Gary Yaremchuk

No NHL teams were interested in Gary Yaremchuk in his draft year of 1980. He was passed over by every team, in every round.

A year later he was a junior hot-shot, lighting up the WHL in his final year with the Portland Winter Hawks – 56 goals, 79 assists during the 1980-81 campaign. The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted the Edmonton born center in the 2nd round, 24th overall. 

Unfortunately Gary, who was nicknamed "The General," never could duplicate such offensive prowess at the NHL level. Over the next four seasons he played sporadically for the Leafs. He pieced together 34 games on his NHL resume before heading to Europe. He scored only 1 goal.

What went wrong with Gary's NHL dream? Gary summed it all up as lack of confidence.

“Everywhere else, I had it. Once I was there, for some reason, it wasn’t there. I have nobody to blame. It just happened like that and that was it.”

His one NHL goal came on March 23, 1985 in his hometown. Taking a pass from Wes Jarvis Gary scored against the Edmonton Oilers.

“It was passed over to me and I had the open net and I think it was on [Grant] Fuhr,” he said. “As they would say, top corner.”