they got excellent production from most of their forward group (even 4th liners like Sullivan and Paul Kruse) but they still lost to San Jose.