Who the Hell is Rick Kozak?

(wasted draft pick Rick Kozak lugs the mail as Wiener Stevenson of the Colorado Eagles chases him up the ice, in a game in the CHL last season, at night, maybe on the weekend, but also maybe not.)

He’s the Flyers 3rd round pick from 2003, you asshole. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I did not mean that. I just need to get some coffee and I’ll be fine.

If you’ve been reading here for a while, and I know you have for at least 5 seconds unless you just jumped right to this paragraph, in which case I’d have to ask you to leave because I don’t encourage that type of behavior here, then you know I’m slightly obsessed with Flyers draft picks of the past. Especially in the month of August I like the idea of not having to wait. The Flyers have like 30 prospects right now and I don’t know what’s going to happen with any of them. That’s boring. But if I just drop back five years and check out the 2003 draft it’s like looking into the future…from the past. Get it?

So in 2003 the Flyers took Jeff Carter and Mike Richards in the 1st round and the drafted ended. Oh, see! I got you! The draft did not end even though those are the only two guys anyone ever talks about from that draft. You should have seen your face! As a matter of fact, the Flyers had more 9 picks before the end of the 6th round that year. Some you know, like Alexandre Picard, Stefan Ruzicka, and Ryan Potulny, and some you do not know like Rick Kozak.

The Flyers have always liked size and this 6’3 210 pounder from Manitoba was apparently too much to pass up for Bobby Clarke when the 95th pick of the draft came around. Kozak was coming off his first partial season of Major Junior where he picked up 15 points in 38 games with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL. He had also dropped his pants, excuse me, gloves, yes gloves, a couple of times that season which the Flyers have also like, in case you did not know. He put up 11 points in Brandon’s 16 game playoff run that spring just before that draft and the Flyers reacted exactly the same way they did to Kyle Wellwood's impressive playoffs with the Memorial Cup winning Windsor Spitfire's this past spring.

From Hockey’s Future’s draft review that June:

Rick Kozak, one of the younger members of the 2003 draft class, got better and better as the season went along. Pointless and bad penalty prone in his first four games for Brandon after coming over from Prince George, he improved steadily thereafter and his solid playoff performance raised hopes that the aggressive rookie has only begun to tap his abilities. A relatively obscure player coming out Swan Valley in Manitoba Junior Hockey League, Kozak earned his keep in his first WHL season by throwing his weight around and going to the net; which earned him powerplay time for the Wheat Kings.

I’m not going to make you hold your breath for this one. Long story short, swing and a miss. Kozak was traded from Brandon to Kamloops after a really disappointing first half of the season and then his rights were sent to the Rangers for Vladimir Malakhov in March. Little did he know it then but that day, March 8th, was probably the highlight of his life. “Did you know I was once traded for Vladimir Malakhov? Gimme a Schlitz.”

After graduating from Major Junior Kozak split time between the ECHL and the CHL, and somehow managed to squeeze an AHL assist in there during one of his five games at the highest level of minor pro. Stories of problems with coaches, undisciplined play, and general douchebagary followed him everywhere he went. In 2008 he signed a contract to play in England and was “mutually released” from it after both receiving a 10 game suspension in the team’s first game of the season and then going on to cause the coach “difficulties” off-ice while serving out that suspension. He came back to the U.S. to have a decent season for the Laredo Bucks of the CHL, but it’s safe to say his time has run out – which is a strange thing to say about a 24 year old in general. Looks like he’ll be suiting up for the Tulsa Oilers this season and then another team the year after, and another the year after that until he finally decides to put an end to it or grows up and heads back to Europe where he can make some decent money.

Chalk this one up as just another example of what a crap shoot drafting 18 year olds is. There are guys from that draft that were picked before Kozak and never made it. There are guys who were picked after and might be all-stars some day – sometimes you get the Kozak and sometimes the Kozak gets you, as the saying goes.

(poke check and triple minor for roughing to the F Block Blog for giving me some color around that internet hockey database line with no stats on Rick Kozak’s profile page.)