The Czech Republic's Zbynek Irgl, seen here in 2013, is the highest-scoring Extraliga player ever to win the World Juniors but not the Olympics, World Championship, or Stanley Cup.
photo: Andre Ringuette / HHOF-IIHF Images
Hockey players worldwide aspire to join the IIHF’s Triple Gold Club, featuring those who have won the Olympics, the IIHF World Championship, and the Stanley Cup. So far, only 29 players have achieved that remarkable triple.
It’s eye-opening and instructive to list the all-time highest-scoring players in 10 different leagues who never won any of those titles – but did win an IIHF World Junior Championship. There are some excellent talents and some surprising names on the list.
It reinforces the importance of winning the World Juniors. Take this to the bank: for some young men at the 2021 tournament in Edmonton, World Junior gold will be the biggest thing they ever win in their careers within an IIHF-framed context.
That’s certainly not to take anything away from the feelings of joy after, say, capturing a Gagarin Cup or Calder Cup. However, since the World Juniors officially launched in 1977, this tournament has come to occupy a very special place in the hearts of hockey players and fans everywhere. Winning gold here is a legacy unto itself.
So let’s check out the all-time highest-scoring players in 10 leagues who won World Junior gold, but not the Olympics, Worlds, or Stanley Cup.
NHL: Trevor Linden (#128 overall with 867 points)
As NHL.com puts it, Trevor Linden remains “arguably the most popular player” in Vancouver Canucks history, with due respect to Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Pavel Bure, and other franchise icons.
At the 1988 World Juniors in Moscow, Linden – Canada’s youngest player at 17 years and 8 months of age – got his lone goal in a pivotal 3-2 win over the Soviets, who boasted Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny. This two-time Memorial Cup champion with the Medicine Hat Tigers called coach Dave Chambers’ World Junior-winning team “a really organized, focused group.”
In his first of two IIHF World Championships in 1991, Linden settled for silver after Canada earned 3-3 ties with both Sweden (gold) and the Soviets (bronze) in the round-robin medal round in Turku. Linden’s closest brush with the Stanley Cup came in 1994, as Vancouver’s 24-year-old captain scored twice in the 3-2 Game Seven loss to the New York Rangers. The big centre also tallied the late equalizer in the 1998 Olympic semi-final, but goalie Dominik Hasek destroyed Canada’s hopes in a 2-1 Czech shootout victory in Nagano.
IHL: Rob Brown (#32 overall with 632 points)
The International Hockey League (IHL) folded in 2001, but it was just as significant as an NHL feeder league as the AHL during its 56-year run. And Rob Brown, who tied World Junior captain Theo Fleury for Canada’s lead with six goals in 1988, tore up the IHL between 1992-93 and 2000-01.
The former Kamloops Blazers ace reaped three IHL scoring titles with seasons of 155 points for the Kalamazoo Wings (1994) and 143 points (1996) and 117 points (1997) for the Chicago Wolves.
However, “so close, yet so far away” sums up Brown’s relationship with the Stanley Cup. The Pittsburgh Penguins traded him to Hartford five months before winning their first Cup in 1991. The following year, Brown got dealt to the Chicago Blackhawks, but did not play in the finals as the Mario Lemieux-led Pens triumphed again. 1988 marked Brown’s only chance to wear Canadian colours.
AHL: Trent Whitfield (#49 overall with 596 points)
When Canada won its record-setting fifth straight World Junior gold medal in 1997 in Switzerland, Trent Whitfield played the role of versatile grinder. Canadian coach Mike Babcock knew the 19-year-old centre’s capabilities as his captain with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs. Whitfield chipped in a goal in the 7-2 quarter-final romp over the Slovaks and was on the ice in the critical dying seconds when Canada blanked the U.S. 2-0 for gold.
This native of Alameda, Sasatchewan appeared in 194 NHL games for four clubs, but his only other championship was in his final pro season of 2014 with Italy’s HC Bolzano.
KHL: Kirill Koltsov (#36 overall with 272 points)
Kirill Koltsov always preferred to do his talking on the ice rather than off it. The Chelyabinsk-born blueliner’s 2003 World Junior performance spoke volumes. Koltsov, 19, paced all Russian defencemen with five points, and his team, featuring a 17-year-old Alexander Ovechkin, broke Canada’s heart with a 3-2 gold medal win in hockey-mad Halifax.
Although Koltsov represented Russia once more at the 2006 Worlds in Latvia, he went home emptyhanded. The two-time champion with Salavat Yulaev Ufa never got to the Olympics or the NHL, despite playing 102 games with the Manitoba Moose, the then-AHL affiliate of the Canucks, who drafted him in the second round (49th overall) in 2002.
Koltsov, who retired in July, sits third among KHL defenceman in all-time scoring behind Kevin Dallman (395 points) and Ilya Nikulin (308 points).
LIIGA: Pekka Tirkkonen (#58 overall with 397 points)
Pekka Tirkkonen unexpectedly made headlines this fall. The head coach of JYP Jyvaskyla was laid off, along with assistant coach Ari Santanen, until the end of 2020. The two men declined to accept salary reductions during Liiga’s suspension of play in this pandemic. Tirkkonen and Santanen are expected to return to work in January.
Tirkkonen could never have foreseen this strange scenario when he tied Teppo Kivela for Finland’s lead with six goals in 1987 at his first of two World Juniors. The Savonlinna-born centre’s achievements, along with those of teammates like Janne Ojanen and Jukka Seppo, were unfortunately overshadowed by the “Piestany Punchup” that saw both Canada and the Soviet Union disqualified for brawling on 4 January.
As a player, Tirkkonen also appeared at two Worlds (1990, 1991) and won three championships with both TPS Turku (1989-91) and Denmark’s Herning Blue Fox.
SHL: Jens Ohling (#24 overall with 409 points)
For fans of the Canucks, New York Rangers, and New Jersey Devils, Jan Erixon, Peter Sundstrom, and Patrik Sundstrom are the most memorable alumni from the golden 1981 Swedish World Junior team. Yet for SHL fans, Jens Ohling remains a certified legend.
After playing 18 consecutive seasons for Djurgardens IF and winning four championships, the left winger had his number retired by the Stockholm club. Ohling earned bronze at both his Olympics (1984, 1988), but couldn’t medal at his two Worlds (1985, 1989).
EXTRALIGA: Zbynek Irgl (#109 overall with 339 points)
Zbynek Irgl’s IIHF career got off to a superb start. At the 2000 World Juniors in Sweden, the 19-year-old HC Vitkovice winger tallied two goals for the Czech Republic, including the second-period winner in a 4-1 semi-final victory over the Americans. The Czechs captured their first World Junior gold medal with a cautiously played 1-0 shootout win versus Russia.
Irgl would play the hero in his World Championship debut in 2006, outwitting Russian goalie Maxim Sokolov with deft stickhandling for the 4-3 sudden-death quarter-final winner. However, the Czechs lost the final 4-0 to Sweden in Riga.
Irgl, a five-time World Championship participant, earned a Swiss NLA title with Davos in 2007 and has returned to Vitkovice for another pro season at age 40. But he has never had another sniff at Triple Gold Club territory.
WHL: Rob Brown (#4 overall with 522 points)
Mr. Brown, we meet again. It’s worth looking at the Canadian major junior leagues since they supply so many World Junior players each year, and not just for Canada. It’s also worth emphasizing the stupendous puckhandling and goal-scoring skills that Brown brought to the 1988 World Juniors.
In his final Kamloops Blazers season of 1986-87, the right winger racked up 76 goals and a WHL record of 212 points that will never be broken unless the league implements bigger nets. (Also, he did it in Cooperalls.) Even when the Penguins let Brown go to Moscow that Christmas, he wound up with 24 goals and 44 points in 51 games for sixth place in team scoring, a very creditable NHL rookie season.
OHL: Brian Bradley (#18 overall with 373 points)
At the 1985 World Juniors in Finland, Brian Bradley’s seven goals and 12 points left him well behind Finnish tournament leaders Mikko Makela (11 goals) and Esa Keskinen (20 points). Yet the 1983 third-round pick of the Calgary Flames (51st overall) played a key role in Canada’s second World Junior gold medal of all time.
Bradley rewarded coach Terry Simpson’s trust in him, notching Canada’s fifth goal in a 5-0 win over the Soviets and opening the scoring in a 4-4 tie with the Finns. The nifty London Knights centre also set up Wendel Clark for the do-or-die 2-2 equalizer on Czechoslovakia’s Dominik Hasek in the last game of the tournament.
Although Bradley would play 651 NHL games, his playoff debut – a scoreless outing against the Montreal Canadiens in the 1986 final – was as close as he came to the Stanley Cup. He was part of Dave King’s fourth-place team at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, and was never selected for the Worlds.
QMJHL: Martin Gendron (#49 overall with 404 points)
To witness Martin Gendron on Canada’s golden 1993 and 1994 World Junior teams was to witness a pure sniper in action. The QMJHL star of the St-Hyacinthe Laser and Hull Olympiques racked up 11 goals in 14 career World Junior games. He had a team-high six goals in 1994 in the Czech Republic under coach Joe Canale. Gendron led the way with two goals and an assist in a crucial 6-4 win over Sweden that year.
Unfortunately, the diminutive, gentlemanly winger’s game wasn’t well-suited to the grinding mid-1990’s NHL. Gendron played just 30 games for the Capitals and Blackhawks. Despite some productive IHL and AHL seasons, he ultimately wound up in Europe, twice leading the Swiss NLB in goals.
This season, Gendron’s 16-year-old son Alexis made his QMJHL debut with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, posting four goals and an assist in eight games before the shutdown. It’s a new generation with new dreams of going even farther than their forebears.
It’s eye-opening and instructive to list the all-time highest-scoring players in 10 different leagues who never won any of those titles – but did win an IIHF World Junior Championship. There are some excellent talents and some surprising names on the list.
It reinforces the importance of winning the World Juniors. Take this to the bank: for some young men at the 2021 tournament in Edmonton, World Junior gold will be the biggest thing they ever win in their careers within an IIHF-framed context.
That’s certainly not to take anything away from the feelings of joy after, say, capturing a Gagarin Cup or Calder Cup. However, since the World Juniors officially launched in 1977, this tournament has come to occupy a very special place in the hearts of hockey players and fans everywhere. Winning gold here is a legacy unto itself.
So let’s check out the all-time highest-scoring players in 10 leagues who won World Junior gold, but not the Olympics, Worlds, or Stanley Cup.
NHL: Trevor Linden (#128 overall with 867 points)
As NHL.com puts it, Trevor Linden remains “arguably the most popular player” in Vancouver Canucks history, with due respect to Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Pavel Bure, and other franchise icons.
At the 1988 World Juniors in Moscow, Linden – Canada’s youngest player at 17 years and 8 months of age – got his lone goal in a pivotal 3-2 win over the Soviets, who boasted Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny. This two-time Memorial Cup champion with the Medicine Hat Tigers called coach Dave Chambers’ World Junior-winning team “a really organized, focused group.”
In his first of two IIHF World Championships in 1991, Linden settled for silver after Canada earned 3-3 ties with both Sweden (gold) and the Soviets (bronze) in the round-robin medal round in Turku. Linden’s closest brush with the Stanley Cup came in 1994, as Vancouver’s 24-year-old captain scored twice in the 3-2 Game Seven loss to the New York Rangers. The big centre also tallied the late equalizer in the 1998 Olympic semi-final, but goalie Dominik Hasek destroyed Canada’s hopes in a 2-1 Czech shootout victory in Nagano.
IHL: Rob Brown (#32 overall with 632 points)
The International Hockey League (IHL) folded in 2001, but it was just as significant as an NHL feeder league as the AHL during its 56-year run. And Rob Brown, who tied World Junior captain Theo Fleury for Canada’s lead with six goals in 1988, tore up the IHL between 1992-93 and 2000-01.
The former Kamloops Blazers ace reaped three IHL scoring titles with seasons of 155 points for the Kalamazoo Wings (1994) and 143 points (1996) and 117 points (1997) for the Chicago Wolves.
However, “so close, yet so far away” sums up Brown’s relationship with the Stanley Cup. The Pittsburgh Penguins traded him to Hartford five months before winning their first Cup in 1991. The following year, Brown got dealt to the Chicago Blackhawks, but did not play in the finals as the Mario Lemieux-led Pens triumphed again. 1988 marked Brown’s only chance to wear Canadian colours.
AHL: Trent Whitfield (#49 overall with 596 points)
When Canada won its record-setting fifth straight World Junior gold medal in 1997 in Switzerland, Trent Whitfield played the role of versatile grinder. Canadian coach Mike Babcock knew the 19-year-old centre’s capabilities as his captain with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs. Whitfield chipped in a goal in the 7-2 quarter-final romp over the Slovaks and was on the ice in the critical dying seconds when Canada blanked the U.S. 2-0 for gold.
This native of Alameda, Sasatchewan appeared in 194 NHL games for four clubs, but his only other championship was in his final pro season of 2014 with Italy’s HC Bolzano.
KHL: Kirill Koltsov (#36 overall with 272 points)
Kirill Koltsov always preferred to do his talking on the ice rather than off it. The Chelyabinsk-born blueliner’s 2003 World Junior performance spoke volumes. Koltsov, 19, paced all Russian defencemen with five points, and his team, featuring a 17-year-old Alexander Ovechkin, broke Canada’s heart with a 3-2 gold medal win in hockey-mad Halifax.
Although Koltsov represented Russia once more at the 2006 Worlds in Latvia, he went home emptyhanded. The two-time champion with Salavat Yulaev Ufa never got to the Olympics or the NHL, despite playing 102 games with the Manitoba Moose, the then-AHL affiliate of the Canucks, who drafted him in the second round (49th overall) in 2002.
Koltsov, who retired in July, sits third among KHL defenceman in all-time scoring behind Kevin Dallman (395 points) and Ilya Nikulin (308 points).
LIIGA: Pekka Tirkkonen (#58 overall with 397 points)
Pekka Tirkkonen unexpectedly made headlines this fall. The head coach of JYP Jyvaskyla was laid off, along with assistant coach Ari Santanen, until the end of 2020. The two men declined to accept salary reductions during Liiga’s suspension of play in this pandemic. Tirkkonen and Santanen are expected to return to work in January.
Tirkkonen could never have foreseen this strange scenario when he tied Teppo Kivela for Finland’s lead with six goals in 1987 at his first of two World Juniors. The Savonlinna-born centre’s achievements, along with those of teammates like Janne Ojanen and Jukka Seppo, were unfortunately overshadowed by the “Piestany Punchup” that saw both Canada and the Soviet Union disqualified for brawling on 4 January.
As a player, Tirkkonen also appeared at two Worlds (1990, 1991) and won three championships with both TPS Turku (1989-91) and Denmark’s Herning Blue Fox.
SHL: Jens Ohling (#24 overall with 409 points)
For fans of the Canucks, New York Rangers, and New Jersey Devils, Jan Erixon, Peter Sundstrom, and Patrik Sundstrom are the most memorable alumni from the golden 1981 Swedish World Junior team. Yet for SHL fans, Jens Ohling remains a certified legend.
After playing 18 consecutive seasons for Djurgardens IF and winning four championships, the left winger had his number retired by the Stockholm club. Ohling earned bronze at both his Olympics (1984, 1988), but couldn’t medal at his two Worlds (1985, 1989).
EXTRALIGA: Zbynek Irgl (#109 overall with 339 points)
Zbynek Irgl’s IIHF career got off to a superb start. At the 2000 World Juniors in Sweden, the 19-year-old HC Vitkovice winger tallied two goals for the Czech Republic, including the second-period winner in a 4-1 semi-final victory over the Americans. The Czechs captured their first World Junior gold medal with a cautiously played 1-0 shootout win versus Russia.
Irgl would play the hero in his World Championship debut in 2006, outwitting Russian goalie Maxim Sokolov with deft stickhandling for the 4-3 sudden-death quarter-final winner. However, the Czechs lost the final 4-0 to Sweden in Riga.
Irgl, a five-time World Championship participant, earned a Swiss NLA title with Davos in 2007 and has returned to Vitkovice for another pro season at age 40. But he has never had another sniff at Triple Gold Club territory.
WHL: Rob Brown (#4 overall with 522 points)
Mr. Brown, we meet again. It’s worth looking at the Canadian major junior leagues since they supply so many World Junior players each year, and not just for Canada. It’s also worth emphasizing the stupendous puckhandling and goal-scoring skills that Brown brought to the 1988 World Juniors.
In his final Kamloops Blazers season of 1986-87, the right winger racked up 76 goals and a WHL record of 212 points that will never be broken unless the league implements bigger nets. (Also, he did it in Cooperalls.) Even when the Penguins let Brown go to Moscow that Christmas, he wound up with 24 goals and 44 points in 51 games for sixth place in team scoring, a very creditable NHL rookie season.
OHL: Brian Bradley (#18 overall with 373 points)
At the 1985 World Juniors in Finland, Brian Bradley’s seven goals and 12 points left him well behind Finnish tournament leaders Mikko Makela (11 goals) and Esa Keskinen (20 points). Yet the 1983 third-round pick of the Calgary Flames (51st overall) played a key role in Canada’s second World Junior gold medal of all time.
Bradley rewarded coach Terry Simpson’s trust in him, notching Canada’s fifth goal in a 5-0 win over the Soviets and opening the scoring in a 4-4 tie with the Finns. The nifty London Knights centre also set up Wendel Clark for the do-or-die 2-2 equalizer on Czechoslovakia’s Dominik Hasek in the last game of the tournament.
Although Bradley would play 651 NHL games, his playoff debut – a scoreless outing against the Montreal Canadiens in the 1986 final – was as close as he came to the Stanley Cup. He was part of Dave King’s fourth-place team at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, and was never selected for the Worlds.
QMJHL: Martin Gendron (#49 overall with 404 points)
To witness Martin Gendron on Canada’s golden 1993 and 1994 World Junior teams was to witness a pure sniper in action. The QMJHL star of the St-Hyacinthe Laser and Hull Olympiques racked up 11 goals in 14 career World Junior games. He had a team-high six goals in 1994 in the Czech Republic under coach Joe Canale. Gendron led the way with two goals and an assist in a crucial 6-4 win over Sweden that year.
Unfortunately, the diminutive, gentlemanly winger’s game wasn’t well-suited to the grinding mid-1990’s NHL. Gendron played just 30 games for the Capitals and Blackhawks. Despite some productive IHL and AHL seasons, he ultimately wound up in Europe, twice leading the Swiss NLB in goals.
This season, Gendron’s 16-year-old son Alexis made his QMJHL debut with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, posting four goals and an assist in eight games before the shutdown. It’s a new generation with new dreams of going even farther than their forebears.