Juuuust didn't quite make it

[bustaheims]

Wasn't a big Ashton fan he would try to fight and always ended up bleeding profusely. A very punch-able nose apparently.

I blame Carlyle for that. He got into fights more frequently when it was clear he was fighting for a 4th line spot on team coached by a guy who liked to dress fighters on that line.

 

[Omallley]

I had Jay Harrison on my list, but figured because he's had a somewhat decent career he didn't count. But "guys that turned out OK but were discarded by the Leafs" could be another list.

Harrison can thank Paul Maurice for rescuing him from the AHL. Paul coached the Marlies and when he was head coach of CAR he acquired Harrison. I liked Harrison too.

Slightly off-topic, but I remember watching Stralman on the Marlies and thinking "holy crap, this guy is going to be really good." He got the call-up and played two half seasons with the Leafs then they traded him.........for Wayne Primeau.  :-\  The other guy they let get away (through waivers!) was Steve Sullivan. That really annoyed the hell out of me.

I also really thought Alyn MacCauley was going to turn into a solid 2nd line centre, but that didn't pan out.

McCauley played 488 NHL games, so I'd say that's a pretty decent NHL career.

He was serviceable. But there was that playoffs in the early 2000s where he really played well (granted, the team was pretty much entirely made up of AHL players at that point) and I definitely had the "maybe he'll put it all together" feeling for him in the coming years. He never hit that level of scoring again.

I had brief hopes that Max Kondratiev would amount to something. And I definitely thought Jeremy Williams had an NHL shot...

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Wasn't a big Ashton fan he would try to fight and always ended up bleeding profusely. A very punch-able nose apparently.

I blame Carlyle for that. He got into fights more frequently when it was clear he was fighting for a 4th line spot on team coached by a guy who liked to dress fighters on that line.

Yeah, I don't know if Ashton would have been a regular NHLer otherwise, but it's blatantly clear that he essentially tried to become a fighter to get into Randy's good books when it clearly wasn't something he was cut out for.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Does Paul Ranger fit into this? I had pretty high hopes for his comeback. He didn't quite reach them but I thought that he was a pretty decent bottom pairing guy in his season here.

 

[herman]

There's a pretty good list of baby Buds that didn't pan out, and then there is a much larger and more cringeworthy list of baby Buds that management shipped off too soon.

 

[Redleaf]

I really don't know why this thread made me think of Kyle Wellwood because he did go on to have a somewhat successful NHL career, just not with the Leafs. Maybe because he was sort of our fools gold of what we thought we had coming down the pipe back then. Its sort of a reminder of how lucky we really are now to be in this current position.

 

[Arn]

I really don't know why this thread made me think of Kyle Wellwood because he did go on to have a somewhat successful NHL career, just not with the Leafs. Maybe because he was sort of our fools gold of what we thought we had coming down the pipe back then. Its sort of a reminder of how lucky we really are now to be in this current position.

Steen and Stajan are another couple of probably similar to Wellwood. More so Steen I'd say.

 

[herman]

I really wanted to see the Steen - Stajan - Wellwood line make it together.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I really don't know why this thread made me think of Kyle Wellwood because he did go on to have a somewhat successful NHL career, just not with the Leafs. Maybe because he was sort of our fools gold of what we thought we had coming down the pipe back then. Its sort of a reminder of how lucky we really are now to be in this current position.

I was actually really bummed when Wellwood left the NHL. He really transformed his game and became a reliable 3rd line player in his later NHL years, even on the defensive side of the game. If he was just a little bit bigger I'm sure somebody would have signed him and he could have kept his career going. He's only 34 now and has been out of the NHL for 4 seasons now.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to look up his Hero chart:

 

[Kin]

I feel like Wellwood is someone who probably would have had a really successful career if he'd been around 10 years later or 20 years earlier. He was just in exactly the wrong time for a small, creative player who was kind of a weird dude.

 

[Bates]

I was a STH in St. John's when Dempsey played there, I'm still shocked at how good he was in the minors but couldn't translate it to the NHL.  Chris Snell was another guy who kinda fell off the map after lighting it up in St. John's.

To redeem myself from my Harrison pick a teammate of his, Staffan Kronwall, was a guy I really thought would be able to play in the bigs.

And then from the "sort of had a NHL career post-Leafs" file is Nathan Dempsey.

 

[Coco-puffs]

I feel like Wellwood is someone who probably would have had a really successful career if he'd been around 10 years later or 20 years earlier. He was just in exactly the wrong time for a small, creative player who was kind of a weird dude.

20 years earlier, definitely.  10 years later, I don't know.  His approach to training was lax to put it mildly.  In today's NHL, only the upper tier of elite players can get away with being lax in training.  Furthermore, he was at his best on the power-play and he pretty much capitalized on that with the Leafs post-lockout (the first one).  The amount of power-plays have been declining since- although, I do think he'd be more effective in these new 4F1D schemes patrolling one of the side-boards.

 

[Kin]

20 years earlier, definitely.  10 years later, I don't know.  His approach to training was lax to put it mildly.  In today's NHL, only the upper tier of elite players can get away with being lax in training.

In a way, that's sort of my point. When he came up there was still the thought that a guy who was a little slow but offensively gifted could play an important role on a team because of their PP acumen. The speed of the post-lockout game caught up to him and he lost some of that effectiveness in a way that a lot of guys did.

If he was around now, I think his training habits are an issue that get addressed earlier on and are either dealt with or he doesn't even get out of the AHL.

 

[dappleganger]

Is it too soon to put Josh Leivo on the list (j/k)? How bout Matt Frattin?

 

[cabber24]

Never heard of this guy but I think he defines this topic.

https://leafsnation100.mapleleafs.com/legend-shrimp-mcpherson