Chuck Arnason

Poor Chuck Arnason. Although the right winger from Dauphin, Manitoba had a fairly lengthy NHL career spanning eight seasons and  401 regular season games, he only saw action in nine playoff contests. The reason? Arnason toiled for many of the worst clubs of the 1970s, including the second-year Atlanta Flames, Kansas City Scouts, Colorado Rockies, Cleveland Barons, Minnesota North Stars and Washington Capitals. His entire playoff experience came in one year with another, much better, team: the 1974-75 Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Arnason came to the Pens on January 4, 1974 in a trade with the Flames, putting up a respectable 18 points in 41 games. The next year, skating on a line with 31-goal rookie star Pierre Larouche and Bob Kelly, Chuck hit his stride, racking up 26 goals and 58 points. The Penguins were back in the playoffs, and in the first game of the best-of-three first round series against the St. Louis Blues, Arnason turned in perhaps the finest game of his career.

Trailing the Blues 2-1 in the third period, Arnason scored two goals to cue a come-from-behind 4-3 Pittsburgh victory. His second goal, in which he put in his own rebound to tie the game at three, mightily impressed Penguin coach Marc Boileau. "I've never seen a goal like that," he said after the game. "It was some wrist shot."

By early 1976, though, Arnason had fallen out of favour with the Pens brass, who reportedly wanted him to go into the corners more and play better defense. On January 9, 1976, he was shipped to Kansas City along with bad boy Steve Durbano. Thus began a tour of the NHL dregs, although he did have one solid stop in Cleveland, where in 1977-78 he scored 21 goals in 40 games for the Barons.

Those would be the last goals of his NHL career, however. During training camp in 1980, Arnason suffered a serious knee injury. It was time to let the curtain fall on his hockey playing days. 

Arnason's son Tyler also made it to the NHL, playing 487 games with the Blackhawks, Senators and Avalanche from 2001 to 2009.