Newsflash: Alexandre Daigle is a decent hockey player

Though he is perhaps best known as the ultimate first round flame-out and, with his $12 million rookie contract, a catalyst for all that went wrong with the NHL’s finances before the new CBA, in the backwoods of Minnesota, Alexandre Daigle is finally making a name for himself as a pretty decent hockey player.

During the 2003-04 season, very quietly, almost invisibly, Daigle put up some solid numbers and had a decent season with the Wild under head coach Jacques Lemaire. In 78 games, Daigle had 51 points, finished the season at minus 4 and averaged 15:09 of ice time per game.

While these aren’t the numbers you’d expect from a first overall pick (1993), they should be considered decent for a guy who admitted publicly that he no longer enjoyed playing the game and pulled himself out of the league for a few years after being bumped around from team to team. Speaking to Daigle's lack of heart in his early years, TSN colour analyst Pierre McGuire has said, "For years, this guy was stealing from his employers."

The Wild is Daigle’s sixth NHL club, after stints with the Senators, Flyers, Lightning, Rangers, and Penguins, with the odd stop in the minors in between.

Daigle’s performance in 2003-2004 stacks up very favourably against some other NHLers with much better reputations. For comparison’s sake, Daigle scored more points and had a better plus/minus while playing a similar number of games, though less average ice time than Mike Modano (44pts, -21, 76GP, 20:27avg), Peter Bondra (49pts, -16, 77GP, 18:36avg), Steve Rucchin (43pts, -14, 82GP, 19:46avg), Erik Cole (42pts, -4, 80GP, 18:06avg) and Trevor Linden (36pts, -6, 82GP, 15:49avg), to name just a few. Other players in the same statistical range include Peter Nedved, Ron Francis, Jeff O’Neill, Teemu Selanne and Anson Carter. No slouches, any of them.

It appears that, away from the bright lights of the NHL and under the tutelage of Lemaire, Daigle has rediscovered his passion for the game and, at the age of 30, is finally establishing himself as a reliable full-time NHL player. No longer is he expected to be the go-to guy for his team, and no longer are teams acquiring him with the eternal hope that this time, finally, he will emerge as the star that everyone expected him to be coming out of the QMJHL. After successive failures, expectations for Daigle have been lowered to a level where he can now succeed when measured against them.

As long as Daigle can repeat what he accomplished in 2003-2004 and everyone expects him to be only a decent third or fourth line forward with 45-70 point seasons, the book on him might not yet be closed. With a few years of consistency, Alexandre Daigle still may be able to forge a reputation as someone other than the biggest flame-out in the history of the NHL.

Comments

[SHOE!]

nice blawg, dawg

[Pucker]

Daigle will finish with better totals this year - he is now getting time on the Wild PP.

[SHOE!]

He'll never live up to expectation, but he'll be a 2nd line NHLer for a few years to come... He'd probably make the Leafs over Stumpy if he fit under the cap.