Why is Peter Stastny so severely underrated?

[Video Nasty]

I was on the main board and there’s a post about NHL.com ranking the 16 best centers of the Post-Expansion Era:

Super 16: Crosby, Malkin among top centers of NHL expansion era

Of the 14 people polled, 9 left Stastny off their list of 16 entirely and 1 of the 5 who put him on ranked him at 16.

As an example, while I would rank someone Yzerman higher myself, a common argument people use for him is how he was going up against Gretzky and Lemieux and that’s why his trophy cabinet is emptier.

This is true. Remove Gretzky and Lemieux and Yzerman has an Art Ross, as well as a #2 and #3 finish.

However, if you perform the same exercise with Stastny by removing Lemieux and Gretzky (most also remove the effect he had on Kurri and Coffey so let’s also do that) and he is an Art Ross winner or runner up 4 times.

As this board knows, he is also pretty much behind only Gretzky and Lemieux for quickest to point milestones (and Bossy once it gets to 800-1100 points).

He was such a prolific scorer and folks commonly talk about other players suffering from the Gretzky and Lemieux effect on their career trophy count, but one of the biggest (possibly the biggest) players who was hurt by them playing in the same era is Stastny.

If it was top 16 centers all time, I can see the argument for him being left off. But post-expansion to present day, it seems ridiculous that a player like Stastny is off the list and someone like Francis is on it.

(Oates and Thornton also have strong cases against being snubbed).

Is it that simple? He is overshadowed because the talent of the Oilers and Islanders winning 7 Cups during his first 8 years in the league? Gretzky and the effect he had on Kurri and Coffey? Lemieux entering the league? How many people are winning trophies with two monster dynasties wrecking the league and two of the four best players ever playing during your age 24-31 prime years (aka his first 8 seasons)?

 

[Voight]

Possibly a couple reasons

1) Bias - the media obviously cared more about the Canadian/North American talents in Gretzky/Lemieux
2) Where he played. QC has never been a huge market, had he played for an O6 team or a bigger market like Chicago or Philly, he'd of probably gotten more praise and attention
3) The Nords were good but not great. Having never played in a SCF, he was never really exposed to a mass audience / millions of people watching.

& yea, for a guy who trailed only The Great One for most points scored in the 80s, he does not get as much attention as you would assume or think.

 

[boredmale]

Possibly a couple reasons

1) Bias - the media obviously cared more about the Canadian/North American talents in Gretzky/Lemieux
2) Where he played. QC has never been a huge market, had he played for an O6 team or a bigger market like Chicago or Philly, he'd of probably gotten more praise and attention
3) The Nords were good but not great. Having never played in a SCF, he was never really exposed to a mass audience / millions of people watching.

& yea, for a guy who trailed only The Great One for most points scored in the 80s, he does not get as much attention as you would assume or think.

Those are probably the big ones but you probably could add he didn't start playing till he was 24. That is like 4 seasons less then most players and of those 4 years 2-3 would have been some of his best seasons(at least points wise). Decent chance if he played as a 20 year old he wins at least 1 Art Ross before Gretzky joins the league

In the case of #3, that is the same thing that hurts Marcel Dionne from icon status despite having an amazing solo career

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

Possibly a couple reasons

1) Bias - the media obviously cared more about the Canadian/North American talents in Gretzky/Lemieux
2) Where he played. QC has never been a huge market, had he played for an O6 team or a bigger market like Chicago or Philly, he'd of probably gotten more praise and attention
3) The Nords were good but not great. Having never played in a SCF, he was never really exposed to a mass audience / millions of people watching.

& yea, for a guy who trailed only The Great One for most points scored in the 80s, he does not get as much attention as you would assume or think.

In addition to not having the same exposure as 99 or 66, the Quebec Nordiques were rarely on HNIC because they had a different beer sponsor. Carling I think as compared to the rest of the Canadian NHL teams who were sponsored by Labatt or Molson. So we rarely ever saw any games from the Colisee in Quebec; only in the playoffs.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

it's weird that stastny was as good as he was for the first eight years of the '80s and he never was a second team all-star or a hart finalist.

partially, it was bad timing and if his hugest years had happened in, say, '85 like hawerchuk he might have his 2nd team all-star/hart runner up. but on the other hand, if you look at his career year by year, even though you can't really argue against the guys who finished ahead of him, it is weird that he lost every close one.

1981: he's a rookie but he's a rookie that finishes 6th in points. he wasn't going to contend for the hart and even at 6th he was closer to federko/rogers territory than dionne and kent nilsson's career year. but his team improved 17 points from the year before and made the playoffs. the other big addition was dan bouchard, who got more hart votes than stastny. he maybe deserved to finished 5th instead of 6th in AST voting, ahead of federko, but it really doesn't matter.

1982: a really distant 4th for the hart, behind gretzky who swept the first place votes, and bossy and trottier, who almost swept the 2nd place votes. the first of three 3rd place AST placements for stastny, this time behind trottier, who pretty consistently places ahead of stastny despite the stats; trottier did have a pretty big offensive year himself, though, unlike future years he beats stastny. i tend not to argue against trottier ever. but rare for a guy to finish 3rd in scoring and not even be a post-season all-star.

1983: 2nd in scoring but got almost no hart votes. savard won the best center after gretzky award this year with three fewer points than stastny. to be fair, savard's team went from the 4th seed to the norris to winning with 104 points while the nordiques remained the 4th seed in the adams with roughly 80 points for the third straight year. still, extremely rare for a guy to finish 2nd in scoring and not make an all-star team.

1984: 4th in scoring, behind coffey and goulet's career year, almost no hart votes again. trottier has his last big year (8th in scoring) and wins the after gretzky award. barry pederson, with three fewer points (6th), also finishes slightly ahead of stastny in AST.

1985: hawerchuk's big year. stastny has an off year (13th with "just" 100 points) and doesn't place in the top 10.

1986: 6th in scoring, 3rd in AST because now mario has arrived. almost no hart votes again, but this time he does edge out savard slightly in AST to go with his six extra points.

1987: injuries, not competitive.

1988: his last big year, 5th in scoring, almost no hart votes. this one is right. he's significantly behind hawerchuk and savard in scoring (10 and 20 points, respectively). savard gets the 3rd AST spot, as expected, but young yzerman (102 points, 12th) gets the 4th one, while hawerchuk and stastny get next to no votes.


in that decade, he only got 21 hart votes, more than half of which happened in one year—a year when rookie hawerchuk who didn't crack the top 10 in scoring only got two third place votes less than him, incidentally. i can't specifically argue with any year, but it does feel like he was perennially undervalued in awards voting, doesn't it?

whereas savard and hawerchuk both have their after gretzky awards, but stastny had to settle for imaginary three 3rd team all-stars.

 

[Weztex]

If the Hart was voted by the criteria it seems to be today, he would have a lot more votes for the award. His career is one of bad timing, bad exposure, and average teams. Like other said, it can seems, with hindsight, that the North American media overlooked him a bit.

That said, since expansion, Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, Esposito, Messier, Sakic, Yzerman, Clarke, Malkin, Trottier, Dionne, Forsberg seem like no brainers ahead of him. From there it’s on personal preferences. I have Thornton, Lindros and probably Datsyuk ahead of him so I would have him at 16.

 

[The Panther]

it's weird that stastny was as good as he was for the first eight years of the '80s and he never was a second team all-star or a hart finalist.

partially, it was bad timing and if his hugest years had happened in, say, '85 like hawerchuk he might have his 2nd team all-star/hart runner up. but on the other hand, if you look at his career year by year, even though you can't really argue against the guys who finished ahead of him, it is weird that he lost every close one.

1981: he's a rookie but he's a rookie that finishes 6th in points. he wasn't going to contend for the hart and even at 6th he was closer to federko/rogers territory than dionne and kent nilsson's career year. but his team improved 17 points from the year before and made the playoffs. the other big addition was dan bouchard, who got more hart votes than stastny. he maybe deserved to finished 5th instead of 6th in AST voting, ahead of federko, but it really doesn't matter.

1982: a really distant 4th for the hart, behind gretzky who swept the first place votes, and bossy and trottier, who almost swept the 2nd place votes. the first of three 3rd place AST placements for stastny, this time behind trottier, who pretty consistently places ahead of stastny despite the stats; trottier did have a pretty big offensive year himself, though, unlike future years he beats stastny. i tend not to argue against trottier ever. but rare for a guy to finish 3rd in scoring and not even be a post-season all-star.

1983: 2nd in scoring but got almost no hart votes. savard won the best center after gretzky award this year with three fewer points than stastny. to be fair, savard's team went from the 4th seed to the norris to winning with 104 points while the nordiques remained the 4th seed in the adams with roughly 80 points for the third straight year. still, extremely rare for a guy to finish 2nd in scoring and not make an all-star team.

1984: 4th in scoring, behind coffey and goulet's career year, almost no hart votes again. trottier has his last big year (8th in scoring) and wins the after gretzky award. barry pederson, with three fewer points (6th), also finishes slightly ahead of stastny in AST.

1985: hawerchuk's big year. stastny has an off year (13th with "just" 100 points) and doesn't place in the top 10.

1986: 6th in scoring, 3rd in AST because now mario has arrived. almost no hart votes again, but this time he does edge out savard slightly in AST to go with his six extra points.

1987: injuries, not competitive.

1988: his last big year, 5th in scoring, almost no hart votes. this one is right. he's significantly behind hawerchuk and savard in scoring (10 and 20 points, respectively). savard gets the 3rd AST spot, as expected, but young yzerman (102 points, 12th) gets the 4th one, while hawerchuk and stastny get next to no votes.


in that decade, he only got 21 hart votes, more than half of which happened in one year—a year when rookie hawerchuk who didn't crack the top 10 in scoring only got two third place votes less than him, incidentally. i can't specifically argue with any year, but it does feel like he was perennially undervalued in awards voting, doesn't it?

whereas savard and hawerchuk both have their after gretzky awards, but stastny had to settle for imaginary three 3rd team all-stars.

You broke it down really well. Stastny's Hart finishes are a bit similar to Jagr's in that the collective evidence suggests each player should have done better in awards than each did (Jagr, of course, did get one Hart). Yet, just as you say re: Stastny, the voting and Hart finishes do make sense, more-or-less, on a season by season basis.

Just tough luck, in a way. I also think there's something to Czech players being a bit undervalued in media narratives, pre-Hasek anyway.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I definitely think a few things worked out against him. He’s in that unfortunate window of being an early 1980s rookie when we had several players who remained relevant for 15-20 years. Had he come over four years earlier - or had his success spaced out and extend into the 90s rather than been so compacted into the 80s - it probably works in his favor.

He was somewhat unlucky, especially late in his career, in terms of where he landed. Had he been in St. Louis in the early-90s and New Jersey in the mid-90s rather than the inverse, he might have been better for it.

He also loses the What If? argument of a Makarov because he actually played in the NHL, so there isn’t exactly a lot of re-appreciation being done regarding his career.

TIM CAMPBELL
1. Wayne Gretzky; 2. Mario Lemieux; 3. Sidney Crosby; 4. Phil Esposito; 5. Steve Yzerman; 6. Bryan Trottier; 7. Jacques Lemaire; 8. Jean Ratelle; 9. Mark Messier; 10. Dale Hawerchuk; 11. Gilbert Perreault; 12. Connor McDavid; 13. Marcel Dionne; 14. Joe Sakic; 15. Peter Stastny; 16. Peter Forsberg

SHAWN P. ROARKE
1. Wayne Gretzky; 2. Mario Lemieux; 3. Sidney Crosby; 4. Peter Forsberg; 5. Joe Sakic; 6. Evgeni Malkin; 7. Phil Esposito; 8. Pat LaFontaine; 9. Steve Yzerman; 10. Eric Lindros; 11. Pavel Datsyuk; 12. Marcel Dionne; 13. Mark Messier; 14. Jean Ratelle; 15. Jacques Lemaire; 16. Patrice Bergeron

Yikes.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Why is Peter Stastny so severely underrated?

I was on the main board and there’s a post about NHL.com ranking the 16 best centers of the Post-Expansion Era:

Super 16: Crosby, Malkin among top centers of NHL expansion era

The sign on that Clubhouse Door says "Unless you're currently playing, no-one from the 'Second World' need apply." Normally, I'm pretty skeptical about out-of-the-box assertions of bias- but really, how else to explain it?!?

I love my country- but I can't justify Pat LaFontaine over Pavel Datsyuk.
I've entered thousands of keystrokes in apologia to Eric Lindros- but I can't justify him over Sergei Fedorov.
And I certainly can't justify Gilbert Perreault over Peter Stastny.

 

[The Panther]

I love my country- but I can't justify Pat LaFontaine over Pavel Datsyuk.
I've entered thousands of keystrokes in apologia to Eric Lindros- but I can't justify him over Sergei Fedorov.
And I certainly can't justify Gilbert Perreault over Peter Stastny.

I'll give you the first and the third, but there are several obvious reasons why some would have Lindros over Fedorov.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I love my country- but I can't justify Pat LaFontaine over Pavel Datsyuk.

I can actually see that one if you’re being super-forgiving about injury troubles. THN already had him as the 2nd best player in the world before 1992-93.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Looking at the ranking, seems to me Bobbie Clarke is severely underrated.

And Messier at #3 is typical media lovefest.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I had Mess at 4 and Clarke at 5. Maybe I'll get one half of a like from Dennis Bonvie...?

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

it's weird that stastny was as good as he was for the first eight years of the '80s and he never was a second team all-star or a hart finalist.

partially, it was bad timing and if his hugest years had happened in, say, '85 like hawerchuk he might have his 2nd team all-star/hart runner up. but on the other hand, if you look at his career year by year, even though you can't really argue against the guys who finished ahead of him, it is weird that he lost every close one.

1981: he's a rookie but he's a rookie that finishes 6th in points. he wasn't going to contend for the hart and even at 6th he was closer to federko/rogers territory than dionne and kent nilsson's career year. but his team improved 17 points from the year before and made the playoffs. the other big addition was dan bouchard, who got more hart votes than stastny. he maybe deserved to finished 5th instead of 6th in AST voting, ahead of federko, but it really doesn't matter.

1982: a really distant 4th for the hart, behind gretzky who swept the first place votes, and bossy and trottier, who almost swept the 2nd place votes. the first of three 3rd place AST placements for stastny, this time behind trottier, who pretty consistently places ahead of stastny despite the stats; trottier did have a pretty big offensive year himself, though, unlike future years he beats stastny. i tend not to argue against trottier ever. but rare for a guy to finish 3rd in scoring and not even be a post-season all-star.

1983: 2nd in scoring but got almost no hart votes. savard won the best center after gretzky award this year with three fewer points than stastny. to be fair, savard's team went from the 4th seed to the norris to winning with 104 points while the nordiques remained the 4th seed in the adams with roughly 80 points for the third straight year. still, extremely rare for a guy to finish 2nd in scoring and not make an all-star team.

1984: 4th in scoring, behind coffey and goulet's career year, almost no hart votes again. trottier has his last big year (8th in scoring) and wins the after gretzky award. barry pederson, with three fewer points (6th), also finishes slightly ahead of stastny in AST.

1985: hawerchuk's big year. stastny has an off year (13th with "just" 100 points) and doesn't place in the top 10.

1986: 6th in scoring, 3rd in AST because now mario has arrived. almost no hart votes again, but this time he does edge out savard slightly in AST to go with his six extra points.

1987: injuries, not competitive.

1988: his last big year, 5th in scoring, almost no hart votes. this one is right. he's significantly behind hawerchuk and savard in scoring (10 and 20 points, respectively). savard gets the 3rd AST spot, as expected, but young yzerman (102 points, 12th) gets the 4th one, while hawerchuk and stastny get next to no votes.


in that decade, he only got 21 hart votes, more than half of which happened in one year—a year when rookie hawerchuk who didn't crack the top 10 in scoring only got two third place votes less than him, incidentally. i can't specifically argue with any year, but it does feel like he was perennially undervalued in awards voting, doesn't it?

whereas savard and hawerchuk both have their after gretzky awards, but stastny had to settle for imaginary three 3rd team all-stars.

I don't think it's weird as much as it's a case of rising tides lift all boats. He's always struck me as one who benefited from the high scoring era rather than contributing to it.

I personally view him as a poor man's Dionne. Heck of a career for sure and a deserved HOFer. But not underrated

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I had Mess at 4 and Clarke at 5. Maybe I'll get one half of a like from Dennis Bonvie...?

Switch those two and put Espo between them and I can give up a full like.

 

[vikash1987]

Possibly a couple reasons

1) Bias - the media obviously cared more about the Canadian/North American talents in Gretzky/Lemieux
2) Where he played. QC has never been a huge market, had he played for an O6 team or a bigger market like Chicago or Philly, he'd of probably gotten more praise and attention
3) The Nords were good but not great. Having never played in a SCF, he was never really exposed to a mass audience / millions of people watching.

& yea, for a guy who trailed only The Great One for most points scored in the 80s, he does not get as much attention as you would assume or think.

That last stat/piece of trivia is my favorite when it comes to Stastny.

Related to #1, Stastny wasn't exactly fully fluent in either English or French when he first defected from Czechosolovakia for Quebec. So there was a learning process in term of language and communication, which may have contributed to any such bias. I don't know if he actually became more vocal over time, but somebody can hopefully verify that. While he was always the most highly-rated of the three Stastny brothers, I have to imagine that other guys on the Nordiques, including Michel Goulet, Dale Hunter, Mario Marois, et al. had more of a leadership/media presence during the first half of the '80s.

 

[MS]

Agreed.

Watching old games and clips, I find Stastny to be the most impressive NHL forward of the 1980s outside of Gretzky/Lemieux.

With his size, strength, skating, and two-way game he just looks like a prototype modern player and looks like a guy who could be thrown in a time machine and dropped onto the top line of any NHL team in 2020 and score 80 points.

Conversely, a lot of more hyped players of that time (Bossy, Trottier, Savard) look very dated now.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Could make the case that Michael Goulet was as underrated as Peter Stastny.

Also, Stastny came to the NHL with brother Anton and a year later Marion joined them. Kind of a Sedin's twins thing there. Many pundits thought because they played that European style (as a line) that they had an advantage on NHL defenses.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

Just to add to the theme of being underappreciated... Maybe I'm misremembering, but I feel like those other superstar centers from the 1980s all got big send-offs when they retired in the '90s while Stastny never did.

Hawerchuk played in the 1997 Cup Finals and then announced his retirement shortly afterward, it got a fair bit of attention at the time. Savard retired that same summer and Chicago made a big deal of it. Trottier obviously got that last hurrah with Pittsburgh and was eventually honored by the Islanders although there was some weirdness there.

Stastny just sort of... faded away. He was remarkably good in New Jersey for his age but they weren't a high-profile franchise yet. He barely played at all his last two seasons in St. Louis and was consistently benched by Keenan. The team later bought out his contract and he sort of hung around as a free agent until quietly announcing his retirement midway through the 1995-'96 season. And by that point the Nordiques were no longer around and I don't think the Avalanche did much to recognize him — certainly they never retired his number.

That's obviously not the reason he gets underrated, others have explained it well (the fact that Quebec games were hard to watch in the '80s was a big one). But he didn't really get a splashy farewell apart from getting inducted into the Hall of Fame a few years later.

 

[Troubadour]

Could make the case that Michael Goulet was as underrated as Peter Stastny.

Also, Stastny came to the NHL with brother Anton and a year later Marion joined them. Kind of a Sedin's twins thing there. Many pundits thought because they played that European style (as a line) that they had an advantage on NHL defenses.

They didn't play on the same line that often / for very long. Marian was also pretty injury-prone.

 

[tempofound]

Am I the only one who thinks one reason that Stastny is underrated, is the fact that Quebec doesn't have an NHL team?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

They didn't play on the same line that often / for very long. Marian was also pretty injury-prone.

Actually, they did.

At least in the first 3 years.

 

[Troubadour]

Actually, they did.

At least in the first 3 years.

A year and a half. They were progressively more and more played apart. Again, Marian's health contributed a lot.

 

[barbu]

He's not underrated? He was a great player competing in a very strong era for centers. He's rightly in the HOF and his AST and Hart finishes seem just right to me.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

after thinking more on the year-by-year i whipped up last night, i think maybe it really is mostly timing though?

'81 to '84 were owned by trottier. and you had dionne still in the top five most years, the first two great years of young electrifying savard, and young pederson coming on. and that doesn't mention crazy 130+ career years by kent nilsson and dennis maruk, nor the early yearse of. that's an incredibly high scoring environment for centers.

really, the years he could have snuck through were '83 and '85, which were trottier's off year and injury year, respectively. but those 2nd team all-star nods went to stastny's most direct comparables, savard and hawerchuk.

in some ways, that's just as bad timing as yzerman. yzerman only really had one year, albeit an absolutely incredible year, that was affected by the '86 to '89 run of mario and gretzky having the all-star centers guaranteed. but he obviously had a lot of other high end competition. stastny's great three year run was behind an absolute gauntlet that he was absolutely competitive with, as evidenced by his 3, 3, 4 placements.