Was Mike Gartner underrated?

[WarriorofTime]

career counting stats are a funny thing (especially considering how much of an effect eras play)

We use counting stats, nearly exclusively for forwards, as an overall hockey community.

Im trying to think of a dman who got in, and has quite a lot of people defending him, who was considered to have peaked at about 10th best in his spike year (this could be seen in Norris votes of course) and spent a good portion of his career considered a top 20, and thats it.

Its actually a little nuts. Or maybe I am.... for a poster who IS into this subforum, i tend to not pay much attention to the HOF...

But, I guess with a dman who is like Gartner or Marleau..... he would just be considered a good, steady dman, and at the end of his long, solid career, he would have between 400-800pts and literally nobody would make a case for him.... but he would have spent as much time being 'top 10' at his job, and been an arguable top 20 (best dman on his team?) for much if his career?

Like, Ohlund, Numminen, Timmonen, Adam Foote.... Letang looks like a bonafide ultra superstar from this perspective.... I guess Lowe is in, already, largely due to 'being a winner' though..... there seems like there must be dozens of these guys who are the 'Gartner of D' but dont have any career stats worth having a conversation about.

A 20th best forward would be about equivalent of a 10th best defensemen, there are twice as many forwards in the lineup as defensemen. So a 20th best defensemen would be more like a 40th best forward. Honestly based on consensus best rankings and how teams structure their salary cap, that's probably a bit generous to defensemen. 33 Forwards, 13 Defensemen, 4 Goalies are in top 50 highest paid players in League right now.

 

[MXD]

career counting stats are a funny thing (especially considering how much of an effect eras play)

We use counting stats, nearly exclusively for forwards, as an overall hockey community.

Im trying to think of a dman who got in, and has quite a lot of people defending him, who was considered to have peaked at about 10th best in his spike year (this could be seen in Norris votes of course) and spent a good portion of his career considered a top 20, and thats it.

Its actually a little nuts. Or maybe I am.... for a poster who IS into this subforum, i tend to not pay much attention to the HOF...

I think he doesn't QUITE meet the requirement as stated, because he didn't make the HHOF and it could be argued that his spike year happened by riding the coattails of a MUCH better D-Men (but he also peaked higher than 10th so it's somewhat mitigated), something Gartner never quite did, but like Gartner, he was also arguably never the best player at his position on his own team WHEN PLAYING ON A NOT TERRIBLE TEAM (and I mean forward here, not RW), despite sometimes being the better scorer, while probably hovering around 20th best in the NHL. Was also statistically productive for a long time because he could do one thing really well, that thing being offence.

Meet Matthieu Schneider.

 

[FissionFire]

Garter was a good player but never an impact guy or line driver. He always felt like a Modin/Gagner/Skinner type just more durable/consistent. Never saw him as an all-timer. Nobody was putting out their best defensemen or checkers out there to try and stop him. You weren’t winning a Cup if Gartner was your best or even 2nd best forward. Maybe even 3rd best.

 

[namttebih]

Did not rank.

Interesting

 

[Midnight Judges]

When it goes for Gartner his goals scoring look really good in the era he was in, if Gretzky does not exist, goalscoring from 1980 to 1999 look like this:

Gartner: 708
Lemieux: 613
Messier: 610
Ciccare: 608

Is he viewed differently if he dominated a 20 years window goalscoring by that much ? Gartner goalscoring is maybe very similar to say Crosby-Stamkos career wise.

Gartner still lacks the peak goal scoring of Stamkos by a very large margin and trails Crosby by a significant margin as well.

Stamkos peaked at 68 adjusted goals.
Crosby 56
Gartner 44.

 

[MadLuke]

Yes his peak is a good clean tier below, career total not that far era adjusted would be my guess, 571 from 09 to 2025 being similar ball park than over 700 when Gartner did. Stamkos peak during Ovechkin "downtime" he was the best or second best scorer in the league.

 

[seventieslord]

Interesting

The history of hockey is 140 years long now, and includes many leagues other than the NHL. A top-200 with those parameters is a tough list to crack. The bar for the existing list is Ryan Getzlaf/John Leclair for forwards, and that's a list that has no MacKinnon, Draisaitl, Matthews, Panarin, Marner, Pastrnak or Marchand on it. Assuming those guys are safely in now, that means the bar to clear is now Michel Goulet, a direct contemporary of Anderson's who I think 95%+ of people would agree is better.

 

[Gerulaitis]

Mike Gartner was terrific goal scorer. He is underrated, though.

I would rank Gartner in the 4th best winger of the 1980s

T1. Makarov and Bossy
3 Krutov
4. Gartner
T5. Shalimov, Kurri, Goulet
T8. Ciccarelli, Khomutov, Anderson

 

[overpass]

Murphy, I'm sure, suffered from the "toughness-fetishism" of the late-80s. He was the classic big-guy on defense who only occasionally threw big checks.

There's no other way to explain how low his stuck had seemingly fallen by 1989. It makes absolutely no sense to me, otherwise. The guy was a Norris finalist in 1987, leading a good NHL team in scoring, PP points, and plus/minus. Then, he was (in my opinion) the best Dman on Team Canada in the finals at the Canada Cup. Then, two years later... he's a tag-along for a Garnter-Ciccarelli trade...?

Were hockey execs really that stupid?

I think that's exactly right. Some coaches and GMs couldn't get past Murphy being a big guy who didn't hit.

I think Murphy was also a player who performed better with better teammates. He really thrived when he played with skilled teammates for coaches who let him do his thing. Starting as a rookie with Bob Berry as his coach and the Triple Crown line up front, then later with the Pens and the Wings for Bob Johnson and Scotty Bowman. Even in the 1987 Canada Cup he was excellent playing with stars.

But then if you sent him out with a bunch of grinders and expected him to lift the team, that wasn't really playing to his strength. I don't know if he could have done what Mark Tinordi did on the 91 North Stars, for example. But Tinordi couldn't have done what Murphy did in Pittsburgh either.

To bring this back to Gartner, I think Gartner was the opposite of Murphy in this way. Not particularly reliant on his centre to score, unlike a lot of other wingers, so he scored with anyone. In his 30s after leaving Washington he got to play with Nicholls, Gilmour, and Sundin. But he did just as well with Sergei Nemchinov.

 

[Gorskyontario]

i think he was pretty close.

There's no proof of this besides canuck fan bias.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

To bring this back to Gartner, I think Gartner was the opposite of Murphy in this way. Not particularly reliant on his centre to score, unlike a lot of other wingers, so he scored with anyone. In his 30s after leaving Washington he got to play with Nicholls, Gilmour, and Sundin. But he did just as well with Sergei Nemchinov.

in gartner’s best goal scoring season, he was centered by darren turcotte, who i’m not even certain was really a true center at the NHL level.

Bure was first mentioned in the thread by post #30. I know this is HOH, but if you're trying to make a point about something, at least try to be somewhat factual.

not worth your time, señor. semi-related, i had this thread open on my phone and it logged me out and i realized there’s a whole other conversation i haven’t been seeing. and all i can say is, why?

back on topic, i was trying to think of what recent players we could compare gartner to. kessel was too good, imo. but maybe that run of 30 goal years by pacioretty in montreal? gartner’s career was like 18 years of that max pac run. which is incredible and very respectable, but i don’t think it’s legendary.

 

[MXD]

in gartner’s best goal scoring season, he was centered by darren turcotte, who i’m not even certain was really a true center at the NHL level.

Didn't he score 50 with the Capitals while probably playing with... Dave Christian?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Didn't he score 50 with the Capitals while probably playing with... Dave Christian?

but his 49 goals in 1991 were good for 5th in the league. by far his highest goal scoring race placement. if he’d scored a hat trick in his last game of the season, which from my memory he could have given the chances he had, he would have finished 2nd.

only 20 assists though. hell of a cy young season.

 

[The Panther]

I think Murphy was also a player who performed better with better teammates. He really thrived when he played with skilled teammates for coaches who let him do his thing. Starting as a rookie with Bob Berry as his coach and the Triple Crown line up front, then later with the Pens and the Wings for Bob Johnson and Scotty Bowman. Even in the 1987 Canada Cup he was excellent playing with stars.

But then if you sent him out with a bunch of grinders and expected him to lift the team, that wasn't really playing to his strength. I don't know if he could have done what Mark Tinordi did on the 91 North Stars, for example. But Tinordi couldn't have done what Murphy did in Pittsburgh either.

Interesting.

You may be right, but I'm not sure simply because I think 1986-87 (Washington) was Murphy's greatest season:
-- 1st in scoring on Capitals (81 points)
-- 1st in ES points and 1st in PP points on Capitals
-- 1st in assists in Capitals
-- 1st in plus/minus on Capitals (+25)
-- 3rd in goals on Capitals (23)

Okay, that's within the Caps, but how did he NHL-wide?:
-- 20th in overall scoring (ahead of Naslund, MacInnis, Anderson)
-- 2nd in Defence scoring (behind only Bourque)
-- 1st in Defence goals (tied with Bourque)
-- 2nd in Defence assists (behind Bourque)

Most notably, along with 1992-93, this was the only season of Murphy's career that he was 3td in Norris voting.

Not to say the '87 Caps were terrible, but there wasn't a lot of high-powered help. The top two scoring forwards had 73 and 52 points, respectively. The club finished 13th (of 21 teams) in offense, with 285 goals.

Compare with 1992-93 in Pittsburgh, the club finished 2nd in offense with 367 goals and had five 90+ point scorers.

________________

P.S. I totally agree about Gartner, however. He seemed to be able to score anywhere, in any situation.