Another one who comes to mind is Gary Roberts. People will look at his stats in 30 years and think, "Hm, really long career, had those couple great seasons in Calgary", and that's about it.
I posted all this in another thread two years ago, but maybe I'll post it again (below):
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When I was a kid, and saw Gary Roberts play for Calgary around 1986 to 1989, I thought he was… an annoying prick. In retrospect, the Flames were so stacked at forward by the late-80s that coaches Johnson (though he had Roberts only as a rookie) and Crisp probably had no choice but to under-use him.
From the Oilers’ fan perspective, in those years, Roberts was more of a rugged pest than a good player. He was on the third or fourth line, and he would routinely come on the ice, rough up whoever was in his tracks, and start scrums and fights near the player benches. He’d fight Messier, McSorley, whoever. That said, he did score 21 even-strength goals (plus a shortie) in 1988-89 when the Flames ruled the League. It’s notable that Roberts didn’t score a single power-play goal (one measly point) during his first three seasons, so he wasn’t getting much a of chance to score, either.
He surged in 1989-90 while on a line with Makarov. Roberts suddenly scored 39 goals (34 at even strength, most on the team), and nearly a point per game. 56% of Roberts’ goals were assisted by Makarov.
Roberts’ numbers then dip in 1990-91 under Doug Risebrough, though I’m not sure why. Back to 1988-89 scoring levels.
But then he has his career season in 1991-92, despite the Flames going into the crapper and missing the playoffs. Roberts scored 53 goals (20 more than Fleury) and 90 points, while going +32, which was twice as good as the second-best Flame. He scored 17 goals in the last 16 games of the season to surpass the fifty-goal mark for the only time in his career. Roberts had a career-high 38 ES goals and a career-high 15 on the PP. He also led the NHL with a 27.0 shooting percentage.
Roberts continued with nearly this same pace over the next three seasons with Calgary, but injuries limited his numbers. From October 1992 through spring 1996, he scored 103 goals in only 174 games. (That’s 49 goals per 82 games.)
Famously, Roberts then missed the entire 1996-97 season and it appeared his career might be over. But he signed with Carolina and put together a great career second-act. Now into his thirties, he wasn’t a 40-goal guy anymore, but he still was third, fifth, and third on the Hurricanes in scoring, and in 2000 put up 53 points in 69 games at the peak of the dead-puck era, and that at age thirty-three.
Then, four memorable seasons with Toronto, though in the third he barely played due to injury. 28 goals for the Leafs in 2003-04 (at age 37), and 19 points in 19 games in the Leafs’ 2002 playoff run.
I’d actually forgotten that Roberts played for Florida, but he still did pretty well there with 40 points in 58 games, aged 39. He was with the Penguins for their 2008 playoff run, but it seemed like Michel Therrien liked scratching him (he appeared in 11 of 20 games). I’d also forgotten that Roberts finished with Tampa Bay, appearing in 30 games at age 42.
So, anyway, despite starting off as a third/fourth-liner, Roberts’ career totals are pretty impressive, with 438 NHL goals and 910 points! With another 93 playoff points, he in fact put up over 1000 points at the NHL level. If you’d told me that was going to happen when I was 12 years old in 1988, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But what most impresses me about Roberts was how strong he was at even-strength, from any perspective (offensively, defensively), especially in his prime. He finished his career at +229. He was never a season minus until his 13th season (and then was +16 the next year with Toronto, best on the club).
From 1987-88 through 1995-96, Roberts was 32nd in NHL scoring, but was 2nd in plus/minus (to Ray Bourque). In fact, he was probably 1st in plus/minus (per game) because he played far fewer games than most of the top guys in that era. Roberts was 10th in even-strength goals over those nine years, and again he missed more games than all players ahead of him on that short-list. In fact, in those years, Roberts scored at 0.39 ES goals/game, which was better than Yzerman, Robitaille, Mogilny, Sakic, Lafontaine, and Jagr! In the three seasons 1991-92 through 1993-94, Roberts was 11th in goals, but 3rd in ES goals (only 8 and 4, respectively, behind Hull and Bure), and his ES goals/game was better than Brett Hull and Pavel Bure.
