All time under-rated Superstars - Dionne

I've been reading these forums for awhile but never posted. I wanted the opinon of the forum about whether you believe that Marcel Dionne is the most under-rated hockey star. It seems he is never on anyone's top list of hockey players but if you look at his career he was a top forward for longer than almost anyone save Gretzky and Howe and that he dominated for almost his whole career. He has numbers and a peak that are comparable to Lafleur except his peak started earlier and lasted longer. The reason is that he played in an obscure market for a team that was not perhaps the greatest of all time like Lafleur did. He was not Ron Francis who amassed points over a long career but was never one of the tuly best players, He was #2 all time in Points when he retired and for 15 years was probably one of the best 5 or ten forwards in the league and was in the top 3 for years as well. So what do you guys think does he fail to get the respect he deserves? Was his greatness over shadowed by Gretzky and Lafleur?

 

Marcel Dionne
19 nhl seasons

1348 games played
731 goals
1040 assists
8 time all-star
2 lady bing '75 & '77
1980 art ross
6 - 50 goal seasons
10 - 40 goal seasons

If ever there was an underrated player Dionne may be that person, too, though keep in mind that 70% of the posters on this board may never have seen him play.

 

Dionne only played 49 playoff games in his whole career. This is probably the biggest reason he is under-rated. He never was on a great team. And even when the Kings had a decent team like in the early 80's they often had to face the Oilers in the playoffs.

 

That and also there will always be an east coast bias in every sport, which is hard to understand, almost half of professional teams play west of the eastern time zone, so even fans who remember him playing may not have seen him very often. They were a sleep before the Kings even dropped the opening face-off in home games.

 

Imagine if the Habs had drafted Dionne instead of Lafleur. (They went 1-2 in the draft). I bet that Montreal would have won the exact same number of cups and Dionne would be celebrated today as much as Lafleur is. And Dionne probably would have lead the Habs in scoring for 3-4 more seasons than Lafleur did. He may in fact have been more celebrated. While Lafleur would be rated in the same category of lesser appreciated stars like Perreault and Stastny. Hey that's another guy who is uber-underated - Peter Stastny.

Imagine if Statstny had started his NHL career at 18 years old like Gretzky and other stars did. Add on 6 more seasons and assume he would have scored 600 points in them (not far fetched if you give him under 100 his first 2 years and over 100 the next 4) and he could have maybe challenged Howe's record before Gretzky did and maybe got even more points than Dionne did. Especially because he could score 52 points in 0 games in the Czech at 20 year old.

from hockeydb:
1976-77 Czechoslovakia 0 25 27 52 0
1980-81 Quebec Nordiques NHL 77 39 70 109 37 5 2 8 10 7
1981-82 Quebec Nordiques NHL 80 46 93 139 91 12 7 11 18 10
1982-83 Quebec Nordiques NHL 75 47 77 124 78 4 3 2 5 10
1983-84 Quebec Nordiques NHL 80 46 73 119 73 9 2 7 9 31
1984-85 Quebec Nordiques NHL 75 32 68 100 95 18 4 19 23 24
1985-86 Quebec Nordiques NHL 76 41 81 122 60 3 0 1 1 2
1986-87 Quebec Nordiques NHL 64 24 53 77 43 13 6 9 15 12
1987-88 Quebec Nordiques NHL 76 46 65 111 69 -- -- -- -- --
1988-89 Quebec Nordiques NHL 72 35 50 85 117 -- -- -- -- --
1989-90 Quebec Nordiques NHL 62 24 38 62 24 -- -- -- -- --
1989-90 New-Jersey Devils NHL 12 5 6 11 16 6 3 2 5 4
1990-91 New-Jersey Devils NHL 77 18 42 60 53 7 3 4 7 2
1991-92 New-Jersey Devils NHL 66 24 38 62 42 7 3 7 10 19
1992-93 New-Jersey Devils NHL 62 17 23 40 22 5 0 2 2 2
1993-94 St. Louis Blues NHL 17 5 11 16 4 4 0 0 0 2
1994-95 St. Louis Blues NHL 6 1 1 2 0 -- -- -- -- --
NHL Totals 977 450 789 1239 824 93 33 72 105 125

 

It's actually easy to understand. Deadlines.

Out east our papers usually don't have the boxscores from the "late games" out west. More often than not the games are still in process out west when most of us are already asleep here in the east.

BTW: I find that Marcel Dionne is recognized more as a superstar than Ron Francis. Marcel Dionne was a great scorer who benefitted greatly from the stability of playing with Simmer and Taylor for a long period.

IMO Ron Francis is the least respected superstar in the NHL. I predict that he will not make the NHL on the first ballot.

 

The fact that Dionne did make 8 all star teams insinuates that he wasnt under rated during his own time.

Everyone who followed hockey during that era knew that he was a huge offensive talent.

In many respects, he dominated (offensively at least) for a longer period than Guy Lafleur did and did so without a similiar supporting cast.

The major criticism during his era was that he was a one way player, ringing up big stats for non contending teams -- a hollow claim I believed, because he was always the main threat that other teams had to fear, hence he received the most defensive attention.

He didnt provide the all around game that Trottier or Clarke possessed, but amongst centers only Gretzky possessed greater offensive skills.

If anything, the major under rated star during the 70s-80s amongst centers was Bernie Ferderko.

 

Most underrated ever................................


Dale Hunter

 

Honestly, Dionne is probobly not underrated.

The guy put up regular season points, and he had some good international play, but the man god his kudos in his day.

But let's also not forget how much of a huge cherry picker this guy was, and never did much in the playoffs, good team or not.

He was a great player, but never the superstars that guys like Clarke or Lafleur were.

 

My point is that Dionne was a far better player than Francis. While Francis was great he is not in the same class as Dionne. Dionne should not be compared to players like Federko and Francis but to players like Lafleur, Beliveau, Mikita. He is in the true upper-echelon of Hockey superstars not in the second tier where players like Federko and Francis belong.

 

I've always viewed Dionne as somewhere between 30 and 40. He had some fantastic years during the 70s and 80s, won an Art Ross Trophy, and was a 100-point producer well into his 30s. But he drops in my eyes because of his playoff record. I'm not going to hold his absence of a Cup ring against him - he was never on a team that had a moderate shot at the Cup - but how many strong playoffs did he have? He had four years where he scored over 100 points in the regular season, but was at or under a PPG in the most important season, the post-season. That's a big discrepency. He never had that brilliant, carried-his-team-on-his back playoff year that all of the greats over the last 60 years had.

IMO, if you want to talk about him in the same breath as Lafleur, Mikita or players that I have in that 11-25 class (Beliveau is No. 6, IMO), he needs to have the playoff performance that LaFleur (and to a lesser extent Mikita) had.

 

In order to have done that Dionne would have needed a better supporting cast than he was ever awarded with. That comparison is almost like apples and oranges

LaFluer had players like
Dryden
Robinson
Gainey
Larouche
Savard
LaPointe
Tremblay
Mahovolich

Mikita had these players surrounding him

Al Arbor
Fleming
Hull
Esposito
Glenn Hall
Pilote

Dionne had
Charlie Simmer
Bernie Nichols
Dave Taylor
Taylor/Dionne/Simmer ( the triple crown line )

So this is one of those instances where comparisons hit a brick wall.

Dionne unfortunately will always be compared to other players,through no fault of his own, by the company he kept.

 

Also if players are to be ranked by their post season attributes, keep in mind that both Lafluer and Mikita had most of their success while the NHL was a 6 to 12 team league, so in all fairness to Dionne, those guys were on well oiled machines who were perrenial post season entities, while the L.A. Kings during Dionne's tenure were more or less as talented as an expansion franchise

 

Dionne was probably the most under rated forward I have ever seen.

I'd say Brad park the most under rated D-man.

Both HOF players that played in the shadows of the greatest to play the game.

 

Actually Lafleur and Dionne played at the same time. When they started there were at least 14 teams and they played most of their careers with 18-21+ teams. Of course you are right the Wings and Kings teams Dionne were on were rarely great and were only really decent for a limited time.

 

I couldn't agree more. This guy was a top-notch defenceman in the NHL throughout the 1970's. He's in the HOF. And yet, nobody knows who he is. He's a guy who's completely been left behind in the History of Hockey.

I don't know why he's been so forgotten. Is it the lack of Cups, is it because he was sort of Bobby Orr's 'replacement' in Boston? (Even though he was traded for Phil) I guess he just missed the boat on the Cup, he wasn't around for the B's of the early 70's and the Rangers just never got it done despite some very good teams.

Too bad. Everyone should know who Park is.

Makes you realize how deep the 70's were in terms of defencemen.

 

How did Dryden help Lafleur? Gainey never played on Lafleur's line. Larouche played with Guy only 1 year. Tremplay never played with Guy. Mahovlich played with Guy only 1-2 years. The only big help he got was by the big three and steve shutt. Definately better then Dionne's supporting cast but not by a huge margin.

 

Simmer Taylor and later Nicholls were great players. However Lafleur had the benefit of Montreal having 2 or really 3 strong lines so the other team could not focus all their best D and Defensive lines only on Lafleur's. There surely is a benefit to being on perhaps the best and deepest team ever assembled? My point is not that Dionne was better than Lafleur but that he was as good as or nearly as good as him and that he gets far less love than Lafleur does, not nearly as much as a player of his accomplishments deserves.

 

As to Park. I never really saw him play but from what I heard about him he sounds alot like Doug Harvey. I have read that near the end of his career Park had hardly any speed left but still no one could get around him. He got to live in the shadow of Potvin and Orr so he is similar to Dionne who lived in the Flower and the Great One's shadow.

 

Having seen most of Dionne's career and all of Francis' and Federko's careers, I've got to disagree. IMO Francis was the best of the three by a whisker over Dionne, and both were far better than Federko. The reason I rate Francis higher, is that he was an incredible two way player, whereas Dionne was all offense.

 

Probably the reason he put up such good regular season stats for such a long time. Playoff games are the toughest on the system, and he quite simply didn't have the wear and tear on his body that other stars of the day had.

 

that's what i was implying about the supporting cast. Just saying that Montreal was deeper than L.A. ever was, Doesn't matter who played on who's line, Dryden helped just cause he was an upper teir goalie got 'em farther into the post season, as did their depth.

 

That is a fair assessment Different strokes, but fair none the less.

 

Dionne is often forgotten when talking about great ones. The thing that bugs me about him is that he only played in 49 playoff games. He never led his team very far, other than '82 which was the second round. Still he can play for me any day.

 

I'm not asking him to win the Cup with the collection of talent he played with, but is one 7 game playoff series victory to much to ask ???