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.