Thankfully we don’t believe in not signing from within. Otherwise we would never had seen the likes of
Adams, Batch,Bowns,Darling, Finnerty, Richardson, Ware, Campbell,Jarvis,Matulik,Moore, Hervato, Doucet, Faryna, and Myers, to mention a few.
Prehaps my post should read "recent history" or "Lord era"
"Adams, Batch,Bowns,Darling, Finnerty, Richardson, Ware, Campbell,Jarvis,Matulik,Moore, Hervato, Doucet, Faryna, and Myers" - i'll try break this down a little bit, seeing as i have time to
Gerad Adams - we signed him for his 5th season in the league. Both of the guys we are talking about are fresh meat and one good year hardly means their jerseys are going to be in the rafters.
Josh Batch - We signed Josh batch from the now dissolved Empire Junior Hockey League, he had never played in the EIHL prior to playing for us.
Ben Bowns - I'll concede this one, we took a punt on a prospect and it paid out.
Dion Darling - I wasn't a fan of the Devils during his spell with us, but looking at Elite Prospects he played a season & 13 games for us, and blew the league away with 6 goals, 4 fights (according to DYG). Again i can't comment on what he brought as i wasn't there
Ryan Finnerty - 4th year EIHL player when he reached us.
Mark Richardson - 3 years prior with Bracknell in the BNL, but from what i can see we were his first EIHL club(?) probably wrong here but i'm going to take a punt and say Bracknell did not make the jump up to the new EIHL, so Richie signed with a 'top flight team' after the BNL ceased to exist & Bracknell went to EPIHL.
Mike Ware - again wasn't a fan back when he played so all speculation - but a 4th year player when he reached us
Derek Campbell - he played 27 games for us, don't see this as a triumph personally(?)
Wes Jarvis - probably my favourite D man for the Devils. A valid point made.
Craig Moore - a 3rd year player, but we've only seen him 11 times, so can't comment properly.
Zach Hervato - an 'ok' player for what he was needed. Poor mans Tylor Michel, but did a job for us i guess.
Guilluame Doucet - 3rd year player, but again, an exception to what i said, quality player.
Justin Faryna - He's been alot better in recent games than at the start of the year. Still feel like i'm waiting for the guy who beasted us constantly at Dundee to come, but if I hadn't seen him play previously i'd be impressed with his play, so no complaints & hopefully stays around a while longer. But 2 years in the league already before reaching us.
Matty Myers - He played for Cardiff in the EIHL before anyone else, so not sure how he makes this list.
Ackered and vallerand are undoubtedly quality players, but I only seeing flashes of them once a month. May be a different story in the big boy conference.
Out of interest, are there many players for the 'big' teams in the EIHL that have been total flops after productive years in the other teams?
Ps. to answer your question, yes i could talk about hockey all day