Where Are They Now?
Ronnie Sundin
Then:
A native of Frolunda, Sweden and a ninth-round pick by the New York Rangers in the 1996 NHL Draft, Sundin skated in 67 games as a defenseman with the Wolf Pack in their inaugural season of 1997-98. He posted very respectable totals of three goals and 19 assists for 22 points, the second-highest point output among Pack defensemen that year. The then 27-year-old blueliner also got into one NHL game with the Rangers in 1997-98, which turned out to be his only season in North America.
Now:
Sundin returned to his native Sweden after his one campaign in Hartford, and has been a steady presence for his hometown club, Vastra Frolunda, ever since. This year is Sundin’s 16th season with Vastra Frolunda, and he also was a member of the Swedish Olympic Team that captured the Gold Medal at the 2006 Olympics.
Derek Armstrong
Then:
Next to Ken Gernander, and possibly Brad Smyth, Derek Armstrong ranks as the most illustrious player in Wolf Pack history. Armstrong spent the better part of four seasons, 1997-2001, wearing a Wolf Pack uniform, and won the Jack Butterfield Trophy as AHL playoff MVP in 2000, the year the Pack captured the Calder Cup. He also is the only Wolf Pack player ever to lead the AHL in scoring, a feat he accomplished in his last year with the Pack, 2000-01, and that season he also became the first Pack player to be named AHL regular-season MVP. Armstrong is the Wolf Pack all-time franchise assist leader, with 204, and he is third all-time in franchise history in points (309) and goals (105).
Now:
Armstrong spent the season after he left Hartford, 2001-02, playing in Switzerland, but upon returning to North America for the 2002-03 season, he was able to re-establish himself as a full-time NHLer with the Los Angeles Kings organization. Now 35, the Ottawa native has spent the last five full seasons with the Kings, averaging 12 goals and 39 points per campaign. Derek and his wife, Shannon, have two sons, Dawson and Easton.
Jason Dawe
Then:
Jason Dawe was acquired for the Wolf Pack by the Ranger organization in early February, 2000 and was a key player for that year’s Calder Cup-winning squad. The former Buffalo Sabre, and two-time NHL 20-goal-scorer, tallied nine goals and 18 points in 27 regular-season games with the Pack after the trade, and was the team’s second-leading goal-scorer in the postseason, with 10-7-17 in 21 games. The Ontario-born forward would lose almost the entire 2000-01 season to injury, but returned to play a full season with the Wolf Pack in 2001-02, finishing third on the team in scoring with 28-37-65 in 79 games.
Now:
After leaving the Wolf Pack, Dawe spent the 2002-03 season with the Worcester IceCats. He then started the next year in Finland, before returning to the AHL to finish out the year with the Rochester Americans, the team he had started his pro career with in 1993. Dawe spent 2004-05, his last season of pro hockey, in the ECHL with the Charlotte Checkers, the Wolf Pack’s ECHL affiliate. Dawe now lives in Charlotte and runs instructional hockey camps in several different locales.
Brad Smyth
Then:
The all-time leading goal and point-scorer in Wolf Pack history, Brad “Shooter” Smyth had three separate stints with the Pack. He was originally acquired early in the Wolf Pack’s first season, in November of 1997, and then brought back on a loan deal from the Nashville Predators halfway through the next season. The former Florida Panther and L.A. King would play the next three full seasons with the Pack, and led the AHL in playoff goal-scoring for the 2000 Calder Cup squad, with 13 in 23 postseason games. Smyth hit the 50-goal mark for the second time in his AHL career in 2000-01, the only 50-goal season in Wolf Pack history and the only time an AHL player hit the half-century mark in a span of nine years. Following the 2001-02 season Smyth spent one year with his hometown Ottawa Senators organization, playing mostly in the AHL with Binghamton. He played the next year in Finland and then most of the following two campaigns with the AHL’s Manchester Monarchs, before a return engagement with the Wolf Pack at the tail end of the 2005-06 season.
Now:
Smyth has continued his run as a top point-producer in Europe. He is currently in his third season with the Hamburg, Germany Freezers and led the Freezers in goals last year, with 27 in 56 games.
J.F. Labbe
Then:
One of the most popular players in Wolf Pack history, and one of the better big-game goaltenders in the recent history of the AHL, Jean-Francois Labbe had already won a Calder Cup, with Hershey in 1997, prior to joining the Wolf Pack for the 1998-99 season. Labbe was a workhorse for the Pack that year, playing in 59 games and winning 28 of them, but the diminutive French Canadian saved his best work for the next year. Labbe shared the Wolf Pack net in the regular season with Milan Hnilicka in 1999-2000, but when the playoffs rolled around it was Labbe’s show. Labbe played 22 of the Pack’s 23 playoff games during that great postseason run, and ended up helping lead the Wolf Pack all the way to the Cup. He was 15-7 in those 22 contests, with a 2.18 goals-against average, a 93.5% save percentage and three shutouts, earning his second Calder Cup ring. Labbe started the following year back with the Wolf Pack, playing eight games, before being traded to Columbus in November of that season.
Now:
Following his trade to the Blue Jackets organization, Labbe would play three more seasons in North America, mostly with AHL Syracuse. He did, however, get a total of 14 games of NHL action in with the parent Columbus club. Labbe headed to Europe after the 2002-03 season, and has continued to enjoy outstanding success on the other side of the Pond. He followed a year in Russia with three seasons in Germany, and is playing this year in Vienna, Austria.
