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Worst Ever Playoff Performer Relative to Talent...

HitoftheMillennium*

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Jan 23, 2016
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A post about Yashin got me thinking about this...

It HAS to be the enigmatic Russian, right?


Not just that, but this also absolutely has to one of those "AINEC" cases, doesn't it?


I can't think of a single player who's anywhere near close to "challenging" for the undesirable distinction.


Despite what some may have been said/thought about them at one point of another, guys like Thornton, Nash, Stamkos, Ovie, Sundin, Mike Gartner etc don't even begin to come anywhere close to approaching Yashin.


Who's a player that can realistically be compared to Yashin when it comes to playoff "performance?"
 
This came up in the Bertuzzi thread:

Epsilon said:
One "weird" thing about Bertuzzi: even during his 01-03 peak, he was not good at all in the playoffs. In 2002 he had 4 points in 6 games and didn't do much in games 3-6 as the Wings won 4 straight. He seemed totally pre-occupied with his media-driven "battle" with Chris Chelios (and, kind of like Lindros in 97, was pretty neutralized by Nick Lidstrom when they were on the ice at the same time). Then in 2003 he has 6 points in 14 games while linemates Naslund and Morrison score 14 and 11 respectively. Bertuzzi was outscored by Brent Sopel and Mattias Ohlund! In both seasons he led the Canucks in penalty minutes, taking 7 minors against the Red Wings, then against St. Louis he picks up 36 minutes in penalties, only 10 of which were a misconduct (so 13 minors). He caps this off against Minnesota with 1 goal, 1 assist, and 7 minor penalties.
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vadim sharifijanov said:
^ i think bertuzzi's pattern was he started series well, being a force even if not necessarily scoring at a star level. but then you see a turn in game 3 or 4 of the series. i would describe the detroit, st louis, and minnesota series that way.

i think the common denominator is that a smart, physical defensive defenseman (chelios, jackman, mitchell) got him more interested in the battle than the war.
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seventieslord said:
I love this line.



Yeah, I think if you isolate those two seasons and compare regular season to playoff performance, you probably could not find a greater disparity between the two for any player, at least not one that isn't explained by an injury.
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vadim sharifijanov said:
i'm struggling to think of another example

i guess marcel dionne 1979 and 1980? zero goals, 4 points, 6 games, 1 single game won. but i don't know for a fact that he was bad, because i didn't see those games; i just looked at stats.
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Drop in the following players' RS PPG rank to PO PPG rank (minimum two playoff and regular season years):

Dionne (1975-76 to 1985-86): 6th to 24th
Bathgate (1955-56 to 1963-64): 3rd to 22nd
Thornton (2001-02 to 2015-16): 6th to 36th
 
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hockeyfanatic89 said:
Keith Tkachuk was an awful playoff performer. I'd add in: Thornton, Max Pacioretty, Mats Sundin.
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Sundin had 82 points in 91 playoff games and was a +2 in the playoffs in his career.

He was considered somewhat disappointing in the playoffs because he played in a market that CRAVED playoff success, but he wasn't a terrible playoff performer by any stretch.

He scored and wasn't bad, but he didn't have that really big playoff run that could have immortalized him. Sundin averaged just under three goals per seven game series (2.92) and 6.30 points per seven game series.



I think Thornton is a fair mention...

In the playoffs, he's somehow a -26 player in his career despite having an impressive +206 rating during the regular season.

And I know plus/minus is kind of a "meh" stat, but when we're talking about players who played on teams that were at the very least competitive, I think it's not entirely meaningless. Also, their teams were fundamentally the same in the playoffs as they were during the regular season; therefore, we really shouldn't expect such a drastic swing in terms of plus/minus from the regular season to the playoffs.

If we just focus on production, Thornton's averaged just over one goal per seven game series in the playoffs and 5.36 points per seven game series.
 
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Also, somehow this dude seems to elude criticism for his playoff performances (or lack thereof), although to be fair, he WAS quite young when he played in the Bruins in the playoffs...


But Tyler Seguin has SEVEN career playoff goals in 49 games and just 21 points.


That works out to exactly one goal and three points per seven game series.



That's rather Yashin-esque, although I think he will do better when/if he plays in the playoffs with DAL in the upcoming years. He's too good not to do better than he has.
 
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He's from my city (Brampton) and I like him... however, Nash has been pretty brutal in the post-season.


He has 15 goals in 77 playoff games (this is a guy who won the Rocket Richard and has had many 30+ goal seasons some 40+ goal seasons).


But at least he plays well defensively. He's a +7 and he morphs into this defensive-minded type of winger in the playoffs.
 
Bloomfield said:
Steven Stamkos
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He's still fairly young, however...

I think he'll be okay if TB remains a competitive team in the coming years.


But so far:

Just 15 goals in 49 playoff games (more than twice as many as Seguin, though, and more than Nash in many fewer games) and 35 points. He's -3 as well.


I don't think he's been that bad, although he's under-performed.
 
User27 said:
Also, somehow this dude seems to allude criticism for his playoff performances (or lack thereof), although to be fair, he WAS quite young when he played in the Bruins in the playoffs...


But Tyler Seguin has SEVEN career playoff goals in 49 games and just 21 points.


That works out to exactly one goal and three points per seven game series.



That's rather Yashin-esque, although I think he will do better when/if he plays in the playoffs with DAL in the upcoming years. He's too good not to do better than he has.
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3 of those 7 goals at least were more impactful than anythingh Yashin did save for that 1 OT goal vs. the Devils:



 
Sundin and Ovechkin don't belong here. Their knock against them is that they didn't carry the team on their back to the Cup. While Ovechkin does have some things we could discuss about him come playoff time the truth of the matter is he had 14 in the series loss to Pittsburgh in 2009. I really don't know what else a human being can do short of poisoning his opponents. He literally had two points per game, it is NOT your fault if your team doesn't win. Only Ovie, Theo Fleury in 1995 have 14 points in a series loss from my count.

Some of the names are good although guys like Seguin and Stamkos can definitely swing things around.

Dionne comes to mind, I guess, sort of. From a PPG perspective he was okay though.

Keith Primeau hasn't been mentioned yet? He had 18 goals and 57 points in 128 games and he still complained enough to get Bill Barber fired from coaching the Flyers.

Yashin does take the cake here, I can't imagine anyone being #1 over him. How can you go pointless in a playoff sweep in 1999 and STILL ask for a raise............while you have a contract?

Christian Ruuttu comes to mind. Not a star by any means of course but 13 points in 42 games is just horrendous.
 
What about Dale Hawerchuk?

Only twice did he have at least 10 points in a playoff (1987, 1993)
 
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Big Phil said:
Sundin and Ovechkin don't belong here. Their knock against them is that they didn't carry the team on their back to the Cup. While Ovechkin does have some things we could discuss about him come playoff time the truth of the matter is he had 14 in the series loss to Pittsburgh in 2009. I really don't know what else a human being can do short of poisoning his opponents. He literally had two points per game, it is NOT your fault if your team doesn't win. Only Ovie, Theo Fleury in 1995 have 14 points in a series loss from my count.
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Yeah, I agree.


In his first three playoffs, Ovechkin was literally the opposite of a playoff choker.

He STILL isn't really all that bad in the playoffs (well, this season he was pretty meh, but to be fair he was hurt).

I think he's really unlucky in that when he was at his best, his team wasn't that good (or not really built to win in the playoffs anyway).

Now that his team IS a team that should be winning it all, he's no longer at his peak. He was still pretty good last year, though.
 
Big Phil said:
Sundin and Ovechkin don't belong here. Their knock against them is that they didn't carry the team on their back to the Cup. While Ovechkin does have some things we could discuss about him come playoff time the truth of the matter is he had 14 in the series loss to Pittsburgh in 2009. I really don't know what else a human being can do short of poisoning his opponents. He literally had two points per game, it is NOT your fault if your team doesn't win. Only Ovie, Theo Fleury in 1995 have 14 points in a series loss from my count.

Some of the names are good although guys like Seguin and Stamkos can definitely swing things around.

Dionne comes to mind, I guess, sort of. From a PPG perspective he was okay though.

Keith Primeau hasn't been mentioned yet? He had 18 goals and 57 points in 128 games and he still complained enough to get Bill Barber fired from coaching the Flyers.

Yashin does take the cake here, I can't imagine anyone being #1 over him. How can you go pointless in a playoff sweep in 1999 and STILL ask for a raise............while you have a contract?

Christian Ruuttu comes to mind. Not a star by any means of course but 13 points in 42 games is just horrendous.
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Good call on Primeau, one good (but incredibly overrated) playoff at the end of his career made a lot of people act like he was some playoff warrior when he sucked for most of his career and thought way too highly of himself.
 
despite how good he was, selanne was pretty unimpressive in the playoffs. 88 pts in 130 games
 
the year before his official rookie season, tkachuk was called up to the jets near the end of the regular season after the olympics. he played vancouver in the first round of the '92 playoffs. he was great: hit everything that moved, changed the momentum of games without even touching the puck, was generally a giant handful and just looking like he was going to torture us for the next twenty years. he scared the living crap out of us.

who knew that was the best he'd ever been after march?
 
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Terry Yake said:
despite how good he was, selanne was pretty unimpressive in the playoffs. 88 pts in 130 games
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Kind of a busted myth at this point. When he had his best seasons, he had his best playoffs. When he had his worst seasons, he had his worst playoffs.

7 seasons as a top-10 scorer, and every playoff series he had in those years, he was his teams' leading goal scorer (19 goals in 27 games). And of the hundreds of players to face Colorado, Detroit, and Dallas in the playoffs from 1996-2002, Selanne finished 3rd in goals-per-game (with the best number among those who played multiple series) with 9 goals in 15 games against the 1997 and 1999 Red Wings and 2002 Avalanche. His teams, of course, went 3-12 in those games. And obviously he was the Ducks' leading scorer across their two deep runs in 2006 and 2007 (1st in 2006; 2nd in 2007).
 
quoipourquoi said:
Kind of a busted myth at this point. When he had his best seasons, he had his best playoffs. When he had his worst seasons, he had his worst playoffs.

7 seasons as a top-10 scorer, and every playoff series he had in those years, he was his teams' leading goal scorer (19 goals in 27 games). And of the hundreds of players to face Colorado, Detroit, and Dallas in the playoffs from 1996-2002, Selanne finished 3rd in goals-per-game (with the best number among those who played multiple series) with 9 goals in 15 games against the 1997 and 1999 Red Wings and 2002 Avalanche. His teams, of course, went 3-12 in those games. And obviously he was the Ducks' leading scorer across their two deep runs in 2006 and 2007 (1st in 2006; 2nd in 2007).
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Busted seems like kind of a strong word.

(~1.00+ PPG RS were selected)
Year / RS PPG / PO PPG
1993 / 1.57 / 1.00
1997 / 1.40 / 0.91
1999 / 1.43 / 1.00
2001 / 0.99 / 0.33
2006 / 1.13 / 0.88
2007 / 1.15 / 0.71
2011 / 1.10 / 1.17

There aren't any other instances where Selanne was over 0.67 PPG in his 6 other postseasons.
 
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