Worst Ever Playoff Performer Relative to Talent...
- Thread starter HitoftheMillennium*
- Start date
What I'm saying is Gartner's playoff production was not out of place for his abilities.
Hobnobs
Pinko
- Nov 29, 2011
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seventieslord
Student Of The Game
scoring at 76% of his career regular season rate certainly puts him in the running.
edit: Christ, Stamkos has managed to be at 73.8% over 2.5X the sample size! Gross.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
A really rough and dirty way to see where a player falls on this spectrum is to compare their career playoff PPG average to their career regular season average. It's not always the best way to do it as it assumes that a player's playoff games are fairly distributed. Brian Leetch's and Mark Messier's make them look too good, and Teemu Selanne's does the opposite. But Gartner is a guy who had "some" playoff games most years. And his career ratio is 81%, which is definitely trending in the "playoff disappointment" direction. You usually like to see guys in the 90% range if they're pulling their weight long-term.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Correct, and weight it out by how many playoff games they had each season and how much they overperformed or underperformed that regular season. But then, if you're gonna go that far, you probably want to also include something in the calculation to account for the defensive strength of the opponents. A guy like young Selanne or Palffy always getting one round against a powerhouse may look less odious after those considerations.
With a guy like Gartner, you know he had enough of a variance and enough samples of production that you can take the results pretty much at face value.
Hockey Outsider
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- Jan 16, 2005
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This thread is a few years out of date, but I look at which players had the biggest increases/decreases in scoring, adjusting for the number of games played and the stage of their career. (ie Teemu Selanne looks better - still not great, but better - once we take into account that the majority of his playoff games were in seasons where he was no longer in his prime).
The ten players with the worst results were (from bad to worse): Rick Nash, Tyler Seguin, John LeClair, Todd Bertuzzi, Marcel Dionne, Alexei Yashin, Pat Verbeek, Andy Bathgate, Tomas Sandstrom, and (the worst) Mike Ribeiro.
Regardless of Gartner not being Cam Neely or Mark Messier in the playoffs. I don't think he belongs anywhere near this thread. Especially when guys with superior skill sets and worse results in the playoffs exist.
MadLuke
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- Jan 18, 2011
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That one was one I thought with the thread title, considering he did become a bit of a name during the 1993 playoff for (maybe few but big moments) in the dept chart, who would have predicted that
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
I guess my point is that Mike Gartner absolutely does belong near this thread. There are ten worse names that come to mind almost instantly, but he's in the ring right next to those guys.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
That's quite literally the stupidest use of the word "literally" I've ever seen, and that's saying something.
MadLuke
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- Jan 18, 2011
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I would question my ability to make sense from what I read at that point, this is so short, simple, a young child with just a little bit of education would be able to figure all the sense from it.
Some mid tier names
Tony Tanti- in a high scoring era got a whopping 3 goals in 30 playoff games
Christian Ruuttu- 13 points in 42 playoff games for a 60 point player is beyond pathetic.
Stephan Fiset- 1 playoff win in 14 appearances nearly a 4.00 GAA in the dead puck era.
Paul Ysebaert- 4 goals in 30 games and only 7 points is pretty bad.
Brian Savage- 3 goals in 39 games for Mr. October. My understanding is that he has an account here, so please, Brian, I call it like it is!
Tony Tanti- in a high scoring era got a whopping 3 goals in 30 playoff games
Christian Ruuttu- 13 points in 42 playoff games for a 60 point player is beyond pathetic.
Stephan Fiset- 1 playoff win in 14 appearances nearly a 4.00 GAA in the dead puck era.
Paul Ysebaert- 4 goals in 30 games and only 7 points is pretty bad.
Brian Savage- 3 goals in 39 games for Mr. October. My understanding is that he has an account here, so please, Brian, I call it like it is!
sr edler
gold is not reality
- Mar 20, 2010
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Perhaps it's just the Marner/Matthews RS thing that doesn't work in the post-season, because it's too predictable and stale and Marner's space gets eaten up too easily and Matthews isn't involved as much (in play driving and playmaking) as he should be. Now when Marner's been injured lately Matthews' actually made some decent plays setting up line-mates.
I don't think Keefe will change though, because his hands are too tied by these two players and by Shanahan. When the playoffs come around in a few weeks, most likely it's just the same old story.
Ruuttu got to play in an offensive role early in his career and scored solid point totals, including above ppg in his first playoffs. But his usage shifted heavily towards defensive when the Sabres became extremely stacked offensively with Turgeon, Hawerchuk, LaFontaine in the same position.
The Panther
Registered User
Is Matthews really that bad? I'm not sure, but on the surface of it 22 goals in 50 games isn't terrible, given the context of the Leafs losing seven of the eight series he's been in.
Now, of course, you can turn that around and argue that if Matthews had scored a few more goals, they might not have lost so many of those series...
Now, of course, you can turn that around and argue that if Matthews had scored a few more goals, they might not have lost so many of those series...
MarkusNaslund19
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- Dec 28, 2005
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I think with Matthews it's not so much a numbers thing as it is that he just never goes supernova.
Like he's about to have his second 60 goal season, he's won the Hart trophy, and he's played for a team that has been the favorite (or at least a toss up) several times. You'd think at least once in awhile a guy like him would just dominate a series to an extent that his team can't really lose.
We've seen Mackinnon do it a couple of times and he has often been argued as being a roughly equal contemporary comparison to Matthews.
Now, some of the times Mack has done it has been against a bad team, but then you see Matthews wilt against Columbus and Montreal.
He's got a lot to prove in the playoffs still for me.
VanIslander
A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
At his peak, Sergei Berezin was a top-level skater, but a choker.... in the playoffs he helped Sundin & Cujo get to two conference finals in back-to-back years (yet in the friggin' basement, unseen, in an all-time context).
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VanIslander
A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
GlitchMarner
Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
It's definitely underwhelming for a guy with the ability to score more than 60 goals in a season. He should really have closer to 30 goals. I think he's perhaps been a bit unlucky, though, to be fair.
His career RS shooting percentage is an impressive 16.1%. His playoff shooting percentage is 10.2%.
jigglysquishy
Registered User
Matthews is young enough that I don't think he's got the title yet (especially since Marner and Tavares have been more disappointing), but for best goal scorer of his generation, it's not exactly a stellar resume.
Looking at this goals in the last few years
Of his last 4 playoff series, over three seasons including a Hart 1, and a Hart 2, and two Rockets, he's had three series with large-scale dropoffs in goal production.
Matthews and Marner should rightfully get respect for the Lightning series last year, but it's really the only notch in his playoff resume.
This will be another interesting year. The Leafs are looking to rematch the Panthers from last year. Matthews is on a 65+ goal pace again. It's really on him to step up and produce.
Looking at this goals in the last few years
| Season | Regular Season Per 82 Pace | Playoff Per 82 Pace | Difference |
| 2020-21 | 65 goals | 12 goals | -82% |
| 2021-22 | 67 goals | 47 goals | -30% |
| 2022-23 (Lightning) | 44 goals | 68 goals | +55% |
| 2022-23 (Panthers) | 44 goals | 0 goals | -∞ |
Of his last 4 playoff series, over three seasons including a Hart 1, and a Hart 2, and two Rockets, he's had three series with large-scale dropoffs in goal production.
Matthews and Marner should rightfully get respect for the Lightning series last year, but it's really the only notch in his playoff resume.
This will be another interesting year. The Leafs are looking to rematch the Panthers from last year. Matthews is on a 65+ goal pace again. It's really on him to step up and produce.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Not sure what place Berezin has in this thread. In the 99, 2000 and 2001 seasons he had a .685 PPG, and .675 in the playoffs. These points include...
- the 1-0 goal with 1:00 remaining in game 6 versus Philly (as a result, leafs won the game and series)
- an overtime goal when trailing Pittsburgh 2-1 in the ECSF, saving them from an insurmountable deficit (leafs won every game after)
- a primary assist on Garry Valk's series winning overtime goal in game 6
- a beautiful assist on Steve Thomas' overtime goal in the pivotal game 5 versus Ottawa in 2000, when everyone in the world thought that he'd for sure shoot on the 2-on-1
Berezin was a flawed player, but the guy was highly clutch given the circumstances he was put in.
And the two consecutive Conference final trips were in 1993 and 1994, before cujo and sundin. The two that those guys had were three years apart (1999, 2002) and Berezin was only part of one of them.
