How can it not matter? Modano was competing against the same talent pool as Hawerchuk (if you make the simplifying assumption that Canada was producing the same amount of players) plus elite players from Europe and USA that Hawerchuk for the most part was not. I'm aware that Hawerchuk did compete against some Europeans and Americans, but I think it's obvious that the amount of elite American and European players was much greater in Modano's time. With the exception of Gretzky and Lemieux, two obvious outliers, Hawerchuk's competition was clearly a notch below Modano's.
Yeah I can't buy this bolded argument. You can't tell me that you watched hockey in the 1980s and seriously hold this opinion can you? First off, ANY era is hard. Let's agree on that. But if push comes to shove and you get to the nitty gritty of it then let's decide who might have had a bit tougher time to stand out.
Top 10 scorers:
1984-'85- Gretzky, Kurri,
Hawerchuk, Dionne, Coffey, Bossy, Ogrodnick, Savard, Federko, Gartner
1985-'86 - Gretzky, Lemieux, Coffey, Kurri, Bossy, Stastny, Savard, Naslund,
Hawerchuk, Broten
1986-'87 - Gretzky, Kurri, Lemieux, Messier, Gilmour, Ciccarelli,
Hawerchuk, Goulet, Kerr, Bourque
1987-'88 - Lemieux, Gretzky, Savard,
Hawerchuk, Robitaille, Stastny, Messier, Carson, Loob, Goulet
Plus the years where he narrowly missed the top 10:
1983-'84 - Gretzky, Coffey, Goulet, Stastny, Bossy, Pederson, Kurri, Trottier, Federko, Middleton,
Hawerchuk
1988-'89 - Lemieux, Gretzky, Yzerman, Nicholls, Brown, Coffey, Mullen, Kurri, Carson, Robitaille,
Hawerchuk
Modano's top 10:
1999-'00 - Jagr, Bure, Recchi, Kariya, Selanne, Nolan, Amonte,
Modano, Sakic, Yzerman
2001-'02 - Iginla, Naslund, Bertuzzi, Sundin, Jagr, Sakic, Demitra, Oates,
Modano, Francis
The year where he narrowly missed it:
2002-'03 - Forsberg, Naslund, Thornton, Hejduk, Bertuzzi, Demitra, Murray, Lemieux, Heatley, Palffy,
Modano
Call it how you see it, but I'm giving Hawerchuk's the edge as far as tougher top flight competition. Not to mention because of that competition he still stood out better than Modano. It doesn't take anything away from Modano, but he was 30 years old before he was a top 10 scorer and he didn't stay at that level as long either.
Factor in Gretzky/Lemieux and their teammates though and Hawerchuk's competition for top 10 spots is certainly harder than the smaller talent pool would indicate.
But that's the thing, they WERE there. They were the NHL at that time. Much like Jagr (on a lower level) was when Modano was at his peak. I'm not removing Jagr from that time either, why should we cancel out Mario and Wayne?