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Donnie Hockey
(Loves To Post!)
USA
1514 Posts |
 Posted - 01/26/2014 : 5:27:56 PM
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While watching the Stadium Series outdoor game today between the NY Rangers and New Jersey Devils, it reminded me of how close Martin Brodeur was to playing for the IHL Cyclones.
When the Cyclones joined the IHL in 1992-93, they retained the working agreement they had with the Devils in the ECHL.
The Devils had three young goalie prospects and planned to send one of them to the Cyclones to pair with Doug Dadswell, who had some NHL experience but wasn't in their plans, while the other two split time in the AHL in Utica.
The goalie the Devils wanted to send to Cincinnati was Martin Brodeur, who was entering his first professional season (he had played four games for New Jersey at the tail end of the 1991-92 season after completing his career in the QMJHL), but the Cyclones, looking for a little more experience combined with a name familiar to fans, asked for Corey Schwab, who had played for the ECHL Cyclones.
Schwab only played three games with the IHL Cyclones before the Devils decided they wanted him to be with their other top prospects in Utica, and assigned Chad Erickson to Cincinnati.
At the time it didn't seem like a bad swap. Erickson had started the season as the No. 3 goalie on the Devils depth chart and had played a little better than Schwab in 1991-92 when both were first-year pros in Utica. But Erickson, playing behind a poor defensive and offensively challenged team, didn't play well in his brief stint in a Cyclones uniform and was assigned to Birmingham of the ECHL.
Had the Devils not granted the Cyclones wish to have Schwab, Brodeur's stay in Cincinnati likely would have been brief before the Devils reassigned him to Utica to be with their top prospects, as they did with Schwab. But the resume of the greatest goalie in NHL history would have included Cincinnati.
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