Your Mt.Rushmore of OVERRATED and Mt.Rushmore of UNDERRATED ... all time

[Dale53130]

Interesting post to be sure but Housley played all of his peak and 80% of his prime outside of the wrongly named dead puck era.

That's true.

He still played parts of 8 seasons in the DPE though (starting from the 1995-96 season), and I think if he were that bad, teams wouldn't want him around the point he had played with Washington. I caught all of his play in Winnipeg, and I thought during his time here, isolating his offensive prowess, I thought he was one of the best in the league at that point in time.

Wetcoast, I'm not clear by what you mean when you say "wrongly named dead puck era".

 

[wetcoast]

underrated:

Nick Suzuki
Cole Caufield
Juraj Slafkovsky
Lane Hutson

overrated:

Nostrils
Pajama Boy
Willy
Mitch

Avatar checks out eh?

 

[sensfan4lifee]

You don't really know that. Sometimes it's better for your individual performance to be on a decent albeit lesser team where the whole game is centered around you than to be playing in system on a super team like Montreal. Balderis was the number one scorer in the Soviet league with Riga but his scoring dipped once he went to CSKA and once he left he again became the Soviet scoring champion.

2 Scoring titles

The dude scored 122 points in 43 play off games that is insane in any era

 

[tabness]

Bobby Hull - Underrated, now and IMO, especially on HFboards. Leaving everything else aside, just isolating hockey, he was one of the greatest. He had all of the gifts.

Bobby Hull seems to get his due on this subforum for the most part, but he is also nitpicked to no end on various things, whereas a guy like Howe gets a bit of the "big four" gloss and inflation. I feel there's a good chance that had Hull stayed in the NHL and gotten some records and climbed up higher in the stats and what not, or alternatively had the WHA been more successful and be able to imprint its brand to hockey rather than be unceremoniously swallowed by the NHL, he would be considered far closer up there with Gordie Howe.

 

[Overrated]

Firsov has a real lack of competition and late start and early exit of greatness and is considered too high as well IMO.

I think Firsov is one of the most underrated player ever.

He didn't really face a lack of competition if we are to be honest. I have made this statement before and I got some response like "How could you compare the guys he played against with Orr, Esposito etc." but the problem is that your average top Soviet 1970s player played only a few games against these dudes (The KPM line and even the Spartak line never got to play against Orr for example). How many games did they play against Hull? One series and in case of Maltsev and Tretiak one CC on top of that when it wasn't even best on best. Not to mention Hull despite being still extremely strong was not even in his prime anymore.

Basically the rest of the opponents beyond the few games in the CC & SS were virtually the same. Firsov was only three years older than Mikhailov after all. Also the two other best teams in the world (Canada and CSSR) both employed very defensive styles that especially the smaller guys on the Soviet teams struggled with. There is a reason the 6'3 Yakushev did so well against the Canadians. Firsov being a stocky player thrived in these higher stakes games and outscored his teammates by a huge amount in the games against the CSSR and Sweden. He also passes the eye test. His prime overlaps with the primes of all these 70s stars. He was clearly superior than Kharlamov from 69 to 71 when Kharlamov was already 21-23 year old. Let's not pretend Kharlamov got better after Firsov retired.

That is why I think Firsov should be always ranked ahead of Kharlamov. Since he is not it makes no sense to call him overrated imo.

 

[Dale53130]

Sounds almost criminal to compare him to Marcel Dionne who only stands out due to the lack of great forwards in the NHL throughout the 70s early 80s. Once Gretzky arrived he was outscored by a hundred points.

I think Jagr was greater than Dionne. I was thinking though, if Jagr is putting up 125 points every year (similar to Dionne), had he played in the '80s. We assume that it's a done deal, with consideration that he put up lofty numbers in a tougher environment, but I'm a bit skeptical whether or not that's true. I know that Bernie Nichols posted 70 goals and 150 points playing directly behind Gretzky, and I believe people are less impressed with that season than they are with Jagr's 62 goal, 149 point season playing behind Lemieux's line in 1995-96.

Dionne has a lot of empty calories in his stats, and I can't think of someone who's dropped further in the rankings over time (specifically my rankings), than he has.

I think Phil Esposito is a good comparison to Jagr, though I doubt too many people in 2024 would think that they were on a similar level. I would still put Jagr ahead of Esposito, but I don't think he's miles ahead of him either.

If I were building a team, and I could chose between Messier, Bourque, and Jagr, I'm picking Bourque and Messier over Jagr.

 

[Overrated]

2 Scoring titles

The dude scored 122 points in 43 play off games that is insane in any era

Dionne scored 122 points in 43 play off games playing against children in the Ontario Hockey League. Impressive but he didn't show that much in the NHL playoffs nor in the World Championships so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

[Overrated]

I think Jagr was greater than Dionne. I was thinking though, if Jagr is putting up 125 points every year (similar to Dionne), had he played in the '80s. We assume that it's a done deal, with consideration that he put up lofty numbers in a tougher environment, but I'm a bit skeptical whether or not that's true. I know that Bernie Nichols posted 70 goals and 150 points playing directly behind Gretzky, and I believe people are less impressed with that season than they are with Jagr's 62 goal, 149 point season playing behind Lemieux's line in 1995-96.

The average goals per game scored in 81/82 was 8.0. The average when Jagr was at his best was 5.3. Jagr would be scoring a lot more than 125 points in the early 80s.

 

[tabness]

Im genuinely curious, why are so many ITT chiseling out Datsyukian features on mount overrated?

He was extremely highly regarded in his late career about 10 years ago by all 3 of fans/players/media, and he has to be one of the most complete players in the category of flashy big name forwards alongside Clarke and Gainey.

What about him is overrated exactly?

The more that Datsyuk has been out of the league, the more you see his palpable influence on great hockey players today, the more I miss him. He may not have gotten his due in the media and there was always the backlash on HF from some, but he certainly got his due from his peers, both in saying so but more importantly in imitation and influence.

 

[wetcoast]

A tad less remarkable when it enabled Neely to play a customized schedule. His knee issues ensured that he would have struggled over 84 games, but given that he only played in 49 hand-picked games it meant that he was well-rested throughout the season, unlike his opponents.

I'm not so sure about well rested and he played in 35 of 45 games for the Bruins between December 9th and March 16th when he was shut down for the season scoring 35 goals.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

From October 5th to December 4th he played in 14 of the Bruins 26 games and had a line of 14-15-19 and had a very good home/road split that season as well.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Home 24-26-10-36 (+6)
Road 25- 24-14-38 (+6)

 

[Dale53130]

The average goals per game scored in 81/82 was 8.0. The average when Jagr was at his best was 5.3. Jagr would be scoring a lot more than 125 points in the early 80s.

I'm going to rescind my calling Jagr overrated.

My last fleeting point though, is if Jagr's physical attributes were best suited for the DPE, and he's unique in that he actually benefited playing during that period. It was like playing in quicksand, yet Mr. 2,000 squats per day had the edge on everyone (kudos to him and his work ethic no doubt). Would his physical gifts (his legs) made as much of a difference in the '80s by comparison, when the game was more wide-open, easier to score? I never thought of him as being fast, rather a power skater.

Another way of looking at it, if his skating isn't as important (a big "if" at that), is his skillset (shooting, passing, vision, etc) that much superior to say someone like Peter Stastny for example?

For all I know, maybe Jagr's pumping out 70 goal/170 point seasons in the 1980's.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Over time, Modano has become quite underrated. Additionally. Keith Tkachuk's prime is underrated

Waving the flag, eh?

 

[wetcoast]

He was also a winner and a leader. Won a Cup in Pittsburgh early on with 34 pts in 24 games, then won Cups in Carolina and Boston as the veteran leader on the team

Sure those are fair points and while Recchi did have most of his top seasons outside of Pittsburg it's arguable that his best regular season was there and he never had a psot season like the one with Mario when he had a line of 24-10-24-34.

His next best post seasons are okay-ish but nothing to really write home about either.

This board had him as the 38 best winger of all time in the 14-15 project and that's pretty fair.

 

[Overrated]

I'm going to rescind my calling Jagr overrated.

My last fleeting point though, is if Jagr's physical attributes were best suited for the DPE, and he's unique in that he actually benefited playing during that period. It was like playing in quicksand, yet Mr. 2,000 squats per day had the edge on everyone (kudos to him and his work ethic no doubt). Would his physical gifts (his legs) made as much of a difference in the '80s by comparison, when the game was more wide-open, easier to score? I never thought of him as being fast, rather a power skater.

Another way of looking at it, if his skating isn't as important (a big "if" at that), is his skillset (shooting, passing, vision, etc) that much superior to say someone like Peter Stastny for example?

For all I know, maybe Jagr's pumping out 70 goal/170 point seasons in the 1980's.

Well there are two ways of looking at it. One way is thinking big guys like Jagr or Lemieux benefited from being big in a physical clutch and grab era. The other way is to actually see the power forwards as being "nerfed" the most by the excessive clutch and grab. Super fast players like Bure certainly didn't suffer as much as the big guys. That is why some people say that Mario today would be totally unstoppable because the only way to stop him was to hook him and back then that was basically allowed.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'll add Morenz, Frank Nighbor, Shore, Dickie Moore and Firsov to the HOH boards all time over rated list for similar but slightly different reasons.

Morenz like Hobey Baker gets the sympathy vote, for lack of a better phrase and his resume doesn't really stand up to his all time placing.

Shore's legacy also seems more than his actual impact.

Dickie Moore has too short of a peak and lack of Hart consideration from his time to be ranked as high as he does.

Firsov has a real lack of competition and late start and early exit of greatness and is considered too high as well IMO.

Nighbor no doubt was a great player but how to compare defensive forwards when there was no forward passing to the modern post forward passing game is tricky IMO.


I also add one of my favorite players growing up and I love players that battle but Bobby Clarke is ranked too high as well IMO and his resume really gets the Harts bump and doesn't stand up as great as one would think to his placement.

Only 9 players in NHL history won the Hart trophy more than twice.

You have 3 of them (Shore, Morenz and Clarke) as being overrated.

 

[wetcoast]

I don't see how this explains that his legacy is greater than his impact. Considering that Shore is essentially a 7+ time Norris winner and has 4 Harts I'd say that his team's failures, plus the passage of time, keep him from being right there among the top five defencemen ever. That's just looking at lazy resume bullet points. Which isn't even to say that his team not winning more than 2 Stanley Cups, as many as Orr won and more than Bourque did, is on him.

This forum had him 14th all time ahead of guy like Lidstrom/Potvin who have better resumes IMO and a lot of that is based on the 4 Harts and just doesn't really pass the smell test for me.

Like I said in my post the 30s isn't exactly known as the golden age of hockey of that of the best Dmen of all time either and the playoff results with such a HHOF laden roster just isn't that impressive is it?

I also think the lazy bullet points works both ways 4 Harts and essentially 7 Norris trophies can be seen just as lazy right?

For me the biggest thing I find in the HOH section on all time lists how much a player is elevated by winning the SC and the number of SC's and then guys like Dionne/Thornton and Ovi before his and McDavid to a lesser extent get blasted for not winning, just seems a bit inconsistent to me.

 

[wetcoast]

Only 9 players in NHL history won the Hart trophy more than twice.

You have 3 of them (Shore, Morenz and Clarke) as being overrated.

Sure but do you really think Clarke was better than Orr in 2 of his 3 Hart trophies?

Also Dmen got Hart votes in the 30s and in more recent times that's rare.

In other words if we had a consistent criteria for hart voting since the inception of the NHL I doubt that clarke and Shore would have 3 and 4 Harts.

My problem with Morenz is that his greatness is a little inconsistent with his legacy.

The dying because of a broken heart due to his leg injury mythology is overplayed as is his hands down best player hands down pre 06 era.

In a nutshell I think they are all over rated because of the Hart trophy statistic.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Sure but do you really think Clarke was better than Orr in 2 of his 3 Hart trophies?

Also Dmen got Hart votes in the 30s and in more recent times that's rare.

In other words if we had a consistent criteria for hart voting since the inception of the NHL I doubt that clarke and Shore would have 3 and 4 Harts.

My problem with Morenz is that his greatness is a little inconsistent with his legacy.
the dying because of a broken heart due to his leg injury mythology is overplayed as is his hands down best player hands down pre 06 era.

In a nutshell I think they are all over rated because of the Hart trophy statistic.

No, Clarke was not better than Orr. But he may well have been more valuable to his team. Which is what the Hart was always supposed to have been.

Shore and Morenz were hands down the biggest names and best players of their era. Over 11 seasons they won the Hart 7 times. Voters back then saw them play live a lot. They weren't just checking stat sheets.

 

[wetcoast]

I think Firsov is one of the most underrated player ever.

This thread has some insight on firsov during his breakout 63-64 season.

Dec. 11, 1964 Soviet National vs Junior Canadiens

Game was played at the Montreal Forum. The Junior Canadiens, a young rebuilding team were strengthened by six players from the Quebec Aces - Gump Worsley, Doug Harvey, John Hanna, Red Berenson, Bill Sutherland, Leon Rochefort...

forums.hfboards.com

The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search

The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search

Once again these games are against a mostly junior team not even a pro team.

He didn't really face a lack of competition if we are to be honest.

He did as internationally russia dominated a really weak era where Canada sent amautuer players over and other teams just weren't that strong.

Firsov also didn't really stand out in the Soviet league until the age of 22 when he started to ascend and much of his best years internationally the talent just doesn't compare.

I have made this statement before and I got some response like "How could you compare the guys he played against with Orr, Esposito etc." but the problem is that your average top Soviet 1970s player played only a few games against these dudes (The KPM line and even the Spartak line never got to play against Orr for example). How many games did they play against Hull? One series and in case of Maltsev and Tretiak one CC on top of that when it wasn't even best on best. Not to mention Hull despite being still extremely strong was not even in his prime anymore.

Basically the rest of the opponents beyond the few games in the CC & SS were virtually the same. Firsov was only three years older than Mikhailov after all. Also the two other best teams in the world (Canada and CSSR) both employed very defensive styles that especially the smaller guys on the Soviet teams struggled with. There is a reason the 6'3 Yakushev did so well against the Canadians. Firsov being a stocky player thrived in these higher stakes games and outscored his teammates by a huge amount in the games against the CSSR and Sweden. He also passes the eye test. His prime overlaps with the primes of all these 70s stars. He was clearly superior than Kharlamov from 69 to 71 when Kharlamov was already 21-23 year old. Let's not pretend Kharlamov got better after Firsov retired.

You are using his prime over some of those other players only to international play, domestically his star power was much less.

That is why I think Firsov should be always ranked ahead of Kharlamov. Since he is not it makes no sense to call him overrated imo.

He is over rated on our top 100 list clear as day for me.

 

[wetcoast]

No, Clarke was not better than Orr. But he may well have been more valuable to his team. Which is what the Hart was always supposed to have been.

Shore and Morenz were hands down the biggest names and best players of their era. Over 11 seasons they won the Hart 7 times. Voters back then saw them play live a lot. They weren't just checking stat sheets.

That's great but how do we square that circle with Dickie Moore being 68th all time on our list despite being 6th and 8th in Hart voting the 2 seasons he won the Art Ross?

I know that you value peak more than others but he only has 2 other seasons in the top 10 (both 8th and 4 Habs top 10 both years) and a really short prime then nothing relevant really.

Sure his playoff resume helps but was he ever really driving the bus or even sitting in the first row on those Habs teams?

Just not a very impressive resume for 68th all time IMO.

And for the record i like Clarke but his playoff resume doesn't really stand out and the 70s were really watered down and the Broad street bullies really amplified Clarke's resume quite a bit.

 

[wetcoast]

Dionne scored 122 points in 43 play off games playing against children in the Ontario Hockey League. Impressive but he didn't show that much in the NHL playoffs nor in the World Championships so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Sure his playoff resume in the NHL isn't that great but his teams were also poorly constructed and the travel for LA was brutal.

Ditto for the WC traveling from LA to Europe then playing against teams who were practicing for weeks together he still led the tournament in goals his first WC and has another top 10 finish and did fairly well in 2 best on best tournaments.

I get that his playoff resume isn't great but his ranking all time here just doesn't make a ton of sense really.

 

[Overrated]

He did as internationally russia dominated a really weak era where Canada sent amautuer players over and other teams just weren't that strong.

And Kharlamov dominated when Canada sent nobody as it boycotted international hockey. By the time Canada started sending pros (and it was never the absolute best team anyways) Kharlamov was already post car crash and in a heavy decline. Yes I get it he played a few games against Canada's very best but those were very few games. My point is that yes Firsov didn't get to play against the NHL but guys like Kharlamov played more than 95% of his games against the same people Firsov did. Yes he played against Canadian amateurs and not pros the remaining 5% of games but I don't think that changes much.

Firsov also didn't really stand out in the Soviet league until the age of 22 when he started to ascend and much of his best years internationally the talent just doesn't compare. You are using his prime over some of those other players only to international play, domestically his star power was much less.

In the USSR there was an award "Best player of the season" (sometimes wrongly called "Soviet MVP") which started being awarded in the 67/68 season. Firsov won it 3 times. It's obvious he would have won it at least one more time had it been awarded the two years prior. The last time he won it was in 1971 at 30 against 23 year old Kharlamov 24 year old Petrov 27 year old Mikhailov 22 year old Maltsev 24 year old Yakushev and 25 year old Vikulov.

So it wasn't just that his international stats were better - the hockey experts in the USSR judged him as better.

 

[wetcoast]

And Kharlamov dominated when Canada sent nobody as it boycotted international hockey. By the time Canada started sending pros (and it was never the absolute best team anyways) Kharlamov was already post car crash and in a heavy decline. Yes I get it he played a few games against Canada's very best but those were very few games. My point is that yes Firsov didn't get to play against the NHL but guys like Kharlamov played more than 95% of his games against the same people Firsov did. Yes he played against Canadian amateurs and not pros the remaining 5% of games but I don't think that changes much.

Most of the claim for Firsov being ranked so high really hinges on around 5 international tournaments against really weak teams and being in a great system.

In the USSR there was an award "Best player of the season" (sometimes wrongly called "Soviet MVP") which started being awarded in the 67/68 season. Firsov won it 3 times. It's obvious he would have won it at least one more time had it been awarded the two years prior. The last time he won it was in 1971 at 30 against 23 year old Kharlamov 24 year old Petrov 27 year old Mikhailov 22 year old Maltsev 24 year old Yakushev and 25 year old Vikulov.

So it wasn't just that his international stats were better - the hockey experts in the USSR judged him as better.

The thing is that in his last best player award in 71 he was 17th in Soviet league scoring and the award is kind of doubling counting the WC's IMO.

Elite Prospects - Soviet Stats 1970-1971

1970-1971 regular season player stats for Soviet, including top goal scorers, most games played, PPG leaders and more.

www.eliteprospects.com

I'm too young to have seen him play live and I was a huge fan of the russian system in the 70s and love total hockey but there are too many red flags in the resume of firsov to really place him top 70 all time if we are being fair here and comparing players equally across time and eras.

 

[The Panther]

The average goals per game scored in 81/82 was 8.0. The average when Jagr was at his best was 5.3. Jagr would be scoring a lot more than 125 points in the early 80s.

You don't have to always pick 1981-82 as your point of reference, just because it's the only season in history when scoring reached 8.0.

Another way to twist this is to say that when the Kings scored 376 goals in 1989, Nicholls got 150 points. When the Pens scored 362 goals in 1996, Jagr got 149 points. There's not a huge difference there. And both guys were playing behind Gretzky or Lemieux.

I do think there is a strong case that Jagr is the 3rd-best (pre-McDavid, but that's a moving target) NHL offensive player in history.

 

[Voight]

Underrated:

Curtis Joseph (I was and Edmonton and Ottawa fan so I loved this guy before I hated him. To me one of the best 2nd and 3rd shot stop goalies ever and a true warrior)

Overrated:

Mark Recchi - played with Mario and made stats to get him into the HOF and then played for Montreal and he couldn’t get the puck into the zone

You do realize he played with Mario for only 2 1/2 seasons right? Not sure how that invalidates the rest of his career.

(Thats not including 2005-2006, I can't remember if he played with Lemieux that year but even then, Lemieux only played 26 games.)