How did Tony Tanti drop off so quickly?

[The Panther]

Toronto-native Tony Tanti was drafted by Chicago in 1981 but never given much of a shot there, and they dealt him to Vancouver in January '83 for Curt Fraser.

Tanti played with the Canucks from then until almost exactly seven years later, when, in 1990, he was sent to Pittsburgh, which, a year later dealt him to Buffalo.

With the Canucks, from 1983-84 through 1987-88, Tanti was 12th in NHL goal-scoring (a 44-goal pace for five years), which is pretty good considering the club was poor.

In 1988-89, aged just 25, he was already falling off his peak scoring, with just 24 goals and 49 points. He played the next half-season with Van (14 goals), and then had his cups of coffee in Pittsburgh and Buffalo, but did nothing of note. In Pittsburgh, assuming he played right wing, he was down the depth-chart behind Recchi, Jagr, and Mullen, so presumably he was seeing little ice-time. But in Buffalo his competition (behind Mogilny) would have been Donald Audette, but the even-smaller Audette handily out-produced him. Tanti was 28 when he played his last NHL game (the Boston-Buffalo 1992 series).

Since 1988 appears to be the calendar year when he went from all-star to mediocre, I was looking at his game logs from 1987-88, and it is a bit odd:
- In the first 18 games, Tanti was 7th in NHL scoring and was pacing for 124 points (obviously unsustainable, but a hot start)
- In the next 37 games, Tanti was 33rd in NHL scoring, pacing for 86 points (this is about his normal pace for the mid-80s)
- In the final 18 games, Tanti was 167th in NHL scoring, pacing for 40 points.

So, I dunno, the Canucks lost most of these games down the stretch and maybe Tanti just phoned-in the last part of the season, but then the next season his prime was decidedly over and he was only 25.


It's easy to say that the NHL size-fetish limited him after the 80s, but that didn't really kick in until the Lindros period and Tanti was already toast by then. And his prime ended aged barely 25, still in the eighties. And he wasn't done with hockey as he played in Germany until 1998.

How did he fall of so quickly?

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

In addition to his small size, he was a very poor skater. A good chunk of his goals in Vancouver, like 40%, came on the PP, and Tanti really excelled at playing in around the slot getting one-timers, wrap-arounds, garbage goals, tip-ins and deflections, and was decent enough digging the puck out of the corner. When he arrived in Vancouver he was paired with Patrik Sundstrom, who was his regular linemate for several years - Sundstrom was a good skater with high IQ and could cover to a degree for Tanti's deficits. Petri Skriko was another regular linemate who had a lot of offensive talent, and the trio clicked pretty well, which helped Tanti keep his job on the top line.

I'm guessing the Penguins thought he might do okay paired with Lemieux, because, in theory, Tanti could potentially pick up rebounds etc. But I don't think there was much of a role for Tanti away from being in a top line scoring position. The Penguins had too much depth and Tanti was the odd man out. Given that the NHL was slowly speeding up in the late 80s, and teams were starting to covet power forwards, a smaller, slower guy like Tanti - who couldn't play effective defensively - just wasn't going to fit on the bottom half of the roster, which was usually filled with checkers and fighters. I think he just reached a point where he went from a team where he earned a top line spot at the right point in his career, to a couple of teams that really couldn't utilize him in a top line position because they had more effective talent and greater depth.

 

[The Panther]

Nice points, above.

I found this brief feature on him, from about 10 years ago:
"No looking back for a true sniper"

Like every ex-player does, he claims he never cared about the money, but I doubt that. If he'd played on a few more years, he'd have pocketed some serious coin. He probably would have made more money from 1992 to 1996 than he did in his entire actual career.

Anyway, it seems he lives in West Van and works in a successful flooring business, so he seems to have done well after hockey.

 

[crobro]

The Tanti -Sundstfom -Hlinka line was really good it’s a shame Ivan Hlinka went back to Europe

 

[The Panther]

One thing I always remember Tanti for -- and it's the last thing I ever saw him do with Vancouver -- was almost score a huge series-winning goal in overtime vs. Calgary in 1989. Everyone remembers the Stan Smyl partial-breakaway miss, but a few minutes later Tanti had this chance:


...which looked like it was labelled, but Vernon made an impressive save.

If that goes in, Tanti's "legacy rep" in Vancouver circles would be considerably higher....

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

That shot is also a great example of how effective he was playing his off-wing, and that was his classic PP shooting position. Not sure if the Penguins or Sabres tried playing him on the left side, but if they did they may have found that he couldn't produce as well, which may have factored into the rapid diminishing of his role.

 

[MS]

As the NHL moved from the 1980s into the 1990s, the sport got a lot harder for small 'hands' guys who weren't great skaters and weren't great defensively.

With the improvements in goaltending and systems, it was a lot harder to score if you couldn't fly or blow the puck past a goalie. And when you weren't scoring 40 goals, there was a lot more focus on your size and defensive play.

A few similar guys flamed out similarly at he same time. Rob Brown, Daniel Marois, etc.

 

[IComeInPeace]

He always played well with Sundstrom. I believe they were also best buddies off the ice as well.

When Sundstrom was traded away to the Devils, Tanti still produced one more good season without Sundstrom, however, if you look at the numbers posted by the OP above, you can see his numbers steadily decline throughout that first season without Sundstrom.

Did he simply lose his confidence playing without his long time linemate and best buddy?

He had that really uncanny ability to deflect pucks from in front and scored an inordinate number of goals in that manner. When that stopped happening (was it just luck?) he didn’t have the wheels to adapt his game.

Do you remember when the Bertuzzi rule came into effect? While still a great player, Bert never played to the same level.

I wonder if something happed at that time to make it harder for Tanti to stand in front of the net and endure the beating required to be effective?

Did d-men get bigger? Did the refs start allowing d-men to get away with more? Maybe (being a smaller guy) the abuse he’d taken in front of the net was taking his toll on his smaller frame and that’s why his prime was so short???

 

[decma]

What was interesting about his brief time with Buf is that he was red hot heading into the 91 playoffs. After being acquired in early March, he was in and out of the lineup and not doing anything (1 point in 6 games, with three healthy scratches) until the last four games of the season. With Mogilny out for three of those last four games (and Ruuttu injured as well), Tanti got ice time with Andreychuk and Turgeon, and then with Hawerchuk and Hogue, and scored 7 points and was a plus 5.

It didn't carry through to the playoffs, or the next season, and that was it.

In Pit he had decent success after being acquired. He played some with Pederson and Stevens and produced a respectable 32 pts in 37 games (much of that with Mario out and Pederson being the #2 C behind Cullen).

Like most forwards, he was highly dependent on good ice time and linemates. When he stopped getting top 6 time, his numbers declined dramatically.

 

[The Panther]

As the NHL moved from the 1980s into the 1990s, the sport got a lot harder for small 'hands' guys who weren't great skaters and weren't great defensively.

With the improvements in goaltending and systems, it was a lot harder to score if you couldn't fly or blow the puck past a goalie. And when you weren't scoring 40 goals, there was a lot more focus on your size and defensive play.

A few similar guys flamed out similarly at he same time. Rob Brown, Daniel Marois, etc.

I generally agree with you, but the point with Tanti is that he was going down (quickly) from 1988 or 1989. By 1988-89, he was past his prime (age 25), and Rob Brown was having his big season.