Player Discussion Linden vs Naslund

[Shareefruck]

Why does Derek Dorsett have more heart than Elias Pettersson? I would argue the opposite. Being a grinding tough guy doesn't automatically mean you have heart. He has on and off periods like anyone else, but I can't say that I've never seen Dorsett's game, limited as it is, raise his game when the stakes increase. In fact, I can recall more instances of Dorsett playing like a lazy passenger than Pettersson has.

It's a horrible example.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Bert has the problem faced by many players.....too much skill to the point he often coasted JUST relying on those skills. Burr didn’t have that luxury.

that's why i feel like saying dorsett had more heart than petey doesn't make sense. the thing we're all so excited about petey isn't just the sublime skill, it's the character and work ethic. pure skillwise, he's pretty in range of bert, mogilny, bure, or naslund. but in terms of wanting to be the best possible player he can be and working on things the hard way, he laps them all.

 

[Shareefruck]

that's why i feel like saying dorsett had more heart than petey doesn't make sense. the thing we're all so excited about petey isn't just the sublime skill, it's the character and work ethic. pure skillwise, he's pretty in range of bert, mogilny, bure, or naslund. but in terms of wanting to be the best possible player he can be and working on things the hard way, he laps them all.

Agreed. That said, there obviously is an extreme where the logic does undeniably apply, but the difference in skill between Linden and Naslund doesn't match that extreme. Would anyone take Tyler Motte over Alex Kovalev? Would anyone NOT take Tyler Motte over Fedor Fedorov, though?

Like any other singular skill, heart can add leaps and bounds to your baseline value and can close the gap between players with contrasting skill levels, but it's not a miracle worker.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Agreed. That said, there obviously is an extreme where the logic does undeniably apply, but the difference in skill between Linden and Naslund doesn't match that extreme. Would anyone take Tyler Motte over Alex Kovalev? Would anyone NOT take Tyler Motte over Fedor Fedorov, though?

Like any other singular skill, heart can add leaps and bounds to your baseline value and can close the gap between players with contrasting skill levels, but it's not a miracle worker.

personally, i think burrows vs bertuzzi maps quite nicely onto linden vs naslund

 

[Shareefruck]

personally, i think burrows vs bertuzzi maps quite nicely onto linden vs naslund

Naslund's heart wasn't nearly as questionable as Bertuzzi's was IMO-- If anything, it gets blown out of proportion because of Bertuzzi and the fact that he's expected to do too much without the right supporting cast to do it. The optics of how much heart he plays with completely 180'd during the stretch where he played with Morrison and Cooke for a reason, IMO.

Also, Linden was much more naturally talented than Burrows was.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Naslund's heart wasn't nearly as questionable as Bertuzzi's was IMO-- If anything, it gets blown out of proportion because of Bertuzzi and the fact that he's expected to do too much without the right supporting cast to do it. The optics of how much heart he plays with completely 180'd during the stretch where he played with Morrison and Cooke for a reason, IMO.

Also, Linden was much more naturally talented than Burrows was.

true, but then it 180ed right back after

personally, i don't think naslund was heartless. or at least i think he tried harder and applied himself more than bertuzzi did, if that's what we mean by heart.

but if we take heart to describe the kinds of non-scoring intangibles of applying yourself in all the non-scoring aspects of the game like forechecking, defending, winning puck battles, versatility, plus ability to come through in big moments, i'd have them

naslund = A talent, neutral intangibles at best

linden = B+ talent (good enough to make multiple team canadas and be second overall in a very top heavy draft), high intangibles

bertuzzi = A- talent (but A if you factor in his unique physical skillset when the refs let him beast), negative intangibles

burrows = C+/B- skillset at best, A+ intangibles

 

[Shareefruck]

true, but then it 180ed right back after

personally, i don't think naslund was heartless. or at least i think he tried harder and applied himself more than bertuzzi did, if that's what we mean by heart.

but if we take heart to describe the kinds of non-scoring intangibles of applying yourself in all the non-scoring aspects of the game like forechecking, defending, winning puck battles, versatility, plus ability to come through in big moments, i'd have them

naslund = A talent, neutral intangibles at best

linden = B+ talent (good enough to make multiple team canadas and be second overall in a very top heavy draft), high intangibles

bertuzzi = A- talent (but A if you factor in his unique physical skillset when the refs let him beast), negative intangibles

burrows = C+/B- skillset at best, A+ intangibles

Agreed, but that's why I don't think they map on very nicely. The gap in heart between Burrows and Bertuzzi is far more significant than the gap between Linden and Naslund. Neutral is a pretty good way to describe Naslund's heart. It looks worse than it is because of the circumstances and the desire for your captain/best player to be above and beyond, IMO. If he was in a Milan Hejduk-esque role playing with Forsberg long-term or something, nobody would be complaining about his lack of heart, IMO.

 

[Didalee Hed]

i mean, i guess one could act like regular season scoring is objective fact and everything else that happens in hockey is some combination of sentimentality, nostalgia, and small sample sizes.

or, without even getting into all the good counter-arguments to that position that have been made in this thread, you could alternately wonder why we would even care about hockey if not for the emotional aspects of it.

i'll say personally that i remember naslund for low moments. i remember bure, linden, the sedins, even luongo for high moments.

i remember refreshing the browser over and over again during that regular season game against the kings, waiting for naslund to score and when LA got the empty netter going, ayfkm? that feeling of losing the rocket, art ross, first place in the division all in one game was so disappointing.

i remember games 5-7 of the minnesota series when we had a clear shot to the finals with detroit, colorado, and dallas all being upset and then naslund scoring zero goals as we lost a series we were up 3-1 in.

and the thing is, each time, i expected him to do something. it's not like i was like, man that naslund's a loser, watch him he's totally going to lose. for the first time ever we had a guy who could legitimately win a scoring championship. it was exciting. he was the first guy we had that came close to an MVP. you were waiting for him to do what bure did, because regular season scoring told you that (relative to his peers) he was better than bure was. you expected him to do what joe sakic would have done and say, enough, i'm taking over everybody on my back. you expected him to put on a show like the sedins did on the last day of the 2010 season, or at least like they did in that first game six against chicago going goal for goal against toews and kane while luongo was earning his new nickname.

and so in 2004, after all the craziness, i expected him to come through in that game seven. i was totally prepared for him and morrison and cooke to finally do something in the playoffs and show that the problem was bertuzzi all along. and they almost did. morrison had a whale of a series and in game six after choking away a 4-0 lead basically willed the puck into the net against calgary's big mean d in triple OT. cooke looked like, well alex burrows. and naslund was having his best series ever by far.

so end of game seven, auld is on the bench, iginla has the empty net, someone throws a jersey on the ice—and after all that had happened in the last two years wouldn't you?—iginla hits the side of the net, ohlund collects the puck and brings it up the ice, drops it to naslund at center ice, naslund goes super wide, turns on the jets, outmuscles leopold, tries to jam it five hole on kiprusoff, matt cooke crashes the net and bangs it home.



and then like a minute into OT gelinas scores.

and then we wouldn't see the canucks again for eighteen months.

there's just so much overwhelming negativity with him. it's like pierre turgeon in a way; the guy scored bonkers points in the regular season but the first image most people have of his playing career is him getting cheap shotted.

Hard to argue anything here

I award you a(1) like

 

[F A N]

Even after leaving Vancouver and playing a more defensively focussed role, his production for the time - a third line C / defensive specialist in the dead puck era - was still pretty solid. He just ran into injury troubles. If you extrapolate his production over a full 82-game schedule, here’s how how time away from Vancouver would have looked - not including the season he was traded from Vancouver, back to Vancouver, or his first season in Long Island as he largely played those seasons;

1998/1999 - 82GP, 18G, 29A, 47Pts
1999/2000 - 82GP, 21G, 28A, 49Pts
2000/2001 - 82GP, 18G, 26A, 44Pts

In 2002/2003, he had 19 goals and 41 points in 71 games - good for 22 goals and 25 assists (47 points) over the full 82.

His production certainly wasn’t as good as his prime, but he was a solid offensive contributor playing in his primarily defensive role.

I think Linden is a good player in any era. But being a elite level (or just below) 3rd line player or C is different from being a 1st line winger. My point is that Linden wasn't a 1st line winger during the dead puck clutch and grab era. He likely wouldn't be a 1st line winger in today's game. Naslund, however, was a 1st line winger in the dead puck clutch and grab era and I think his game translates very well to today's game.

Linden also wasn't a 3rd line player in New York or when he first got to Montreal. He was given plenty of opportunities to get back to his old 30 goal point per game production and he couldn't.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

I think Linden is a good player in any era. But being a elite level (or just below) 3rd line player or C is different from being a 1st line winger. My point is that Linden wasn't a 1st line winger during the dead puck clutch and grab era. He likely wouldn't be a 1st line winger in today's game. Naslund, however, was a 1st line winger in the dead puck clutch and grab era and I think his game translates very well to today's game.

Linden also wasn't a 3rd line player in New York or when he first got to Montreal. He was given plenty of opportunities to get back to his old 30 goal point per game production and he couldn't.

All solid points, and I’ll concede that his role was larger than I was remembering during his non-Vancouver sojourn. It doesn’t change my answer to the poll question at the end of the day, though.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Agreed, but that's why I don't think they map on very nicely. The gap in heart between Burrows and Bertuzzi is far more significant than the gap between Linden and Naslund. Neutral is a pretty good way to describe Naslund's heart. It looks worse than it is because of the circumstances and the desire for your captain/best player to be above and beyond, IMO. If he was in a Milan Hejduk-esque role playing with Forsberg long-term or something, nobody would be complaining about his lack of heart, IMO.

i think it also depends on how we define heart. i kind of mean general non-scoring intangibles, like i listed out in my previous post, but i know others mean how likely you are to come through in clutch playoff moments.

but that aside, doesn't the huge talent gap between bert and burrows, which i think we agree is much bigger than the gap between naslund and linden, even it out?

i.e.,

bertuzzi is way more talented than burrows, burrows has way more heart than bertuzzi

naslund is more talented than linden, linden has more heart than naslund

the degrees of difference are proportionate, so at the end of the day you're essentially making the same cost-benefit analysis with regard to talent vs heart.

Linden also wasn't a 3rd line player in New York or when he first got to Montreal. He was given plenty of opportunities to get back to his old 30 goal point per game production and he couldn't.

not exactly true. yes linden played in the top six in montreal and washington, but those were also not situations where you could reasonably expect him to score 30 goals. in his two years in montreal, coached by AV before gillis told him goals can be scored as well as prevented, not a single player on those habs teams hit 50 points.

unrealistic to expect a guy who averaged exactly 30 goals in the high scoring '89-'96 years, under pat quinn, to repeat that in the dead puck era, under AV. as it stands, he scored at a 20 goal/82 pace in his two partial years in montreal.

in washington, he wasn't there for very long but his center was andrei nikolishin.

on the islanders, he scored at his usual 30+ goal pace the first year, when he was on ziggy palffy's line; given that it was 1998 that's actually better production than his prime. then the next year, ziggy palffy held out and he played most of the year with bryan smolinski and mariusz czerkawski and scored at the 20/50 pace (robert reichel led the team with 56 points).

basically linden was a 30 goal/70 point guy in his early 90s prime, then became a 20 goal/50 point guy in his weird islanders/habs odyssey before coming back here and settling into his new role as a veteran middle six intangibles guy.

none of this is to make a case for his play in those years, because obviously unlike naslund linden was not a guy who could drive scoring by himself over the course of long regular seasons. he could for shorter spurts in playoff series, which is why we love him. i'm just trying to be exact about what happened to him in those years we weren't watching him.

 

[Shareefruck]

i think it also depends on how we define heart. i kind of mean general non-scoring intangibles, like i listed out in my previous post, but i know others mean how likely you are to come through in clutch playoff moments.

but that aside, doesn't the huge talent gap between bert and burrows, which i think we agree is much bigger than the gap between naslund and linden, even it out?

i.e.,

bertuzzi is way more talented than burrows, burrows has way more heart than bertuzzi

naslund is more talented than linden, linden has more heart than naslund

the degrees of difference are proportionate, so at the end of the day you're essentially making the same cost-benefit analysis with regard to talent vs heart.

I think the reasoning itself is fine for why you think Burrows hypothetically being better than Bertuzzi could possibly be similarly applicable to Linden being better than Naslund, but to say that one example nicely maps onto another suggests to me that the factors are comparable in both cases. However, Burrows vs. Bertuzzi is like an absolute extreme hyperbolic example of something that is much less of a factor when it comes to Linden vs. Naslund (both in terms of gap in talent and in heart).

For example, you wouldn't say that Fedor Fedorov vs. Motte maps on nicely to Sedin vs. Sedin (for the sake of argument, let's just assume that there's a grain of truth to Daniel being slightly more talented and Henrik being a slightly better leader), even if hypothetically the difference in overall effectiveness as a result of that gap being bridged could be similarly at play (not actually the case, but you get what I mean).

 

[F A N]

not exactly true. yes linden played in the top six in montreal and washington, but those were also not situations where you could reasonably expect him to score 30 goals. in his two years in montreal, coached by AV before gillis told him goals can be scored as well as prevented, not a single player on those habs teams hit 50 points.

unrealistic to expect a guy who averaged exactly 30 goals in the high scoring '89-'96 years, under pat quinn, to repeat that in the dead puck era, under AV. as it stands, he scored at a 20 goal/82 pace in his two partial years in montreal.

in washington, he wasn't there for very long but his center was andrei nikolishin.

on the islanders, he scored at his usual 30+ goal pace the first year, when he was on ziggy palffy's line; given that it was 1998 that's actually better production than his prime. then the next year, ziggy palffy held out and he played most of the year with bryan smolinski and mariusz czerkawski and scored at the 20/50 pace (robert reichel led the team with 56 points).

basically linden was a 30 goal/70 point guy in his early 90s prime, then became a 20 goal/50 point guy in his weird islanders/habs odyssey before coming back here and settling into his new role as a veteran middle six intangibles guy.

none of this is to make a case for his play in those years, because obviously unlike naslund linden was not a guy who could drive scoring by himself over the course of long regular seasons. he could for shorter spurts in playoff series, which is why we love him. i'm just trying to be exact about what happened to him in those years we weren't watching him.

Stop destroying the fan fiction that Linden's heart was broken when he got traded from Vancouver. We clearly saw a resurgence in his game when he put on a Canucks jersey once again.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I think the reasoning itself is fine for why you think Burrows hypothetically being better than Bertuzzi could possibly be similarly applicable to Linden being better than Naslund, but to say that one example nicely maps onto another suggests to me that the factors are comparable in both cases. However, Burrows vs. Bertuzzi is like an absolute extreme hyperbolic example of something that is much less of a factor when it comes to Linden vs. Naslund (both in terms of gap in talent and in heart).

For example, you wouldn't say that Fedor Fedorov vs. Motte maps on nicely to Sedin vs. Sedin (for the sake of argument, let's just assume that there's a grain of truth to Daniel being slightly more talented and Henrik being a slightly better leader), even if hypothetically the difference in overall effectiveness as a result of that gap being bridged could be similarly at play (not actually the case, but you get what I mean).

sorry, but tbh i don't

 

[Shareefruck]

sorry, but tbh i don't

My point is that the fact that the comparison evens out in the end is kind of irrelevant when we're talking about degrees of similarity (one thing mapping onto another sounds more like a 1:1 similarity comparison to me rather than an extreme/exaggerated analogy used to prove a point. I would agree with the latter but not the former.

Basically, I agree with everything besides the choice of words-- "mapping nicely onto".

 

[Hit the post]

that's why i feel like saying dorsett had more heart than petey doesn't make sense. the thing we're all so excited about petey isn't just the sublime skill, it's the character and work ethic. pure skillwise, he's pretty in range of bert, mogilny, bure, or naslund. but in terms of wanting to be the best possible player he can be and working on things the hard way, he laps them all.

Yeah I haven’t really seen EP take shifts off (granted, he’s still very early on his career).

Has he always been lights out EVERY game? Of course not, he’s only human. There are going to be some games where for whatever reason, his game might be off on a particular night but it’s not for lack of effort (mailing it in).

 

[Canucks1096]

not exactly true. yes linden played in the top six in montreal and washington, but those were also not situations where you could reasonably expect him to score 30 goals. in his two years in montreal, coached by AV before gillis told him goals can be scored as well as prevented, not a single player on those habs teams hit 50 points.

unrealistic to expect a guy who averaged exactly 30 goals in the high scoring '89-'96 years, under pat quinn, to repeat that in the dead puck era, under AV. as it stands, he scored at a 20 goal/82 pace in his two partial years in montreal.

in washington, he wasn't there for very long but his center was andrei nikolishin.

on the islanders, he scored at his usual 30+ goal pace the first year, when he was on ziggy palffy's line; given that it was 1998 that's actually better production than his prime. then the next year, ziggy palffy held out and he played most of the year with bryan smolinski and mariusz czerkawski and scored at the 20/50 pace (robert reichel led the team with 56 points).

basically linden was a 30 goal/70 point guy in his early 90s prime, then became a 20 goal/50 point guy in his weird islanders/habs odyssey before coming back here and settling into his new role as a veteran middle six intangibles guy.

none of this is to make a case for his play in those years, because obviously unlike naslund linden was not a guy who could drive scoring by himself over the course of long regular seasons. he could for shorter spurts in playoff series, which is why we love him. i'm just trying to be exact about what happened to him in those years we weren't watching him.

Fair enough if Linden wasn't in a situation to get 30 goals. But he was definitely in a position to be on pace for more than 19 goals in Mon. He was given a top 6 role with 1st line mins, pp times and he did play with legit top 6 wingers. He didnt play with bottom 6 players.

7 times during those 2 years a player was on pace for more than 23 goals. Why Linden only average 19 goals. Linden wasn't that great of a player to find a way to produce more in the dead puck area. Legit top 6 ice time. It is fair to expect more than 19 goals

Koivu on pace for 25 goals
Savage on pace for 28 and 37 goals
Rucinsky 25 goals and on pace for 23 goals
Zholtok on pace for 31 goals
Brunet on pace for 23 goals.

Btw Linden first year with NYI was only 25 games. Not that fair of an argument if it so little games to use the 30 goal on pace argument.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Day-in, day-out the better player is Naslund. But when he was on, Linden was far more impactful than Naslund IMO. This is a good debate because I can see it both ways.

 

[Rumsfeld]

Not sure if it was in this thread, but I saw someone questioning whether Naslund's broken leg had a big impact on his game.

It really didn't. The injury happened late in the '00/01 campaign, and while it almost cost the team a playoff spot (thanks Druken!), Naslund returned the following year and had his best two seasons afterwards.

If that injury doesn't happen in 2001 and Naslund doesn't shit the bed down the stretch in 2003, he would've had a couple 50-goal seasons during what was a VERY difficult era to score. Shame really.

 

[Rumsfeld]

Day-in, day-out the better player is Naslund. But when he was on, Linden was far more impactful than Naslund IMO. This is a good debate because I can see it both ways.

When Naslund was on he would score three or four goals and totally embarrass teams. When did Linden ever do that?

I have never seen any fanbase of any other team worship a player as average as Linden, and all because of one fluky playoff run in the mid-nineties. Like I could see it if he won us a Cup. But he didn't.

This team needs some new memories and some new heroes, because the last half-century is pretty damned sad when Trev's the Man. Lol

 

[Johnny Canucker]

Not sure if it was in this thread, but I saw someone questioning whether Naslund's broken leg had a big impact on his game.

It really didn't. The injury happened late in the '00/01 campaign, and while it almost cost the team a playoff spot (thanks Druken!), Naslund returned the following year and had his best two seasons afterwards.

If that injury doesn't happen in 2001 and Naslund doesn't shit the bed down the stretch in 2003, he would've had a couple 50-goal seasons during what was a VERY difficult era to score. Shame really.

you asked Markus if his broken leg effected him after it healed?

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Linden AINEC

 

[bandwagonesque]

For a couple of years Naslund was one of the best 2-3 forwards in the league. I'd take that Naslund over any version of Linden. I might take Linden in a game 7 with a tired team.

 

[604]

Naslund was a first team all-star three times and won the Lester B. Pearson award (now the Ted Lindsay).

For reference, Daniel Sedin is the only other Canuck to ever win the Lindsay (also once).

Linden on the other hand only ever won the Clancy (for leadership) and was never remotely close to being an NHL first or second team all-star and even further from ever winning the Pearson/Lindsay.

What this means, Naslund was three times considered a top two winger in the game and was voted the leagues most valuable player by his peers, I doubt Linden was ever voted in the top 30.

This isn't even close.

 

[JAK]

I will take Linden 16 times out of 19.