Ron Loustel

This is Ron Loustel. He played only one game in the NHL, and as a result of that one game he holds an unkind distinction in NHL history.

Loustel made 41 saves in his only NHL game. Unfortunately the Vancouver Canucks took 51 shots that night. Yep. The Canucks defeated the Winnipeg Jets 10-2 on March 27th, 1981.

As a result Loustel, who 20 days earlier had just turned 19, holds the record for the highest goals against average of all time among goalies who played only one full game! That's right - he never played in the NHL again.

Loustel was just a junior fill in from Saskatoon. He returned to the Blades for 2 seasons and played with the Brandon Wheat Kings for another season after that. He would only go on to play two more professional games ever before hanging up the pads for good.

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Don Spring

At first glance you'd have to think defensive defenseman Don Spring had at least one NHL scoring record - highest scoring player born in Venezuela. His birthplace certainly stands out first and foremost, but Rick Chartraw was also born in the South American country. Chartraw would play significantly more games and that allowed him to pick up more points.

Spring was born in Venezuela because his Canadian father was working there as an engineer. When Don was four years old the family returned to northern Alberta. He was the star athlete - on the ice as well as the volleyball court and swimming pool - in the small town of Edson.

Spring was never on the NHL radar until 1980. He had been playing with the University of Alberta Golden Bears while earning a bachelor of commerce degree. But he left school in 1979 to try out with Father Bauer's Canadian national team. Spring was drawn to the program by Bauer and by the fact that it was an Olympic season.

The steady defender ended up making the Canadian Olympic team that competed at Lake Placid in 1980. He only picked up an assist, but he also picked up the interest of the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets would sign Spring to a free agent contract right after the Olympics.

Spring would play four solid seasons in Winnipeg, scoring just 1 goal and 55 points in a career that lasted 259 NHL games. He would also play a season of professional hockey in Germany before hanging up the blades in 1985.

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Teppo Numminen

Despite 20-plus seasons in the NHL and a storied international career somehow Teppo Numminen always remained one of the NHL's best kept secrets.

The underrated defenseman - best known for playing with Winnipeg/Phoenix - was a low-maintenance, high-efficiency defenceman who provided steady hockey night in and night out.

But he never wanted the spotlight.

“I'm just who I am and I just play. That's about it,” said the unassuming Numminen. “It’s tough to evaluate yourself. I just do my job and hopefully do a good job. What keeps me going? Maybe the way I play. I work hard and I keep in shape in the off-season. Not much more than that.”

Teppo Numminen always had hockey in his blood.

His father coached Finland’s Olympic team in 1980 in Lake Placid. Numminen, who as a kid grew up skating with the national team, always said the game when the Americans defeated Finland to clinch the Olympic gold medal as the game that had the biggest impact on his life.

Eight years later, Numminen was playing on the national team for real and was participating in his own Olympics. He was a key part of a team that won a silver medal for Finland’s first Olympic hockey medal in 1988 in Calgary - arguably the greatest moment in Finnish hockey at that point in history.

A member of the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame, Numminen would go on to play in four Olympics (winning three medals), four IIHF World Championships, and another four Canada Cup/World Cup events.

Numminen was drafted 29th overall by the Winnipeg Jets in 1986.  By the time he retired, in 2009, he had played 1,372 regular-season games in the NHL, more than any other European player.

The square-jawed reliable positional defender who always played against the team's top forwards. He had the skating skills, the strength and the hockey sense to excel as a defensive stalwart. His offensive game was very much underrated. He never put up spectacular numbers but for much of his career he was a fixture on the power play. He was a minute munching stalwart who every coach in the league wished they had on their team.

Numminen seemingly was forced off the ice in 2007 thanks to emergency heart surgery to repair a faulty valve. He finally got doctor's clearance to play hockey in time for the final game of the 2007-08 season. He called that game "the most important game of my life, and I'll never forget it.

In 2013 Teppo Numminen joined his father Kalevi as the first father-son inductee in IIHF Hall of Fame history.

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Pokey Reddick

As a boy Eldon Reddick was dubbed "Slowpoke" by his father. The nickname stuck and evolved into Pokey.

Which is kind of funny because on the ice Pokey was anything but slow. He was an acrobatic goaltender known for his lightning quick reflexes. He, like so many middle of the pack goalies of the 1980s, was spectacular - often spectacularly good, sometimes spectacularly bad.

Reddick was a WHL workhorse goalie with the New Westminster Bruins and Brandon Wheat Kings, but was never drafted by a NHL team. He signed on with the Winnipeg Jets as a free agent. The Jets would get full value for their investment in the untried goalie.

After just one season (29 games played at that) in the minor leagues, Pokey Reddick wrestled away the starting goaltender job  in Winnipeg in 1986-87. He and fellow rookie Daniel Berthiaume ousted incumbent Steve Penney and the two became Manitoba celebrities with their spectacular play. They were dubbed Pokey and the Bandit.

Reddick got the lion's share of the work that season, posting a 21-21-4 record, but he would lose out the starters role to Berthiaume by the playoffs. 

Pokey's surprise debut turned out to be his best taste of NHL action. The following season he was very inconsistent and shuttled back and forth between the minors. When Bob Essensa arrived the next season after that Reddick was moved along. 

Reddick joined the Edmonton Oilers. Though he spent most of his time in the American Hockey League, he did get his name on the Stanley Cup when the Oilers won in 1990. 

Aside from a two game audition with the Florida Panthers, Pokey Reddic was destined for minor league stardom throughout the 1990s. In the early 2000s he extended his career with a move to Europe, playing for the Frankfurt Lions.

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