Agreed for most of those comparisons, but not Bure vs. Oates. I'd put Bure in ahead of Oates every time.
Oates just ... bothers me for some reason. I know he'll get in eventually and with his career assist totals he deserves to, but I've never liked him as a player to the extent that his raw numbers impress.
To me, he was a passionless player and a mercenary (requested trades away from the two most successful stops in his career for money reasons), and never really won anything of significance. Was also never selected to Team Canada for any international tournament. I believe he also declined invites to the WCs several times after early playoff exits, which doesn't help my assessment of his character/competitiveness.
I find him to be a bit of a reverse Bondra in that his numbers become more impressive because they're skewed one way - in Bondra's case lots of goals but no assists, in Oates' case the opposite.
If Adam Oates had 150 fewer assists and 150 more goals over the course of his career, I don't think the difference between he and Pierre Turgeon - a guy few people here think belongs in the HHOF - is very much at all.
There's something about Oates that bothers me as well. He has a great defensive reputation, but his plus-minus was never very impressive. And if you look at the numbers in detail, he was on the ice for a lot of goals against.
Here's a somewhat arbitrary selection of forwards, the top 10 scorers of the 1990s, sorted by even strength goals against per game.
Player | GP | ESGF | ESGA | GF/G |
GA/G
| R-ON | R-OFF
Wayne Gretzky | 640 | 628 | 636 | 0.98 |
0.99
| 0.99 | 0.95
Adam Oates | 723 | 730 | 662 | 1.01 |
0.92
| 1.10 | 0.99
Mark Recchi | 774 | 701 | 644 | 0.91 |
0.83
| 1.09 | 0.97
Brett Hull | 712 | 630 | 591 | 0.88 |
0.83
| 1.07 | 1.10
Jaromir Jagr | 725 | 822 | 580 | 1.13 |
0.80
| 1.42 | 0.95
Joe Sakic | 702 | 644 | 560 | 0.92 |
0.80
| 1.15 | 1.06
Pierre Turgeon | 693 | 640 | 507 | 0.92 |
0.73
| 1.26 | 1.00
Ron Francis | 760 | 672 | 554 | 0.88 |
0.73
| 1.21 | 1.01
Theoren Fleury | 770 | 698 | 553 | 0.91 |
0.72
| 1.26 | 0.98
Steve Yzerman | 742 | 678 | 529 | 0.91 |
0.71
| 1.28 | 1.25
Oates was on the ice for significantly more goals against than anyone but Gretzky.
Why the disconnect between reputation and results? My theory is that Oates may have been a great faceoff guy, and had great technique and dedication in the defensive zone, but his skating hurt him as a full-ice force. He wasn't able to "tilt the ice" and keep the play in the other team's end, and in the end he had to rely on being such a great skilled player to outscore the other team.
Funny you compared him to Bure, he's another guy who was on the ice for a ton of goals against, but for an entirely different reason.
Though, the biggest "wow!" about Howe needs some number-crunching, and I don't think the HHOF committee is about number-crunching. If it was the case, Howe would already be in.
Obviously the HHOF committee isn't going to go for number-crunching. But I don't know why they haven't been able to see John Flyers Fan's point below. It's a powerful argument if you actually look at how good the Flyers were and look at their roster. Or maybe they just see team success as a binary thing - either you won a Cup or you didn't - and don't consider, say, how it's harder to win a Cup when the '80s Oilers are at their peak.
Howe was the best player, and far and away the most valuable player on the 80's Flyers team (the best ever to not win a Cup).
Also, regarding Howe's apparently short peak, he had terrible luck early in his career. First, the HHOF probably punishes him for his excellent years before the age of 24 in the WHA, rather than giving him credit. And then when he entered the NHL, he had that horrific injury when he crashed into the net, and lost effectiveness for almost two seasons because of that. He finally got going in Philadelphia at age 27 and had a great six year peak, and then ran into back and knee injuries that prevented him from playing full seasons for the rest of his career. (Although he still was +91 in these injury-plagued years, and had a very good playoff run in 1989).