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why was Kjell Dahlin a one season wonder?

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Archangel

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Oct 15, 2011
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On the history of hockey board someone has been posting old montreal Gazette artcles and in the latest one it is a round up of the 05/06 season.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8lgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Q6gFAAAAIBAJ&hl=fr&pg=6288,3578466

ONE NAME that came up was Kjell Dahlin. For the life of me I can not remember the player, I went hockeydb.com and found it interesting he went from a 71 pt season to a 20 and 25 pt season and then out of the nhl.

Can someone fill me in on what happened to him?


did not know where to put this.
 
He played with Bobby Smith and Mats Naslund and was great in the first 45 games of his NHL career, think he scored 30 goals by the allstar break and ended up with just 32 goalsat the end of the season.
 
His rookie year was fun to watch. I don't think he touched the puck much/long, but he was good at putting it in the net, good release and wrister. He had like 25 goals in the first half and then faded the second half and playoffs. He definitely looked frail and weak, and it was always presumed that he just got worn out by the NHL. But it was the '80s, so players like that came and went fairly frequently.

After the rookie year he seemed to just have a variety of injuries, I don't remember anything big, but shoulder, knee, whatever, he just couldn't stay healthy, and I don't think the coaches really liked him a lot anyway, since he was basically a soft, perimeter, one-trick pony player. So he would get scratched sometimes too.

I guess he just got tired of battling and went back? I don't remember anything dramatic about it. Doesn't seem like he lasted too long in Sweden either? :dunno:
 
Because by the next season, the Habs got a new regular at RW that was bigger, faster who could also shoot MUCH better and who was better on the defensive of the game than Dahlin... even if the said player was terrible defensively, at least at the very beginning of his career.
 
It seemed like everything he touched was gold. I don't remember that shooting percentage stats were public back then. It must have been exceptionnaly high for his line and him in particular... Second half, he regressed back to normal. Otherwise, he was a soft unidimensional player.

His first half was so ridiculous that he was still in contention for rookie of the year despite doing nothing the second half.
 
Erik Estrada said:
It seemed like everything he touched was gold. I don't remember that shooting percentage stats were public back then. It must have been exceptionnaly high for his line and him in particular... Second half, he regressed back to normal. Otherwise, he was a soft unidimensional player.

His first half was so ridiculous that he was still in contention for rookie of the year despite doing nothing the second half.
Click to expand...

Desharnais is the new "Dahlin". :sarcasm:
 
Mover said:
Desharnais is the new "Dahlin". :sarcasm:
Click to expand...

DD is more physical than Dahlin. Dahlin was a lamppost that finished off plays... Today, players like him learn to play a two-way game in the AHL before getting a sniff in the NHL.
 
Erik Estrada said:
DD is more physical than Dahlin. Dahlin was a lamppost that finished off plays... Today, players like him learn to play a two-way game in the AHL before getting a sniff in the NHL.
Click to expand...

Dahlin is actually the player that naturally comes to mind for me when someone mentions a soft player. I used to always refer to soft plays as player x "pulling a Dahlin".
 
An old friend swears that KD ended up working as a baggage handler at a Swedish airport. Not the worst fate ever to befall a former NHL player, I guess.
 
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Dahlin's awesome rookie season mostly came because

A) He played with Naslund and Smith, when Naslund was at the peak of his game
B) Amassed a ton of points (30 out of 72) off one of the NHL's best PP, that had Robinson (82 pts season) at the point.

Following year, Dahlin was off the PP and his points dwindled.
 
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Erik Estrada said:
DD is more physical than Dahlin. Dahlin was a lamppost that finished off plays... Today, players like him learn to play a two-way game in the AHL before getting a sniff in the NHL.
Click to expand...
Yeah, DD goes into traffic and while he might get squished at times and knocked off the puck, he's not what I'd call a soft player. He tries. Not like Dahlin, who would basically avoid contact, and if he did find himself in a bad spot and got squished would get hurt from it.

All that said, for all that I have traditionally not liked the softer players in Habdom, for some reason I don't recall ever being down on Dahlin. He did his thing and maybe it was just the Calder finalist run and the whole aura of the team at that time (which was pretty tough, won the Cup, and had a lot of depth and players I really liked all through the lineup), but I don't remember ever being critical of Dahlin, or frustrated with him for playing the way he did. :dunno:
 
Dahlin wasn't used to playing more than 40-50 games a year and during his second and third year he battled injuries. He has mentioned that he regretted going back to Sweden as soon as he did. Vancouver offered him a contract after his first year back in Sweden which he declined reasoning he had left NHL for good.

Currently works for Farjestad's junior teams in some role, never heard about the airport gig! :laugh:
 
KoZed said:
Dahlin's awesome rookie season mostly came because

A) He played with Naslund and Smith, when Naslund was at the peak of his game
B) Amassed a ton of points (30 out of 72) off one of the NHL's best PP, that had Robinson (82 pts season) at the point.

Following year, Dahlin was off the PP and his points dwindled.
Click to expand...

Estimated_Prophet said:
Dahlin is actually the player that naturally comes to mind for me when someone mentions a soft player. I used to always refer to soft plays as player x "pulling a Dahlin".
Click to expand...

Both aspects were part of the picture. It's easier to see how he kind of got squeezed out of the picture, though, when you look at the transformation the Habs took leading up to the '85/86 Cup-winning season, and which players were seen as the "engines" of that success.

Players who joined the Habs ~'85/86 and (unlike Dahlin) became the "core":

Richer
Skrudland
Lemieux (by the playoffs)
Corson (by the '86/87 season, I suppose)

All added to the core group of Smith, Naslund, Walter, Robinson, Gainey, McPhee, Tremblay, Nilan, Chelios, etc. The Habs had an identity that they thought worked, and Dahlin didn't fit into it (despite whatever offensive acumen he showed). Too specialized, and not as "universally useful" as almost everyone else forming the identity of the team.
 
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Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Both aspects were part of the picture. It's easier to see how he kind of got squeezed out of the picture, though, when you look at the transformation the Habs took leading up to the '85/86 Cup-winning season, and which players were seen as the "engines" of that success.

Players who joined the Habs ~'85/86 and (unlike Dahlin) became the "core":

Richer
Skrudland
Lemieux (by the playoffs)
Corson (by the '86/87 season, I suppose)

All added to the core group of Smith, Naslund, Walter, Robinson, Gainey, McPhee, Tremblay, Nilan, Chelios, etc. The Habs had an identity that they thought worked, and Dahlin didn't fit into it (despite whatever offensive acumen he showed). Too specialized, and not as "universally useful" as almost everyone else forming the identity of the team.
Click to expand...

Basically his spot was taken by Richer.
 
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Speaking of guys that looked very promising and then faded quickly, what about Gilbert Dionne?!

Had a huge 2nd half in the 1991-92 season before tailing off the next few years and eventually becoming an AHL star who never played in the NHL again.

Looked like we had a superstar for a bit there...
 
goman said:
Speaking of guys that looked very promising and then faded quickly, what about Gilbert Dionne?!

Had a huge 2nd half in the 1991-92 season before tailing off the next few years and eventually becoming an AHL star who never played in the NHL again.

Looked like we had a superstar for a bit there...
Click to expand...

Was he not one of the "Rookie Stars" in one of the earlier Upper Deck series, as well?
 
Mover said:
Desharnais is the new "Dahlin". :sarcasm:
Click to expand...

Let's put it like this : DD is better in every damn aspect of the game than Dahlin ever was, except for the shot. Some call Desharnais a one-dimensional player. If that's the case (and it is, to a certain extent), then Dahlin was a quarter-dimensional player.
 
Oh boy that looks soffff


01eb2b7a-4608-46e2-93d7-2db79f990e98.jpg
 
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