Was Ziggy Palffy an elite talent?

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Was Ziggy Palffy an elite talent?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 100.0%
  • No but he was very skilled

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Not even close

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    6
I think he had Hall of Fame talent but not a level above that, so my answer depends on what you think "elite" means.
 
That all about where the elite talent bar is, he would have been the most talented player on a lot of nhl team and finished top 10 in points quite often.

Maybe when talking about all-time great it could be a discussion, but when he was playing he was certainly among the league elite talent of his time.
 
Yes, of course he was an elite talent.

I first saw him play ar the '91 World Juniors, where he was the revelation of the tournament. Fast and talented, a great scorer. He's close to being the most forgotten (to the extent he's forgotten) great scorer of all-time.

He should be in the HHOF (if i had a vote, it would be an easy "Yes"). One of the top scorers of the DPE in the NHL, and in Europe and internationally otherwise.
 
His NHL career was short because he up and left the abysmal Penguins mid-season, apparently because of how bad they were.

But he played in Slovakia into his 40s.
 
With all these descriptive terms, like "elite", it depends a bit on what you put into them yourself, but Palffy was definitely an upper echelon talent, though obviously not on a say Jagr type of level, or even a Bure or Selänne level.

But it's funny if you've seen those old photos of Palffy in juniors where he wears #68 and sports the exact same mullet as Jagr. He looks just like Jagr, except the size.

Perhaps if he had Jagr's size, he could have been really dominant. But I guess you can play that hypothetical game with most players. Size comes with both pros and cons, and you need to be able to adapt your game accordingly.

But I always found Palffy way more offensively well-rounded than countrymen such as Bondra and later Gaborik. He couldn't just score goals, but make plays and drive a line properly as well. I would also prefer him in front of someone like Gartner, fairly easily.

If the thread question was "Was Palffy more elite than Gartner?" then I would say, yeah, he was.
 
Some TV color commentator calling him mini-Jagr, he had a bit of same look and overall offensive threat, playmaking, could score on the islander lot of goals, could be part of a really greats (and different incarnation) first lines with the Kings.

Considering the Kings market and his "per-game" performance there, he was good health away (which for the era is saying a lot, not some just) to be a big star, specially if Blake-Deadmarsh also have health and they push and get in great battle in the playoff against the big name western Avs-Wings team of that era and those good audience numbers that come with it.
 
i never understood why he retired halfway through 05-06 citing "lingering shoulder injury" when he was still a PPG player and then never returned to the NHL. instead he took a season off and tore up the slovak league for another several seasons

the "new" NHL was perfectly suited for him
 
He was not playing full season there either, outside personal preference of his own country, maybe the 54-56 game season schedule was something his body preferrer.

He never had a full season post 1998 (and often less than 75 games) and during the 2005 lock-out he would have lived that life, so he had a good direct comparison between those 2 options.

it was also a very long break, second half of 06 + the complete 06/07 year, so it could have been a serious should issue.
 
By P/G he finished 11th (96-97), 13th (97-98), 14th (98-99), 14th (99-00), 4th (00-01), 19th (01-02), 10th (02-03). He didn't play enough games to qualify in 03-04 but was 2nd.

So I'd say on the relatively low end of elite.
 
Goal per games finish to add to the ppg above:


Goals Per Game
1996-97 NHL 0.60 (8th)
1997-98 NHL 0.55 (6th)
2000-01 NHL 0.52 (9th)
2001-02 NHL 0.51 (5th)
2002-03 NHL 0.49 (9th)
 

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