Teemu Selanne (MOD: Why did his scoring drop after 1992-93?)

[BoHorvat53]

Never got to watch him during his Winnipeg days. What was the reason for the major drop off from his goal breaking rookie season?

He went from 84GP 76G 56A 132Pts to just over PPG in the next few seasons.

When he rejoined the Ducks his point totals came closer to his rookie season, but not quite on the same level.

 

[sr edler]

92–93 was an anomaly season for star scorers with a lot of ice time who beat up on expansion teams. Look at Turgeon's and Mogilny's numbers for example at 6th and 7th, both with higher PPG than Selänne. A lot of players never came close to those numbers again like said players and Lafontaine, Robitaille, Recchi, Sundin. And Joe Juneau scored 102 points

Selänne also had an achilles injury the next season but he wasn't going to score 132 points again even without that injury, me thinks.

 

[eddytheeagle20]

just a high scoring season sundin scored 114 points and only hit 90 or more once more a few years later when he hit his prime

 

[NewtJorden]

92-93 was a high scoring season

 

[jigglysquishy]

He was 22 his rookie season - far older than most other superstars. In 93-94 he was injured with a torn achilles tendon. 94-95 was the lockout and saw many superstars (namely Gretzky) put up less than impressive numbers.

His next full-healthy season was 95-96. He was already 25. His scoring dropped dramatically with "only" 40 goals.

He did hit a 60 goal/84 game pace in 97-98 though.


It's a few reasons,

1) 92-93 was an absurdly high scoring year
2) His next healthy season was at 25 - usually after a goal-scoring peak
3) Massive drops in scoring
4) Bad Achilles tendon injury that really brought down his speed

92-93 NHL GPG : 7.253
97-98 NHL GPG : 5.276

97-98 Selanne goals: 60/84 games. That's 82 goals in 92-93

 

[Tsiruot]

Two big reasons for Teemu Selanne significant drop from 76 goals in 92/93 to 25 goals in 93/94, which prevented him from being the fastest player to reach 100 goals (Mike Bossy's record) that he was on pace to smash:

1.) Career-impacting injury as the edler and jigglysquishy mentioned to his Achilles tendon. This is a massive injury that severely affected Selanne's speed for the rest of his career. As great as Selanne was, one has to wonder how good he could have been had his speed not been affected so early on in his career.

2.) Phil Housley was traded in 1993. Phil Housley had 97 points and 79 assists in 92/93 and helped Selanne enormously with powerful breakout passes from the back-end. In 93/94, the highest scoring defenseman Winnipeg had was a 29 point and 22 assist Boris Mironov... For speedy dynamic goal scorers like Selanne, an effective offensive defenseman with a quick outlet pass is the #1 key to success. Even if you look at other great goal scorers throughout history, the offensive defenseman was often the #1 crucial ingredient to success (i.e. Bure and Lumme, Lemieux and Coffey).

92/93 was also Housley's career year. That year, he nearly broke 100 points by playmaking for young and upcoming stars like Selanne, Zhamnov and Tkachuk. It would have been interesting to see what Winnipeg could have done had they not traded Housley and simply let their young core develop.

 

[billybudd]

92-93 was an odd year, even for the high scoring era. If memory serves, there were a bunch of really awful expansion clubs, which left a number of teams fielding not-good-enough replacement players (lost guys in the expansion drafts) and a number of opponents that were not at all suited to being in the league. Scorers took advantage of this.

There may have also been a penalty crackdown of some sort, iirc. Wasn't obstruction, I don't think; might have been slashing. Well whatever.

End result was one of the highest scoring years at the tail end of one of the highest scoring eras. A staggering amount of guys had career years that season, including Teemu. Something to consider--he didn't lead the league in goals. He shared the lead with Mogilny.

 

[quoipourquoi]

No breakout passes from Housley. Take Oates from Hull and look what happens. Take LaFontaine from Mogilny and look what happens. Take Coffey from Fedorov and look what happens. Also, Selanne had the mother of all hot streaks and set the record for goals in a single month (20) at the end of the season. It was a perfect storm season for hockey card statistics. The pace he cut prior to injury in 1997-98 (41 goals in 56 games) was more impressive in the context of team support and NHL scoring averages. 30% of Anaheim's goals and assists on another 20%.

 

[Big Phil]

I honestly think he had better seasons than 1992-'93. Just my opinion. 1992-'93 was also one of those years when there wasn't a lot of major injuries. Ironically, Gretzky was the only real big name to miss significant time. Yeah Mario only played 60 games but when you crack 160 points it's hardly an injury riddled year. The next year there were more injuries and then the trap started to become popular around 1996 and scoring took a drop. It may never reach 1993's level again, if not for a long time.

 

[Mulletman]

While Selanne put up impressive stats in his rookie season, his best season was actually the 1997-98 season. If Kariya wasn't injured that season, Selanne would probably have won the Art Ross that year. He was second in points both the year before and the year after...

 

[quoipourquoi]

While Selanne put up impressive stats in his rookie season, his best season was actually the 1997-98 season. If Kariya wasn't injured that season, Selanne would probably have won the Art Ross that year. He was second in points both the year before and the year after...

And he was second in points in 1997-98 when he decided to sit out the rest of the season with his accumulating injuries after the Mighty Ducks were eliminated from playoff contention. It always irks me when someone treats it as just another 8th place finish; there's a reason he received Hart/Pearson nominations and was close to taking the 1st Team over Jagr. That's him at his best - even if he had no one to convert his passes (hence being the leading even-strength scorer but having unusually poor powerplay numbers).

 

[Plural]

And he was second in points in 1997-98 when he decided to sit out the rest of the season with his accumulating injuries after the Mighty Ducks were eliminated from playoff contention. It always irks me when someone treats it as just another 8th place finish; there's a reason he received Hart/Pearson nominations and was close to taking the 1st Team over Jagr. That's him at his best - even if he had no one to convert his passes (hence being the leading even-strength scorer but having unusually poor powerplay numbers).

True.

He was third in PPG and was playing clearly injured. It is likely that he finishes top-3 if he plays the whole season.

 

[Leafsdude7]

Because everyone's scoring dropped after 1992-93.

/Thread

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

also, as selanne became a better all round player, he started to cheat a lot less. selanne was florida-bure-level cherry picking that rookie year. and, as others have noted, he had the perfect PMD to help him do that.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

A little OT, but what did people think of him before the rookie year and after? Did people think he'd be an all time great after his rookie year?

 

[tntkid]

Defensive trap systems & styles of play slowed offense down considerably.

Goalies also got better & star players are getting shadowed frequently.

 

[Mulletman]

A little OT, but what did people think of him before the rookie year and after? Did people think he'd be an all time great after his rookie year?

Well, the following year Selanne did score 3 goals in the opening game, and I remeber some people thinking he would destroy Gretzky's single season record for goals, right after that start. But as we all know Selanne's second season was a big dissapointment from then on, compared to his rookie year...

 

[Passchendaele]

Take LaFontaine from Mogilny and look what happens.

To be fair, he scored 55 goals in 79 games with either Trevor Linden or Cliff Ronning (couldn't tell) as his center three years later. 55 goals in 1995-96 = 63 goals three years earlier.

 

[quoipourquoi]

To be fair, he scored 55 goals in 79 games with either Trevor Linden or Cliff Ronning (couldn't tell) as his center three years later. 55 goals in 1995-96 = 63 goals three years earlier.

Hull and Selanne scored a lot without Oates and Housley too. They're all great players, but some combinations just butter the bread better than others.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

To be fair, he scored 55 goals in 79 games with either Trevor Linden or Cliff Ronning (couldn't tell) as his center three years later. 55 goals in 1995-96 = 63 goals three years earlier.

Mostly with Ronning.

 

[Yamaguchi*]

After the 1992/93 season, Zhamnov and Tkachuk raised their game and got a larger piece of the cake

 

[pdd]

No breakout passes from Housley. Take Oates from Hull and look what happens. Take LaFontaine from Mogilny and look what happens. Take Coffey from Fedorov and look what happens.

Coffey/Fedorov does not belong in with the other group, although it is probably the most comparable to Selanne. Detroit's offense operated in a completely different fashion with Coffey on the ice than they did with him off the ice, because of his speed and ability to rush the puck. Fedorov benefited from that greatly because he's one of the few players in NHL history who can/could skate as fast or faster than Coffey, and it led to them being played together as much as possible. Yzerman, on the other hand, played very limited minutes with Coffey.

As far as his 1997-98 season, it was one of only three seasons I would consider him to have been a top-five forward in the NHL. The others being 1992-93 and 1998-99.

 

[Mad Max]

A bunch of people had career years in 1992-93. Selanne also hurt his achilles and didn't have Phil Housley to set him up. But a player with Selanne's talent doesn't need an offensive defenseman to set him up. It's just a luxury.

 

[Yamaguchi*]

Coffey/Fedorov does not belong in with the other group, although it is probably the most comparable to Selanne. Detroit's offense operated in a completely different fashion with Coffey on the ice than they did with him off the ice, because of his speed and ability to rush the puck. Fedorov benefited from that greatly because he's one of the few players in NHL history who can/could skate as fast or faster than Coffey, and it led to them being played together as much as possible. Yzerman, on the other hand, played very limited minutes with Coffey.

As far as his 1997-98 season, it was one of only three seasons I would consider him to have been a top-five forward in the NHL. The others being 1992-93 and 1998-99.

Fedorov was definitely a top 5 in 1993-94 season