The Canadian National Team was his main focus for 1983-84, which included not only participating in the World Junior championship, but a trip to the Olympics as well. With is international commitments over, he returned to play an additional 10 games with Longueuil prior to being drafted by the Vancouver Canucks 10th overall in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft.
He graduated straight to the NHL in 1984-85, playing 67 games with the Canucks. After a second season in Vancouver, Daigneault began is trek through the NHL when he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers for the 1986-87 season. Despite only scoring 6 goals in the regular season, he scored the winning goal in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals and to that point he had no points in 8 playoff games.
He divided his time in 1987-88 between the Flyers (28 games) and the Hershey Bears (10 games) of the AHL before starting the 1988-89 season with Hershey prior to a trade which sent him to the Montreal Canadiens organization and the Sherbrooke Canadians of the AHL where he played 63 games and had his only season with double digit goals as a professional with 10.
He was back in the NHL with the Montreal Canadians for 36 games in 1989-90 and also spent 28 with Sherbrooke. He became a regular with Montreal in 1990-91 where he spent the next five seasons, which included winning a Stanley Cup in 1993.
A trade early in the 1995-96 season sent him to the St. Louis Blues, who then sent him to Worcester of the AHL for a brief period before a late season trade who dealt him to the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he would get a chance to play with his childhood friend Mario Lemieux. Pittsburgh was his fourth different team of the season, which would set the tone for the remainder of his career.
Daigneault would not play an entire season with one team over the course of the next three seasons, starting 1996-97 with Pittsburgh, who dealt him to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim after 53 games.
He began the 1997-98 season with the Mighty Ducks, who sent him packing to the New York Islanders for the final 18 games of the season.
He was next claimed by the Nashville Predators in the Expansion Draft for the 1998-99 campaign, only to have the Predators deal him to the Phoenix Coyotes halfway through the year.
The 1999-00 season saw him play 53 games with Phoenix, but following the year he packed his gear once again when he signed as a free agent with the Minnesota Wild, who assigned him to their top minor league affiliate, the Cleveland Lumberjacks, where he played in 44 games along with a single appearance for the Wild, which brought his total to record 10 different teams, becoming only the second player to do so after Michel Petit. That mark would later be surpassed by Mike Sillinger's 12 teams.
Daigneault would play 6 games with EHC Biel-Bienne in the Swiss second division in 2001-02 to close out his career. His final NHL totals were 899 games played, with 53 goals and 197 assists for 250 points.
Had Daigneault kept just one of each of the 27 different style jerseys he wore, 11 home, 10 road, 2 throwbacks and 4 alternates, here is a look at what his closet would contain.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaIllustrations from NHLUniforms.com
Today's featured jersey is a 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens J. J. Daigneault jersey as worn during the pinnacle of Daigneault's career when he won the only Stanley Cup of his long career with his hometown Montreal Canadiens where he grew up five minutes from The Forum.
The Canadiens wore the Stanley Cup Finals patch on the upper right chest of their jerseys, as did their opponents the Los Angeles Kings, only the Canadiens version of the patch was in French, the only such time there were two variations of the finals patch in the same year.
1992-93 was a very busy year for the seamstresses in Montreal, as the Canadiens would start the season wearing the 1993 NHL All-Star Game patch for the first half of the season. After the All-Star Game, which they hosted, they would join the rest of the league in wearing the Stanley Cup 100th Anniversary patch, also in an unusual French variation shared only with the Nordiques, and then don the French version of the Stanley Cup finals patch for their third different patch of the season, a feat we're certain no other team has ever duplicated. Yes, several teams have worn three patches at the same time, but we're not aware of any team wearing three unique patches in the same season.
Today's video section begins with Daigneault's goal against Grant Fuhr in Game 6 of the 1987 playoffs. It was his first point of that season's postseason.
Next is Daigneault laying a check on none other than Wayne Gretzky.
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