A Flame From the Past: Kris Versteeg

Do you remember Kris Versteeg?

Every once in a while, we take a look at a player who once played for the Calgary Flames in a series called “A Flame From the Past.” This player has to have played a significant number of games for the Flames. I’ll put every Flames’ season into a Wheel of Names, and this time, it landed on the 2017-18 season. In this article, we’ll look at Kris Versteeg.

Born and raised two and a half hours southeast of Calgary in the city of Lethbridge, Versteeg began his junior career with his hometown team. In 2002-03 with the Western Hockey League’s Lethbridge Hurricanes, Versteeg scored eight goals and 18 points in 57 games. In his second season, his draft year, Versteeg scored 16 goals and 49 points in 68 games.

Thanks to that performance, the Boston Bruins selected Versteeg in the fifth round of the 2004 draft. He returned to the Hurricanes for a third season, where he scored a career-best 22 goals and 52 points in 68 games. Additionally, Versteeg’s lone WHL playoff games were played in the 2005 playoffs, where he had an assist in five games.

Versteeg’s final junior season was spent with the Kamloops Blazers and Red Deer Rebels, as he combined for 16 goals and 48 points in 71 games. The winger joined the Providence Bruins to end the season, scoring two goals and six points in 13 games to end the regular season, then being held pointless in three playoff games.

The 2006-07 season was Versteeg’s first professional season, as he scored 22 goals and 49 points in 43 games with the Bruins. However, they traded him to the Chicago Blackhawks in February 2007, as Versteeg scored four goals and 23 points in 27 games to end that year. He was held pointless in two American Hockey League playoff games.

Most of Versteeg’s 2007-08 season was spent with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs, as he scored 18 goals and 49 points (with 174 penalty minutes), along with six goals and 11 points in 12 post-season games. Versteeg also made his National Hockey League debut that season, scoring twice and picking up two assists in 13 NHL games.

The 2008-09 season saw Versteeg become a regular for the Blackhawks. In 78 games, he scored 22 goals and 53 points, with an additional four goals and 12 points in 17 games. In 2009-10, he scored 20 goals and 44 points, and helped the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup thanks to six goals and 14 points in 22 post-season games.

Due to salary cap issues, the Blackhawks traded him and Billy Sweatt to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Chris DiDomenico, Philippe Paradis, and Viktor Stalberg. Versteeg played just 53 games for the Maple Leafs, scoring 14 goals and 35 points in 53 games. Before the 2011 trade deadline, the Maple Leafs sent Versteeg to the Philadelphia Flyers, the team that the Blackhawks beat in the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals, for a first round pick and a third round pick, both in the 2011 draft.

Ending his 2010-11 season with the Flyers, Versteeg scored seven goals (21 on the season) and 11 points (46 on the season) in 27 games, along with a goal and six points in 11 playoff games. Versteeg was on the move once again that off-season, as the Flyers sent Versteeg to the Florida Panthers for a pick that eventually became Shayne Gostisbehere.

In 2011-12, Versteeg scored a career-best 23 goals and 54 points in 71 games with the Panthers, along with three goals and five points in seven post-season games. Versteeg played just 10 games in 2012-13, scoring two goals and eight points. After just 18 games in 2013-14, where he scored two goals and seven points, the Lethbridge product was traded back to the Blackhawks, where he finished the season scoring 10 goals and 29 points in 63 games. In 15 post-season games, Versteeg scored once with three points.

For the second time in his career, Versteeg’s name went on the Stanley Cup as the Blackhawks defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Finals. That was after Versteeg scored 14 goals and 34 points in the regular season, as well as a goal and two points in 12 post-season games.

Once again in a cap bind, the Blackhawks traded Versteeg following a Stanley Cup victory, this time sending him to the Carolina Hurricanes. In 63 games during the 2015-16 season, he scored 11 goals and 33 points, before being traded to the Los Angeles Kings before the deadline, where he scored an additional four goals and five points in 14 playoff games. The Kings crashed out of the playoffs early, as Versteeg scored a goal and two points in five post-season games.

Versteeg signed a professional tryout with the Edmonton Oilers heading into the 2016-17 season and had a strong post-season, However, he declined their contract offer, signing with the Flames for that season. He had his typical season, scoring 15 goals and finishing the year with 37 points, scoring a goal and four points in four post-season games, his final post-season action in the NHL.

The Lethbridge native’s final season in the NHL came in 2017-18, as he scored three goals and eight points in 24 games. Versteeg’s season ended prematurely, as he needed hip surgery, a disappointing send off to a successful NHL career. That said, he split his 2018-19 season between Russian and Sweden, played an additional six games with the Blackhawks’s AHL team in 2019-20, before playing three more games in Slovakia (with his brother) to end his career.