Peter Helander

Peter Helander arrived in the NHL with great fanfare, but he did not last very long.

Helander was 30 when he came to Los Angeles. The Kings drafted him in the 8th round, 153rd overall, in the 1982 draft after Helander really impressed at the 1982 World Championships, as well as the 1981 Canada Cup where he was playing as Borje Salming's defense partner.

Helander was already established as a star with his home club in Skelleftea, where he also earned an engineering degree and worked for a steel company. He was a strong skater who could move the puck. A self-described defensive defenseman, Helander had good size for the NHL game.

George Maguire, general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, was drooling over his late round find, bringing countryman Ulf Isaksson over with him.

It was certainly an eye opening experience for the duo.

"There are so many fights. We have very few fights in Sweden. Over there, you get in a fight and you can't play for maybe a week. It costs you four or five games," said Helander.

Neither Helander or Isaksson seemed intimidated by the aggressiveness, though, said coach Don Perry.

"The thing I like is that teams were testing them right off the bat and they weren't intimidated at all. They were throwing elbows right back. They've needed time to adjust to the different style of play and they've done very well," said Perry.

Helander found the coaching in the NHL quite a bit different.

"I think Don Perry is a very good coach, but it seems like we skate a lot more here (in practice) than we ever did in Sweden. It's a lot of hard work, but it's gotten us ready for the season."

GM Maguire expected Helander in particular to make an immediate impact. So much so that he bought out the contract of Ian Turnbull, Borje Salming's old defense partner from Toronto.

That turned out to be a bad move. The Kings blue line was thin enough already, and it got thinner before Helander really had a chance. In his seventh NHL game, a contest against Hartford on October 23rd, 1982, Helander broke his wrist.

The injury would cost Helander his career. Aside from a short minor league stint to test out his surgically repaired wrist, he never played again. He had three surgeries, but when it was obvious he could not play in the Kings 1983 training camp, Peter Helander retired.

It was a blunt end to a good career. Unfortunately North American fans never got a chance to see just how good Peter Helander could be.

Chris Snell

After being introduced to him at the 1991 World Junior Hockey Championships, I became a big fan of Chris Snell. He struck me as a brilliant offensive defenseman, controlling the play with his uncanny passing ability and superior understanding of the offensive game. I always enjoy a defenseman who relies on intelligence more so than physicality or slap shots, and Snell's smarts were immediately noticeable.

Snell was an amazing passer, both in terms of breaking the transition offense and quarterbacking a power play. While he could lead a rush, he was at his best springing it. He could marshall the offense, knowing exactly where every player on the ice was and how to knife the puck through the heart of the defenders.

Everywhere he went he was an offensive force and amongst the best defenseman. From novice to midget all the way to the Ottawa 67's of the OHL he was honored as the best blue liner. He was a gold medal champion with Team Canada at the '91 WJC, and a fantastic minor league player. He actually set the AHL record for most points by a defenseman when he scored 96 points for St. John's in 1993-94.

Yet he never stuck in the NHL.

Drafted by Buffalo, he was released after two years in the minors. He signed for one year with the Toronto Maple Leafs, enjoying the big 96 point season with their farm team while getting his first cup of NHL coffee, playing two games with the Leafs. His big break came in 1994-95 when he signed on with Wayne Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings. With the Kings' blueline decimated by injury, Snell played much of the lockout-shortened season with the Kings, appearing in 32 games and scoring 2 goals and 7 assists. He often played with none other than Marty McSorley.

So why did this fantastic defenseman struggle at the NHL level? At 5'11" and generously listed at 200lbs, he was below average size of NHL defensemen in the 1990s. Back then especially the NHL definitely favored big, physical defenders, and undersized d-men were rare. Snell, with little upper body strength, tried to play a positional game of defense, relying on an active stick. He avoided the corners and slot, leaving these duties to better suited partners like McSorley. And as gifted as he was at reading the play offensively, he struggled with defensive reads, and often ended up running around the defensive zone.

At every level below the NHL Chris Snell was one of the best defensemen on the ice. After his season in Los Angeles he signed on with Chicago, playing one season strictly with their farm team. He would then move on to Germany for several seasons, retiring in 2003 after blowing out a knee.

Nowadays Snell teaches elite youth hockey players at Beyond The Pond Hockey.

Todd Elik

This is Todd Elik. He was a late bloomer, never drafted after an uninspiring OHL junior career. But his blazing speed got him a shot at the pros and eventually into the NHL.

Elik actually gave up on his NHL dream after junior, heading to Regina to enroll in university classes. But after one season he signed as a free agent with the New York Rangers, and immediately placed with their IHL farm team in Colorado. He exploded for 100 points, catching the eyes of scouts everywhere.

The Kings were looking for an injection of youth when they traded veteran defenseman Dean Kennedy to the Rangers. Included in the package was Elik, who would spend the first year and a half in the Kings' organization with their AHL farm team.

Elik got the call up to the NHL in 1989-90 season, impressing many. I vividly remember Don Cherry raving about the Brampton, Ontario underdog. With most eyes on new Kings' star Wayne Gretzky, the unknown Elik was an eye catching player, too. He was an exciting skater with blistering speed. He provided some timely offense while shoehorned into the role as the team's second line center.

That kind of sums up Elik's career. He would move from team to team to team, often as a short term solution at center. His speed created offense, but his hands were not quite up to speed. At times he looked off balance, unable to handle the puck at his breakneck pace. He was often unable to muster much of a shot from the high speed either. But every once in a while he would have a dazzling game, attracting a new team.

As a result he would bounce around the NHL. From Los Angeles he went to Minnesota, Edmonton, San Jose, St. Louis and Boston, never spending more than a couple of seasons with any team.

Bottom line? He was not a great offensive player, relying on his speed to create it, even though ironically his speed hindered him, too. He could not effectively play any role outside of second line center. He was willing to play physically, but he was too lean and weak to win many battles in traffic or along the boards.

Todd Elik played in 448 NHL games, scoring 110 goals, 219 assists and 329 points, respectable numbers all around. He would parlay his NHL career into a lengthy stay in Europe, playing in Switzerland and Austria for well over a decade beyond his last NHL game. In addition to supplying offense over in Europe, he has found the nasty side of his game, putting up some surprisingly high penalty minute totals, leading his entire league in PIMs 5 times.

Markus Mattsson

Trivia Time - Who surrendered Wayne Gretzky's first goal as an Edmonton Oiler? Here's a hint - it happened in the WHA. Here's another hint, his name is in big bold lettering at the top of this page.

Winnipeg's Finnish goalie Markus Mattsson yielded the first goal to Wayne as a Oiler. Gretzky scored 14 seconds into the 2nd period on November 2, 1978, his first game as an Oiler. Gretzky had just been acquired from the Indianapolis Racers who had to sell the junior phenom due to financial problems occured by owner Nelson Skalbania.

Mattsson got his revenge on Wayne in the NHL more then five years later when he was a goalie for the Los Angeles Kings. Mattson was in the nets for the game on January 28, 1984. That was the night that Gretzky's incredible record 51 point scoring streak came to an end.

Other than those two moments involving The Great One, Mattsson is all but forgotten about other than being the answer to a couple of good trivia questions.

Mattsson was a solid goalie in his native Finland. He represented his country between the pipes at such glorious events as the European Junior Championships, World Junior Championships and even the 1976 Canada Cup.

A draft pick of the New York Islander in 1977, he was also drafted by Houston of the WHA though his WHA rights were traded to Quebec days later. Mattsson took the unconventional route to join the North American pro circuit with the Nordiques in 1977. European goalies struggled for years to establish themselves in the North American game. The stereotypical European goalie wasn't used to being peppered with so many hard and frequent shots and struggled as a result of this. Mattsson fell into this stereotype.

After just 6 games with the Nords (1-3 record, 6.77 GAA) he was traded to the Winnipeg Jets. The 1978-79 season would prove to be his best statistically as he backstopped the Jets in their final WHA season. In 52 games he won 25, lost 21 and tied 3 with a GAA of 3.63.

Upon the merger of the remaining WHA teams into the NHL, the Jets managed to select Mattsson's NHL rights away from the Islanders. Mattsson was then named as a priority selection, thus protecting him from being dispersed to another team upon the Jets merger.

Mattsson struggled in his first NHL season, and spent as much time in the minors as he did in Winnipege. He won only 5 of the 21 games he appeared in, but had a respectable 3.25 GAA with an awful Jets team. Two of his five wins were shutouts.

Unfortunately for Mattsson, the Jets only got worse the next year. Mattsson was a lame duck goalie on perhaps the worst team in NHL history. He finished the year with just 3 wins in 31 games. One of his wins was by a shutout.

The Minnesota North Stars signed Mattsson for the 1982-83 season. After representing Finland in his second Canada Cup tournament, Mattsson spent all but two games in the minors. He was 1-1 as a North Star, including a shutout. Mattsson then was moved to Los Angeles where he finished the year with a 5-5-4 record in 19 games.

Mattsson would play another 19 games in what proved to be his final season in North American hockey in 1983-84. However he spent most his final season in the minors.

Mattsson returned to Finland in the summer of 1984 and continued to play pro hockey over there until 1986.