What is contradictory, though?
He was drafted #7OA, played on a lot of shitty teams, put up only 200 points in 1400 games, and had 2000 PIMS. He was a career negative player, by a large margin. He seemingly played top pair on shitty teams because he was the best option for those teams. He was probably more of a #4 or #5 on a playoff type of team. I don't see anything contradictory with any of those things. Hammer was an elite SAH D. He put up almost the same amount of points, in half the games played, and is like 220 points better than LR in +/- over the span of their careers. A SAH D being -120 over his career, and having more negative seasons, than positive ones, is not really a ringing endorsement of him being a top pairing SAH D.