Bad Team Scorers.

GJB

Dr. Hook
Aug 12, 2002
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Andrew Brunette comes to mind, played on the Predators for 1 season, then the Thrashers and then the Wild. Lead the Thrashers and Wild in scoring for 1 season each.

Brian Bradley didn't breakout until he was on the Lightning, where he lead them in scoring for 4 straight seasons.
 

Ensane

EL GUAPO
Mar 2, 2002
15,746
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Ziggy Palffy? A PPG player nearly his entire career, which spanned pretty much the entirety of the dead puck era, yet only played in 4 playoff series over a decade plus career.
 

a79krgm

Registered User
Jul 15, 2006
1,545
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White Bear Lake
www.northstarshockey.com
Joe Malone.
Led the NHL in scoring in 1919-20 while playing for the Quebec Bulldogs. His team only won 4 games that year. Also set the record for most goals in one game with 7.
pin_malone01.jpg
 

sr edler

gold is not reality
Mar 20, 2010
11,845
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Joe Malone doesn’t count as that was only one season. He won consecutive Cups with the Bulldogs, being a top scorer.

This thread is Olli Jokinen. Four 30+ goals seasons, two seasons with 89 and 91 points. He was also reliable in the sense that he didn’t miss much games those seasons. 9 seasons with 80+ games.
 

Neutrinos

Registered User
Sep 23, 2016
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Kovalchuk is the first name I thought of. Only 3 playoff appearances in 12 NHL seasons

Yashin was the 2nd name that came to mind, but surprisingly, he made the postseason in 8 of 12 seasons
 

vadim sharifijanov

Registered User
Oct 10, 2007
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cliff ronning after he left vancouver.

and don't look now, but brad boyes has quietly played 800 games almost exclusively on non-playoff teams.
 

The Panther

Registered User
Mar 25, 2014
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I'm not sure how many 'good' seasons Taylor Hall has had, but he has been a 1st-line guy basically every season of his 7+ year career, and never been in the playoffs.

The best-ever case of big scorer on bad-ish team must be Marcel Dionne on both the mid-70s Wings and of course the Kings (though they had one good season, 1980-81).
 

vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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i think the meaning of bad team scorer here isn't just a guy who scored a lot of points who happened to play on bad teams. a bad team scorer, idiomatically, is a player who's best suited to scoring but isn't good enough to play a scoring role on most competitive teams so he keeps finding himself as a scorer on bad teams. usually, due to some deficiency, whether it's being small or slow or weak or just not good a defense, the player doesn't make sense as a complementary player and only fits as the best of a bad bunch, putting up decent numbers with prime icetime.

i used to think ray whitney was a bad team scorer. in fact, i still might even though he ended up playing 100+ playoff games and winning a cup.
 

GlitchMarner

Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
Jul 21, 2017
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I'm not sure how many 'good' seasons Taylor Hall has had, but he has been a 1st-line guy basically every season of his 7+ year career, and never been in the playoffs.

The best-ever case of big scorer on bad-ish team must be Marcel Dionne on both the mid-70s Wings and of course the Kings (though they had one good season, 1980-81).

Hall's finished in the top ten for points twice. I was surprised to see he's only scored 60+ points twice. It looks like he may finally see the playoffs this spring. He's averaging more than a point per game currently this season.
 

Hobnobs

Pinko
Nov 29, 2011
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Brian Bradley 12 seasons - 3 playoffs.

And I guess Olli Jokinen is pretty famous for his ONE playoffs during the 17 seasons he spent in the NHL.
 
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mrhockey193195

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Nov 14, 2006
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Jokinen, Palffy, Yashin come to mind immediately...though the latter two certainly made the playoffs and were on very good teams a handful of times.
 

mrhockey193195

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Nov 14, 2006
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i think the meaning of bad team scorer here isn't just a guy who scored a lot of points who happened to play on bad teams. a bad team scorer, idiomatically, is a player who's best suited to scoring but isn't good enough to play a scoring role on most competitive teams so he keeps finding himself as a scorer on bad teams. usually, due to some deficiency, whether it's being small or slow or weak or just not good a defense, the player doesn't make sense as a complementary player and only fits as the best of a bad bunch, putting up decent numbers with prime icetime.

i used to think ray whitney was a bad team scorer. in fact, i still might even though he ended up playing 100+ playoff games and winning a cup.

Great way of phrasing this. It's like I say, it means a lot more to be one of the faces of a perennial cup contender or a cup winner (e.g., Modano) than it does to be a higher scorer on a team that accomplishes nothing (e.g., Yashin).

I retract Palffy from my above post, I think he was a victim of circumstance more than the other two. Jokinen and Yashin to me are still "bad team scorers", as in they put up great numbers on teams that had no pressure and had no chance, and I'm not convinced they could ever do that on a top team.

Other names that come to mind: Craig Janney, Robert Reichel, Ray Ferraro.
 

GlitchMarner

Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
Jul 21, 2017
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Brampton, ON
Great way of phrasing this. It's like I say, it means a lot more to be one of the faces of a perennial cup contender or a cup winner (e.g., Modano) than it does to be a higher scorer on a team that accomplishes nothing (e.g., Yashin).

I retract Palffy from my above post, I think he was a victim of circumstance more than the other two. Jokinen and Yashin to me are still "bad team scorers", as in they put up great numbers on teams that had no pressure and had no chance, and I'm not convinced they could ever do that on a top team.

Other names that come to mind: Craig Janney, Robert Reichel, Ray Ferraro.

The Senators finished second in the Eastern Conference in both 1999 and 2001 (while Yashin was with the team). Yes, they choked in the playoffs, but they weren't a bad team in either season.

Reichel played on some competitive Flames teams and the Leafs were a perennial playoff team when he played in TOR.
 
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vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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i agree with 29gh, yashin wasn’t a bad team scorer. he was a superstar level player who sucked in the playoffs.

ray ferraro had an excellent run with the islanders in’93, and unless i’m mistaken he set up volek’s 2OT one-timer to stun the penguins.

janney is an odd case—you would expect to be the quintessential bad team player: soft, doesn't play d, doesn’t shoot, winger-dependent playmaker. but he has a surprisingly good playoff record, putting up 101 points in 101 playoff games over his first eight years, winning eleven playoff series, playing in two finaks, and coming out of the first round in all but two years. over his entire career he only missed the playoffs once, in his last season.
 
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Hobnobs

Pinko
Nov 29, 2011
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i agree with 29gh, yashin wasn’t a bad team scorer. he was a superstar level player who sucked in the playoffs.

ray ferraro had an excellent run with the islanders in’93, and unless i’m mistaken he set up volek’s 2OT one-timer to stun the penguins.

janney is an odd case—you would expect to be the quintessential bad team player: soft, doesn't play d, doesn’t shoot, winger-dependent playmaker. but he has a surprisingly good playoff record, putting up 101 points in 101 playoff games over his first eight years, winning eleven playoff series, playing in two finaks, and coming out of the first round in all but two years. over his entire career he only missed the playoffs once, in his last season.

Ray Ferraro was also pretty good in Hartford even if it was a second stringer.
 

Ensane

EL GUAPO
Mar 2, 2002
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i think the meaning of bad team scorer here isn't just a guy who scored a lot of points who happened to play on bad teams. a bad team scorer, idiomatically, is a player who's best suited to scoring but isn't good enough to play a scoring role on most competitive teams so he keeps finding himself as a scorer on bad teams. usually, due to some deficiency, whether it's being small or slow or weak or just not good a defense, the player doesn't make sense as a complementary player and only fits as the best of a bad bunch, putting up decent numbers with prime icetime.

i used to think ray whitney was a bad team scorer. in fact, i still might even though he ended up playing 100+ playoff games and winning a cup.
This definition makes for a more fascinating topic, but also a more difficult challenge to isolate such players. A starting point might be for players who scored a ton, but have a low amount of playoff games, and then when they played for playoff-calibre teams, immediately saw a drop in production.

That said, I don't think Whitney falls into this category. He was a ~PPG player (i.e., above his historical average) on 3 very good Hurricanes squads--one of which won the cup, and another made it to the conference finals, and was the leading scorer on a Coyotes team that also went deep.
 
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