Forgotten NHL players from the 1980s

In his rookie campaign, Larmer scored 43 goals en route to winning the Calder. He also played in all 80 games, which is key. For 11 seasons in a row with Chicago, Larmer played in every single game, dipping into the 1990s. In fact, his streak was not ended by injury, but a contract dispute with the Blackhawks that saw him moved to the Rangers. While Larmer racked up 40-goal seasons with Chicago through the ‘80s, the Calder is the only trophy he ever won. That makes him a perfect opening example for this list.

Suter is a classic Hall of Very Good defenseman. He played for a long time, so much so that he played into the 2000s, but he was a star from the get-go starting in the 1980s. Suter won a Calder, and he finished third in a Norris vote. These days, he’s also known as the uncle to NHL defenseman Ryan Suter, who will likely end up on a list like this for the 2010s.

Who has scored 60 goals in an NHL season? All-timers like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, of course. Modern superstars like Alex Ovechkin and Auston Matthews have done it as well. Yes, the list of guys to score 60 goals in a single season reads as a who’s who of inner-circle Hall of Famers. Oh, and Dennis Maruk did it. Yes, during the 1981-82 season with the Washington Capitals, Maruk potted 60 goals. By the way, the season prior he had 50. Now, he did fall off quickly and was done as an NHLer before the ‘80s wrapped up, but a 60-goal player has to be on a list like this.

While power plays had been around for many years, it feels like in the 1980s NHL teams started to really recognize how to weaponize the power play with gusto. It’s kind of like in the NBA, where the three-point line was introduced but it took some time until teams really figure out how to factor it in. Kerr was one of the preeminent power-play specialists in the 1980s. He scored over 50 goals in four-straight seasons for the Flyers. Three times, he led the NHL in power-play girls. Unfortunately, injuries complicated Kerr’s career. The only major award he ever won was the Masterton for perseverance, which he won after he returned from having five – yes five – shoulder surgeries in the span of 14 months.

Bourne still finds himself in the top 10 in goals, points, and games played in Islanders franchise history. He was a member of all four Cup-winning teams in the 1980s. Of course, those teams were laden with stars. Bourne was a good player on a great team, but he wasn’t Mike Bossy or Bryan Trottier. Islanders fans of the era surely remember him, because they have probably memorized the entire rosters, but most don’t.

Sure, you probably remember Randy Carlyle, but you’re remembering Randy Carlyle the head coach. Did you know he played in the NHL? You may have guessed, because many NHL coaches are former players, but you might not have any clue how good he was. We’re talking about Norris winner Randy Carlyle. In 1980-81, playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Carlyle had 16 goals and 67 assists from the blue line. He actually had four 50-point seasons in that decade. Carlyle is probably one of the better players to ever become a successful NHL head coach.

Peeters is kind of perfect for the first goalie on this list. One, he basically only played in the 1980s, with 1979-80 being his rookie season and 1990-91 being his final campaign. He was good much of the time, but of course due to the nature of NHL hockey in the 1980s his save percentages look woeful by modern standards. Also, like many goalies outside of the all-timers, he had one great season that proved to be an outlier. Playing for Boston in the 1982-83 season, he led the NHL with 40 wins, but also a 2.37 GAA and a whopping eight shutouts. Peeters won the Vezina, and even finished second in the Hart. Because he was never quite that good again, the Hall won’t call, but he remains beloved in Boston.

Propp was a teammate of Kerr’s for the 1980s Flyers. Kerr had bigger seasons, but Propp was there season in and season out. He’s one of those guys you hear mentioned a time or two, and then you go look at his stats and find out he finished with 1,004 career points in 1,016 games. Propp had four seasons with 40 goals, and four with 90 points, but never hit 50 of the former or 100 of the latter. Being really good for a really long time doesn’t always cut it for people.

Yes, it is fun to name drop Hakan Loob because he name is Hakan Loob. He was also a really good player during his brief NHL stint. Loob played six seasons for the Flames and tallied 429 points in 450 games. He even had a 50-goal season. However, after winning the Cup in 1989, the Swede decided to go back to Sweden to raise his family. He played for years for Farjestads and was still a high-level player. In fact, the Swedish Hockey League gives the top goal scorer every season the Hakan Loob Trophy.

During the Florida Panthers’ run to the Stanley Cup, we got the “Hey, did you know Sam Reinhart’s dad played in the NHL?” anecdote thrown out a few times. Paul is more than the father of a 50-goal scorer, though. He was a high-level offensive defenseman. After tallying 47 points as a rookie with the Atlanta Flames, the defenseman moved with the franchise to Calgary where he had five 60-point seasons. In his final campaign, 1989-90, Reinhart scored 17 goals from the blue line for the Canucks. So why retire at 30? Unfortunately, Reinhart had chronic back issues, and they finally ended his career.

Lemelin was teammates with Reinhart on the Atlanta/Calgary Flames. There were three seasons wherein he was the clear number-one goalie, including one season where he faced more shots than any goalie. Five times, Lemelin finished in the top-seven in Vezina voting, but he never finished higher than runner up. That’s impressive, but also something literally zero people remember off hand.

In the final days of the “Dead Things,” before the Detroit Red Wings drafted Steve Yzerman and began to turn around, Ogrodnick was one of the bright lights. He also enjoyed the benefits of having a future Hall of Famer added into the mix. Stevie Y had 89 points in his sophomore seasons, but Ogrodnick led the team with 55 goals and 105 points. He would eventually move on, but he did pot 43 goals with the Rangers in the 1989-90 seasons.

Sometimes, hockey players have to adapt, and that usually means giving up the dreams of being a star player who wins Art Ross trophies and playing a complementary role. Carpenter is an example of that. In a move that would never happen now, the American was drafted third overall straight out of high school and immediately joined the Washington Capitals. No juniors. No minors. From a high school in Massachusetts to the Capitals. Early on, he was an offensive weapon for a bad Washington team, even scoring 50 goals. The brash young scorer and his head coach clashed, and he would be dealt away. By the time the 1990s rolled around, Carpenter had remade himself as a defense-first center, perfect for a third line. That’s the role he played for the Devils, which got him a Cup ring in 1995.

Look, we’re talking ‘80s hockey. We had to include a Hartford Whalers legend. Stoughton played in the WHA in the 1970s, but joined the NHL when the Whalers did. He probably thought to himself, “This is all they’ve got?” because Stoughton led the NHL with 56 goals in the Whalers’ first NHL campaign. Stoughton had four seasons in a row with over 40 goals, and he still has three of the top goal-scoring seasons in Hurricanes/Whalers history.

If you were working on a script and needed to come up with a name for a character who is a hockey player, you could do a lot worse than landing on “Mike Krushelnyski.” The problem, of course, is that he is a real person. He had a couple good seasons with the Bruins, but then he changed teams prior to the 1984-85 seasons. That team? The Edmonton Oilers. That team had two players score over 70 goals. Seventy! Two more scored over 40 goals. One of them was Krushelnyski. He never did it again, but he would be a 40-point guy all through the decade.

How about some love for a defense-first defenseman? Ramsey was not flashy, but he was ubiquitous in the 1980s. He made four All-Star Games for the Buffalo Sabres, and he finished in the top-15 in Norris voting four times. While he was a 30-point player in an offense-happy era, Sabres fans were happy to have the stay-at-home defenseman around. Also, when he was a teenager, Ramsey played in some hockey game that has become known as the “Miracle on Ice.”

Forgotten NHL players from the 1980s are named Mike. We know this. Liut was a hockey card staple and also one of the best goalies of the 1980s. He just wasn’t quite good enough to break through for the Hall, or to win a Vezina. That wasn’t for a lack of trying! On four occasions he finished in the top 10 in Vezina voting. Here’s the thing: He also twice finished in the top three in Hart voting. At his best, Liut was an MVP-level player.

Look, if you’re Brent Gretzky, you know you are going to end up a hockey footnote. However, what if you are a really good player, but you just happen to have a brother who is a future Hall of Famer? Also, what if you play on the same team? That was the plight, such as it is, for Anton Stastny. As a rookie, Anton had 85 points. That’s really good! However, his brother Peter was also a rookie that season, had 101 points, and won the Calder. Anton spent his entire NHL career playing with Peter on the Quebec Nordiques. He had 636 points in that time, and Peter had 986. Hey, at least Anton was better than eldest Stastny brother Marian, who also played for the Nordiques in the ‘80s. That team was half Stastnys.

The Great One must have liked Huddy. The defenseman played with the Oilers through the ‘80s, and then joined the Kings in the early 1990s. Thanks to the power of those Oilers offenses, Huddy walked into 40- to 50-point seasons time and time again. He was steady, though. Huddy once led the NHL with a plus-61 rating. He was a key cog on five Cup winners, but never the star of the show.

Goring would have been a great choice for a list such as this for the 1970s, when he built a Hall of Very Good career with the Kings. He still belongs on this list for the 1980s, though. We end with the first iconic franchise of the decade. Before the deadline of the 1979-80 season, the Kings dealt Goring to the Islanders, a classic move for a veteran to put you over the top. It worked. Goring had 19 points in the playoffs as the Islanders won their first Cup. He was a piece of the puzzle in all four Cup wins, but Goring made this list for one specific reason. When New York won its second Cup in 1981, it was Goring, not Bossy or Trottier or Denis Potvin, that won the Conn Smythe as playoffs MVP.