Alek Stojanov
Alek Stojanov ( born April 25, 1973 in Windsor, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player. During his career he played for the Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League. He achieved far more fame through one of the most one-sided transfer transactions of NHL history, let him go in exchange for Markus Näslund from Vancouver to Pittsburgh.
Career
Stojanov began his junior career in the lower Canadian junior leagues. For the 1989/90 season he joined as a 16- year-old in the Ontario Hockey League to the Dukes of Hamilton, for which he in his rookie season 37 games completed and is scored eight points scorer. In the following year Stojanov recorded 45 points in 62 games. Since he was also physically very present and was compared to Bob Probert, one of the best enforcer in the National Hockey League at the time, he was in the heavily occupied NHL Entry Draft 1991 drawn to a candidate in the first places to be. Finally, he was selected in the first round in seventh place Vancouver Canucks, just behind the later Stars Eric Lindros, Scott Niedermayer and Peter Forsberg. With the beginning of the season 1991/92 drew Stojanovs OHL club from Hamilton to Guelph and played from now on under the name Guelph Storm. Guelph won in the first season, only four of 66 games and ended the season relegated to last place in the league, which Stojanov - plagued by injuries - could deny only half of the games. Although the team was able to increase significantly in the game year 1992/93, the Canadian mid-season in exchange for two players and a choice in the draft to the league rivals Newmarket Royals have been made.
At the end of the OHL season 1992 /93 20 -year-old moved eventually turned professional after being down with the Vancouver Canucks contractually had to agree. This first sent him to the Hamilton Canucks, her former partner in the American Hockey League, where he knew to convince four Torerfolgen in the remaining four games of the season perfectly. In the ensuing summer break, the right winger had surgery on the shoulder to go through that forced him almost the entire 1993/94 season to complain about. Only four AHL matches he played this season, but scoring no goals. Only in the game year 1994/95 was approximately Stojanov its shape again. Thanks to his 18 goals for the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL, he received in the course of the season, his first appointment to the NHL, as he completed four games for the Vancouver Canucks in the regular season and five more in the playoffs. In preparation for the 1995/96 season the beefy striker finally made the final leap into the NHL squad. Stojanov completed 58 games, but remained with only one Assist far short of the expectations of the club management.
As a result, he was discharged on the day of the so-called Trade Deadline, March 20, 1996 by the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Markus Näslund to the Pittsburgh Penguins. The transfer business developed in the following years as one of the most one-sided the entire NHL history. While Näslund matured in the franchise of the Canucks to a guide players, who took over the captaincy and leadership in the eternal scorer 's list of teams over the years, Stojanov played only a further 45 games in the NHL, including ten in the season 1995/96 and 35 more in the following, in which he scored six points scorer. These 35 games were also his last in the NHL since he lost his place in the squad of Pittsburgh before the 1997/98 season. He found himself again in the American Hockey League with the Syracuse Crunch again, for which he succeeded in only nine points scorer. After he was released in summer 1998 by the Organization of the Penguins, he played a few years in various minor leagues before he finished his career after the 2001/ 02 season.