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What are some late bloomers in the NHL?

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Important distinction...

"Late bloomer" implies steady, but slower, development arc...Zdeno Chara, for example...

Not to be confused with subpar players that ended up being in extremely favorable circumstances and performed in them for a short time before the favorability was lessened or the gimmick ran out...Roman Cechmanek, for example...

Proper talent evaluation still applies...
 
Bill White.
Bill White Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

Spent his twenties stuck in "Eddie Shore's graveyard" in Springfield. After the Indians players went on strike in '66 & 67 Shore sold the Indians players to the Kings and White graduated to the NHL at age 28. In February of '70 White, at age 30, was traded to the Blackhawks, and his career hit its appex. Partnered with Whitey Stapleton, Bill White played in two Cup Finals (71 & 73), the 72 Summit Series & for three straight seasons finished third in Norris voting & was a 2nd Team All-Star.
 
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Guy Lafleur
Rick Meagher
Rick Tochett
Mike Rogers
Martin st Louis
Johnny Bower
Phil Espo
Billy Smith
 
Maybe Adam Oates? His draft year would have been 1981 (very nearly 1980), which puts him at almost the same age as Glenn Anderson and Denis Savard, yet those guys were having their last big seasons when Oates was having his first big one. Oates wasn't an NHL regular until he was 24, yet put up 1420 points.

Ray Whitney? Drafted in 1991, his first productive season was six or seven years later when he was 25. His four highest-scoring seasons are all past his 30th birthday.
 
Dirk Graham - age 26 first full season
Joe Mullen - became NHL regular at 25
Blake Dunlop - NHL regular at 25, jumps from 45 to 87 points at age 27
Jacques Richard - career 3rd liner, spends 3 seasons bouncing back & forth from the farm before putting up 103 points at age 27
Randy Gregg - rookie at 26
Warren Young - career minor leaguer runner-up for Calder as 28 year old rookie potting 40 goals
Ken Wharram - previous career high 45 points, gets 71 at age 30, retiring with 69 points at age 35
Bobby Schmautz - breakout season with Canucks at age 27
Tom Williams - becomes first line scoring forward for North Stars at age 29
Gary Dornhoefer - tops previous career best of 55 points with 79 at age 29
Red Berenson - buried during the O6 era, ties Jean Beliveau for 8th in scoring with 82 points in first full NHL season at age 28
Lowell MacDonald - following career plagued by injuries & trips to the farm, hits 75 points his second full NHL season at age 31
Jean Pronovost - 43 points age 26, 72 points age 27, 107 points age 29
Gilles Vellemure - becomes NHL regular at 30
Vic Hadfield - finds scoring touch at age 27 with 66 points, doesn't top that until hitting 106 points at age 30
 
burrows: made the ECHL at 21, AHL at 23, NHL at 24, became a good role player at 26, became a first liner at 27, scored 35 goals at 28, became a folk hero at 29

sedins: decent middle six players 20-22, passable second line producers at 23, point per game players 25-28, led the league in scoring 29 and 30

also, naslund and bertuzzi
 
Joel Ward went undrafted and played in the minors for a while, got a try out with the Wild and played his first NHL at 26.
 
VanIslander said:
Nah. Gregg was a great member of the national team while studying to become a doctor.
Click to expand...

Sure, I get you, but I think everybody in the world but Glen Sather was surprised when he made the team & did so well right away. Remember what the perception was at the time:

(1) he played Canadian university hockey, which produced few NHLers - it generally wasn't considered a viable route to the NHL. He was of course not drafted, & had no central scouting hype around him.

(2) he didn't sign in the NHL after the 80 Olympics, despite the fact that he was high profile as captain of Team Canada. This didn't help his case, because a lot of big names from Lake Placid were struggling to make it in the NHL by the time he was on the scene, & this was especially true of some of the guys who skewed older. For every Glenn Anderson or Neal Broten there were a bunch of Paul Pageau, Dave Hindmarch, Bill Baker, Rob McClanahan types - there was really no guarantee that the talent he showed at Lake Placid would translate to being a viable NHLer two years later.

(3) He (surprisingly, inexplicably) spent two years playing in Japan, which was essentially glorified rec hockey. He was wasting his prime years playing non-competitive hockey. There was some question as to whether or not this harmed his development. Remember, this was an era when guys caught flak & were considered soft or non-competitive if they left the NHL to play in European leagues with much shorter seasons, & Japan was far below.

& this all went down against a cultural backdrop of

(4) an NHL that was suddenly experiencing a flood of 18-20 year olds stepping right into the NHL from junior without spending any time developing in the AHL. The NHL was in the wave of an unprecedented youth movement, which included a whole buttload of guys from the 70s retiring in their late 20s & early 30s as the new young breed pushed them out. This even happened on the Oilers, if you recall their roster in 81, & how the "fogeys" like Callighen, MacDonald, Weir, Hicks, Brackenbury, etc. were overthrown by the new generation. Gregg at 26 joins the Oilers when a bunch of 27-28 year olds just hung up their skates, putting him right on the edge of the fogey class.

plus

by the time he signed with the Oilers he was three years from having finished University, studying to be a doctor was no excuse for deferring his NHL career.

To sum up, a 26 year old university trained, two years removed from the Olympics, playing in Japan, with no free agent feeding frenzy around him, was an enigmatic anomaly who was a question mark for fans & media when he started out for the Oilers. His story defied conventional wisdom of the time, & he played so consistently & maturely from the get-go that I think there was a perception that he was a late bloomer, of sorts. Could he have stepped up into the NHL from University? from the Olympics? had he played junior & been drafted instead? Who knows. The simple fact is, he didn't choose to even attempt a viable NHL career until he was in his athletic prime at 26 - isn't this in & of itself the definition of a late bloomer? Regardless of the reasons why, he didn't "bloom" in the NHL until he was 26.
 
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