Libor Polášek

Libor Polášek
Born (1974-04-22) April 22, 1974
Nový Jičín, Czechoslovakia
Height 6 ft 4 in (193 cm)
Weight 226 lb (103 kg; 16 st 2 lb)
Position Centre
Shot Left
Played for Hamilton Canucks
South Carolina Stingrays
Syracuse Crunch
HC Vítkovice
HC Slavia Praha
HC Opava
HC Plzeň
MsHK Žilina
HKm Zvolen
HC Košice
Dubnica Spartak HC
HC Vsetín
NHL Draft 21st overall, 1992
Vancouver Canucks
Playing career 19912007

Libor Polášek (born April 22, 1974) is a retired Czech professional ice hockey centre regarded by many Vancouver Canucks fans and journalists as one of the worst first-round draft picks ever made by that NHL team.[1][2]

Playing career

The Canucks selected Polasek ahead of their next selection Michael Peca (who played more than 860 NHL regular-season games).[3] The team hoped that the tall (6’4”) Czech center would develop into a Mark Messier-like player. Instead, Polasek had difficulty making an impact even at the minor-league level.

He scored a total of just 18 goals over two seasons (1992–1994) playing with the Hamilton Canucks farm team in the AHL. In the AHL playoffs in 1993–94, he scored no goals in three games during Hamilton’s four-games first-round loss to Cornwall.

After a goal-less seven-game stint in the ECHL in 1994–95, he returned to the AHL with the new Canuck affiliate Syracuse Crunch and scored just two goals in 45 games. In 1995–96, he played 19 games in the Czech league then returned to the Crunch for eight more goal-less games. He returned to Europe and in almost a decade of playing for Czech and Slovak teams he scored just 41 goals from 1996–97 to 2005–06.

Performance reception

According to CNNSI.com’s 2001 profile of Canuck draft busts, “Polasek fared worse than the previous three (first-round busts Dan Woodley, Jason Herter and Alek Stojanov) combined -- he never played in an NHL game. In fact, one is hard-pressed to even find statistics on Polasek in many hockey annals.”[4]

The Vancouver Sun’s Iain MacIntyre also wrote in 2001 that if “nuclear winter” set in due to the Canuck draft record in the 80s, then the team “detonated the H-bomb on themselves in 1992 in the form of Libor Polasek, who soon vanished. Not so the Canucks' reputation for picking more duds than CBS programmers.”

Career statistics

                                            --- Regular Season ---  ---- Playoffs ----
Season   Team                        Lge    GP    G    A  Pts  PIM  GP   G   A Pts PIM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1992-93  Hamilton Canucks            AHL    60    7   12   19   34  --  --  --  --  --
1993-94  Hamilton Canucks            AHL    76   11   12   23   40   3   0   0   0   0
1994-95  South Carolina Stingrays    ECHL    7    0    0    0    6  --  --  --  --  --
1994-95  Syracuse Crunch             AHL    45    2    8   10   16  --  --  --  --  --
1995-96  Syracuse Crunch             AHL     8    0    2    2    6  --  --  --  --  --
1995-96  Vitkovice HC                Czech  19    4    5    9   26   3   0   0   0   2
1996-97  Vitkovice HC                Czech  23    4    4    8   66  --  --  --  --  --
1996-97  Slavia Praha HC             Czech  12    3    1    4   55  --  --  --  --  --
1997-98  Vitkovice HC                Czech  48   10    9   19   56  --  --  --  --  --
1998-99  Vitkovice HC                Czech   8    2    1    3   39  --  --  --  --  --
1998-99  Opava HC                    Czech  35    5    6   11   80  --  --  --  --  --
1999-00  Vitkovice HC                Czech  27    7    8   15   42  --  --  --  --  --
2000-01  Vitkovice HC                Czech  36    3    6    9   54  --  --  --  --  --
2000-01  Plzen HC                    Czech  10    2    1    3    6  --  --  --  --  --
2001-02  Zilina HK-SKP               Slova  13    0    0    0   10  --  --  --  --  --
2003-04  Zvolen HKm                  Slova  45    5   11   16   69  17   2   2   4  39
2004-05  Kosice HC                   Slova  15    0    0    0   22  --  --  --  --  --
2004-05  Dubnica Spartak HC          Slova  19    0    1    1   10  --  --  --  --  --
2005-06  Vsetin HC                   Czech   2    0    0    0    0  --  --  --  --  --
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See also

References

  1. C-Mac (January 1, 2012). "Moments In Time: Our Choices! The WORST Canucks Draft Picks". nwsportsbeat.com. Retrieved 1 August 2014. Hands down, Polasek reigns as the absolute worst Canucks pick of all time
  2. "The long and short of Canucks’ draft history". Vancouver Sun Puckworld blog. June 21, 2012. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
  3. "Libor Polasek". Montreal Gazette. April 3, 2014.
  4. "Say it ain't so: Transactions that broke our hearts". Sports Illustrated. August 8, 2001.

External links

Preceded by
Alek Stojanov
Vancouver Canucks first round draft pick
1992
Succeeded by
Mike Wilson
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