Why isn't Bobby Smith in the HHoF?

I really like Smith's game, but he seems like a poster boy for the level below hall of famer. Now of course you get Turgeon, Housley, Andreychuk Carbonneau etc. getting in even though they also belong at the level below the hall of fame, but that is not an excuse to make another mistake. Really good player with a really good career, no shame in that and no need to elevate him beyond that.
 
I really like Smith's game, but he seems like a poster boy for the level below hall of famer. Now of course you get Turgeon, Housley, Andreychuk Carbonneau etc. getting in even though they also belong at the level below the hall of fame, but that is not an excuse to make another mistake. Really good player with a really good career, no shame in that and no need to elevate him beyond that.
Agree with your overall point, though I would argue Pierre Turgeon is distinct from the others, as in, he's a notch above in Hall-of-Fame worthiness according to conventional standards.
 
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Smith was tracking like a HHOFer through his 4th season in 81-82 but everything just went off the boil for him after that.

Scoring finishes post-1982 :

1982-83 - T-34
1983-84 - T-55
1984-85 - T-101
1985-86 - 22
1986-87 - T-33
1987-88 - 15
1988-89 - 30

... and then never top-100 again. No votes for any AS teams or post-season awards in that period either.

And possibly the even bigger problem is that he was passed over for Team Canada in 1981/84/87 in three best-on-best tournaments in the prime of his career.

In the end what you have is a HOVG guy who eked over 1000 points playing dead-center in the highest-scoring era in NHL history, one Cup, and one elite regular season. It just isn't enough. Also didn't really have any sort of star quality or intangibles to really up his case.

I've commented before how incredibly similar his career is to Vincent Lecavalier as a massively-hyped 6'4 C who had a 'nice' career with a Cup and a brief period where they hit their offensive potential surrounded by a mildly disappointing career otherwise.

That said, he is *clearly* more deserving than they likes of Ciccarelli and Andreychuk.
Still not many HHoFers produced like he did in the playoffs. Which should be worth something.
 
Agree with your overall point, though I would argue Pierre Turgeon is distinct from the others, as in, he's a notch above in Hall-of-Fame worthiness according to conventional standards.
I understand, to me it's more that Turgeon's numbers are hall of fame numbers, but I don't think that Turgeon himself is that level of player. I'd rather have Smith as my top centre than Turgeon, at least when Smith was in his prime.
 
Smith was tracking like a HHOFer through his 4th season in 81-82 but everything just went off the boil for him after that.

Scoring finishes post-1982 :

1982-83 - T-34
1983-84 - T-55
1984-85 - T-101
1985-86 - 22
1986-87 - T-33
1987-88 - 15
1988-89 - 30

... and then never top-100 again. No votes for any AS teams or post-season awards in that period either.

And possibly the even bigger problem is that he was passed over for Team Canada in 1981/84/87 in three best-on-best tournaments in the prime of his career.

In the end what you have is a HOVG guy who eked over 1000 points playing dead-center in the highest-scoring era in NHL history, one Cup, and one elite regular season. It just isn't enough. Also didn't really have any sort of star quality or intangibles to really up his case.

I've commented before how incredibly similar his career is to Vincent Lecavalier as a massively-hyped 6'4 C who had a 'nice' career with a Cup and a brief period where they hit their offensive potential surrounded by a mildly disappointing career otherwise.

That said, he is *clearly* more deserving than they likes of Ciccarelli and Andreychuk.
I wonder if those years playing under Lemaire have the same effect on his HHoF criteria as they do for Patrik Elias.
 
That seem 100% fair to be an honorable member of the HOVG.

But some comments about all-star finish and making team Canada, for an offensive center of that era can be hard, we are in a world in which Yzerman of all people miss team Canada in 1987 and 1991, Oates never made it and he was winning faceoff playing some PKm getting low selke vote type of player.

The bar was really high in the era in which they brought a lot of natural winger, liked to have some Sutter in there, leaving you with the Gretzky, Trottier, Stastny, Perrault, Dionne (later on Messier, Hawerchuck, Savard, Lemieux, Gilmour, etc..)

Federko never made team Canada, never went above 5 in all star team finish, scratched the Hart top 10 once.
No cups, and he made it in the hall of fame, the bar for the actual hall of fame is significantly lower than

1) Being a top 2 at the center position at any time
2) Making it as an offensive center on a strong team Canada of that era.

Joe Mullen, we can doubt that he make team Canada in that era, scored less points in total, single top 10 finish, no all star team finish, never received a vote for the Hart, he is the HHOF.

He had 2 big cup winning run ( I imagine that a big part why, and being American helped being there in 3 Canada cup)
 
The thing that stuck out to me in a look at Smith's playoffs is that he never really had any additional production beyond that of a player given top line ice time. If you look at his extended playoff runs, he tops out at almost exactly 30%.

YearGamesPointsTeam GFP%
79-801514490.286
80-811925840.298
82-83910340.294
83-84159420.214
84-851211430.256
85-862015560.268
86-871718670.269
88-892119670.284
90-912316810.198
Total1511375230.262
0.9073.464

He never had an outlier playoff run, he just basically produced about what an average top line forward would produce on average in top line minutes. Compare that to Ryan Getzlaf, another forward on the margins of the Hall of Fame who has some playoff renown.

YearGamesPointsTeam GFP%
05-06167460.152
06-072117580.293
08-091318350.514
13-141215350.429
14-151620570.351
16-171719500.380
Total95962810.342
1.0112.958

In Getzlaf's prime, he provided a much bigger share of his team's offense compared to Bobby Smith. In Getzlaf's Cup year of 06-07, he lead the Ducks in scoring, but it wasn't like he was a dominant player at the time, being just 21. The same occurs with Smith in 80-81 in his first Cup final run. Similar playoff years, both right at that 30% P% level. Every other extended Getzlaf run had him deep in the 30s or higher. If you look at Smith's best 4 playoff runs by P% (80, 81, 83, 89), he scored 68 points in 64 games on 234 team goals, or 0.291 P%. If you subtract Getzlaf's 05-06 run, he had 89 points in 79 games on 235 team goals, a 0.379 P%. Both teams scored the same amount of goals, Getzlaf played 15 extra games, and scored 21 more points. That's the aspect of Smith's playoffs that 80s scoring levels and raw points masks.
 
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Getzlaf is maybe borderline but 07-17 Getzlaf was one of the best playoff performer of all time, would we compare him to the Federko, Mullen, type ?
 
It's too late for Bobby now, there's too many good players in the wings, players that are remembered recently for their contributions. I think he gets penalized for the amount of elite centers who were in the league at the time, playing years in a Jacques Lemaire/Perron system, while the West is playing run and gun. He wasn't among the greats, but he was a very good hockey player as you say, that's the fine line I guess.

Smith was a model of class, consistency, and clutch scoring—qualities you love to see when talking about the HHOF.

Coach Perron made the comment, during the season in which they won the Cup, that Smith was unquestionably Montreal’s most consistent player both offensively and defensively. He also noted that Smith’s pt. totals were misleading: had Smith been used more regularly on the top PP unit with Mats Naslund, he could’ve easily piled up an extra 20 pts. on the season.

Smith was the GM of the Phoenix Coyotes by the time I started following hockey, but for whatever reason, I always had a fondness for him as a person and as a player (the latter in retrospect). Fun fact: he earned an MBA after his finishing his playing career.
 
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I'd say he was roughly an Eric Staal or Brad Richards or Doug Weight in terms of stature and played in a very high-scoring era featuring a number of highly talented centres. He just didn't stand out enough to be in the Hall of Fame. Basically a classic Hall of Very good level player.

That said, I'm really not sure why Lanny McDonald was inducted and he wasn't. Guys like Andreychuk and Ciccarelli made it in because of accumulated stats. Lanny had that 66 goal season that stands out, but Smith did have a 114 point season.
 
I'd say he was roughly an Eric Staal or Brad Richards or Doug Weight in terms of stature and played in a very high-scoring era featuring a number of highly talented centres. He just didn't stand out enough to be in the Hall of Fame. Basically a classic Hall of Very good level player.

That said, I'm really not sure why Lanny McDonald was inducted and he wasn't. Guys like Andreychuk and Ciccarelli made it in because of accumulated stats. Lanny had that 66 goal season that stands out, but Smith did have a 114 point season.
I agree, although in defense of Lanny's (somewhat suspect) Hall of Fame induction, he did finish 2nd to peak-Gretzky in goal-scoring (he was vying for 1st with Wayne much of that season). Smith never finished higher than 7th (assists) in any category.

Lanny also hit the 500 goal and 1000 point milestones in the same (final) season, but Smith also hit 1000 points just three seasons later, so maybe there's no real difference. I guess Lanny's having that storybook ending to his career (and final game), while also having been maybe the most-loved member of two memorable Canadian franchise-eras was too romantic for HOF members.
 
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He was considered to be one of the top players in the game for a 5 yr period. Then he morphed into a very good 2 way player

He owned and ran the Halifax Moosehead for 2 decades. He was very good to work for. He was invi ked in all aspects of the franchise. A friend of mine loved working for him.

And was a client of the hair club for men. He hsoikd had shaved his hair off nad got a good hair tattoo.

He retired to Phoenix Arizona
 
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He was considered to be one of the top players in the game for a 5 yr period.
That seems a little optimistic. Top 15, sure... Top 5...? I don't see it.
And was a client of the hair club for men. He hsoikd had shaved his hair off nad got a good hair tattoo.
It has to be said that Smith was not one of the better-looking NHL players.
 
He was considered to be one of the top players in the game for a 5 yr period.

When you say "top players in the game" how large a group are you talking about?

To me the top players in the game are maybe the 5 or 10 best guys in the league, and I don't think Smith ever reached that level.

His 114 point season is the only year he broke the Top 10 in scoring.
 
Coach Perron made the comment, during the season in which they won the Cup, that Smith was unquestionably Montreal’s most consistent player both offensively and defensively. He also noted that Smith’s pt. totals were misleading: had Smith been used more regularly on the top PP unit with Mats Naslund, he could’ve easily piled up an extra 20 pts. on the season.
From the looks of it, they did spend a lot of time together on the power play. Montreal had 87 power play goals that season. Naslund was on the ice for 71 of them and Smith was on the ice for 40 of them. So at a bare minimum, they were on the ice for at least 24 power play goals together, but in actuality probably a lot more than that. Smith just didn't perform very well on the power play that season. He had just 22 power play points on the 40 goals he was on the ice for. As a center, that's very poor. Naslund, a left winger, had 50 power play points on those 71 goals.

Smith definitely played less on the power play that season, but his own performance is a big reason why he didn't have more points, and could also be a big reason why he didn't get more power play time as well.
 
I'd say he was roughly an Eric Staal or Brad Richards or Doug Weight in terms of stature and played in a very high-scoring era featuring a number of highly talented centres. He just didn't stand out enough to be in the Hall of Fame. Basically a classic Hall of Very good level player.

That said, I'm really not sure why Lanny McDonald was inducted and he wasn't. Guys like Andreychuk and Ciccarelli made it in because of accumulated stats. Lanny had that 66 goal season that stands out, but Smith did have a 114 point season.
McDonald hit the standard numbers (500 goals, 1000 points) played in Toronto, and the image of him following the last game of his career (scored too) with the Stanley Cup is memorable. He's also well connected enough to have ended up as the chairman of the hhof for a decade or so.

I'll add that Smith is not hurt in terms of hhof chances by playing for Montreal and winning a Stanley Cup there, but the team has had so many hall of fame players that there is no novelty, or the sort of romantic view of "surviving" the Ballard years. Smith was a better player than McDonald, but McDonald was a more famous player.
 
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From the looks of it, they did spend a lot of time together on the power play. Montreal had 87 power play goals that season. Naslund was on the ice for 71 of them and Smith was on the ice for 40 of them. So at a bare minimum, they were on the ice for at least 24 power play goals together, but in actuality probably a lot more than that. Smith just didn't perform very well on the power play that season. He had just 22 power play points on the 40 goals he was on the ice for. As a center, that's very poor. Naslund, a left winger, had 50 power play points on those 71 goals.

Smith definitely played less on the power play that season, but his own performance is a big reason why he didn't have more points, and could also be a big reason why he didn't get more power play time as well.

montreal had the third highest PP% in the league that year. so we don’t know for sure that smith was “poor,” per se, rather than what was working was allowed to continue working (for ex, it was by a good margin the highest PP usage for ryan walter since he was a hotshot pt/game scorer on washington)

fwiw, smith praises 86 naslund extremely highly:

IMG_8227.jpeg


and it certainly looks from the numbers like the PP ran through naslund
 
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His name makes it hard to pick him out for the average fan. He played for a team that folded for his true prime. He was very good but I don't see a playoff run where he really made his mark.

Hall of Very Good.
 

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