Ranking the 10 Most Snake-Bitten Players in the NHL

When it comes to hockey, luck is a fickle mistress.

A bounce in the right direction could mean goals, wins, championships and contracts. Meanwhile, the same random chance gone the opposite way results in misfires, losses, derision and firings.

As former U.S. Olympic hero Mike Eruzione is fond of saying—in reference to the fortunate hop that resulted in his goal to beat the Soviet Union in 1980 at Lake Placid: “Three more inches to the left, and I'd be painting bridges.”

Of course, bad luck can take many forms. Click through to find who made our list of guys who’ve been hounded by circumstance, both on and off the ice.

10. Shawn Horcoff

After a 2006 postseason in which he scored 19 points and helped his eighth-seeded Edmonton team get within a single game of the Stanley Cup, the sky appeared to be the limit for the British Columbia-born center, then in his prime at 27 years old.

He was ultimately signed to a six-year, $33 million contract extension as the centerpiece of the Oilers but quickly became a scapegoat, as the team began a still-active streak of seven consecutive years without a playoff berth.

His ice time and impact plummeted (12 points in 31 games in 2012-13) until he was finally dealt to the Dallas Stars in July, in exchange for journeyman defenseman Philip Larsen and a seventh-round draft choice.

9. Jamie McBain/Jordan Staal

Carolina defenseman Jamie McBain suffered quite possibly the worst on-ice indignity in March, when he whiffed on a clearing attempt before backhanding the puck into his own net against the Winnipeg Jets.

That alone might not have warranted inclusion, but the stakes were doubly difficult because it was the second time in two games that a Hurricanes player had buried a shot behind his own goalie.

Two days earlier, teammate Jordan Staal’s errant pass went into an empty net—resulting in New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur being credited with the equally rare goaltender goal.

8. Joffrey Lupul

At age 23, the Alberta-born winger had his whole career ahead of him and a boatload of potential. He scored 41 goals in his initial two seasons with the Anaheim Ducks and looked poised for a long, successful stay on the West Coast. Then, it happened.

He was on the Edmonton-bound side of a trade that sent the suddenly reviled Chris Pronger to the Ducks, shortly after the All-Star defenseman had led the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final and then demanded to be sent elsewhere. Lupul was instantly the target of unreasonable expectations with his hometown team and washed out after one unspectacular 16-goal season.

He’s been hot and cold while playing with three teams and being involved in another Pronger trade. Most recently, it’s been injuries—including back surgery and a blood infection that cost him 87 games over a 12-month stretch in 2009 and 2010, a shoulder separation that ended his 2011-12 season after 66 games and a broken right forearm that meant 25 missed games in 2013.  

7. Ryan Smyth

Now 37, Smyth was a popular and successful player with his hometown Edmonton Oilers through the spring of 2007, when he was sent to the New York Islanders at the trade deadline and left his former team with a memorably tear-filled press conference at the Edmonton airport.

His playoff berth with the Islanders ended quickly and he signed as a free agent with Colorado, where he scored 40 goals in 132 games before heading to Los Angeles in a draft day trade in 2010. Two seasons with the Kings yielded 45 more goals in 149 games, before he was dealt back to Edmonton.

The Kings won their first Stanley Cup the next season, while Smyth has faded from his past prominence. He scored just twice in 47 games with the Oilers in 2012-13 and has spent the subsequent offseason as the topic of a should-he-stay-or-go discussion in the Edmonton media.

6. Rick DiPietro

In 2000, the Islanders made DiPietro the first goalie ever drafted No. 1 overall. In 2006, he signed a 15-year, $67.5 million contract extension that would assumedly have kept him on Long Island for the rest of his career.

He played in his first NHL All-Star Game in 2008 and appeared ready for stardom, but he inured his hip in the shootout competition—triggering a string of injuries that dogged him for the next several years. Among the maladies were a balky left knee, facial fractures (from a fight) and a strained groin.

He played just three games in a lockout-shortened 2012-13 season before being dispatched to New York’s AHL affiliate in Bridgeport (Conn.). On July 1, the Islanders announced that they’d placed him on waivers and would buy out his contract, ending his stay with the team.

5. Joe Thornton

By anyone’s measure, the burly product of London, Ont. has had a career that most wannabe NHLers would covet. He was drafted first overall, has scored more than 300 goals over 15 seasons in the league and won a gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Still, when springtime rolls around and Thornton’s long-term team—the San Jose Sharks—reach the playoffs, it’s generally accepted that disappointment will soon follow.

The Sharks finished first in the Pacific Division for three straight seasons from 2008 to 2011 but never advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, running up just a 1-8 record in the Western Conference Finals while losing to Chicago in 2010 and Vancouver in 2011.

Two subsequent seasons have ended in elimination in the conference quarterfinals (2012, to St. Louis) and the conference semifinals (2013, to Los Angeles).

4. Jakub Voracek

The 24-year-old Voracek has been an instant hit in his initial two seasons in the tough hockey city of Philadelphia, scoring 22 goals and 46 points in 48 games on the lockout-shortened 2012-13 schedule.

A few weeks after the season ended, however, things almost got a lot tougher.

He was back in his native Czech Republic and driving his Ferrari to a morning meeting in Prague when a truck turned in front of him and triggered an accident that sent his car off the road and into a tree and pole before it came to rest on a hill.

Voracek was unhurt, but the car was destroyed.

3. Sergei Gonchar

Gonchar, a five-time All-Star and former Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins, is one of a handful of current and former players who’ve been named as victims in a financial scam that may have cost investors up to $100 million.

The New York Daily News named Gonchar as “one of the bigger investors” in the scheme, which the newspaper said was tied to “an unlicensed financial investor who bills himself as a lifestyle coach” and a cohort who “reinvented himself as a race car driver.”

Gonchar was traded on June 7 from the Ottawa Senators to the Dallas Stars. The following day, he signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Stars.

2. Tobias Enstrom

The 28-year-old was just months off of his sixth season in the NHL—and second with the Winnipeg Jets—when he returned to his native Sweden and was out to dinner with family when tragedy nearly struck.

According to the Winnipeg Sun newspaper, Enstrom went to an ATM to withdraw money when he was confronted, robbed and assaulted by three men bearing knives. He suffered only minor injuries, including a cut over one eye, and the assailants were arrested shortly afterward.

Enstrom had four goals and 11 assists in 22 games during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, after which he signed a five-year contract that will pay him $5.75 million next season.

1. Roberto Luongo

The embattled Vancouver goaltender has had it rough enough on the ice lately, what with a losing effort in the Stanley Cup Final in the spring of 2012 that was followed by a 2012-13 season in which he shared net time with Cory Schneider.

Luongo campaigned for a trade but instead saw Schneider dealt at the NHL draft to the New Jersey Devils, reportedly because no team was willing to meet the Canucks’ asking price.

The veteran goalie’s troubles followed him off the ice when summer arrived, resulting in the theft of four tires from his Mercedes SUV outside of his home in Florida. “At least the robbers were nice enough to leave me the car,” he subsequently said, in a Twitter post alongside a photograph of the vehicle.

In the insult-to-injury department, he busted out of the World Series of Poker in July in Las Vegas—a year after he’d won nearly $20,000 in the event.