Who is the worst player ever?

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

John Scott should be in the running.

If he were 6 feet tall and 200 lbs the guy wouldn't even sniff the AHL, let alone NHL.

 

[jokesondee]

That Charlie Huddy video is one of my favorite hockey videos of all time and I'd love to know the history behind it.

Uploaded to YouTube in 2008, and possibly produced years before that. Just who hated Charlie Huddy that much to make something like that?

And he was a WORSE coach if you can believe it....

 

[kilowatt]

Among players with more than 200 games played, no one has a worse points per game in history than Andrew Peters, with 4 goals and 3 assists in 229 games. Stu Grimson only managed 39 points in 729 games. But guys like Peters and Grimson, same with Paul Bissonnette, John Scott, and the other fighters, played 5 minutes per night to fight someone and sit on the bench the rest of the game.

The truly elite are the guys with 200 or more games played and fewer than 100 penalty minutes. Two guys really stand out in recent memory: Keaton Ellerby and Haydn Fleury. These guys are the white bread of the National Hockey League. They bring absolutely nothing to the table.

 

[banks]

John Scott should be in the running.

If he were 6 feet tall and 200 lbs the guy wouldn't even sniff the AHL, let alone NHL.

This is absolute garbage.

John Scott made it to the AHL on merit before becoming any kind of fighter. He talks about it in his Player's Tribune article. Here's an exerpt:

...
By 23, I had never been in a real hockey fight. Sure, I’d wrestled around in PeeWee and Juniors with a cage on, but that’s not real. I didn’t know the first thing about how to fight.

My first couple games in the AHL with the Houston Aeros, I heard this four, five times a game:

“Hey, ya big b****d, y’wanna go?”

“Let’s go. Right now.”

“We’re going.”

I kept saying, “Uh, no. No, I’m good.”

 

[ck26]

Name a post-O6 forward that scored less than 22 points in a 5 year career.

I can name hundreds who didn't have a 5 year career.

The truly elite are the guys with 200 or more games played and fewer than 100 penalty minutes. Two guys really stand out in recent memory: Keaton Ellerby and Haydn Fleury. These guys are the white bread of the National Hockey League. They bring absolutely nothing to the table.

Right, because when TBL picked up Fleury this season, they were trying to make it fair on other teams by signing some bad players on their roster, balancing out the Hedmans and Stamkoses.

Ellerby played 200 NHL games, and numerous European teams have brought him in as one of their import players. A little disappointing at 10 OA, just ahead of McDonagh and Shattenkirk? Sure. But he's a good defenseman.

 

[42]

Probably me. I can barely skate.

 

[Diglett]

Lafreniere

 

[Contenderorpretender]

George perros. Plug of a player and butt plug as head of dops

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

Dave Brown was an excellent fighter and actually scored some goals in the NHL because he'd plant himself in front of the net, but he could hardly skate.

 

[evolutionbaby]

Shawn Cronin and Darren Rumble. I remember in NHL 93 his ranking was a 2.

 

[fasterthanlight]

the worst player ever? according to people on other teams in my beer league: me

 

[Gospel of Prospal]

Darroll Powe has got to be up there. Tanner Glass, John Scott, Stu Bickel...

 

[DaveG]

Looking at the PIMs, you can tell why these guys were in the NHL, but wtf is up with Tommy Vestlund?

Defensive forward and actually wasn't a bad player. Got crosschecked in the face in the Cup Finals in 02 and had injury issues after that causing him to retire 2 years later.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

This is absolute garbage.

John Scott made it to the AHL on merit before becoming any kind of fighter. He talks about it in his Player's Tribune article. Here's an exerpt:

Merit, my ass. He had 11 fights his first season in the AHL.

Scott's best year in the WCHA: 36 games 2 goals, 4 assists, 101 PIMS
Best year in the AHL: 1 goal, 5 assists, 107 PIMS (the next season he had 184 PIMS in 64 games)

What a shock that John Scott thinks he made it on something other than being a goon.

He probably didn't fight in the WCHA because it's college hockey and you get suspended but the only reason he sniffed the AHL is his most important stats: 6'8" 260 lbs.

 

[Chainshot]

Beyond the NHL perhaps Huge Specimen, err Hugh Jessiman.

Also, an honorable mention to Brad Brown who was such a terrible skater, his footspeed became a measure of other players' slowness on the Sabres forum. It's been nearly 20 years and we will still measure slow players in in Brad Browns.

 

[mattihp]

Christian Laflamme and Ian Moran are the worst defensemen I've ever seen play.

 

[ZenOil]

Steve MacIntyre. Had no business in the league except for the clown show goon arms race at thr time.

 

[Sky04]

Has anyone mentioned Lafreniere yet?

 

[Buck Naked]

How Douglas Murray managed to stay in the NHL for so long is beyond me. During the 12/13 lockout he went back to Sweden and showed he didn't even belong in the Swedish second league.

 

[Kingfan1967]

Sean Avery, oh sorry you meant worst player not human being.

 

[End of Line]

Imagine Tanner Glass and Craig Adams on the same line…

Oh wait that actually happened with the Pens

 

[Fig]

They talked about this on the NHL network

One guy said “Bill Mikelson” who I don’t know of.

Played 147 games
Was -147 for his career
Worst plus minus in a season in history
Mentioned he was the worst skating player they’d ever seen

Bill Mikkelson - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Despite being assigned to the minors late in the year and appearing in only 59 games, he ended up posting an all-time NHL worst plus/minus rating of -82. More than four decades later, this remains an NHL record and no one has posted a mark worse than -69 since.

GP: 147
Total points: 22
PIM: 105
+/-: -147

Ouch.

EDIT: Actually, his story is pretty cool. He spent 24 years working for IBM and retired at age 55. He even comments about his NHL career, he kinda claims he kept advancing and he doesn't know why. Mad props to this guy.

This is a surprisingly good read:

https://vault.si.com/vault/2012/07/09/hockeys-minus-man

Those 1974--75 Capitals were a rank embarrassment by all hockey metrics. They scored 181 goals and allowed 446. They gave up 10 or more goals seven times during the 80-game schedule. They finished the season with just 21 points, 20 fewer than their expansion cousins, the Kansas City Scouts. And they had eight players with ratings worse than -50, including defenseman Greg Joly, the first pick of the 1974 amateur draft, who was -68 in 44 games, meaning that he had a higher minus-per-game than Mikkelson, -1.55 to -1.39.

 

[Fig]

There are a few ways to answer this.

We could look at the list of guys who played only a single NHL game, and probably pick any on that list.

We could pick a high end prospect who had a few games but never made the leap - my vote for this is Griffin Reinhart - 38 NHL games and 1 playoff game, 2 points total, a supposed defensive specialist who couldn't manage gaps, didn't have NHL speed or aggression, and just all around wasn't an NHL player

Do like has been done already and give a list of guys (goons mostly) who played a sigificant number of minutes but never produced, although those guys had a different job so I don't include them.

Legit question, based on what metric are you choosing Griffin Reinhart? Like had enough games to prove himself but failed? Actually have NHL expectations but kept failing them? I think the latter metric helps to eliminate enforcers for instance.

There someone similar in Tim Erixon to Griffin, although not drafted as high. Drafted in '09, refused to sign, still played for 4 NHL teams but dealt with something like 7 NHL teams total: Calgary, NYR, CBJ, Chicago, Toronto, Pens, NJD. Total 93 NHL games under his belt with 14 points and 38 PIMS.

Griffin only spent time with 2 NHL clubs. Erixon was involved with 7 from '09 to '19 of which only 4 gave him a chance at the NHL level (NYR, CBJ, Chicago and Toronto). I've always been curious what he was showing to keep getting repeated opportunities but also repeated demotions from different NHL clubs due to limited viewings from other teams vs the NHL/AHL stat sheet. He wasn't a true journeyman. He just couldn't hang in the NHL somehow.

How Douglas Murray managed to stay in the NHL for so long is beyond me. During the 12/13 lockout he went back to Sweden and showed he didn't even belong in the Swedish second league.

Huh? This is on par with the enforcers thing. He had a limited/specific role and he did it well. He'd obliterate opposition players with huge hits while being decent defensively which would help to remove players from the game or play timid.

During the 2008 IIHF World Championship, Murray checked Russian player Aleksey Morozov out of the game. Morozov suffered a severe concussion,[citation needed] while Murray received a match penalty.[11]

Douglas Murray (ice hockey) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[HTFN]

How Douglas Murray managed to stay in the NHL for so long is beyond me. During the 12/13 lockout he went back to Sweden and showed he didn't even belong in the Swedish second league.

You literally couldn’t move the man. He had bear strength and was not a fan of you being by his goaltender, that can get you work. Not surprised he’s not a big ice guy but in the corners against the big boys he was something to watch.

 

[shakes the clown]

John Scott should be in the running.

If he were 6 feet tall and 200 lbs the guy wouldn't even sniff the AHL, let alone NHL.

sorry but you can't be the worst player in NHL history while also being a former all star game MVP. Does not compute.

I don't know who the worst player is, but for years I used to always say that Patrick Sharp was the worst good player in the NHL if that makes any sense.