I disagree on the lack of significance you accredit to international tournaments. It’s not one moment in one game, it’s not that he assisted on a gold winning goal (as he did in 2006), it’s what he did routinely, in dozens and dozens of games in several high quality and best on best tournaments over two decades.
1. Mats Sundin, with notoriously weak offensive support, scored the 3rd most points of the dead puck era. In the five lowest scoring seasons since 1955-1956, he was outscored only by Jagr and Sakic. Between 1997-98 and 2003-04, these were his points tallies with the team’s runner-up (or leader) in parenthesis: 74 (Mike Johnson 47), 83 (Steve Thomas 73), 73 (Steve Thomas 63), 74 (Gary Roberts 53), 80 (Darcy Tucker 59), 72 (Alex Mogilny 79), 75 (Bryan McCabe 53). Now, overall points is fine, but Sundin was one of the premiere goal scoring centers of his era. Second only to Sakic, in fact. His regular season stats are very impressive, truly underrated, considering the era and the cast he had to work with.
2. In playoff scoring, he’s eleventh between 1997-98 and 2003-04 with 24-33-57 in 64 games. All ten players above him were on the powerhouse Avalance, Devils, Red Wings or Stars teams and scored their points in between 10 to 40, or an average of 25 more playoff games than Sundin. In 19 career elimination games, Sundin scored 5-12-17. According to
Hockey Outsider’s calculations, Sundin’s playoff scoring was up by 13,6% relative to expectations, suggesting he was a gamer come playoff time. Out of 15 forwards you named that HO ran the numbers on, Gilmour, Delvecchio, Perreault and Hawerchuk were better playoff performers by those metrics. My point is, Sundin and the Leafs had many disappointing playoffs, but the player showed up, led the team and did great for someone outside of the powerhouses.
3. That international competition necessarily should be regarded as less important than anything else because of its small sample size seems like a bullshit rule to me. That he had such an impact there wasn’t luck and running up the score against Latvia.
Sundin looks great in large sample sizes like his 18 year career, or most 3-5-10 year spans, however worse in single season scoring: looking at his teams and what he consistently did despite a lack of support, helps explain some of that. But I think that instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt when comparing his NHL accolades to star players’ who had better support, you can look at what he did when he actually was on a good team, as was often the case with Team Sweden.
On the international stage was where he had quality support and played against the best teams. In the 1991 Canada Cup he was the only non-American named to the all-star team. He led Sweden with 6 points in 6 games against the best players in the world, and this was following his rookie season. Again in 1996, in 4 games, he was the standout on Team Sweden, his 7 points in 4 games being good for third in the tournament, he was named 1st star twice, 2nd star once, and he had an assist in the 2-3 OT loss vs Canada. He made the tournament all star team once again. Nagano and Salt Lake City were disappointing tournaments for Sweden, but Sundin scored 3+1 in two games vs Canada and you can go back through game logs and check how much Sundin preyed on weak teams. Here’s what’s what: it’s not there, he performed against any competition. Sundin was the man for Team Sweden as much as Forsberg was, but in addition to that, he was the captain and led with heart as well as excellent play.
I bet most guys you named had decent international careers as well, but please don’t imply that Sundin’s wasn’t a big deal.
