How good was Mats Sundin?

[LeBlondeDemon10]

In addition to what's been written, Sundin did not hang around long after experiencing his initial decline from his consistent play. The exact opposite of a compiler.

 

[Stephen]

Seems like we aren't agreeing on the definition of what a 'compiler' is. I'm thinking it's someone who seems to score more points than their actual value on the ice, whether it's a monster statistical season like Mark Recchi in 1992, 1993 or 2000 implying he's a tier above what he actually is, or someone who just plods along over a very long career like a Dave Andreychuk or Ray Whitney.

In contrast, I think Sundin's stats under sell how good he really was on the ice. The Leafs were never really able to give him a strong offensive running mate in his prime, yet he still put up around a point a game in a dead puck era, and was remarkably consistent over a 15 year period.

Another player who would be antithesis of a 'compiler' would be Scott Niedermayer. For different reasons than Sundin, his offensive output was pretty subpar for a large stretch of his prime, yet I think we're all comfortable in saying he was one of the great offensive defensemen of his era and way, way better than guys like Redden and Kaberle whom he was statistically similar to in the early 2000s.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Mats Sundin finished Top 10 in NHL scoring TWICE. That's not a lot. In 2001-2002 he finished 8th in Hart voting, his only Top 10 for the trophy.

Yes, but you have to factor in how poor his linemate support was known to be. I dont think any franchise 1C in the last 20-30 years has played with a supporting cast that bad.

There are a lot of Toronto players I'd rank over Sundin. Just on top of my head I'd definitely have Kennedy, Apps, Conacher, Horton, Keon, Cameron, Jackson, Bower, Broda over him, and I try to ignore the multi-team careers like Mahovlich and company, many of which might have accomplished more in their shorter stint in Toronto than Sundin ever did. But I'll let the Leafs fans put together a more rigorous list if they feel like it.

Personally, I might go with Clancy, Apps, Horton, Keon, Broda. I could be talked into Jackson, and I think Wendell Clark at least deserves consideration.

Ive never actually heard of Harry Cameron until today

 

[Ishdul]

Considering Wendel Clark over Sundin is insanely discrediting.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i’ve never heard a name in the same sentence as the word compiler as much as mike gartner’s. i’m 99% sure that’s in reference to his four million 30 goal seasons that added up to 700, not his twilight years in the league.

anyway, i like @Stephen ’s definition. don’t agree with his take on recchi, but the definition feels right. i do think that it’s more career totals overstate the year to year eliteness of the player but both can work. ie, we can have the andreychuk-type compiler everyone here is talking about, the mike ribeiro/craig janney kind stephen seems to be talking about, and the gartner kind that i’m most familiar with.

in any event, who cares about words? with sundin the criticism will always be a lot of points, very few high finishes, that everyone else with 1,350 pts other than shanahan has legit superduperstar scoring seasons, even if in the case of bucyk and francis they were situation-aided. if you want to call that by a different word go nuts.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Yes, but you have to factor in how poor his linemate support was known to be. I dont think any franchise 1C in the last 20-30 years has played with a supporting cast that bad.



Personally, I might go with Clancy, Apps, Horton, Keon, Broda. I could be talked into Jackson, and I think Wendell Clark at least deserves consideration.

Ive never actually heard of Harry Cameron until today

Technically, Cameron's career was not spent with the "Leafs" but with its many ancestors.

Harry Cameron - Wikipedia

He was some sort of original Paul Coffey and was central to multiple Stanley Cup championships with Toronto. He had a bad reputation as being uncoachable.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Yes, but you have to factor in how poor his linemate support was known to be. I dont think any franchise 1C in the last 20-30 years has played with a supporting cast that bad.



Personally, I might go with Clancy, Apps, Horton, Keon, Broda. I could be talked into Jackson, and I think Wendell Clark at least deserves consideration.

Ive never actually heard of Harry Cameron until today

Also, sorry for the double reply, but Ted Kennedy has to be ranked over Mats Sundin. There's no way around it. Kennedy was at the center of five Stanley Cup championships with the Maple Leafs. He was the cornerstone.

Johnny Bower would have a very solid case over him too.

I might as well rank Frank Mahovlich, Red Kelly, Georges Armstrong, Jimmy Thomson over him too, and maybe others I forget about, but I try to keep it simple for now and insist that Ted Kennedy was miles and miles beyond Sundin as a Leaf.

Oh, and Charlie Conacher too is a lock.

 

[The Panther]

i’ve never heard a name in the same sentence as the word compiler as much as mike gartner’s. i’m 99% sure that’s in reference to his four million 30 goal seasons that added up to 700, not his twilight years in the league.

Gartner didn't have any twilight years in the League. He had one year, at the very end (1997-98), where he was struggling a bit to score, and then he instantly retired. That is the exact opposite of a compiler.

I'd much rather have a Sundin-type producer, who (after one early career spike when he was "second line" and didn't face the best checkers every game) scored in the top-10 to top-20 in the League every year, than the Bernie Nicholls' type, who was all over the place with point-totals, from 4th-line level at the end to out-pacing Messier and Yzerman c.1988-1990. Consistency is really, really impressive.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Also sorry to everyone for bringing up the word "compiler". I meant that he compiled a lot of solid seasons, but ultimately little peak value to speak of where he was a great player as opposed to just very good.

Sundin was often compared to Modano, but Modano has a lot more going for him, like great two-way play and two trips to the SC Finals (including one cup) where he played stupid minutes for a forward.

 

[The Panther]

Also, sorry for the double reply, but Ted Kennedy has to be ranked over Mats Sundin. There's no way around it. Kennedy was at the center of five Stanley Cup championships with the Maple Leafs. He was the cornerstone.

Did Kennedy have a greater career? Sure, you can't ignore his Cups and impact. But was he a better individual performer than Sundin? I'm gonna say no. Kennedy played (early on) on a stacked and powerful club, with a lot of help, and he was often outscored by teammates (his playoff stats also took a huge plunge in the 50s, when competition got tougher). Sundin was undisputed best guy on his team, every year, for longer than Kennedy, in a deeper era, with much less help.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Did Kennedy have a greater career? Sure, you can't ignore his Cups and impact. But was he a better individual performer than Sundin? I'm gonna say no. Kennedy played (early on) on a stacked and powerful club, with a lot of help, and he was often outscored by teammates (his playoff stats also took a huge plunge in the 50s, when competition got tougher). Sundin was undisputed best guy on his team, every year, for longer than Kennedy, in a deeper era, with much less help.

You have a huge tendency to judge a player strictly on their offensive contributions. Ted Kennedy was a beast defensively and on faceoffs, a RHS center too. Cannot compare him with Sundin on offense numbers. Kennedy's name meant a lot in the subsequent era after he retired.

You start by attacking the fact Kennedy played on stacked teams, then use the fact Sundin was more often the best player on his teams as a case for Sundin. This is highly questionable logic.

 

[The Panther]

You have a huge tendency to judge a player strictly on their offensive contributions.

No, I don't.

I have been (quite easily) convinced that Syl Apps is the greatest Maple Leaf ever, and I'm happy to say I was wrong about that. In the case of Kennedy (having not seen the guy play, but going by reputation, and what I've read, learned, and seen), I could see maybe a tie with Sundin.

Some of those other guys that have been mentioned (Keon, Horton, Clancy), I don't see them being over Sundin at all. Turk Broda, as a goalie I obviously didn't see play, is a bit of a difficult comparison, so I dunno.

In Leafs' history, I'm thinking:
1. Apps
2A. Sundin
2B. Kennedy
4. others

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Considering Wendel Clark over Sundin is insanely discrediting.

Thanks for that detailed rebuttal.

Technically, Cameron's career was not spent with the "Leafs" but with its many ancestors.

Harry Cameron - Wikipedia

He was some sort of original Paul Coffey and was central to multiple Stanley Cup championships with Toronto. He had a bad reputation as being uncoachable.

Paul Coffey is an immortal lizard person, confirmed

Also, sorry for the double reply, but Ted Kennedy has to be ranked over Mats Sundin. There's no way around it. Kennedy was at the center of five Stanley Cup championships with the Maple Leafs. He was the cornerstone.

Johnny Bower would have a very solid case over him too.

I might as well rank Frank Mahovlich, Red Kelly, Georges Armstrong, Jimmy Thomson over him too, and maybe others I forget about, but I try to keep it simple for now and insist that Ted Kennedy was miles and miles beyond Sundin as a Leaf.

Oh, and Charlie Conacher too is a lock.

Did Kennedy have a greater career? Sure, you can't ignore his Cups and impact. But was he a better individual performer than Sundin? I'm gonna say no. Kennedy played (early on) on a stacked and powerful club, with a lot of help, and he was often outscored by teammates (his playoff stats also took a huge plunge in the 50s, when competition got tougher). Sundin was undisputed best guy on his team, every year, for longer than Kennedy, in a deeper era, with much less help.

My impression of Kennedy is that he was like a Jonathan Toews-lite, leader, good offence, good defence, but never truly elite. Actually looking over his AS & Hart voting records, yeah I think hes on par with Sundin. Not nearly as many votes, but they are O6 era votes. Im torn here, I always had the impression that Kennedy was just another face in a team run by a strong system, but his Hart win is awfully hard to argue against.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

No, I don't.

I have been (quite easily) convinced that Syl Apps is the greatest Maple Leaf ever,

Strongly agree on this

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Some of those other guys that have been mentioned (Keon, Horton, Clancy), I don't see them being over Sundin at all. Turk Broda, as a goalie I obviously didn't see play, is a bit of a difficult comparison, so I dunno.

Broda is a very hazy case, one of those players that goes so far back that ranking him as an all time great comes with an asterisk saying hes an all time great when we bell curve his era.

That being said the strongest points in his favour are his unholy playoff numbers, his awards voting, and the reputation AFAIK that the leafs of his prime were actually offensively focused, and not nearly as air-tight as the 60s squads that Bower played behind. He is referenced as having to make multiple difficult saves a game to cover up for his teams mistakes. Funny, that sounds like Andersson now that I think of it...

 

[seventieslord]

THN had it right when they had Sundin 11th all-time in Toronto history.

Broda and Bower are two goalies ahead. Broda, easily.

Among defensemen, we have Horton, Salming and Clancy. Think Clancy is a stretch? Check his Hart voting as a leaf.

Among forwards, Apps, Kennedy, Conacher and Keon are no-brainers. Jackson is almost a top-100 player, typically a lot closer to that starts than Sundin in this section. Sittler is nearly Sundin's equal but I'd take Mats there.

Sure, he had great career totals and he was their best player for a long time, but given who else they had, does that really say much? All the other players I named occupied a higher rung on Hockey's ladder, and more often, than Sundin did. The team achieved very little of consequence with him in charge. The only other player ahead of him who didn't win a lot, was Salming, and his Allstar voting record is just too strong.

I mean how are broda, Salming, Horton, apps, Keon, Conacher and Kennedy even debatable? For all intents and purposes, all of their resumes and all of Sundin's are based on their time as Leafs, and they're all solidly top-100 all-time players based on that, and he's..... solidly not. Anyone in this section who has any respect at all for the work we did in that project needs to agree with that at least, because it's not like he was even close to being up for discussion. We can be wrong, but we're not that wrong.

Career totals fetishists and "newer is better" attitudes don't belong in this section. We're better than that.

 

[BenchBrawl]

THN had it right when they had Sundin 11th all-time in Toronto history.

Broda and Bower are two goalies ahead. Broda, easily.

Among defensemen, we have Horton, Salming and Clancy. Think Clancy is a stretch? Check his Hart voting as a leaf.

Among forwards, Apps, Kennedy, Conacher and Keon are no-brainers. Jackson is almost a top-100 player, typically a lot closer to that starts than Sundin in this section. Sittler is nearly Sundin's equal but I'd take Mats there.

Sure, he had great career totals and he was their best player for a long time, but given who else they had, does that really say much? All the other players I named occupied a higher rung on Hockey's ladder, and more often, than Sundin did. The team achieved very little of consequence with him in charge. The only other player ahead of him who didn't win a lot, was Salming, and his Allstar voting record is just too strong.

I mean how are broda, Salming, Horton, apps, Keon, Conacher and Kennedy even debatable? For all intents and purposes, all of their resumes and all of Sundin's are based on their time as Leafs, and they're all solidly top-100 all-time players based on that, and he's..... solidly not. Anyone in this section who has any respect at all for the work we did in that project needs to agree with that at least, because it's not like he was even close to being up for discussion. We can be wrong, but we're not that wrong.

Career totals fetishists and "newer is better" attitudes don't belong in this section. We're better than that.

100% agreed. There has to be a minimal pyramid of shared assumptions we can take as axiomatic in order for good discussions to occur.

Having to justify Kennedy over Sundin on this board is something that was maybe necessary 10 years ago, but should be near-axiomatic today.

 

[The Pale King]

Just an excellent player, year to year. You knew what you were getting from Sundin going into the season. That makes the GM and coach's job easier. Those guys let him down. And I think people are conflating the word 'consistent' with 'compiler' here. Guy was like clockwork.

He played close to twice as many games as Peter Forsberg (638 more than Foppa's 708 in the RS), most of them as the only elite option for his team, compared with Forsberg's 1a 1b with Sakic. I don't even think it's fair to compare the two, work load-wise.

Sundin turned Sergei Berezin into a 37 goal scorer. Forsberg never came close to that number himself.

 

[scott clam]

Just an excellent player, year to year. You knew what you were getting from Sundin going into the season. That makes the GM and coach's job easier. Those guys let him down. And I think people are conflating the word 'consistent' with 'compiler' here. Guy was like clockwork.

He played close to twice as many games as Peter Forsberg (638 more than Foppa's 708 in the RS), most of them as the only elite option for his team, compared with Forsberg's 1a 1b with Sakic. I don't even think it's fair to compare the two, work load-wise.

Sundin turned Sergei Berezin into a 37 goal scorer. Forsberg never came close to that number himself.

Forsberg wasn't a goal scorer. Except in the playoffs.

 

[scott clam]

Gartner didn't have any twilight years in the League. He had one year, at the very end (1997-98), where he was struggling a bit to score, and then he instantly retired. That is the exact opposite of a compiler.

I'd much rather have a Sundin-type producer, who (after one early career spike when he was "second line" and didn't face the best checkers every game) scored in the top-10 to top-20 in the League every year, than the Bernie Nicholls' type, who was all over the place with point-totals, from 4th-line level at the end to out-pacing Messier and Yzerman c.1988-1990. Consistency is really, really impressive.

I think a lot of people seem to forget that Gartner was considered a solid two-way player back in the 1980s, and on one of the more defensive minded teams to boot. The guy was anything but "soft", and we all know how fast he could skate.

Gets a bad rap for only playing one semifinal, and zero finals.

 

[Gubbhornet]

Just an excellent player, year to year. You knew what you were getting from Sundin going into the season. That makes the GM and coach's job easier. Those guys let him down. And I think people are conflating the word 'consistent' with 'compiler' here. Guy was like clockwork.

He played close to twice as many games as Peter Forsberg (638 more than Foppa's 708 in the RS), most of them as the only elite option for his team, compared with Forsberg's 1a 1b with Sakic. I don't even think it's fair to compare the two, work load-wise.

Sundin turned Sergei Berezin into a 37 goal scorer. Forsberg never came close to that number himself.

Maybe Sakic is a better comparison to Sundin than Forsberg? At least from a GM perspective.

 

[The Panther]

Having to justify Kennedy over Sundin on this board is something that was maybe necessary 10 years ago, but should be near-axiomatic today.

I don't understand this opinion at all. It's fine to say you're entrenched in Kennedy over Sundin (or whoever), but you should acknowledge that there's at least a discussion to be had there. Probably a very two-way discussion.

 

[JackSlater]

I don't see how Sundin could possibly be rated better than say, seventh among Toronto players unless someone basically disregards the strongest periods in the franchise's history. Sundin was by far the best player during a poor era in Toronto, but that doesn't mean so much when Toronto has great players who played on dynasty level teams.

 

[scott clam]

I don't see how Sundin could possibly be rated better than say, seventh among Toronto players unless someone basically disregards the strongest periods in the franchise's history. Sundin was by far the best player during a poor era in Toronto, but that doesn't mean so much when Toronto has great players who played on dynasty level teams.

Is there any other franchise that is comparable in this regard? Maybe if St. Louis becomes a mini-dynasty...

Closest Leaf that is comparable to Sundin is probably Sittler. Sundin is kindof like Sittler with better longevity, and longer tenure, but not as good in the playoffs.

Actually, Salming is a good comparable for Sundin as well.

 

[The Panther]

Closest Leaf that is comparable to Sundin is probably Sittler. Sundin is kindof like Sittler with better longevity, and longer tenure, but not as good in the playoffs.

Was he not as good in the playoffs? Sittler is before my time, but I'm looking at his 65 points in 64 games, and minus 14, versus Mats' 70 points in 77 games, and plus 7, in the dead puck era. Just based on those stats, I would likely prefer Sundin. (I'm not aware of any particular intangibles Sittler brought to the table besides offense, but I could be wrong.)