Marcel Dionne is almost never talked about despite his awesome career.
dionne is an interesting case, and maybe tells us a lot about how we should historically view guys like ron francis, mike gartner, arguably mark recchi, arguably phil housley and larry murphy, maybe patrick marleau when all is said and done. obviously that is a very wide gamut of players, of different abilities, of hugely different levels of greatness, and of different historical reputations.
but what they have in common, and what dionne tells us, is that they each retired artificially high in at least one statistical category, and they were each still misleadingly high up when they made the hall of fame (misleading either because of era, because the total is more a function of longevity than the player's level of greatness at his peak/prime, or because they would be passed soon enough).
- ron francis retired 4th all-time in points, 2nd all-time in assists, 3rd all-time in games, and was still in those positions when he was inducted first ballot (which i still think is a travesty, given that larionov was eligible for the first time). today he is still an extremely high 5th, 2nd, and 4th, respectively.
- larry murphy retired with the second most games played, after howe. when he was inducted, he was 5th (today he is 9th). that combined with 1,200 career points (retired #3 all time for defensemen, behind you know who, and was inducted at #5, where he still is today and is unlikely to be passed by anyone, anytime soon).
- due to era, 15 years after retiring housley is still 4th all-time in defenseman points
- gartner retired an unfathomable 5th all-time in goals, was still at that number when he was inducted first ballot, has since fallen to a still-misleading 7th
- ...and so on (don't look now but marleau is 12th all-time in games played, will almost certainly pass lidstrom for the 11th spot this season, and would be 5th all-time if he plays all 82 games next season. incidentally, he hasn't missed a game this season. if he plays out his contract with no games missed, assuming jagr is really done, marleau is 3rd all-time, and within spitting distance of howe.)
okay, so dionne. he used to get talked about all the time, like freakin' all the time, as an "underrated guy" because "you probably don't know this, but marcel dionne is 2nd all-time in goals, assists, and points," and then the same after gretzky passed him except the 2nd turned into 3rd. he gets talked about a lot less now that he's 5th, 10th, and 6th, respectively.
my point is, dionne was talked about too much because he was higher on the all-time rankings than he should have been (relative to, say, beliveau, mikita, espo, trots, and others who were objectively greater players than him). not to say dionne isn't a slam dunk first ballot hall of famer and a top 60 player of all-time, mind you. but it was the numbers, and specifically that the numbers were surprising/misleading, that made dionne a topic of conversation. ditto ron francis, ditto mike gartner.
ron francis isn't going to fall any father, short of dramatic rule changes, but we already have seen gartner fall to 7th. i only see ovechkin passing him anytime soon but a generation from now i don't see a lot of people who didn't watch '90s hockey caring to ask about some guy they've never heard of who nobody has told their grandkids about who is 8th all-time in goals.
unhuh.................................... Gilbert Perrault, Rene Robert & Rick Martin, but particularly... Perrault. Beyond Sabers fans I'm not so sure the wider population of fans beyond this Board appreciate just how a good a player this guy was. Had he been in Montreal or even Philly, Long Island or Edmonton, been winning Cups whole other story. He really was like Morenz, like Lafleur the classic Flying French Canadian only Perrault was bigger, stronger, a total power forward, machine. But clean, graceful like the aforementioned. Unselfish. Reinvented himself a bit for the betterment of his line, team. Becoming more the playmaker than just a sniper. Total class act.
