Dale Hawerchuk

[Passchendaele]

Where do you rank him among the all-time greats?

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[Big Phil]

Well, not in the top 50, but he can surely crack the top 100 on some lists.

I'm not sure where I'd rank him all time but if I were doing a list of the best players to never win the Cup it would look like this:

Dionne
Park
Perreault
Statsny
Ullman
Hawerchuk

Don't know if that helps or not

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Top 50 center, top 200 player.

He's hard to rank, he was very good, but, he lacks achievement. But, part of that is competition and part of that is playing on a weak team. His quick decline hurts.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

part of the problem with hawerchuk is that it's unclear how much of his decline was due to peaking early, and how much of it was due to him being a guy who put up bigger numbers than he should have because he was the best offensive player on a weak team. don't get me wrong, he was a fantastic number two center in buffalo, but maybe if the jets weren't quite so thin up front in the 80s, he wouldn't have hit 120 or 130.

personally, i rank him somewhere around bure, denis savard, francis, maybe belfour and leetch. ahead of guys like lafontaine, selanne, modano, recchi, and larry murphy. behind guys like macinnis, scott stevens, fedorov, forsberg, and oates.

 

[Dark Shadows]

In the area of 120-140

 

[Stephen]

part of the problem with hawerchuk is that it's unclear how much of his decline was due to peaking early, and how much of it was due to him being a guy who put up bigger numbers than he should have because he was the best offensive player on a weak team. don't get me wrong, he was a fantastic number two center in buffalo, but maybe if the jets weren't quite so thin up front in the 80s, he wouldn't have hit 120 or 130.

personally, i rank him somewhere around bure, denis savard, francis, maybe belfour and leetch. ahead of guys like lafontaine, selanne, modano, recchi, and larry murphy. behind guys like macinnis, scott stevens, fedorov, forsberg, and oates.

Not sure I'd put Hawerchuk ahead of Lafontaine when Lafontaine was ahead of Hawerchuk in Buffalo. Lafontaine did play behind Bryan Trottier on the island for a while in the 80s.

 

[seventieslord]

Not top-120. He was dropped from consideration quite fast when I saw how many names there were to consider. Top-140 is possible. But he's probably about 150th.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Not sure I'd put Hawerchuk ahead of Lafontaine when Lafontaine was ahead of Hawerchuk in Buffalo. Lafontaine did play behind Bryan Trottier on the island for a while in the 80s.

i think that's a case of hawerchuk declining a little early and lafontaine being a bit of a late bloomer. if you match up their careers, their big years (lafontaine in '93, hawerchuk in '85) cancel each other out. so you can't say this is a prime vs. longevity thing, because their peaks are pretty much equal. and if anything, hawerchuk's extended prime ('82-'89) dwarfs lafontaine's ('88-'93), both in length and consistency.

so take out their hart candidate/2nd team all-star seasons and hawerchuk's resume pretty easily beats lafontaine's, i'd say. it's just that, when they were in buffalo, lafontaine was a couple years younger and hitting his peak relatively late, while hawerchuk had reached the second stage of his career, where he was a consistent PPG guy but no longer putting up superstar numbers, a bit early. peak vs. peak, even. prime vs. prime, i think few would take the injury-prone lafontaine in the 90s over the durable and consistent hawerchuk of the 80s. career vs. career, well the numbers bear that one out pretty easily.

 

[saskganesh]

ducky had a great peak.

I'm interested in how you guys will rate him as there was no shortage of talented, offensive centers with great numbers in the 80's.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

In the area of 120-140

That sounds right to me.

But I'd have no problem with him in the top 120. An arguement could be made as he had a great all-around game. Just played with bad teams.

 

[Howe Elbows 9]

ducky had a great peak.

I'm interested in how you guys will rate him as there was no shortage of talented, offensive centers with great numbers in the 80's.

120-140 sounds reasonable.

Dale is sixth in total points from 1980 to 1989 - after Gretzky, Stastny, Kurri, Savard and Coffey. Every player in the top 13 is in the HOF, that is the names I just mentioned along with Goulet, Dionne, Federko, Bossy, Messier, Trottier and Anderson.

 

[tony d]

Somewhere between 100 and 150. He was a good player throughout his career but his not winning a Cup really hurts him.