John Jakopin
John Jakopin ( born May 16, 1975 in Toronto, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player. During his career he played for the Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League.
Career
Jakopin played for four years from 1993 to 1997 at the Merrimack College in the leagues of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, before he / 97 three games for the Adirondack Red Wings of the American Hockey League played during the 1996 season. These were the farm team of the Detroit Red Wings, who had selected him in the NHL Entry Draft in 1993 in the fourth round to 97th position.
For the 1997/98 season he then took the Florida Panthers of the NHL under contract, for which he ran aground until the end of the 2000/01 season in 82 games. Mainly he played during his time with the Panthers at their farm team, Beast of New Haven and Louisville Panthers, in the AHL. There he received in his first season in 1997/98 the Yanick Dupre Memorial Award for the most socially committed players in the entire league. Large parts of the season 1999 /00 he missed due to a groin injury.
In October 2001 Jakopin moved to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who had selected him from the waiver list. There he ran both for the NHL team, as well as their AHL farm team, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on. After only one year in Pittsburgh of Canadians signed in the summer of 2002 as a free agent a one-year contract with the San Jose Sharks, where he once again failed a long time because of a concussion. When the contract expired in the summer of 2003, the defender signed with the New York Rangers. However, for this he denied ever an NHL game, but only played for the Hartford Wolf Pack in the AHL. In March 2004, he borrowed them until the end of the season from league rivals Binghamton Senators.
Jakopin changed after the disappointing season to Slovenia for HDD Olimpija Ljubljana. There he finished in December 2004 after the fifth concussion of his career.