Forgotten NHL players of the 1990s

The 1990s were an interesting decade for the NHL. It began with the stars of the ‘80s still in peak form. Then, the neutral-zone trap took over, scoring dipped, and interest in the NHL began to wane. That being said, some new stars were minted in the decade, like Jaromir Jagr and Martin Brodeur. What about the guys who aren’t in the Hall of Fame, though? Not including Jagr, who just won’t retire and thus is not eligible. These are the players ‘90s hockey fans have burnt into their brains (perhaps thanks to trading cards) who don’t get as much love as maybe they should.

Ray Sheppard (1 of 20)

Sheppard scored over 20 goals with six different teams. That’s the kind of resume you expect from a player of this ilk. He had a couple great years with the Red Wings, including scoring 30 goals in 43 games during the lockout season. Also, in a very ‘90s way, he played for the Sharks, Panthers, and Hurricanes to round out the decade.

Kevin Stevens (2 of 20)

The 1980s were so high-scoring a few “random” players potted 50 goals in a season. Hell, Dennis Maruk scored 60! In the 1990s, this didn’t happen much, except for Stevens. In one season he had 54 goals and a whopping 123 points. The next year he had 55 goals. In total, though, Stevens had 329 goals and 726 points in his 15-season career. So what happened? In the early 1990s, Stevens played for the Penguins. With Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. He didn’t fully ride their coattails, but the presence of two legends of the game helped.

Mikael Renberg (3 of 20)

The Production Line. The French Connection. The Legion of Doom. In the 1990s, the Philadelphia Flyers had one of the famed nickname lines in NHL history. Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed and people have gotten smarter, so Eric Lindros is now rightfully recognized as a great player who unfortunately struggled with concussion issues. John Leclair? A classic Hall of Very Good guy who had over 50 goals three seasons in a row. Then, there’s “the other guy” from the Legion of Doom. If you were around, you remember Renberg, because he was there on the wing skating with Lindros and Leclair. In all four seasons he played with the Flyers he had over 40 points, but the fact he was only a Flyer for four seasons is a reminder how brief the run of the Legion of Doom was.

Sandis Ozolinsh (4 of 20)

While some spots on the internet now have the Latvian defender’s last name spelled using the special characters that would be used in his homeland, if you watched the NHL in the ‘90s, you saw “Ozolinsh” on the back of the big, bruising defenseman. That being said, he was more than an imposing force on the blue line. He scored 26 goals for the Sharks in the 1993-94 season. When the Avalanche were in their ‘90s heyday, Ozolinsh was there to drop 50 or 60 points. While the Latvian defender played into the 2000s, injuries and time had sapped him of his high-level skills. In the ‘90s, though, he was a force on both ends of the ice.

Steve Duchesne (5 of 20)

Duchesne was on the All-Rookie team in the 1986-87 season, but he kept it going through the 1990s. He was a journeyman defenseman, but in the way where teams always wanted him, and he usually delivered. Duchesne finished in the top 15 in the Norris voting four teams, and with four separate teams. That kind of career makes it hard to stick in the memory of hockey fans, but it makes him well-liked in a few different cities.

Guy Hebert (6 of 20)

While he had about the most-French Canadian name possible (impressive for a guy born in upstate New York), it didn’t seem like Hebert was going to have much of an NHL career. He didn’t debut in the NHL until he was 25, and he barely played for the Blues for a couple seasons. Then, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks were born. The Panthers picked first in the 1993 Expansion Draft. They took John Vanbiesbrouck. The Ducks then took Hebert, who became the only number-one goalie the franchise would know through the end of the 1990s. He was pretty good, too! Hebert posted a .911 save percentage with the Mighty Ducks.

Zigmund Palffy (7 of 20)

It’s the nature of the beast. At first blush we thought, “Well Ziggy Palffy can’t be on this list, because surely everybody remembers him like we do!” Then, you get hit by reality. Yeah, a lot of hockey fans have never heard of Palffy, and many have forgotten him. He had three 40-goal seasons in a row for the Islanders! In the 2000s he had three 30-goal seasons with the Kings! We miss you, Ziggy!

Pat Falloon (8 of 20)

“Pat Falloon” is just one of those names. You remember hearing it. You remember seeing his name on the back of his jersey. The Sharks made Falloon the second-overall pick in the 1991 Draft, the first pick in franchise history. His final season was the 1999-2000 season, meaning his NHL career effectively just took place in the ‘90s. What struck us is that Falloon, for as much as we remember him, was actually not quite as good as we had figured. Maybe it’s because he played for a new team, but he only had three 20-goal seasons, and no 30-goal seasons. And yet, he’s one of the first names we think of when we think of the Sharks to this day.

Jason Arnott (9 of 20)

Arnott played forever, 18 seasons to be exact. The center played in over 1,200 games, and he totaled 938 points. Quite good, but not great by any means. He was runner-up for the Calder as a rookie with the Oilers, but that was the only award he was ever close to winning. That being said, you could pencil in Arnott for 20 goals and 50 points for over a decade, and he won a Cup with the Devils in 2000.

Derian Hatcher (10 of 20)

Kevin paved the way for Derian by joining the NHL in the middle of the 1980s. Both were big, imposing defensemen. Kevin was a bit better offensively, or maybe he just benefited from his seasons in the high-flying ‘80s. Derian, though, was bigger, better defensively, and served as the longtime captain of the Stars franchise, which he joined when it was still in Minnesota. Honestly? We think of Kevin as Derian’s brother, not the other way around, and Derian is more a figure of the 1990s as well.

Glen Wesley (11 of 20)

If you are of a certain age, you would remember Wesley as that veteran defenseman who played a supporting role on the Hurricanes in the 2000s. You know, a guy who would play 16 minutes a night and chip in 10 or 11 points on the season? If you are just a bit older, you have a different picture of Wesley. He was a guy who had double-digit goals three times with the Bruins. He had two 20-point seasons with the Whalers before the movie. Wesley wasn’t a high-scoring defenseman, but he did well enough his name rings a bell with us.

Trevor Kidd (12 of 20)

Kidd was the king of false starts. He always seemed primed to become one of the best NHL goalies, and then it would all fall away. Kidd first made a splash with the Flames in the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season. The 22-year-old played in a whopping 43 games (recall that teams played only 48 games that season) and had a .909 save percentage. Kidd couldn’t sustain it and got dealt to the Hurricanes. He had a 2.17 GAA and .922 save percentage in his first season there. Again, he couldn’t keep it going and was left unprotected for the Expansion Draft. The Thrashers took him and dealt him to Florida. Guess what? Kidd had one really good season with the Panthers, and then couldn’t build on it once again.

Alexei Zhamnov (13 of 20)

By the 1990s, Russian players in the NHL were becoming more common. Zhamnov played eight seasons within the 1990s. He had at least 20 goals in all eight of them. Most of his career was spent in Chicago, but he joined the NHL with the Jets, and he had his best season in Winnipeg. Zhamnov had his one 30-goal season with the Jets, and it also happened to be the lockout season.

Owen Nolan (14 of 20)

Nolan could make this list for the ‘90s and the 2000s. That’s because his career began in the 1990-91 season and ended with the 2009-10 season. Maybe that’s why when he retired our first thought was that he might be a Hall of Famer. Then we looked at his numbers and realized, “Actually, probably not.” He had 422 goals and 885 points in his career, but that’s not going to cut it. Nolan was more of a guy who would consistently get you 40 to 60 points, as his career high was 84 points. His career was impressive, but it wasn’t incredible.

Trevor Linden (15 of 20)

If you are from Vancouver, Linden is as much of a household name as Wayne Gretzky. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but they call him “Captain Canuck” for a reason. Linden played 16 seasons total for the Canucks (at the front end and the back end of his career) and was named captain when he was 21. When the Canucks made the Cup Final, Pavel Bure was the star, but Linden wore the “C.” He was a good player, too, tallying 867 points, 733 of those with Vancouver. Captain Canuck indeed.

Eric Desjardins (16 of 20)

Five times in six seasons, Desjardins finished in the top 10 of the Norris voting. He never finished in the top three, though. Desjardins was able to play a ton of minutes and bring it on both ends. He had six seasons with double-digit goals, but also had enough defensive acumen to play all those minutes and earn all those Norris votes.

Al Iafrate (17 of 20)

If we say “slap shot” to you, if you are under a certain age, the first name that comes to mind is probably Zdeno Chara. If you are old enough to remember the NHL in the 1990s, though, and remember a world before Zdeno Chara, then you probably said, “Al Iafrate.” Iafrate is probably the only NHL player most famous for something he did outside of an NHL game. He was a really good player for a bit there. Iafrate had four 50-point seasons in the ’90s, and three times in his career (including 1987-88) he scored 20 goals. How did Iafrate light the lamp so much? Two words: slap shot. During the NHL Skills Competition in 1993, Iafrate set a new record in the hardest shot competition with a shot that registered at 105.2 miles per hour. That record stood all the way until 2009 when Chara broke it.

Jim Carey (18 of 20)

You had to be alive in the ‘90s to truly appreciate Jim Carrey, but also to appreciate Jim Carey. It was a short, wild ride, but without hyperbole we can say that for a second there it seemed like Carey was going to end up on Dominik Hasek’s level. As a 20-year-old rookie he finished second in the Calder voting and third in the Vezina voting. The next season Carey had a 2.26 GAA and nine shutouts, winning the Vezina and finishing eighth in the Hart voting. And…that was it. He started to lose it the next season, was dealt to Boston, was sent to the minors, signed on with the Blues, played in four games, and retired at the age of 24.

Vincent Damphousse (19 of 20)

How do you become a quintessential Hall of Very Good player? Well, you tally 1,205 career points, but you do that over 1,378 games. You have four 90-point seasons, but never hit 100 points. You win one Cup, but only one, and you don’t win the Conn Smythe when you do it. That’s Damphousse. He played for two iconic franchises in the Maple Leafs and Canadiens, and he was really good for both of them, but finishing fourth in the Selke voting is the best he ever did on the award front.

Slava Kozlov (20 of 20)

The Russian Five. Detroit’s famed quintet featured a dynamic star in Sergei Fedorov, two venerated Red Army veterans who are Hall of Famers themselves in Igor Larionov and Slava Fetisov, and Vladdy Konstantinov, who seemed on his way to greatness (back-to-back top-four Norris finishes) when a tragic limo accident ended his career. The fifth guy? That was Slava Kozlov. He burst onto the scene as a rookie with the Red Wings by scoring 34 goals. He would have five more 20-goals seasons with Detroit in the ‘90s. Of course, Kozlov was there for those two Cups in the middle of the ‘90s as well. He was a really good player overshadowed by his great teammates. However, Kozlov has this going for him: He was one of the best players in Atlanta Thrashers history.