I used to be were you are, but now view Kariya's career with a more critical eye.
I made this using hockey-reference adjusted stats from their 10 best seasons selected by PPG with a 27 game minimum (only 1 season for 1 player was below 41 GP).
Player|GP|G|Pts|GPG|PPG
Jagr|76|48|117|0.63|1.54
Forsberg|67|26|91|0.39|1.35
Sakic|76|39|101|0.51|1.33
Lindros|63|37|83|0.58|1.32
Selanne|77|46|98|0.60|1.27
Yzerman|77|40|96|0.52|1.25
Thornton|79|28|97|0.36|1.23
Oates|78|23|94|0.29|1.21
Turgeon|72|34|86|0.47|1.19
Messier|77|34|91|0.44|1.18
Hull|77|51|90|0.65|1.17
Palffy|65|35|76|0.54|1.17
St.Louis|81|35|94|0.43|1.16
Francis|77|25|89|0.33|1.15
Alfredsson|73|33|84|0.45|1.15
Mogilny|70|38|81|0.54|1.14
Modano|76|36|85|0.47|1.12
Bure|71|44|79|0.63|1.12
Sundin|77|37|86|0.48|1.12
Datsyuk|74|29|83|0.39|1.12
Kariya|78|35|88|0.45|1.12
Recchi|81|34|90|0.42|1.12
Iginla|80|44|88|0.55|1.11
Robitaille|80|42|88|0.52|1.10
Fedorov|77|36|83|0.47|1.09
Fleury|79|37|86|0.47|1.09
Savard|76|29|82|0.38|1.08
Hawerchuk|81|31|85|0.39|1.06
Hossa|78|38|83|0.49|1.06
Zetterberg|71|29|76|0.40|1.06
Roenick|77|35|82|0.45|1.06
H.Sedin|81|19|86|0.23|1.05
D.Sedin|79|31|83|0.40|1.05
Shanahan|77|41|81|0.53|1.04
Gilmour|79|25|82|0.31|1.04
Lafontaine|75|35|77|0.47|1.04
Elias|71|30|74|0.43|1.04
Naslund|80|36|80|0.46|1.00
Nieuwendyk|73|36|71|0.5|0.97
Marleau|81|35|74|0.44|0.93
Ciccarelli|78|35|71|0.44|0.92
Mullen|77|33|69|0.43|0.90
Federko|78|24|76|0.31|0.88
Andreychuk|77|33|67|0.45|0.88
Gartner|80|35|68|0.44|0.85
I expected Kariya to be up near Sakic and Selanne, maybe a little below... but surely not THAT much.
But it must have been his injuries, right? Not so much. The worst era adjusted season that I posted for him was a solid 0.83 PPG. A lot of these guys have a season or a couple like that tacked on at the end.
So how did the injuries affect him? ... I'm an Alfredsson guy, so I'm familiar with his numbers (and lots of injuries :-( ).
NHL PPG rank (min. 27 games)
P. Kariya = 4,5,7,11,18,25,31,43,52,58,62,80,147
Alfrdssn = 3,4,10,12,15,15,16,23,24,28,34,37,54,71
And Kariya hit a bunch of his top finishes precisely because he played seven 82 game seasons and missed 1 game in another season (that's half of his career and he missed 1 game in 8 years).
His key injuries were:
Feb 1998 - after he held out most of the season, Suter hits him in the head. He has another big offensive season the next year.
June 2003 - Stevens smokes him... maybe he was affected in Colorado the next year, but he came back strong after the lockout.
Ok, but in the back of my mind... I'm think about guys like Alfredsson (he's my guy), Recchi (longevity) and Naslund (the non-HHOF comparable for short peaks). But their peaks coincided with specific teammates. Naslund did little before or after Bertuzzi. Kariya was on a domut line like Naslund and had 4 big seasons to Naslund's 3. Recchi's best years by far were on teams with Lemieux/Jagr or Lindros. Alfredsson had some big seasons with Spezza & Heatley. But Kariya's 1-4 & 6th season best PPG ranks were achieved with Selanne and the drop off without him is significant. (Alfredsson's PPG ranks with the CASH line were 1,2,6 & 10th in his career)
Can we separate great Kariya from Selanne in international play? Not easily because he played in the Olympics at 19 in 1994 and 2002 under a PPG with a 14-6-5-11 line.
What did he really miss in his career? 4-5 years of declining seasons after his 35th birthday? I'm just not sure what kind of greatness we missed out on because of the injuries.