Stan Smyl was my favorite player in the 80s, just like Iron Mike Sharpe was my favorite wrestler: a couple of hard-working, blue collar lovable losers.
The Canucks didn't really have anything but "almost star" after "almost star" - practically everybody who was ever a top line forward or top pairing D until Bure came along fell into this category: Dale Tallon, Andre Boudrias, Bobby Schmautz, Dennis Kearns, Harold Snepsts, Gary Smith, Don Lever, Smyl, Gradin, Patrick Sundstrom, Tony Tanti, Petri Skriko, Doug Lidster, Dan Quinn, Greg Adams, Cliff Ronning, etc. When we actually got legit stars during this time period, like Barry Pederson, Paul Reinhart, Igor Larionov or Vladimir Krutov, they mysteriously went from being bonafide elite players to being "almost stars" on the level of every other Canuck player.
Other "almost stars" from them days:
Mike Bullard
Keith Acton
Bobby Carpenter
Bill Derlago
Ryan Walter
Brent Sutter
Dave Poulin
Al Secord
Guy Chouinard
Tom Lysiak
Gerard Gallant
Terry Ruskowski
John Anderson
Walt Poddubny
Brian Sutter
Dave Ellet
Brian Engblom
Jorgen Pettersson
Brian Mullen
etc etc etc
we could do this all day long....