so long as we're taking a fine-tooth comb to the value of franchise players to their teams' success, while lindros was undoubtedly a franchise-altering player, one notes that the flyers missed the playoffs his first two seasons. in '95, the flyers were 3-6-1 until the mark recchi trade, which gave the team a legit number defenseman and lindros his ideal linemate.
i mean, it makes sense that we can point to the recchi trade almost immediately turning a .333 team into a first place team, given the depth the flyers lost in acquiring lindros. but i thought i'd throw that out there for context.
I understand a lot of the evidence is circumstantial, which is why I prefer to look at multiple sources.
In Lindros' case, his ES data was very strong and the Flyers were substantially worse without him than with him.
If you'll pardon the pun, Yzerman doesn't have a leg to stand on, outside of his elite offensive production:
1. His teams improved slightly after his arrival, but they were still bad to mediocre for his first 8 seasons.
2. During his first 11 seasons, the best team Detroit beat in the playoffs had 76 points (and that was in the same, historically weak division).
3. Yzerman's ES data is rather "mixed" during his prime. It doesn't really compare well to other superstar players.
4. Yzerman wasn't what I would call an "underperformer" in the playoffs, but neither was he exactly an overperformer.
5. The data is limited during his prime (and no data for '86), but his teams didn't only drop a little or stay at the same level when he was injured... or even improve slightly, but had a significant improvement when he was out.
I don't know that any of these things is especially damning in and of themselves, but together they don't exactly paint a picture of him in his prime as a two-way superstar and playoff warrior that elevated his team to substantially higher levels. Hey, I like Yzerman, he was a fun player to watch. I definitely preferred him to players like Messier and Lindros, but I also can't ignore what the data tells us. I have to wonder how much of his later team success and defensive style is projected back to his prime.