Are there players whose legacy changes with just a few points?

[Gambitman]

So the thread about Mike Bossy got me thinking about players who might have been able to enhance their legacy or place on top lists with just a few more goals or assists in the right season.

Take Mike Bossy if he scores 11 more goals in his career (fairly insignificant) he goes to a 3 time 70 goal scorer and a 6 time 60+ goal scorer. Does this put him as the greatest goal scorer of all time.

Does 1 more point for Lemieux giving him 200 change his spot on all time lists?

If Gretzky scores 18 more points he has 6 consecutive 200 point seasons. For those that don't have him as #1 all time, does this change your ranking?

Second Tier players

Michel Goulet
3 more goals gives him 6 consecutive 50 goal seasons. I don't think I ever heard him brought up when great goal scorers are mentioned. Does this change with 6 consecutive 50 goal seasons.

Dave Taylor a bit of a reach I admit but 27 points over 3 seasons (1 of which he was out for around 20 games) gives him 5 100 point seasons.

Click to read more...

 

[wetcoast]

Marcel Dionne with just 10 more playoff points with Los angeles really comes to mind.

Mats Sundin with a few of his points more concentrated on a peak, instead of just a ridiculously long and consistent prime.

Forsberg just playing 20 more games in Colorado in the playoffs and regular season.

Crosby with just 20 more games spread out over any season since 12-13.

 

[Pominville Knows]

Bossy is overrated as it is as a goal scorer, so no thanks to that scenario.
He was better than Bernie Nicholls though.

 

[GlitchMarner]

Mats Sundin with a few of his points more concentrated on a peak, instead of just a ridiculously long and consistent prime..

Yeah, if Sundin had the same number of career points and the same points per game average but had started off slower (like, say, Thornton) and had faded to about a ~60 point player after the '04 lockout but had really killed it offensively between '97 and '04, there would be less bitching that he's in the HHOF (not that people who actually know their hockey typically complain that he is).

 

[GlitchMarner]

If Ovechkin had played the full season in '09 and '10, he might have won the Art Ross in both seasons (definitely would have in 2010) and would likely have another Hart.

 

[MadLuke]

Crosby feel like a big one, 12 points away of having 5 Art Ross instead of 2, imagine him being a 5 Art Ross winner like Jagr with that playoff success, change a lot of things.

Hard to say about Maurice Richard, but with only 2 more points he would have had 2 art Ross instead of 0, that said in his the reason he never had one are well known, so not sure it hurt is legacy much.

 

[tony d]

I think if Bossy had of stayed healthy and played at his pace for a few more seasons he probably is considered the best goal scorer ever.

 

[wetcoast]

I think if Bossy had of stayed healthy and played at his pace for a few more seasons he probably is considered the best goal scorer ever.

I doubt that as the era really helped him.

He is among the best ever no doubt.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Rick Middleton

12 more points gets him to 1,000 and he's already in the HOF instead of being the best excluded player.

He's at 988 in 1,005 games

 

[Nick Hansen]

Tavares losing the Art Ross to Benn with one single point less in 14/15.

Giroux was six points behind McDavid last year, good enough for second in scoring.

 

[sr edler]

I think I heard H. Zetterberg once mocking the "NHL assist". It's a puck slightly touching your pants when you're skating in a different direction (line change) and then a couple of other guys deflects the puck (but they're not on your team, so they don't count) while it's on its way towards the net. Then a rebound. Then scramble. Then the puck turns up on someones stick by chance for a backhand wrap-around that the goalie will regret for the the rest of the evening. (that's not Zetterberg's description though but just something I made up, I don't think he went into details)

 

[wetcoast]

Rick Middleton

12 more points gets him to 1,000 and he's already in the HOF instead of being the best excluded player.

He's at 988 in 1,005 games

I think Shifty has some competition for best player not in the HHOF and really all he needed was Barry Pederson not getting that tumour as both players were never the same after that happened.

In fact if the Bruns didn't have those 2 catastrophic incidents to 2 of their young forwards, Normand Leveille, who was off to a great start after 9 games in 82-83 and then was done, guys like Middleton would have made the HHOF and we might even think higher of Ray Bourque.

Hard to tell because Pederson became Neely and Glen Wesley.

But I think a healthy Pederson and Leveille would have made those Bruin teams much better.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Take Mike Bossy if he scores 11 more goals in his career (fairly insignificant) he goes to a 3 time 70 goal scorer and a 6 time 60+ goal scorer. Does this put him as the greatest goal scorer of all time.

Hell no.

7 different players scored 70 goals in Bossy's era and he's not even one of them.

You simply cannot be the goat when 7 guys in your own era peaked higher.

For anyone who would say a player's legacy is significantly altered by 10 goals - I'd say their criteria is arbitrary.

 

[c9777666]

Pierre Larouche and Alexander Mogilny

2 more goals in 1983-84 for Larouche and a few more in 2000-01 would have made them the only players to have 50 goal seasons on 3 different teams.

Or Mogilny’s ‘01 teammate Elias- that close to being the only Devil to have 50 goals and/or 100 points

 

[The Panther]

I don't think these kinds of things really affect anyone's legacy.

Who scored the most NHL goals as a teenager? Jimmy Carson! Didn't really make his great legacy.

 

[Sadekuuro]

With one more goal, Bronco Horvath would have won the goal scoring title outright and, via that point and tiebreaker, the Art Ross. If he hadn't missed those two games, he might be much better known today.

 

[Asheville]

Two more regular season goals in '88-'89 for Tim Kerr and he's enshrined in the HHOF.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Tavares losing the Art Ross to Benn with one single point less in 14/15.

Giroux was six points behind McDavid last year, good enough for second in scoring.

by the same token if corey perry scores one less goal, both sedins have hart trophies

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i’m not above admitting that if mike gartner scored five more goals spread out correctly between 81, 88, and 91, i’m probably not nearly as hard on “four time 50 goal scorer mike gartner.”

 

[Sticks and Pucks]

If Markus Naslund had scored a hat trick in the final game of the 02-03 regular season, he would have won the Art Ross, Rocket Richard, Hart Trophy, and division title instead of coming away with none of those that season. He'd probably have been more well regarded today.

 

[VanIslander]

Rocket Richard scored exactly 50 goals in 1945 in a depleted NHL. He would never have more than 45 again.

How many times is he touted as the first to score 50 goals? (Never with an asterix for war years even though other players' accomplishments are often discounted due to reduced competition level - a pet peeve). One bloody goal makes all the difference.

Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion would have gotten the "first to score 50 goals!" moniker for what he did in 1961.


"Ha ha. I had 50, not 49, against gimpy replacements, so your 50 ain't so significant, eh? Funny, no?"

 

[MadLuke]

How many times is he touted as the first to score 50 goals?

And all the 50 in 50 talk that continue to today and with the youngest generation getting explain were it came from and hearing about it, maybe even the Maurice Richard Trophy on the line if he score just 49.

That sound like a good candidate for a winner here for the most relevant regular season goal (has affecting goal total number and legacy and not winning a game that put some team in a playoff spot type).

 

[sr edler]

If Markus Naslund had scored a hat trick in the final game of the 02-03 regular season, he would have won the Art Ross, Rocket Richard, Hart Trophy, and division title instead of coming away with none of those that season. He'd probably have been more well regarded today.

He would have been, but it's not like you score a hattrick in a meaningful game by accident. That's quite a stretch of a "what if" scenario. He still would have looked sad though.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

If Markus Naslund had scored a hat trick in the final game of the 02-03 regular season, he would have won the Art Ross, Rocket Richard, Hart Trophy, and division title instead of coming away with none of those that season. He'd probably have been more well regarded today.

in this hypothetical scenario, markus naslund ends the '03 regular season with this game--

 

[The Panther]

Could we show some respect for Maurice Richard? Yeah, the first 50 goal season is cool but it's hardly the main reason he's a legend. He had, like, 13 great years after the war and retired as far and away the top goal scorer of all time.