Who Was More Key To Their Teams Success? Shanahan VS Hossa

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Both of these players were elite HOF wingers who were added to talented cores that pushed their teams over the top to win a Cup not only in their first seasons with their new club, but two more times afterwards.

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[Ace Card Bedard]

Shanahan was great no doubt but that Red Wings team already had 7 future Hall of Famers on it and they were all veterans by that point.
Yzerman -31yrs old
Vernon - 33
Murphy - 35
Lidstrom - 26
Larionov - 36
Fetisov - 38
Fedorov - 27

He added one more.

Hossa joined a young team with 3 future Hall of Famers (Kane and Toews were only 21yrs old and Keith was 26yrs old.)

 

[Regal]

My initial thought is that the Wings were so good that they were more likely to still have the same success, but both these guys are pretty similarly important

 

[cjm502]

Hossa in 08, made it to the finals with a powerhouse Penguins team and lost to the Wings. 09, made it to the finals with a powerhouse Wings team and lost to the Penguins. 2010, made it to the finals with a powerhouse Blackhawks team and finally won. In 08 Hossa was a monster in the playoffs, in 09 he was still good but not as good as 08. Production wise his playoff performance in 2010 was probably his weakest of the three (by a hair). He scored the same amount of points in one less game but had half the goals, although his role in 2010 may have been slightly more defensive.

The legend of Shanahan is that he was the piece that put the Wings over the top. In 97 he lead the team in scoring and was second in playoff scoring behind Fedorov. Sure, he was on a team with several future all stars but I would argue out of all those all stars he was the best forward in the regular season and the second best in the playoffs. The guy was an absolute UNIT.

 

[Regal]

Shanahan was great no doubt but that Red Wings team already had 7 future Hall of Famers on it and they were all veterans by that point.
Yzerman -31yrs old
Vernon - 33
Murphy - 35
Lidstrom - 26
Larionov - 36
Fetisov - 38
Fedorov - 27

He added one more.

Hossa joined a young team with 3 future Hall of Famers (Kane and Toews were only 21yrs old and Keith was 26yrs old.)

At the same time, without the cap, the competition tended to be more difficult so the team also had to be better. And I’d say Shanahan slot in similarly as one of the 3 best forwards along with Yzerman and Fedorov just as Hossa slotted in with Toews and Kane.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Let's remember that in 2009, the Blackhawks got taken apart pretty damn hard in the playoffs by the Red Wings (despite there being a couple of OT games). They were clearly not ready. Whether you attribute them winning the Cup next year to the preexisting roster coming into their own or Hossa providing that necessary boost is your judgment call, but the timing is awfully coincidental.

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Hossa in 08, made it to the finals with a powerhouse Penguins team and lost to the Wings. 09, made it to the finals with a powerhouse Wings team and lost to the Penguins. 2010, made it to the finals with a powerhouse Blackhawks team and finally won. In 08 Hossa was a monster in the playoffs, in 09 he was still good but not as good as 08. Production wise his playoff performance in 2010 was probably his weakest of the three (by a hair). He scored the same amount of points in one less game but had half the goals, although his role in 2010 may have been slightly more defensive.

The legend of Shanahan is that he was the piece that put the Wings over the top. In 97 he lead the team in scoring and was second in playoff scoring behind Fedorov. Sure, he was on a team with several future all stars but I would argue out of all those all stars he was the best forward in the regular season and the second best in the playoffs. The guy was an absolute UNIT.

Those Pens teams were not considered a "powerhouse." They had Crosby and Malkin yes, but Hossa was BY FAR the most talented winger any of them have ever had a chance to play with and that's still true in 2024. The closest winger to Hossa is probably Chris Kunitz and there's a chasm between him and Hossa.

 

[biturbo19]

My overall impression is that Hossa was probably "more important" on the ice in a lot of ways. But i think Shanny was probably more impactful overall, just in the attitude and mentality he brought to the table.

But a lot of that is really just speculation and reading into situations from the outside, that i obviously was not personally a part of.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

I have no idea

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

My reasoning for picking Shanahan here is that while those Red Wings teams were a murderer's row of future HOFers, Detroit had an extensive history of playoff disappointment by this time. Detroit had at least a couple of seasons before 1997 that featured a lot of those same players, and a couple more great players who ultimately didn't stick around for the championship.

1994: Yzerman Federov Lidstrom Coffey Kozlov Konstantinov Primeau

1995: Yzerman, Federov Coffey Lidstrom Fetisov Konstantinov Kozlov Primeau Vernon Osgood

1996: Yzerman Federov Larionov Fetisov Lidstrom Konstantinov Coffey Kozlov Primeau Osgood Vernon

Those were teams that were loaded with talent but couldn't get over the final hump until Shanahan arrived (in exchange for Primeau and Coffey, and later Murphy was brought in to replace Coffey on the back-end in a coup of a deal for Detroit with Toronto).

Conversely, Chicago was just starting to come into their own as a premier franchise, fresh off a Conference Finals appearance when Hossa signed there. Kane and Toews were only in their third seasons and were nowhere close to developing the choker label that hounded Yzerman and the Wings for years before they finally won. Granted, Chicago didn't have as many future Hall of Famers on their team but this was in the cap era, teams couldn't just load up on established veteran star players by spending maximum money. If they could've I'm sure many more players would've signed with Chicago like they did with Detroit, Colorado, Dallas, and New Jersey back then. This also meant that while there were a ton of have-not teams in the league, those at the top were absolutely loaded with star players and the competition was fierce. Without the cap Chicago may have also been able to keep that 2010 team around a while longer.

Hossa had strong seasons and playoffs for Chicago's championship years, but I would say Shanahan was more critical during the Wings' winning years than Hossa was to the Blackhawks.

Shanahan:
1997: 1st in Regular Season Scoring, 2nd in Playoff Scoring
1998: 3rd in Regular Season Scoring, 10th in Playoff Scoring
2002: 1st in Regular Season Scoring, T2nd in Playoff Scoring

Hossa:
2010: 5th in Regular Season Scoring, 7th in Playoff Scoring
2013: 3rd in Regular Season Scoring, 4th in Playoff Scoring
2015: 3rd in Regular Season Scoring, 4th in Playoff Scoring

Now Hossa was injured to begin 2009-10 so adjusted for a healthy 82 games he'd have been 2nd in regular season scoring that year. And in 1997-98 Federov had a long holdout so who knows how the scoring would've looked had he and Detroit came to an agreement earlier. And in 2001-02 Yzerman missed a good chunk of time with an injury and adjusted he paced for 75 points over a full year which would've tied him with Shanahan (who missed a couple of games himself so he might still have come out ahead by a couple of points). Regardless, I find Shanahan's leading point totals on teams that oozed talent to be more impressive than Hossa's high production that still had him come out behind Kane and Toews. It's also jarring to see Hossa still end up 3rd in scoring in 2015 when Kane missed 21 more games than Hossa but still outscored him.