The Stanley Cup is the most coveted trophy in sports. Sixteen teams battle every Spring in what is the most entertaining postseason you will ever watch. Only one team gets the honor of hoisting the Cup when all is said and done. It takes blood, sweat, and tears to get that far, so naturally, the Cup is engraved with hundreds of hockey legends and icons.
That being said, sometimes a player wins the Cup, which isn’t as up to standard as many of the others. Whether they were carried by a good squad around them or any other circumstances, these are the 15 worst players in NHL history ever to win the Stanley Cup.
Who are the worst NHL players ever to win a Stanley Cup?
15. Colin Fraser
Fraser is an odd one here, as he actually won multiple Cups. Fraser was drafted in the third round by Philadelphia in the 2003 draft, but would never suit up for the Flyers. He would be traded to Chicago in 2004, and that’s where he would make his NHL debut. He only scored 13 goals in a Chicago uniform, but would win the Cup with them in the 2009-10 season, despite only playing three games in the postseason.
After a one-year stint in Edmonton, Fraser would find his way to LA. He would play 67 regular-season games with the Kings, only scoring two goals and six assists while averaging just over ten minutes of ice time per game. He would win the Cup with LA in 2011-12, playing 18 postseason games. When all was said and done, Fraser would finish his career having played 359 games, but only scoring 20 goals and 38 assists.
14. Jordan Nolan
Another LA King, and another two-time Stanley Cup winner, Nolan was most famous for being a scrapper in his NHL tenure, as well as being the son of longtime Buffalo coach Ted Nolan. Despite being a regular on the Kings’ roster, he was never much of an offensive producer. He was more known for throwing his body around, and when it came down to it, his knuckles as well.
He would be a part of both Cup-winning Kings’ teams. When his career was done, Nolan had played 375 games, while only scoring 24 goals and 28 assists. He would also be a -24 player at the end of his career. He would put up an impressive 347 penalty minutes, though.
13. Shawn Thornton
Despite being a fan favorite in Boston, Thornton finds himself on this list. That’s mainly because Thornton was not a fan favorite for his goal-scoring abilities. Thornton was a fan favorite because of his rough-and-tumble play style. In his playing career, Thornton would rack up 1,103 penalty minutes, but would never once score over 10 goals in a season.
Ironically, his best ever regular season was 2010-11 when the Bruins won the Cup, when he scored 20 total points across 79 games. Despite that success, he would only tally one assist in the playoffs, playing 18 games and averaging less than 7 minutes of ice time. Yet, his name will forever be ingrained in the Stanley Cup.
12. Wendell Young
Young was a third-string goaltender with some pretty subpar stats. In his playing career that spanned ten seasons, he would only once tally a save percentage over .900. Despite this, he’s managed to somehow fit the criteria to get his name on a Cup not once, but twice, being on the Penguins roster for both their Cup victories in 1991 and 1992.
He only played in two playoff games in his career, and neither was during those Pittsburgh Cup runs. At the end of his career, he had played less than 200 games and had a pretty measly .876 save percentage. Despite such a mediocre career, Young gets to live on in hockey infamy, his name forever engraved on the coveted trophy.
11. Chris Dingman
Despite being relatively highly drafted in 1994, Dingman’s career would never truly pan out the way it was hoped to. He would play nearly 400 games in his career, but scored less than 20 total career goals. He quickly became known as a checking forward, racking up penalty minutes fairly regularly. However, that was about all he had, as his defensive play was poor as well.
He finished as a -58 player by the end of his career. Despite this, Dingman was a part of both the Avs and the Lightning when they won Stanley Cups in 2001 and 2004, respectively.
10. Darren McCarty
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Known more for his grinding style of play and having a slight reputation for being sheltered, McCarty isn’t the worst player on our list, but he’s not the best either. He won four Cups with Detroit, but rarely did he ever contribute anything to the winning effort outside of a big body to throw around. Despite having a career of nearly 800 games, he would score under 200 goals.
His playoff production would often be worse, with only more than ten points once in his career. Despite that, he did win multiple Cups, and he had a fairly long career, so we can’t be too harsh on him.
9. Mike Hartman
Hartman was a notorious goon, consistently having over 200 penalty minutes in a season. He wasn’t going to score goals, or stop them for that matter; he was simply on the ice to do as much damage as he could. He barely even accomplished that during his time on the Rangers.
He played just 35 games in the 1993-94 season with the Rangers. He would only appear in one playoff game. He contributed little to nothing to the team outside of a benchmark, and yet when all was said and done, he ended up hoisting the Cup with the team. I guess sometimes being a goon gets its rewards.
8. Doug Lidster
Lidster was a defenseman who was often not super great at playing defense, regularly finishing seasons as a minus player. Despite that, he would find himself on the Rangers’ roster in the 1993-94 season. He was mainly brought to be a depth defenseman for the team, and that remained true in the postseason as he only played two games (yet somehow still finished as a -4).
That was enough to earn him a spot on the Stanley Cup-winning team, though, and have his name engraved into the trophy itself. Maybe that Rangers team had more depth pieces than it really needed?
7. Pat Conacher
Conacher was a fringe player on most of the teams he played for. His career best year came with the Kings in 1993-94 when he played 77 games and scored 15 goals. As luck would have it, though, he would find himself on the Edmonton Oilers in the 1983-84 season.
He would play 45 games in the regular season, but after only scoring two goals and eight assists, he saw his role on the team greatly reduced by the time the playoffs rolled around. He played three total games that postseason, not tallying a single point in that time, but thanks to Wayne Gretzky, he found himself getting his name engraved on the Stanley Cup. Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time.
6. Jon Sim
Sim had pretty good longevity and a decent spike in production in the later years of his career, but for the most part, he was a depth forward. He would play 77 games with the Stars to start off his career, but his highest point total would max out at just eight points.
Despite this, he found himself on the roster in his rookie year, which was the 1998-99 season. In the same season, the Stars won the franchise’s only Stanley Cup. He, of course, would play a minimal role in that Cup run, playing only four games and tallying exactly zero points.
5. Chris McAlpine
For the entirety of his career, McAlpine was nothing more than a depth piece. Someone there meant to fill roster space or help other players out. He wasn’t much of an enforcer or a goon, and he definitely wasn’t a producer by any means. As luck would have it, though, he found himself on the Devils in the 1994-95 season.
And despite not playing a single game in that postseason, he was still on the roster at the time the Devils hoisted the Cup, so he got the great honor of getting his name engraved on it. Despite playing 24 total games that season and only tallying three assists, McAlpine gets to forever be a Stanley Cup champion.
4. Tristan Jarry
At one point, it looked like Jarry was going to be one of the best goalies in the league. However, he’s hardly lived up to that reputation outside of two spectacular seasons. He’s rarely come up big when the Pens have needed him, and he struggles pretty heavily with injuries. On top of that, he had absolutely zero contribution to the Pens winning the Cup in 2016.
He was called up as a backup on an emergency basis because Fleury and Zatkoff had both gotten injured, and Matt Murray was now starting. That’s not entirely his fault, as Murray took the reins and never let them go that postseason, but it is worth mentioning.
3. Daniel Carcillo
Carcillo was a well-known thug for his entire NHL career. He ran around doing whatever he could to injure or piss off the other team. I don’t know how he had as long a career as he did. Teams just found his sort of grit appealing, I guess. Despite being a thug, Carcillo would be lucky enough to find himself on the Blackhawks both for the 2012-13 season and the 2014-15 season.
Just so happens that the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup both of those years. Despite some frequent regular-season appearances, Carcillo would only play four playoff games in 2013, and he wouldn’t play any in 2015.
2. Jeff Schultz
Schultz is on this list because he barely qualified to be on the Cup in the first place. Despite some success earlier in his career, he very quickly became a bottom-of-the-mill defenseman, trading time between the NHL and AHL. Despite finding himself on the Kings in 2013-14, Schultz would play absolutely no games in the regular season.
He would be called up from the Kings’ AHL affiliate in the postseason on an emergency basis, playing seven games and contributing little to nothing. Despite that, he did just enough to qualify for a name engraving on the Stanley Cup.
1. Shawn Chambers
Chambers is really only known for one thing and one thing only. Having a player rating of exactly one in NHLPA 93. Yes, that’s actually right. That’s the most famous thing he did in his entire career. Despite having some success early on, Chambers quickly faded into a depth defenseman, unable to keep up with a league getting faster.
Despite his decreased role, he would find himself in Dallas for the 1998-99 season. Despite a relatively decent workload in the regular season, he would contribute very little in the postseason, despite the Stars eventually winning the Cup.