Robert Reichel.

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Saw a thread about Lukas and went to check out his uncle and saw that he'd play a few years in the NHL, go back overseas for a year, or two, them back to the NHL.

I'm just wondering anyone knows why ?

Click to read more...

 

[Stringer Bell]

It's in his wiki.

I once watched him take a slapshot on a penalty shot.

...and his his hair was in the toilet water. Disgusting.

 

[Staniowski]

Reichel had a couple salary disputes. I think he had some difficulty getting paid what he thought he was worth.

He might be the best example of a player who was a superstar both internationally and in the country where he was from, but struggled somewhat in the NHL. So perhaps that produced a bit of a disconnect over his value.

 

[sr edler]

Reichel was never a superstar in international hockey, but he was quite good. For some reason I always kinda thought of him as the Czech equivalent of Michael Nylander, though they weren't really that stylistically close and Reichel had more success over in the NHL, early on at least, though perhaps Nylander aged better for whatever reason. They were teammates early on in Calgary as well.

 

[Crosby2010]

Reichel I thought was good in his Calgary days. He might be most famous for getting robbed blind by Kirk McLean in double overtime of the 1994 playoffs in Game 7. Fleury goes in on a two-on-one with him and feathers a lovely pass and in all honesty they did nothing wrong on the play, but McLean made the save of the decade right then. Too bad it didn't go in, because he was not a good playoff performer. I can remember his days in Toronto and he was just woeful in the postseason for them.

I do remember him scoring the lone shootout goal in 1998 on Roy. Broke our hearts. And I had to wake up at 2am just to see that game live.

 

[MadLuke]

I remember him being really good on the NHL 94 pc version, that Gary Roberts-Reichel-Makarov second line with Gary Suter at D on the second pair that was on the ice with them was deadly in that game, kind of preferred it to the Fleury-Nieuwendyk-? first line.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

It's in his wiki.

I once watched him take a slapshot on a penalty shot.

...and his his hair was in the toilet water. Disgusting.

I was at that game. It was a bizarre decision. I assume he was trying to catch Roman Cechmanek off guard, but he easily made the save.

 

[Gerulaitis]

Reichel recorded back-to-back 40-goal seasons in the early 90s.
A very solid center.

Done well for the national team.

The only Czech player who scored against both Russia and Canada in the Nagano Olympics.

 

[MS]

Reichel really seemed like a guy on the ascendency as a future star circa 1993 or 1994 and then the lockout happened and he decided it was more fun playing in Germany than the NHL and his career just never regained its momentum after he returned.

Came back and was more of a softish 2C with NYI in his first return, then left for Europe again. Then was just an ok-ish middle-6 C in his second return.

The multiple departures from the NHL probably speak to a lack of commitment that caused him to underachieve. Was generally considered a pretty soft player through his career.

 

[The Panther]

We should probably have a thread about players in the ascendant or in mid-career whose NHL success was curtailed by the 1994 Work Stoppage. Reichel would be "exhibit A".

 

[Hoser]

Why did Robert Reichel bounce between the NHL and Europe multiple times? That's easy: money. During the 94-95 lockout he played in Germany, and though he came back to play for the Flames after the lockout ended he was like a completely different player. He gave up on defensive play pretty much entirely, and looked slow and totally disinterested in being there. After finishing his contract he was an RFA and refused to sign the entire 95-96 season. He went back to Germany instead.

The Flames did eventually sign a new three-year deal with him in 1996, but he was a shadow of the player he was three years earlier. He didn't even last a year with the Flames: they shipped him out to Long Island before the 96-97 season's end. All of a sudden not being in Calgary turned him back into a >1 point-per-game player again; thereafter he became one of my all-time least-favourite Calgary Flames players. It was like a switch was thrown, and he magically started giving a damn again.

It didn't last long. He played another 1.75 seasons in New York before they tired of him too, and sent him packing to Phoenix. This was the last year of his deal originally signed with the Flames, and just like when the Flames sent him to the Islanders he became a PPG player again when he went to Phoenix. After the Coyotes blew a 3-1 series lead against the Blues I think he felt unfairly maligned in the press, and admittedly it wasn't all his fault (Jeremy Roenick got hurt in game 1 and they sorely missed him), but him and his agent stuck it to Coyotes GM Bobby Smith and adamantly refused to sign a new deal in the offseason.

By Mid-August 1999 the negotiations were so acrimonious that Bobby Smith publicly announced that Robert Reichel would never, ever play another game for the Phoenix Coyotes, and when pressed about what he'd told Reichel's agent Paul Krause, he said: "I told him to lose my [phone] number."

So Reichel went back to Europe, again, this time his childhood home in the Czech Republic to play for hometown team Litvinov. It took Bobby Smith two years to get rid of his playing rights, trading him to the Maple Leafs in the summer of 2001.

The Leafs gave him the money he wanted, and he dutifully played out his three-year contract, but he was on the wrong side of 30 and Toronto fans and media excoriated him in his first postseason for pulling a disappearing act: no goals in 18 games. He played 37 playoff games for the Leafs in three seasons, and cumulatively scored two goals. (Both of which came in 2003.) Not what you need out of your second-line centre.

By '03-'04 he was made effectively redundant by the Leafs acquiring former Flame teammate Joe Nieuwendyk, and had no NHL contract when the '04-'05 lockout began. He went back to Litvinov and never came back to the NHL; too many bridges burned.

 

[Thechozen1]

I remember when the Flames offer-sheeted Teemu Selanne prior to arriving in the NHL, they tried enticing Winnipeg not to match the offer by offering Reichel and Ranheim. Wisely, the Jets chose otherwise.