way too early to say anything about Lehtonen. He's shown us flashes of brilliance on a bad Atlanta team. I wouldn't be surprised if he's considered a top 10 goalie in 2 to 3 years from now.
Top 10 is no where near what I thought......I figured he was going to be incredible......and to this point he's been anything but.
As for Daigle, he's a given... We don't even have to write that one down. The most dissapointing for me so far is Brule. I also thought Lecavalier would be great. Oh wait, he is!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smallz
Patrick Stefan anyone?
I thought he was crap before the draft happened.
As for Daigle, he's a given... We don't even have to write that one down.
I remember someone suggesting that he was every bit as a good as Crosby and was being overlooked because he was from the West. I still think Brule is going to be good, though.
My folly (one of my many, that is) was Jens Karlsson.
I'm not sure if anyone else is like me, but I don't expect much from Europeans unless I get to see them on a Major Junior team, or if they are super studs like Malkin, Ovechkin, etc... and can see them on the WJC tourny.... So I tend not to expect much from Euro's.... so most of my disappointments are NA players that I get to watch or follow more closely.
Started following prospects in '97, so here's my list of non-blue chippers that I thought would be good.
1997 - Adam Colagiacomo - mostly because his name sounded cool
1998 - Justin Papineau - was disappointed when the Devils opted for some kid named Gomez instead
1999 - Ross Lupaschuk - last I checked, he was putting up fairly decent numbers in Russia
2000/02 - nobody really sticking out
2001 - Alexander Polushin - Was pissed when the Devils passed on him twice (then again Foster/Pohanka were nothing to write home about)
2003 - Mike Egener - Anybody compared to Ken Daneyko has to be good right?
Shvidki I thought was going to be an absolute stud. That was crushing. I also thought that Jakub Sindel would be a good player. Some other guys were Evseev, Glazachev, Vasyunov, Shafigulin, and a few others I can't remember. They're relatively more obscure but the first 3 of them were hyped pretty big when they were younger.
Some guys that I was right about however were Jiri Hudler, Jason Pominville, Alexander Semin, and Mike Green. I was throwing stuff at my TV, wishing the panthers could have picked them up but they suck, and that's why.
Im suprised to see so many people say Schremp. But I guess over hyping a prospect can lead to unreal expectations. Almost PPG in the AHL at 21 isnt to shabby, but Im sure thats far less that what alot of people hoped for Rob.
Tuomo Ruutu (to be fair, he had injury after injury after injury...)
So many highly touted Russians (Vorobiev, I Radulov, Yakubov, Chistov, Svitov, Grigorenko (has an excuse though), Babchuk, Alexeev, Smirnov)
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fedor fedorov, i thought he was going to be awsome. has all the tools, but is the most unmotivated player out there. could easily be a 30 goal kinda guy, easy.
Also more recently since i follow prospect more I'd say Chris Summers and Andrei Popov both are still young, but i thought they would both be stud. Popov got really awful and Summers developement looks slower then expected. Still he was a project so we'll see.
watching pavel brendl a lot in junior, i thought for sure his game would translate well at the NHL level......
boy was i wrong.
So you thought floating, coasting, and selfish play would translate to the NHL? I thought he was the easiest bust to predict and can't believe NHL scouts were drooling over him.
I always thought Nelson Emerson would be a very good two-way forward ala Rod Brind'Amour for his career. That didn't pan out obviously. I also thought Todd Harvey would have a better offensive career, not Cam Neely-esque, but at least Dale Hunter-esque...
Two guys I really thought were going to be good NHL players were Adrian Foster and Vaclav Nedorost. Although Foster was derailed by injuries (who knows what would have happened if he hadn't gotten hurt), he still didn't make it. I also had high hopes for Aki-Petteri Berg.
Another one is Rostislav Klesla, though he is more of an honorable mention, since he does have a steady NHL job. But he is nowhere near as good as I thought he'd be.
