Lacouture’s Back
For the first few years after Al Gore’s highway came my way I read about baseball boxscores and typed in things like “Oakland Seals Frig” just to see what was out there.
By May of 2000 I was brave enough to actually “sign up” to Hockey’s Future and start posting on their fanboard.
The first exchange I ever had on the intraweb was with Kim Gernack of Red Deer. I said in an old HF thread that Danny Lacouture had a brighter future than Daniel Cleary and Kim (“redtwilight”) took the counterpoint.
It was the first time I’ve been wrong on the Al Gore but there have been enough incidents since then to keep me humble. I do find myself looking for Dan Lacouture every fall though just to see if he’s made the grade.
He did! Lacouture is a Carolina Hurricane, back in the show for the first time since 2006-07. There are a ton of ex-Oilers around the league, here’s the list (please point out anything I’ve missed):
- Anaheim: Todd Marchant, The Plague
- Atlanta: Marty Reasoner
- Boston: Tim Thomas
- Buffalo: Jochen Hecht, Jaroslav Spacek, Tomas Vanek
- Calgary: Curtis Glencross, Matt Lombardi
- Carolina: Dan Lacouture, Joni Pitkanen, Sergei Samsanov, Ray Whitney
- Colorado: Ryan Smyth
- Columbus: Jason Chimra, Jan Hejda, Michael Peca, Raffi Torres
- Dallas: Toby Petersen
- Detroit: Daniel Cleary, Ty Conklin, Kirk Maltby
- Florida: Radek Dvorak
- Los Angeles: Matt Greene, Jarret Stoll
- Minnesota: Marc-Andre Bergeron
- Montreal: Roman Hamrlik, Georges Laraque
- Nashville: Jason Arnott
- NYI: Mike Comrie, Bill Guerin, Doug Weight
- NYR: Steve Valiquette
- Ottawa: Dean McAmmond, Luke Richardson, Jason Smith
- Philadelphia: Joffrey Lupul
- Pittsburgh: Miroslav Satan, Petr Sykora
- St. Louis: Eric Brewer, Yan Stastny, Jeff Woywitka
- San Jose: Mike Grier, Alexei Semenov
- Toronto: Curtis Joseph
- Washington: Michael Nylander, Tom Poti
Don’t forget your Predators captain, Jason Arnott…
And Reasoner is on pace for 82 goals in Atlanta.
Technically, Matt Lombardi was never an Oiler since he never signed a contract.
Krys Kolanos still kicking around? He was an Oiler for a game or two a couple of years ago.
Joni Pits, #2 star!
And, in a strange twist of fate, LaCoture is also on pace for 82 goals,
forechecker: Thanks, can’t believe I forgot Arnott.
Lacouture and Reasoner score. That’s a month of Sundays.
Did Winchester not stick on the roster in Dallas?
I don’t think you could reasonably include Vanek and especially not Nylander.
I found the nod to Vanek and Nylander pretty funny.
So the great debate begins.
Gagner or Voracek?
Cherepanov. Oh wait…
Goaltending excepted, you could build a pretty nice (if somewhat old) team with those guys.
Some nice words about LaCouture:
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/hurricanes/story/1251080.html
Seriously, what happend to Brad Winchester? HockeyDB says he’s playing in Peoria this year?
I did my own reasearch – apparently he signed as a UFA with the Blues. I don’t remember seeing that one, which is odd. It was a pretty major coup for St. Louis.
No, I guess Kolanos isn’t kicking around, really, not at the NHL level, anyway. His six-game cup of coffee with Edmonton was his most recent big-league action: since then, he’s played for no fewer than six AHL teams, plus Lugano in Switzerland. He’s now with Minny’s farm system, in Houston.
Paul said…
Cherepanov. Oh wait…
Wow.