Players you thought were superstars as a kid

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

All the top forwards on the Avs in the mid 90s
Tanguay, Kamensky being part of that

Also Kris Draper during the late 90s

 

[SquiddFX]

Oh boy where to start. Most Habs players from late 90's to mid 2000's. Guys like Brian Savage, Richard Zednik, Sheldon Souray, Mike Komisarek. To this day, I think Zednik is in my top 5 favourite Habs players that I have seen play for the Habs. Pickings were slim when I was young

 

[hoglund]

Sittler and Palmateer, were my idols as a kid and let's face it they WERE stars.

 

[Josepho]

I remember being very in to making terrible hockey highlight videos.

One of them featured "the dueling danglers", two of the guys who I thought were the league's top stickhandlers.

Pavel Datsyuk and... Mikhail Grabovski.

 

[Nucker101]

Max Afinogenov

 

[FoxyClean]

Robert Lang.

He was so good in video games.

 

[Man Bear Pig]

Felix Potvin comes to mind as does W.Clark. I still have my Potvin jersey from when I was about 6. I was absolutely convinced that he was the best.

 

[Norwegianoiler]

Oilers version of Eric Brewer and Mike Comrie.

Anchor on the blueline and top line center, or so it appeared to me from some combination of self-delusion and youthful optimism.

 

[NickLidstrom]

Not when I was a kid, but when I got into hockey I saw the Rick Nash goal and just assumed he was one of the best players. That goal is still my favourite to this day.

I mean, he kind of was for a while.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Max Afinogenov

So true

 

[HaNotsri]

Ed Belfour. As akid I thought he was on Brodeur/Roy level (but below Hasek of course).

 

[acor]

Wayne Gretzky, I mean his Rangers version... I was wondering if we have appartently "greatest player of all time", why this team is so bad, or if the team is soo bad, why isn't he playing for other team then... After all other sports (soccer and basketball) taught me that best players are all playing in top 4-5 best teams, and other teams are for peasants...

 

[Evil Janney]

Alexander Korolyuk.

If this guy was on Detroit or Colorado in the late 90s...he DEFINITELY would have been a superstar. The Sharks of that time were grinders who knew how to get to the playoffs, they weren't a team with offensive creativity. Alex Korolyuk was just full of raw talent and skill.

He used to get tripped and thrown down all the time, only to get back up and resume the play as if nothing happened. This guy was relentless. Too bad he never had the support that suited his playing style.

 

[elmaco]

Sandis Ozolinsh

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Dale Hunter

 

[chokei]

Not really as a kid anymore, but during one of my first few seasons following the NHL (around 2008/9 onwards):

Aaron Asham played for Philadelphia and in one playoff run he scored a few timely goals. I thought "well, I've never heard of this guy before, but he seems to deliver!". The Flyers eventually dropped out of the playoffs and I think they traded Asham away in the following offseason or at the next trade deadline. I always wondered why they'd just trade away such an important player.

During the next few seasons I learned that Asham really just was a bottom player who had a few good moments.

 

[Digitalbooya]

Max Afinogenov

Same.

 

[Grasshopperking]

Benoit Hogue (i don't know..)

Roman Turek

 

[MoPucks]

Ed Belfour. As akid I thought he was on Brodeur/Roy level (but below Hasek of course).

He pretty much was though.

 

[Patrik Barkov]

Sergei Samsonov because of his skating.

 

[SidGenoMario]

As a young kid who didn't watch as much hockey as he just played the NHL games and watched Don Cherry's Rock'em Sock'ems, I thought Phil Housley, Pierre Turgeon and Dave Andreychuk were legends of the game.

 

[SPF6ty9]

Mike Eastwood...for some reason he was always the leading scorer (or one of) for the computer controlled teams in NHL 98 on Super Nintendo.

 

[KingsFan7824]

Mark LaForest. Yup, Mark LaForest.

 

[Legionnaire11]

A lot of the guys named here actually were really good players, or had a great season or two.

I thought Yanick Dupre and Shawn Antoski were something special when I first started to really pay attention to the Flyers as a young kid.

 

[Kelly]

I used to think Mike Vernon was a whole lot better than he really was.

Same here. My older brother is one of those fans who are fans of players and not a team, and him being a goalie he was obsessed with Vernon. So naturally I thought he was some superstar hotshot goalie.

I'll also go with Sergei Berezin.. i thought he was the ****. But now looking back at his stats, he really wasn't that great lol. It must have been the jersey tuck. I wasn't a tough sell at 8 years old lol