Regina selects
Coach Paul Thompson.
Thompson may have a career losing record, but he was no loser. In his first full season as coach, 1940, Thompson led a ragtag bunch of Hawks to a 4th -place finish and was the runaway winner of the 1st all-star team honours.
In 1942, Thompson was the nd all-star team coach behind behind Frank Boucher, before finishing 32rd in voting (with significant votes) in three straight seasons.
Not sure why Thompson ended up 3rd with 24 voting points in the 1945 season, when the official record says he coached one game and was then replaced. It may have been a co-coach or assistant coach situation, the voting could have been misappropriated to Thompson, or the official record could be wrong. Some newspaper searches can probably figure this out.
Still, with an “Adams†voting record of 1st , 2nd , 3rd , 3rd , “3rd â€, I think he looks pretty damn good at the AA level.
Also notable - Thompson went to the PCHL for the 1946 and 1947 seasons and won a league title in the first of those years.
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Regina also selects
LW/C Matti Hagman. He was a Finnish offensive star throughout the 70s and 80s who I believe had the capability to be an NHL-level contributor (probably not a ‘star’) for most of that time.
Based on the numbers Hagman was able to put up as a little-used 21-year old rookie in 1977, and then in the WHA at age 22, and then as a scoring line player in the NHL at 25-26, he's got the goods to have been a productive NHLer for a long time - it's just not the path he chose:
Triffy said:
Matti Hagman was the first ever player trained in Finland to play in the NHL. He played a full season with the Bruins in 76/77. Next year, he switched to the WHA where he produced at PPG pace. However, he was unhappy with his life in the Northern America and he returned to Finland for two seasons. He scored a record of 87 points in just 35 games. The record wasn't broken until the number of games player was increased by 9. It was clear that he was way too good player to play in Finland and he received an offer he couldn't refuse. He joined the Edmonton Oilers in 1980 where played the next two seasons. In 1981 he played left wing on a line with Messier and Anderson.
Bookending his two NHL seasons with Edmonton are two seasons as the Swedish league's first all-star center. Hagman was just 19 when he placed 6th in the Finnish league in points, kicking off a string of excellent seasons there, finishing 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 3rd, and 5th in points.
Mixed in with all of this is a stellar international resume. In 56 major international games, Hagman had 39 points for a team that was often outclassed. Among these performances are a 10th in scoring at the 1976 Worlds and 11th in the 1976 Canada Cup. Both times he led the Finns in scoring.
Joe Pelletier said:
While names like Jari Kurri and Teemu Selanne are household names in North America, Finnish hockey fans are quick to point out Matti Hagman as one of the best players the small Scandanavian country has produced.