Weekly Question: Which Non Star Player Do You Miss?

We’ve spent the past few seasons saying goodbye to some key players on the team that now we have a nice fresh list of players we miss dearly. Players like Kyle Turris, Marc Methot, Erik Karlsson and Mark Stone are all easy choices. But what about the seasons before? The good seasons where losing players was just business and not franchise destroying? We all had those non elite players we loved and had to see go only to feel like they have been forgotten over the years.

Here are a few names that I always find myself thinking back to:

a) Antoine Vermette: alongside Chris Kelly (who did very well for himself post Sens trade), he was part of the best penalty killing duo in Senators history. A second round draft pick, he was also the smart and reliable player on the team but in 2009; the Senators found an opportunity from the Columbus Blue Jackets that couldn’t be wasted. Landing Pascal Leclaire, that one surely ended well. Since then, Vermette has bounced around many teams including the Arizona Coyotes, Chicago Blackhawks (where he won a Stanley Cup) and Anaheim Ducks. Vermette gave us many good memories including this horrible fight that I witnessed live alongside witnessing the reaction of his teammates on the bench being amused at his fighting “skills”:

b) Christoph Schubert: Is he a forward? Is he a defenceman? We may never know! The ever versatile player with a laser shot that only Zdeno Chara could match at the time was often seen as a player who could fill any role thus making it easier when players were injured. He played four seasons with the Ottawa Senators before being claimed on waivers by the Atlanta Thrashers. He played 47 games for the Thrashers which ended up being the last 47 games of his NHL career. After that, he seems to have disappeared into the unknown but in reality; he went to Europe to play in Sweden and then Germany where he even initiated a fund raiser to save his team the “Hamburg Freezers”. Unfortunately, the Freezers melted folded and he finished his career with a local team in Germany by the name Hamburg Crocodiles and retired in June 2019.

c) Peter Regin: One of the very few Danish players in the league, the third round pick was highly touted as the Great Dane or the Danish Wayne Gretzky. He had many people in Ottawa excited and even brought some much needed hockey interest to Denmark. Unfortunately, that excitement didn’t last long, some blame his number change from 43 to 13 and others say he was just unlucky with injuries but again, we seem to have forgotten what may have happened there. In 2013, he signed with New York Islanders as a free agent and was later traded to the Chicago Blackhawks where it seems was the beginning of the end of his NHL career. At 33 years old, he was last seen serving as the Captain of Jokerit of the KHL; at least he’s still active.

These are only a few of many others such as Kaspars Daugaviņš, Roman Wick and Andrej Meszároš. Which of these players (or any others) do you miss or find yourself reminiscing to every now and then?

Which Non Star Player Do You Wonder About?