Players Who Were The Opposite Of Their Perception?

[DitchMarner]

I can't think of an example of the top of my head, but I thought this could be an interesting topic. Obviously the answers will be very subjective.

Who are some players that you feel were the opposites of what they are widely perceived to have been, either in a certain facet of the game (ie defensively or physically) or in terms of character or simply in general?

Remember, I am not asking about merely "overrated;" if a player is generally considered to have been a great leader and you think he made a veritably negative impact on a certain team or teams with his play or behavior, then he would be a good answer.

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[MXD]

Alexander Semin was actually a pretty good defensive player.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Alexander Semin was actually a pretty good defensive player.

Yeah. Killed penalties pretty frequently under Boudreau, possibly under Hunter as well although my memory may be off on that. Really great anticipation and awareness, strong feel for the game in general.

One of the most active sticks I've seen too, which was useful in the defensive zone but often a detriment in the offensive zone as he had a propensity for offensive zone stick penalties.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

John LeClair might be a good example for several reasons. First, many people perceive him to be a product of Lindros. Sure, he benefitted playing next to #88 (who wouldn't?), but the drop in his scoring in the (numerous) games Lindros missed was surprisingly small. Second, he's often described as a power forward, probably due to his size (6'3", 225 lbs). In actuality, he was remarkably docile for a player with his immense strength, and wasn't at all comparable to the true power forwards of the era, like Shanahan and Tkachuk. He was a gentle giant, like Charlie Conacher. Third, he had a reputation for being at best indifferent defensively. That's probably the truest of the three points, but he was on the ice for surprisingly few goals against.

Mark Recchi could be another. A surprising number of people seem to consider him a compiler. I've noted several times that a compiler, almost by definition, doesn't have three years as a top five scorer. And despite the perception that he wasn't an offensive catalyst, he led his team in scoring in six of the eight years he was a top twenty scorer (all of those by 10+ points) - and one of the years he didn't, he was traded midway.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

Gilbert Perreault. If you watched him in his prime you would think he could challenge the leading scorer in the league. His skating, moves and vision were all excellent. He had great line mates, but no puck moving defensemen. Yet I think the highest he finished was around 5th and many points back of the league leader. I guess that's what playing in the Aud does.

 

[The Panther]

Gilbert Perreault. If you watched him in his prime you would think he could challenge the leading scorer in the league. His skating, moves and vision were all excellent. He had great line mates, but no puck moving defensemen. Yet I think the highest he finished was around 5th and many points back of the league leader. I guess that's what playing in the Aud does.

I have a question about Perreault. I have a feeling that I like his style, based on the few clips and highlights I've seen. He's before my time, though, so I don't know. Is there a particular game on YouTube that I can watch to get a fair sense of Perreault, sort of at his best?

 

[seventieslord]

Dmitri Khristich kinda has this reputation as a stereotypical Russian floater, but scouting reports from during his career repeatedly cite his toughness and strong defensive play.

 

[seventieslord]

Maybe Shane Corson? He was tough, physical, strong defensively, an agitator. He did just about everything well. Teams made him a captain twice. You'd think that means he was a heart and soul leader type of player, like a Trevor Linden. But by the end of his career it seems he proved he was really never that - he was a headcase and a bad teammate, a useful soldier but not a guy who should be a part of your leadership group.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

I have a question about Perreault. I have a feeling that I like his style, based on the few clips and highlights I've seen. He's before my time, though, so I don't know. Is there a particular game on YouTube that I can watch to get a fair sense of Perreault, sort of at his best?

Watch the 81 Canada Cup round robin games before he got hurt. He was the best player on the 99 and 10 line.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i mentioned this in another thread recently — everything about scott mellanby suggested that he would be a playoff warrior. but statistically, his playoff production is eye openingly bad relative to his regular season scoring.

even if we only look at his prime years, the pattern is he's significantly higher on his team's scoring in the regular season than playoffs.

1988, young mellanby breaks through as a 25 goal scorer, finishing 6th on the flyers. he gets one single assist in their seven game loss to washington, good for 13th.

1989, run to the wales finals: he's 5th on the flyers in the regular season, 9th in the playoffs

1992, still chugging along as a 20/50 guy, 4th on the oilers in the rs. 2 goals, 3 points in their run to the campbell's finals, tied for 12th.

1996, mellanby is in his 30 goal peak in florida and this is his 70 pt career year, leading the team in scoring in the rs for the second time in three years. tied with rookie jovo for 5th on the team in their run to the finals.

1997 is more of the same, but it's a five game sample and nobody on the team really scored much so not really worth mentioning. after '97, he declines offensively.

mellanby did have one good playoffs, at age 35 in st louis. as the "knuble" on a line with demitra and tkachuk, and on the first PP unit with those two plus macinnis and pronger at the points, he was second on the blues with 7 goals, 10 points in 10 games, one point behind demitra. that was the only time he broke 0.5 points/game in the playoffs.

and before that one good playoff year, mellanby had a stay at home defenceman-esque 17 playoff goals in 112 career playoff games. and it's not like he had a lot of assists either; he only had 41 points. look at this list of forwards with 100+ playoff games and 41 or fewer points, it's exclusively grinders and defensive specialists.

in florida, where he averaged 30 goals a year and was at his absolute best, he scored three playoff goals total.

 

[The Pale King]

Might get dragged over the coals for this but Dustin Brown was/is no where near as dirty as this board (by which I mean mostly the main board) makes him out to be. An awkward skater who hit everything that moved his first decade in the league, but he was never predatory. The knee-on-knee hits he gets flack for are rarely him changing direction at the last minute, and are usually the result of guys trying to avoid contact and getting clipped.

Even on his lone suspension, he had possession of the puck and leaned in/down to brace and ended up making contact with ... Pominville's (?) head. He used to get lumped in with guys like Cooke and Torres and I think that was largely unfair. Yeah, he's got a lisp and there are the waterbottle gif(s). He seems, as the kids would say, "derpy" or whatever. You don't have to like him, but I never got the hate.

 

[K Fleur]

Shane Doan really escaped the "dirty" player label he spent his whole career living up to.

 

[hockey webcomics]

i mentioned this in another thread recently — everything about scott mellanby suggested that he would be a playoff warrior. but statistically, his playoff production is eye openingly bad relative to his regular season scoring.

even if we only look at his prime years, the pattern is he's significantly higher on his team's scoring in the regular season than playoffs.

1988, young mellanby breaks through as a 25 goal scorer, finishing 6th on the flyers. he gets one single assist in their seven game loss to washington, good for 13th.

1989, run to the wales finals: he's 5th on the flyers in the regular season, 9th in the playoffs

1992, still chugging along as a 20/50 guy, 4th on the oilers in the rs. 2 goals, 3 points in their run to the campbell's finals, tied for 12th.

1996, mellanby is in his 30 goal peak in florida and this is his 70 pt career year, leading the team in scoring in the rs for the second time in three years. tied with rookie jovo for 5th on the team in their run to the finals.

1997 is more of the same, but it's a five game sample and nobody on the team really scored much so not really worth mentioning. after '97, he declines offensively.

mellanby did have one good playoffs, at age 35 in st louis. as the "knuble" on a line with demitra and tkachuk, and on the first PP unit with those two plus macinnis and pronger at the points, he was second on the blues with 7 goals, 10 points in 10 games, one point behind demitra. that was the only time he broke 0.5 points/game in the playoffs.

and before that one good playoff year, mellanby had a stay at home defenceman-esque 17 playoff goals in 112 career playoff games. and it's not like he had a lot of assists either; he only had 41 points. look at this list of forwards with 100+ playoff games and 41 or fewer points, it's exclusively grinders and defensive specialists.

in florida, where he averaged 30 goals a year and was at his absolute best, he scored three playoff goals total.

Funny thing is that when I read the thread title I thought (jokingly) "Mellanby was not just some rat killer"
He led the team in regular season in that 1995-96 season indeed, but Dave Lowry, Stu Barnes, Ed Jovanovski and goalie Vanbiesbrouck were probably the team's most valuable players in the playoffs,

 

[tabness]

Larry Murphy: skating earlier in his career

Murphy always seemed to get a bad rap for his skating, despite the fact that the guy started off and first made his name as a rushing defenseman, especially noted for his strong stride. The wheels definitely came off at the later part of his career, but people would go and anachronistically attribute that to him throughout his career (for example Hockey Scouting Report in the late nineties would say things like Murphy has never been a good skater even though earlier on in the same series they would accurately praise his skating lol... the earlier books were definitely better).

I guess it's due to multiple factors. Obviously for the second half of his career Murphy played a different sort of game and used his positioning and passing much more than his skating, maybe he let the skating atrophy too much. Also, probably due to the era he came up in, in the early eighties Murphy's skating would have really stood out, but a lot of great skating defenseman came in around that time (Wilson, Bourque, Coffey, Housley, Suter, Duchesne, among others), and the pace of the game and skating ability of players generally increased dramatically from the seventies to the late eighties and nineties. Add to that that teams like Los Angeles and Washington would have gotten very little attention for much of the eighties so I guess people just didn't watch him that much.

Bernie Nicholls: desire, laziness, motivation, seriousness

Nicholls seemed to always have knocks on him for being lazy or lacking desire/motivation/seriousness. This is likely due to several factors, probably tops being such a nice and friendly guy on and off the ice, along with a purported flamboyant lifestyle very early in his career. Add to that that he wasn't a good skater and he had a very gumpy skating stride.

It all seems to be patently untrue. Nicholls and people who played with him all seem to say he was one of the most focused and serious players on the team. He quickly became a family man, though the reputation for his off ice lifestyle seemed to persist or even grow. He kept himself in top notch shape, and was generally considered one of the top athletes on every team he played. His skating never seemed to be an issue except with appearances, as Nicholls had off the charts awareness and anticipation (is it any wonder he meshed so well with Gretzky just like Kurri who had the same type of hockey sense?), so his positioning was generally impeccable and he didn't have to do much hustling to get where he needed to be. The early nineties is the one time you could say Nicholls wasn't totally focused on hockey and his play suffered for it, but given what was going on in his life (illness and death of his son), it's amazing he was even able to play at all.

Nice video on Nicholls around the end of his career:

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Funny thing is that when I read the thread title I thought (jokingly) "Mellanby was not just some rat killer"
He led the team in regular season in that 1995-96 season indeed, but Dave Lowry, Stu Barnes, Ed Jovanovski and goalie Vanbiesbrouck were probably the team's most valuable players in the playoffs,

the rat trick thing is ironic in retrospect. so the story was at the beginning of the '96 regular season he killed the rat in the dressing room, then scored two goals. but nobody remembers that three "goals" equaled his goal total for the ensuing finals run.

 

[hockey webcomics]

the rat trick thing is ironic in retrospect. so the story was at the beginning of the '96 regular season he killed the rat in the dressing room, then scored two goals. but nobody remembers that three "goals" equaled his goal total for the ensuing finals run.

Sometimes I wonder if by any chance South Florida would grow a small hockey subculture (like Bay Area, or Anaheim) if the Cats happened to win the Cup, although I believe that it wouldn't happen after all. I like the rubber rats though.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Alexander Semin was actually a pretty good defensive player.

This is a really good one. When the Canes picked him up, we all had the "oh boy, here we go" reaction expecting him to be a drag on the team. In reality he really was pretty effective in both directions. It was a lot more common to see Eric Staal lose his man than Semin, but Staal has never really come under fire for his defensive play.

in florida, where he averaged 30 goals a year and was at his absolute best, he scored three playoff goals total.

That's an unbelievable stat. The 1996 run and the rat-trick craze really created an illusion that Mellanby was a playoff hero.

Bernie Nicholls: desire, laziness, motivation, seriousness

Nicholls seemed to always have knocks on him for being lazy or lacking desire/motivation/seriousness. This is likely due to several factors, probably tops being such a nice and friendly guy on and off the ice, along with a purported flamboyant lifestyle very early in his career. Add to that that he wasn't a good skater and he had a very gumpy skating stride.

It all seems to be patently untrue. Nicholls and people who played with him all seem to say he was one of the most focused and serious players on the team. He quickly became a family man, though the reputation for his off ice lifestyle seemed to persist or even grow. He kept himself in top notch shape, and was generally considered one of the top athletes on every team he played. His skating never seemed to be an issue except with appearances, as Nicholls had off the charts awareness and anticipation (is it any wonder he meshed so well with Gretzky just like Kurri who had the same type of hockey sense?), so his positioning was generally impeccable and he didn't have to do much hustling to get where he needed to be. The early nineties is the one time you could say Nicholls wasn't totally focused on hockey and his play suffered for it, but given what was going on in his life (illness and death of his son), it's amazing he was even able to play at all.

Nice video on Nicholls around the end of his career:

OK, but can we talk about the shirt he's wearing at 8:00?

 

[K Fleur]

Larry Murphy: skating earlier in his career

Murphy always seemed to get a bad rap for his skating, despite the fact that the guy started off and first made his name as a rushing defenseman, especially noted for his strong stride. The wheels definitely came off at the later part of his career, but people would go and anachronistically attribute that to him throughout his career (for example Hockey Scouting Report in the late nineties would say things like Murphy has never been a good skater even though earlier on in the same series they would accurately praise his skating lol... the earlier books were definitely better).

I guess it's due to multiple factors. Obviously for the second half of his career Murphy played a different sort of game and used his positioning and passing much more than his skating, maybe he let the skating atrophy too much. Also, probably due to the era he came up in, in the early eighties Murphy's skating would have really stood out, but a lot of great skating defenseman came in around that time (Wilson, Bourque, Coffey, Housley, Suter, Duchesne, among others), and the pace of the game and skating ability of players generally increased dramatically from the seventies to the late eighties and nineties. Add to that that teams like Los Angeles and Washington would have gotten very little attention for much of the eighties so I guess people just didn't watch him that much.

Murphy’s skating “problems” are definitely overblown. He wasn’t fast, but that is not the only important aspect of skating.

Larry Murphy remains among the best(if not the best) defenseman I’ve ever seen when it comes to “walking the blue-line”.

 

[GMR]

Murphy’s skating “problems” are definitely overblown. He wasn’t fast, but that is not the only important aspect of skating.

Larry Murphy remains among the best(if not the best) defenseman I’ve ever seen when it comes to “walking the blue-line”.

Murphy was misunderstood. Old-time hockey fans thought he wasn't physical enough. He was 6'2 and over 200 lbs but never played a tough game. Others thought he didn't skate well enough for a puck moving defenseman. He was caught between expectations of what he "should" be.

 

[Moose Head]

John LeClair might be a good example for several reasons. First, many people perceive him to be a product of Lindros. Sure, he benefitted playing next to #88 (who wouldn't?), but the drop in his scoring in the (numerous) games Lindros missed was surprisingly small. Second, he's often described as a power forward, probably due to his size (6'3", 225 lbs). In actuality, he was remarkably docile for a player with his immense strength, and wasn't at all comparable to the true power forwards of the era, like Shanahan and Tkachuk. He was a gentle giant, like Charlie Conacher. Third, he had a reputation for being at best indifferent defensively. That's probably the truest of the three points, but he was on the ice for surprisingly few goals against.

Mark Recchi could be another. A surprising number of people seem to consider him a compiler. I've noted several times that a compiler, almost by definition, doesn't have three years as a top five scorer. And despite the perception that he wasn't an offensive catalyst, he led his team in scoring in six of the eight years he was a top twenty scorer (all of those by 10+ points) - and one of the years he didn't, he was traded midway.

I think what Leclair owes Lindros is the ability of a super star to bring out the best in players. Leclair had tools, everybody saw it. After the 93 playoffs Demers was calling him the next Kevin Stevens. But without that trade and getting to play with Lindros, I don’t think Leclair ever develops the confidence to realize his potential, and it wasn’t even as if the habs were burying him. They saw the potential.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Second, he's often described as a power forward, probably due to his size (6'3", 225 lbs). In actuality, he was remarkably docile for a player with his immense strength, and wasn't at all comparable to the true power forwards of the era, like Shanahan and Tkachuk. He was a gentle giant, like Charlie Conacher.

I've seen this debated several times and it seems to come down to people's expectation of whether a power forward needs to fight a lot.

Leclair didn't fight very often and generally had a calm demeanor. That being said, he was absolutely a power forward. He made his living at the edge of the crease, knocking guys out of the way so he could jam home rebounds.

I mean, a video like this is supposed to be a tribute to his highlight plays. It's all 5-foot slam dunks from the low slot. Plus the occasional big slapshot, which is another thing he has in common with the power forwards of that era.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Come to think of it, that's maybe something that fits into this thread topic. Guys like Leclair and Tkachuk are remembered mainly for scoring within 10 feet of the net. But most of those 90s style power forwards had BIG slapshots. I guess because they were big guys who could really put their weight into it.

It was by no means a safe defensive situation to face a Tkachuk or Shanahan or Neely carrying the puck to the outside on a rush.

 

[Stephen]

Maybe Shane Corson? He was tough, physical, strong defensively, an agitator. He did just about everything well. Teams made him a captain twice. You'd think that means he was a heart and soul leader type of player, like a Trevor Linden. But by the end of his career it seems he proved he was really never that - he was a headcase and a bad teammate, a useful soldier but not a guy who should be a part of your leadership group.

Corson had the playing style of an archetypal heart and soul guy but wasn't that at all from the sound of things near the end of his Leaf career.

 

[JaymzB]

I'm pretty sure Corson dealt with Mental Health issues during his career (anxiety at least). Likely an explanation for some of his actions.

 

[BoHorvat 53]

The Sedin twins and being “soft” (still can’t believe that was a narrative)