I dont think marleau's career took off because of a coaching change or rules change. I remember clearly well how his game revolutionized quite literally the day jumbo arrived. the team was 8-16 and on a 10 game losing streak. Jumbo comes in and patty has FOUR consecutive three point games off the bat including several PP points shared with jumbo as part of a 7 game point streak. 16 points in jumbo's first 7 games! Obvisouly he didnt keep that kind of pace, but I think Jumbo's arrival revolutionized the PP, which revolutionized marleau's career. he had 44 PP points the year jumbo arrives, double his previous high.
Look at his annual PP stat lines pre/post jumbo:
Pre Jumbo: 7 pts, 10, 12, 8, 22, 21....
post Jumbo: 44, 37, 26 (this was even his horrible 48 pt season), 18, 26, 25, 23, 24, 25...
In other words, his leap from a 40-60 pt player to 70-80ish is largely attributable to Jumbo, and much of that is the jumbo led PP. Thats probably why he was actually a minus for his career as a shark. he only had 2 seasons of +11 or better and they were back to back. TWO! on a team that made the PO's like 18 times. Patty was no perrenial selke guy. he had TWO good defensive years.
To be honest, Im a bit biased as I have never liked patty or thought much of him for the majority of his career. I always judged him as a respectable sencond liner. I always felt he was mercurial, streaky, inconsistent defensively, inconsistant effort, a poor captain, and was the benficiary of playing so long with Jumbo. I mean, how many guys had great numbers playing with jumbo, only to fizz out when going to a different team or not being on his line.
Thus, if patty was a solid 80 pt, defensively solid player ON HIS OWN (i.e. not playing with arguably the greatest passer and puck possesser in the history of the game), then id take that anyday as a sure thing over Celly or Smith. But, Marleau himself, like HIM not a guy like him, Id rather smith and celly I think.
the other thing is that once a guy is 27+ (25 for celly, 16 for smith), hes a functional UFA and keeping him is really the job of the GM not the player, and the salary of the player is a market salary unless the GM does a supr job. Much of patty's longevity and success is a credit to DW, both for acquiring jumbo, but even more so to create a culture where Jumbo, patty, pavs, Cooch, Burns, Vlasic, and all the other stars very much wanted to stay for the vast majority of their career. Even karlsson and hertl wanted to be here forever. DW created a culture to keep the crew together, and while it backfired a bit at the very tale end, Patty's success was largely based on the great team around him.
