Warriors: Clark Or Tocchet

[Juicer]

Clark was great on the forcheck and was a pretty good goalscorer but was a hideous puckhandler and passer and extremely poor in his own end. I don't know how many times I saw Clark hold on to the puck for too long leading to a turnover and a odd man rush for the opposition.

Ummm... he was a better puck handler than Tocchet.

 

[John Flyers Fan]

Ummm... he was a better puck handler than Tocchet.

No he wasn't. The only thing Clark had over Tocchet was his wrist shot.

 

[Juicer]

Did anyone else notice page 3 got bombarded with Leaf fans voting for Wendel?

 

[Juicer]

and what year would that have been ???

When he played for them in the late 80's and basically up to when Gilmour got there, he was there best player. Too bad he was always hurt because he made watching an otherwise bad Leaf team entertaining. If you are going to make the arguement that other guys like Damphousse or Olczyk were better, I totally disagree. They had better years by default as Clark was always hurt and would only play parts of the year.

If you want me to pick a year, I would he was there best by far in 1986-87.

 

[Morbo]

The Legend of Wendel Clark being a star and a warrior is largely a creation of the Toronto Media. He couldn't hold the jockstrap of guys like Tonnelli, Neely, Tocchet, Kerr and Gillies.

Give me a break.

What are you doing lumping Neely in with Tocchet, anyway?

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

Give me a break.

What are you doing lumping Neely in with Tocchet, anyway?

When people lump in an obviously inferior Clark with Neely, I can lump in the much better Tocchet. Neely was better than both of them, but Tocchet was a hell of alot closer to Neely calibre than Clark ever dreamed of being.

440 goals, 950 pts and a hell of alot of penalty minutes. Nuff said.

 

[Juicer]

No he wasn't. The only thing Clark had over Tocchet was his wrist shot.

Wrong. Tocchet might be my favourite player of all-time, but he couldn't carry the puck like Clark could. To say the ONLY thing Clark had over Tocchet was his wrist shot is horrifying. Clark was a better skater, a better open ice hitter, and had much more natural talent.(which led to him being the #1 OVERALL pick in his draft year compared to Tocchet's #121) Clark was more of a gamebreaker than Rick was.

As for Tocchet, he was better in the corners, and in front of the net. He proved to be the more durable player and overall had the better career. Tocchet also had the luxury of playing for some really good teams.

They were both tremendous leaders, had huge hearts, could fight with the best of them, loved to hit and could put the puck in the net.

I am still on the fence with this one.

 

[Juicer]

The Legend of Wendel Clark being a star and a warrior is largely a creation of the Toronto Media.

That wouldn't explain why he was the first overall pick in the NHL entry draft.

 

[Morbo]

When people lump in an obviously inferior Clark with Neely, I can lump in the much better Tocchet. Neely was better than both of them, but Tocchet was a hell of alot closer to Neely calibre than Clark ever dreamed of being.

440 goals, 950 pts and a hell of alot of penalty minutes. Nuff said.

It's hardly "nuff said".

Clark had 330 goals in only 793 games while playing on terrible teams.

Tocchet played more games than Clark, that's all, and proved to be less prone to injuries. Having said that, Clark played 80 games once, but interestingly Tocchet only did it twice, which surprised me a bit when I looked it up.

I liked Tocchet and thought he was a tough mother and a good hockey player. But when you look at the stats and compare the teams they played on, I think it's fair to say that Clark was at least comparable.

I'm willing to be fair and acknowledge Tocchets ability, but to say that Wendel Clark is some scrub who is clearly inferior to Rick Tocchet is not accurate.

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

That wouldn't explain why he was the first overall pick in the NHL entry draft.

Oh please, that has no bearing on who had the better NHL career. Alot of number 1 picks had inferior careers to players picked late in the draft. Just because Clark looked better as a 17 year old in a very poor draft class, has no bearing on how either player looked between the ages of 18-35. It just means Clark had a headstart.

 

[Juicer]

Oh please, that has no bearing on who had the better NHL career. Alot of number 1 picks had inferior careers to players picked late in the draft. Just because Clark looked better as a 17 year old in a very poor draft class, has no bearing on how either player looked between the ages of 18-35. It just means Clark had a headstart.

I was not even arguing that. I was responding to your claim Clark was all Toronto media hype,