Sturminator
Love is a duel
If by "early in his career", you mean Robinson's prime, you're spot on. Larry Robinson's prime was basically 76-82, six years of true greatness. He had a sort of rennaissance later on (helping to break in Chelios, among other things), but after 1982, he was a different player than he'd been earlier in his career. He stopped rushing the puck up ice so much and focused on really shutting down opposing forwards, probably because he knew it was the best thing for the team.
Full credit to Robinson for adapting his game to a different situation and he was very good as a more conservative shutdown defender who preferred to head-man the puck than rush it out, but he also lost a good chunk of his offensive pop and stopped getting serious Norris consideration because of the change in style. After 1982, Larry Robinson received Norris votes exactly twice more in his career: 3rd in 85-86 and 4th in 86-87.
The Larry Robinson I described was the player in his prime, though admittedly the example of him getting burned by Park in 74 wasn't really fair, as it was Robinson's first full season in the league.
Joe Pelletier was in diapers when Larry Robinson won his first Norris (though I hope Joe was out of diapers by 82). Although I have no desire to disparage him, Joe Pelletier was probably more interested in his belly-button than hockey when Larry Robinson was in his prime. Having seen a lot of Robinson, myself, I know that he wasn't the offensive puck-rushing dynamo and the "flawless defender" at the same point in his career. His legend hasn't slipped quite far enough into the past to escape the microscope just yet.
Someday, someone will claim that Steve Yzerman was a super dominant 2-way forward after reading a bio that mentions only the positives in his career and isn't clear in its chronology. Hopefully, someone who saw Yzerman play will be around to point out that it's not true.
