With the draft lottery coming up this weekend, I thought it would be kind of fun to go against the grain a bit and do up a team of NHL greats who didn’t even get drafted! But first I want to talk about some more current events with regards to hockey.
Edmonton a Hub City, Really?
I’ve said this all along and I still believe it to be true as we speak, even though Edmonton has reached the “final six” potential destinations for hockey to resume play (alongside Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, LA, and Vegas), I believe that OEG’s bid will ultimately fall short OR it will be a fallback option in case things fall apart in another city, like if Vegas gets overrun by COVID-19 cases. By overrun, I mean the city has to go back into shutdown.
The #NHL never ceases to amaze… pic.twitter.com/ugF8BOGE8f
— BLH (Edmonton Oilers Enthusiast} (@BeerLeagueHeroe) June 23, 2020
Safety isn’t the no.1 concern for the NHL as the league attempts to finish the 2019/20 season and the league makes that painfully clear every time it opens its trap. So… Servers at restaurants in public need to wear masks everywhere else except where the NHL is going to be hosting hockey games in the middle of a pandemic?… And what’s the difference between a bartender and a server anyhow?
I honestly think the league is hell-bent on trying to recoup lost revenue with little to zero concern as to who might get hurt in the process.
OEG making a big push on the safety, and player experience elements in bid to be Hub city. Details below on what they have put in front of the league and the players. (My reporting in point form.) pic.twitter.com/HzDmp4p7ZH
— Ryan Rishaug (@TSNRyanRishaug) June 22, 2020
This is getting very interesting. Edmonton is really going hard here for this bid and what nobody is really reporting on in that market is if players, agents, GMs, and most importantly, the families of everybody involved actually want to go to Edmonton (or The Rocky Mountains as it was presented by the Alberta Premier… #facepalm).
This is a massive factor that I’m not sure many are considering. Sure, Edmonton can be gorgeous during the summer but it can be right down miserable too. Alberta had 23 tornadoes last summer in addition to an average temp of 16 degrees celsius (which sounds delightful considering where I live). I recall plenty of hailstorms and thunderstorms too… And if it goes the other way, the heat is ridiculous! It’s so bloody dry and you just can’t be bothered to head out lest you enjoy the feeling of sunburns or actual burns from things like seatbelts or bike seats.
Now, if you’re indoors, none of that is going to matter, but what human in their right mind is going to want to stay indoors when the Rockies are across the street? And by ‘across the street’ I mean 4 hours away… Ask any Albertan, if you haven’t experienced Alberta’s nuclear mosquitos, you haven’t lived.
All facetiousness aside, Vancouver and Vegas are much much better options coming from the point-of-view of the family. But, just using Edmonton’s history in the free-agent market as a gauge, the players just aren’t into that city. No fault of Edmonton’s! The city simply doesn’t have what it takes… Yet.
ON THE OTHER HAND…
There’s this,
"Now, in the past four weeks, the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns."
"The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,"
"We are now more aware of the disease and able to manage it,"
– Prof. Matteo Bassetti
Interesting… https://t.co/dUuWhD2yKR
— BLH (Edmonton Oilers Enthusiast} (@BeerLeagueHeroe) June 23, 2020
If COVID-19 is weakening by the day, then that whole rant above is probably for nothing. Sure, we’re seeing some massive spikes in positive cases recently, but how many of those cases are life-threatening? How many folks are landing in the ICUs and in the end, I suppose, how many people are dying after becoming infected?
If the league is getting told that the virus is weakening with every passing week, then, of course, they’ll march into Vegas. Why wouldn’t they? MEGA BUCKS AWAIT! And it’s Vegas… If the NHL is going to allow its players and their families to travel all across Alberta to help them feel “comfortable”, what’s stopping them from doing the same in the area around Vegas? An hour or two via airplane in nearly every direction from Sin City will get you to places like Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Salt Lake City. An hour or two from Edmonton will get you to places like Saskatoon, Calgary, and Vancouver. Tough choice if safety isn’t a concern…
It’s a weird thing this virus is. I’m in Taiwan and it’s virtually non-existent yet. A few people on the street are still wearing masks and I think we still have to wear them whilst using public transport. I think a lot of it is that wearing a mask is socially encouraged and if you don’t and you’re coughing or sneezing, people will give you the stank eye or possibly scold you in public. It’s a part of life in these parts and hopefully, folks will grasp onto that in North America.
The All-Time NHL Undrafted Team
What’s more difficult than building a team through the draft? It’s building one outside of it! The way this is going to go is that this team has to include players who had the opportunity to be drafted but weren’t. So that takes Wayne Gretzky out of the running since he was one of the Edmonton Oilers priority selections when they entered the NHL in 1979 and thus was never eligible to be drafted by an NHL team.
I’ll also add that these selections are from 1969 onward. You can view the ultimate list here.
Let’s start with the goalies!
- Ed Belfour (1988-2007)
- Curtis Joseph (1989-2009)
- Sergei Bobrovsky (2010-Now)
Eddie the Eagle and Cujo are right in my wheelhouse as I watched them dominate the NHL during their primes. These two are amongst the greatest goalies in NHL history and the fact that they never got drafted blows my mind! Another thing that should have your brain matter in a tuff, these two combined for just over 1900 games played in the NHL (963 for Belfour and 943 for Joseph). Only Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Patrick Roy, and Terry Sawchuk are ahead of them.
Honorable Mentions: Chico Resch, Dwayne Roloson, and Jon Casey
Next, the defenders! Here are the top-ten best-undrafted blueliners in my opinion (your order may vary).
Borje Salming (1973-1990)
Jamie Macoun (1982-1999)
Steve Duchesne (1986-2002)
Dan Boyle (1998-2016)
Charlie Huddy (1980-1997)
Marty McSorley (1983-2000)
Andy Greene (2006-Now)
Mark Giordano (2005-Now)
Dan Girardi (2006-2019)
Brian Rafalski (1999-2011)
I didn’t want to mix up the shooting hands here so I went with the traditional righty/lefty combos or else we’d have had mostly lefties.
First Pair – Salming/Boyle
Second Pair – Huddy/Rafalski
Third Pair – Duchesne/McSorely
It was tougher than I thought trying to pair these players up but in the end, I figured Salming and Boyle would be a very nice puck-moving pair plus they’re a couple of real tough SOBs. Huddy and Rafalski would bring an even-keeled all-round game to the ice. I just remember Huddy cleaning up a lot of messes for Paul Coffey back in the day and Brian Rafalski being a key component to the Devils and Red Wings blue line despite being one of the smaller players to play the game. I’d have to check but Duchesne and McSorley might’ve been actual partners on defense for the Kings at one point. I couldn’t pass on the 2nd highest scoring undrafted defenseman on this list in addition to the toughest…
Honorable Mentions: Mark Giordano, Jamie Macoun, Andy Greene
Let’s follow that up with the forwards! I’ll keep it brief or we might be here all day!
First Line: Artemi Panarin – Adam Oates – Dino Ciccarelli
Second Line: Steve Thomas – Peter Stastny – Joe Mullen
Third Line: Geoff Courtnall – Joel Otto – Martin St.Louis
Fourth Line: Chris Kunitz – Mike Ridley – Tim Kerr
On the first line, how can you argue with the Russian skill of Panarin and the playmaking of Oates (his assists alone, 1079, would have him top-5 in scoring amongst undrafted skaters) in addition to the unmatched ferociousness of 600-goal man Dino Ciccarelli?
The second line features speed and grit in the form of Stumpy Thomas as well as the mind-boggling intelligence and playmaking of one of the highest-scoring European players ever, Peter Stasny, all the while sidled by the pride of Hell’s Kitchen, NY and one of the USA’s great all-time goal scorers, Joe Mullen.
On the third line, The left-wing continues to provide lightning-fast toughness with Geoff Courtnall and the right-wing brings us a late-blooming scoring sensation and NHL MVP in Marty St. Louis. Their center is none other than the towering Joel Otto who made a career of going up against some of the best pivots in the game and never backed down. His near 2000 PIMs speak for themselves.
Right-wing on the fourth line brings us one of the greatest net-front presences in the history of the NHL and three-time All-Star, Tim Kerr. His center is the criminally underrated Mike Ridley and the left-winger on this line is the rambunctious 4-time Stanley Cup winner, Chris Kunitz.
What I didn’t know is that Adam Oates is the only undrafted center to have played over 1000 games. He played 1337 games, the most out of any undrafted player, but the next closest center was Peter Stastny with 977. That’s nearly a five-season difference!
Honorable Mentions: Greg Adams, Kelly Kisio, Dave Poulin, Mats Zuccarello, Mark Pavelich, Marian Stastny, Ulf Nilsson.
Sorry, the tone of that portion of the post kind of got away from me there as it went on.
Puck Racism
The sales are starting to trickle in with this design and I’m going to spam the hell out of it on my website and the BLH Hockey Instagram because I feel passionate about it and I feel like Hockey is Diversity deserves the proceeds that I’ll be donating to them.
So, please. If you’ve got an extra $20 lying around and you want to do a good thing for good people, click the pic down below and grab a t-shirt, a mask, a onesie, a tank top, or some stickers.
Hockey is Diversity is a German group whose aim is to draw attention to the ethnic diversity in society, which goes beyond the sporting borders in order to sensitize people interculturally. The diversity that has long been regarded as an enrichment in sport as a melting pot of people of different ethnicities, cultures, and religions should also be transferred to society.
