How do Players Become Overrated?

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Yeah, small market players do get overrated. Anyone remember how hyped Boumeester was in Florida before he left as a UFA? He was a #1 D you build around. Amazing.

No more than big market players, I'd say even less so. I remember when Luke "The Human Eraser" Schenn was touted as untouchable by Leafs fans (and before you say that didn't happen, it did when Leaf fans were proposing Eric Staal to Toronto way back when). I remember when Stuart Percy and Matt Finn were the next big things and viewed as key assets in trade proposals. Big markets tend to over-rate players as much and probably more than small markets simply because they have a bigger fan base (louder voice) and much more media coverage. Victor Mete is all the rave right now. Brady Skjei last year. Zaitsev is being called the greatest UFA signing in ages. Not saying these aren't good players, but if those same players were in Florida, Carolina, AZ, etc... we wouldn't hear a peep about them.

I do think there's a case of people thinking they look more safisticated as a hockey fan if they name guys who don't get seen as much on a small market team as being great. Same with some of the two-way play arguments we see on here.

That's a pretty arrogant and ignorant statement IMO. I think it's more of a case that because the vast majority of fans don't watch small market teams (especially bad ones), they chalk up any "hype" to factors like this simply because they haven't watched the players. I don't know how many times I've heard arguments like the small market one above, or "If he's so good, how come you aren't in the playoffs?" or "I've never heard of him so he can't be that good." Those are simply cop-out responses because a poster hasn't seen the player play much and doesn't know anything about him. Rather than just admit that they don't know much about the player, they chalk up it up to things like that.

 

[Viqsi]

Do people not take the criticisms players get into account when stating who is overrated? Because it's interesting that I view some of the most overrated players in recent years on small market southern teams that don't get much attention. Those players get zero critixcism and their faults aren't picked apart like people in big markets. I think that's often forgotten.
One of the very biggest overrated players in the last few years was Rick Nash in Columbus. He was built up by the media as some two-way monster and franchise player you build your team around. He even escaped criticism when the team was really bad. No way that would happen in Toronto, despite all the "Play in Toronto" responses on here.
Small market players get off easy. Please see the legend off OEL for that in Arizona.

That only applies if a large-market team is desperate to poach that player from a smaller-market team. Toronto desperately wanted Nash to come home, and any number of major teams would love to steal OEL.