Dreakmur
Registered User
In real life certain players are in better positions to score. Hell, every player was in some level of better/worse conditions to score. You want to know why Ziggy Palffy didn't have a better VsX? He played on terrible teams. Mostly gawd awful rosters. You can't quantify that in numbers but that doesn't mean you (or anyone for that matter) should just plug hard numbers in and then say, "well, that's basically the best we can do". Put Palffy on say the Avalanche and I think he's an 85-90 VsX player post career. He was that talented/skilled. People just didn't get to see it much and those who did saw Palffy skating with a lot of low hanging fruit. He's not Jagr, obviously. But like BB (IMO accurately) states about Cournoyer, conditions can absolutely impact statistical output, suppress superior skill. Conversely being in the right place (Ken Hodge) can inflate an inferior player's offensive resume.
I agree that satiations matter, but there are always more than just 1 factor. Better team means a lot of things change, and that makes an entirely unpredictable impact. There's a reason bad teams often have one really high scoring player - because he gets opportunities he normally wouldn't get, and he doesn't have responsibilities or the pressure of playing in important games.
Place Ziggy Palffy on a better team and he does get better linemates. He also doesn't get to average 21 minutes of ice time over his career, including almost 5 minutes on the PP. Does that make his scoring go up or down?