Better hockey player: Lindros or Forsberg? [not career accomplishments]

[JAS 39 Gripen]

Not surprised that Lindros is winning this, sadly. He was bigger and meaner (towards people from Quebec), while Forsberg was better at more stuff, including being a way better playoff performer.

 

[Video Nasty]

Not surprised that Lindros is winning this, sadly. He was bigger and meaner (towards people from Quebec), while Forsberg was better at more stuff, including being a way better playoff performer.

It always baffles me when this stance comes up. Are you technically wrong? Of course not, Forsberg was a great playoff performer. But you're talking about a player who played on perennial stacked Cup contender (yes, they underwhelmed some years).

Are we forgetting that Forsberg missed the whole second half of the Avs 2000-2001 Cup run? He didn't play in the Conference or Cup Finals and they were still clearly an awesome team. He still played 151 playoff games. Lindros played 53 and only 10 past the age of 23.

The Flyers were not bad teams by any means, in fact they were fairly balanced in the regular season from 1994-1995 through 1997-1998, but they were let down by their playoff goaltending a lot.

Hextall and Snow combined to let up 16 goals in 4 games in the SCF sweep. The year after their Cup run, in the first round after coming on in relief of Hextall in Period 2 of Game 1, Burke let up 17 goals in 14 periods of series play to the Sabres who were not known for their offensive prowess. Who is winning a series against a team who ranked in the bottom third in goals scored, with Hasek in net, who gets 10 goals hung on them in crucial Games 3 and 4?

Forsberg had the luxury of getting many more opportunities, playing on a stacked team year in and year with a top 3 goalie all time in between the pipes providing more than just stability and not even being needed to play against the Blues and Devils to get his second ring.

Is this his fault? Did he not rise to the extra opportunities given to him? Of course not.

Not sure how you're going to low key label Lindros as a middling playoff performer (Forsberg being labeled as "way better" implies this).

I just think it's telling what kind of team and opportunities you have around you when you only play 591 regular season games with the Colorado/Quebec, yet you still manage to rack up 140 playoff games with them. Nearly 20% of your games played for one franchise being playoff games is an unbelievably high number.