Who was the better player at their peak? Jeremy Roenick or Jonathan Toews?

[Felidae]

The Blackhawks star center before Toews, thought it would make for an interesting comparison. I think it's fair to say Toews had the much longer prime and easily the better career. But who was better at their peak? Comparing their best season(s)

Roenick

1991-92
5th in Hart voting
3rd in goals
7th in points
9th in selke voting


Toews

2012-13
4th in Hart voting
5th in goals
11th in points
Selke winner

And since some people prefer peaks to not be defined based off one season, it's worth noting both players performed at a similar level in at least one other year

Toews the year before was scoring goals at an identical rate (0.49, 7th in GPG) in more games, his award recognition was low since he missed nearly 30 games.

And Roenick was actually more productive in 1993 (5th in points) but scored less goals (10th in goals)

Click to read more...

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I voted for Toews, but it's a good comparison.

Offensively, Roenick had a much higher peak. Toews placed in the top 20 in scoring just once in his career (tied for 13th in 2013 - and that probably deserves an asterisk because it was based on clearly unsustainable underlying numbers, which is at least partly a result of it being a shortened season). Roenick placed in the top ten in scoring twice. He had six years in the top twenty, with five of those being in the top fifteen. (From 1991 to 1994, Roenick was 6th in scoring, and Gretzky was one of the players ahead of him).

I still went with Toews overall. Roenick was good defensively, but Toews was much better (four years as a Selke trophy finalist, including one win). Roenick was underrated as a playoff performer, but again Toews was better. And in terms of Hart voting - Toews had the higher peak (slightly), and more years in contention.

Roenick had a great three year peak, then compiled his way to 1,200 points as a good (but not elite) first line centre. (Fun fact - the four most recent players to score 100+ points three years in a row are McDavid, Draisaitl, Ovechkin - and Roenick). But I think Toews is the right answer unless you're really emphasizing regular season scoring stats.

 

[Fatass]

Toews was a key player on three Cup winners. That should be included in defining which had the better career.

 

[Machinehead]

I tend to lean towards Toews because he won three Cups, and yes, it's a team award, but those Hawks teams really their share of holes aside from their big guys. Their stars really carried them through despite a revolving door supporting cast due to cap constraints.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

I chose Toews but it's a tough comparison.
Both were excellent at their position and in the style of play that suited their time in the league.
Both excellent penalty killers, both excellent play-drivers, both came up with clutch goals, etc.

Roenick had a bit more scoring flair and reckless abandon while Toews' play was more measured.
If not for a Penguins roster that sported 9-10 hall of famers, Roenick would have had a cup.

 

[tabness]

Roenick ainec let me pull up some crap I pulled up on him from his zenith in the early nineties

Hockey Digest had player rankings the few years before The Hockey News started theirs in 1993-1994. Roenick does real good for a bit

Hockey Digest Yearbook player rankings

Continuing from this topic: THN Yearbook Rankings - 1992-2008 Before The Hockey News started doing their player rankings in their yearbooks, Hockey Digest would put out a yearbook and started ranking players after the 1987-1988 season. It started off as just Stan Fischler ranking his top ten...

forums.hfboards.com

• after 1991-1992, rated second best center after Lemieux
• after 1992-1993, rated third best center after Lemieux and LaFontaine

Chicago's system actually suppressed his numbers but Roenick was a total team player. His injuries really derailed a very promising start to a career. There were other players his size who were completely fearless (your Yzerman's and LaFontaine's and so on), but Roenick was unique in his aggressiveness and initiation of stuff with his size lol

 

[CokenoPepsi]

Roenick better player, wonder what he'd have done without the cheap shots

Toews better career

 

[Perfect_Drug]

Peak Toews was 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Absolute beast. He played better than Crosby that tournament.


Roenick was nuts good at his peak though.

 

[Cup or Bust]

Toews was never even close to as good as Roenick was in the early 90's but he played on some really good teams and won Cups so his overall career was more successful.

 

[SillyRabbit]

Peak Roenick was legit.

3 back-to-back 100-point seasons.
Back-to-back 50 goal seasons.
Top 10 in NHL Scoring twice.

And one hell of a tough customer.

 

[centipede2233]

Roenick plus minus wasn’t much different then toews early career and was a 50 goal 100 pt guy. I’ll go with roenick but I feel there is no wrong answer here

 

[Felidae]

I voted for Toews, but it's a good comparison.

Offensively, Roenick had a much higher peak. Toews placed in the top 20 in scoring just once in his career (tied for 13th in 2013 - and that probably deserves an asterisk because it was based on clearly unsustainable underlying numbers, which is at least partly a result of it being a shortened season). Roenick placed in the top ten in scoring twice. He had six years in the top twenty, with five of those being in the top fifteen. (From 1991 to 1994, Roenick was 6th in scoring, and Gretzky was one of the players ahead of him).

I still went with Toews overall. Roenick was good defensively, but Toews was much better (four years as a Selke trophy finalist, including one win). Roenick was underrated as a playoff performer, but again Toews was better. And in terms of Hart voting - Toews had the higher peak (slightly), and more years in contention.

Roenick had a great three year peak, then compiled his way to 1,200 points as a good (but not elite) first line centre. (Fun fact - the four most recent players to score 100+ points three years in a row are McDavid, Draisaitl, Ovechkin - and Roenick). But I think Toews is the right answer unless you're really emphasizing regular season scoring stats.

I will say since this is strictly about peak, Roenick in 1991-92 isn't too far off from Toews in 2009-10. Id argue it's the 2nd best postseason run between the two.

Unfortunately for Roenick, the Blackhawks never really made any deep runs after that postseason, and his production was never really the same after 1993-94.

So prime Roenick only really had 1 deep playoff run as opposed to 3 for Toews, though ofc much of that is in part due to Toews having the longer prime to begin with (Roenick's 1989 run he clearly wasn't the player he'd become in the upcoming years)

 

[God]

I like this question. If you reversed the team situations they were in, Roenick is probably a first ballot HHOFer and I sort of question whether Toews even makes it in. With that said, you have to prove that you can actually run with the team you're given, and Toews was insanely good at that (and this is coming from someone who thought Toews was pretty overrated during his peak). I think I go with Roenick but it's really close.

 

[Connor McConnor]

I chose Toews but it's a tough comparison.
Both were excellent at their position and in the style of play that suited their time in the league.
Both excellent penalty killers, both excellent play-drivers, both came up with clutch goals, etc.

Roenick had a bit more scoring flair and reckless abandon while Toews' play was more measured.
If not for a Penguins roster that sported 9-10 hall of famers, Roenick would have had a cup.

Those Hawks teams had plenty of stud depth guys that ended up being top line players once they moved on

 

[HFpapi]

(Fun fact - the four most recent players to score 100+ points three years in a row are McDavid, Draisaitl, Ovechkin - and Roenick).

That actually blew my mind. Crosby didn't do it, Jagr didn't, Lemieux didn't (as in, since JR did it), Malkin didn't, Thornton etc.

I know Crosby was constantly disrupted by injury so it didn't surprise me really but I thought surely Jagr must've with 4 straight Ross wins but nope, never more than two in a row.

(Also shows how absurd McDavid is. He currently has 4 in a row and would be 8 straight if not for Covid making him fall 3 points short one year).

 

[CanadienShark]

Toews.

 

[wetcoast]

Toews was a key player on three Cup winners. That should be included in defining which had the better career.

That's a fair comment when comparing players who were significant players for their SC teams but can also be over weighted by too many people around here.

 

[wetcoast]

I like this question. If you reversed the team situations they were in, Roenick is probably a first ballot HHOFer and I sort of question whether Toews even makes it in. With that said, you have to prove that you can actually run with the team you're given, and Toews was insanely good at that (and this is coming from someone who thought Toews was pretty overrated during his peak). I think I go with Roenick but it's really close.

This is how I'm feeling and I have changed my answer 3 times thinking about this and basically it's a coinflip.

Toews at his peak excellent 2 way dominating center, very Trottier lite IMO.

But Roenick upthread reading that page and it was exactly what was reported Jeremy was such a pleasure to watch play and such a force.

Note 4 times now.

 

[GRob83]

Peak Roenick was legit.

3 back-to-back 100-point seasons.
Back-to-back 50 goal seasons.
Top 10 in NHL Scoring twice.

And one hell of a tough customer.

In that 3 year span of consecutive 100 point seasons he was 9th in scoring and 16th in points per game and there were 38 individual 100 point seasons including 1 by Brian Leetch (defenseman). After those 3 seasons he never scored more than 34 Goals or 78 Points in a season. He was slightly above average at best for the last 12 years of his career. He had 4 really good years by the time he was 24, that's where it ended.

 

[Felidae]

In that 3 year span of consecutive 100 point seasons he was 9th in scoring and 16th in points per game and there were 38 individual 100 point seasons including 1 by Brian Leetch (defenseman). After those 3 seasons he never scored more than 34 Goals or 78 Points in a season. He was slightly above average at best for the last 12 years of his career. He had 4 really good years by the time he was 24, that's where it ended.

Well yeah, that's why we are comparing their peaks. If we extended this to their primes or entire careers, then Toews would win in a landslide

 

[Johnny Tomala]

Toews

 

[Regal]

In that 3 year span of consecutive 100 point seasons he was 9th in scoring and 16th in points per game and there were 38 individual 100 point seasons including 1 by Brian Leetch (defenseman). After those 3 seasons he never scored more than 34 Goals or 78 Points in a season. He was slightly above average at best for the last 12 years of his career. He had 4 really good years by the time he was 24, that's where it ended.

The 78 point season was still tied for 11th in points that year. He was also 11th in points the year before those 3 100 point seasons. And was around 20th in points per game several times. He was an average for a 1C a lot of the time after his peak but flirted with being a top 10 center at points again as well.

 

[tabness]

In that 3 year span of consecutive 100 point seasons he was 9th in scoring and 16th in points per game and there were 38 individual 100 point seasons including 1 by Brian Leetch (defenseman). After those 3 seasons he never scored more than 34 Goals or 78 Points in a season. He was slightly above average at best for the last 12 years of his career. He had 4 really good years by the time he was 24, that's where it ended.

Looking at his points simply misses a bunch of what Roenick was about those years in the early nineties. He also had to play a bunch of that time under Darryl Sutter who really loved a dump and chase game, Roenick was a great forechecker but it's almost all Sutter wanted him to do...

The lack of a top notch second line center (until Nicholls by which time Roenick was just not the same) also was something that put even more pressure on Roenick.

I know he has pretty close scoring placements in the dead puck era and all, but that just furthers the limitation of that approach (worse competition, a lot more scorers having their stats suppressed playing in systems whereas Chicago was one of the more defensive teams in the early nineties), and that wasn't close to Roenick at his best.

He just was racked by injuries. Yes, it's due in large part to the way he played in his peak, and the retaliatory cheapshots he'd get, but quite frankly, that's what made him so great in the early nineties.

Toews is underrated on HF because of many of the same reasons as Roenick, namely not the greatest stats. Toews is way better defensively, Roenick was not great individually, too much of a puck hound, too interested in forechecking and hitting in themselves rather than other aspects.

Toews himself had all those polls and lists having him second to Crosby for a brief period, but quite frankly, the star power pales in comparison to Roenick's and Roenick's era.

Had Roenick been lucky enough to get an early cup like Toews did, he'd be so highly regarded. Instead, he started off amazingly but has become more known for his broadcasting career nowadays it seems.

 

[JaegerDice]

Roenick was better offensively, Toews was better overall at his peak.

 

[BB79]

Peak Roenick was legit.

3 back-to-back 100-point seasons.
Back-to-back 50 goal seasons.
Top 10 in NHL Scoring twice.

And one hell of a tough customer.

He reminded me of Neely at times, score goals left and right but not afraid to scrap it up either.

I think Toews was surrounded by a much deeper and more talented team for a longer period which definitely helps his "peak" as well