What made Dougy Gilmour such a great player?

[Mike C]

For those who saw him in his prime in Calgary and eventually gets traded to Toronto. What was it about him that made him so good?

His choice of babysitters?

 

[Mike C]

Trying to impress babysitters.

13 years old ones at that!

 

[BraveCanadian]

I've said in other threads about Gilmour that he's underrated for his stints in St. Louis and Calgary, and overrated for Toronto.

Gilmour had great hockey sense, was a good puck-carrier and passer. His moment-to-moment play was very engaged, focused, and aggressive (simular to Clarke). Great awareness and smarts.

in Toronto, he carried the puck much more, became the heart of the PP, and just generally was a bigger star within the team. He fit their needs, and they fit his.

He was a bit lacking in skills, though....skating, shooting especially. Overall, he wasn't on a Fedorov level, even at his very best.

Another thing about those two seasons in TO....the NHL wasn't loaded with great teams at the time, which made the Leafs success easier.

That's true. Gilmour was better.

Gilmour wasn't the skater or shooter Fedorov was but he got everything out of what he had and then some. Feds took a lot of time off.

 

[MadLuke]

Another thing about those two seasons in TO....the NHL wasn't loaded with great teams at the time, which made the Leafs success easier.

They did beat a stacked Red wings team and the hull-shanahan-Joseph Blues in 1993, in 1994 the really good hawks.

Outside San Jose (with Irbe, Larionov and co. were frisky those playoff proven by beating the wings) I am not sure if they won over below average historical team, "success" being relative here, considering the no cup finals.

 

[BraveCanadian]

They did beat a stacked Red wings team and the hull-shanahan-Joseph Blues in 1993 in 1994 the really good hawks.

Outside San Jose I am not sure if they won over below average historical team, "success" being relative here, considering the no cup finals.

Yeah and Gilmour had 12 points to Fedorov's 9 in that 1993 series against the Wings - who were favoured and a much higher scoring team. Pretty rough take.

 

[Stephen]

I've said in other threads about Gilmour that he's underrated for his stints in St. Louis and Calgary, and overrated for Toronto.

Gilmour had great hockey sense, was a good puck-carrier and passer. His moment-to-moment play was very engaged, focused, and aggressive (simular to Clarke). Great awareness and smarts.

in Toronto, he carried the puck much more, became the heart of the PP, and just generally was a bigger star within the team. He fit their needs, and they fit his.

He was a bit lacking in skills, though....skating, shooting especially. Overall, he wasn't on a Fedorov level, even at his very best.

Another thing about those two seasons in TO....the NHL wasn't loaded with great teams at the time, which made the Leafs success easier.

Gilmour peaked in Toronto and reached and briefly reached a level of superstardom that wasn't sustainable relative to his age or natural abilities, but I don't see how he was overrated at all. Look at his cumulative regular season and playoff production and where it took the Leafs and it's just obvious he was a high impact player.

The other Toronto commentary is just trash talk. The 1992-93 season was one for upsets and the Leafs engineered a pretty big one. None of the success they had was "easy."