Most Overrated Forward Of All-Time?

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Pavel Bure.

"One of the greatest Russians to ever play" my ass.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

yes, him and ron francis, both premium point collectors with 1756 and 1731 regular season games played respectively. not that he wasn't a good player but he never took hartford to the sky when he was the first line center there ...

oh, but the 'intangibles' ...

Messier and Francis point collectors? Good grief. They brought far more to the table than their point totals, this should be incredibly obvious even to a Messier-hater like you. That you're blaming Francis for not taking the sad-sack Whalers further in the playoffs is equally laughable. The only run of respectability Hartford ever put together occured during Francis' tenure there. As soon as he was traded away the franchise went into a downward spiral and never recovered, moving to Carolina eventually.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I'll agree with the guy that said Trottier, not a bad player, but certainly overrated. Older posters will use whatever excuse they want to make sure Trottier ranks above Joe Sakic on all time lists, like Trottier's defence is better and he was more physical, therefore he's still 'better'. Hogwash, Joe Sakic surpassed him years ago in accomplishments. Durability in regular season and superior playoff resume is much more important than being 10% better defensively.

Same with Bobby Clarke and Guy Lafluer, how can anyone say with an unbiased eye that thier careers are better than Joe's. Not only does Sakic dwarf Guy in longevity and defensive play, his 2001 season is arguably better than any season lafluer ever had. Scoring 118 points and shutting down the other teams top lines, Lafluer could only dream of doing that.

I anyone says Trottier is far ahead of Sakic, then perhaps they are wrong, but Trottier was a superb player. An absolute warrior with tremendous will to win. He was great both offensively and defensively, was a punishing hitter, a standout leader, and the backbone of several SC-winning Islanders teams.

Trottier did have poor longetivity, both due to his style of play and the era he played in. A very physical player, all the bumping and grinding he did in his 20s caught up to him in his 30s. Most players who play that kind of game suffer from that syndrome. Even today I would be willing to bet that when his peers play well into their late 30s, Alexander Ovechkin (who wasn't even as physical as Trottier) cools down at around 34-35. Also, back then it wasn't common to have very intense off-season training, to be on a special diet, to not smoke, etc. Give Bossy those benefits and I am sure he extends his peak a few years.

 

[Hero]

Alex Daigle.

/thread

 

[arrbez]

What number would you rank Richard at?

Amongst forwards:

He's certainly behind Gretzky, Lemieux, and Howe.

To me, he's in the discussion after that with guys like Beliveau, Hull.

As I say, I have him rated very highly. I just find he's often placed in the first grouping (especially vs. Howe), which I just don't think can be justified. To me, he is not in the discussion for the best player ever, as some would have you believe.

 

[seventieslord]

Alex Daigle.

/thread

No one thinks Daigle is any good. So he's not overrated.

 

[thefifthsedin*]

Messier and Francis point collectors? Good grief. They brought far more to the table than their point totals, this should be incredibly obvious even to a Messier-hater like you. That you're blaming Francis for not taking the sad-sack Whalers further in the playoffs is equally laughable. The only run of respectability Hartford ever put together occured during Francis' tenure there. As soon as he was traded away the franchise went into a downward spiral and never recovered, moving to Carolina eventually.

can't say i hate hockey players. i'm not 12. but i would say messier is overrated, by some. others sees him in a more accurate light.

the fact that he only scored one 50 goals season [and not 50+]. and that was early in the 80's when he played some wing on gretzky [the year gretzky scored 92]

the fact that he was a mediocre skater. or that he, when he was at his best in edmonton, placed 4th in ppg on his team, behind gretzky, kurri, and coffey.

or the fact that he made much of his way with cheap shots and bullying [particularly on players smaller than himself] ...

the fact that he played on power house's and never was the top producer on them [not even in new york or post-gretzky edmonton ... i mean brian leetch, and craig simpson!]

... with that logic, sure, henri richard has 11 cups. he must be 5 times the better player than mario lemieux then, who only has 2 cups?. if we're into cup counting here ...

Pavel Bure.

"One of the greatest Russians to ever play" my ass.

wow, did you ever see him play when he was at his best?

the kid was dynomite!, he scored 60, 60, 59, 58, 51 goals seasons in the nhl. every season in the nhl when he played over 65 games he scored over 50 goals. the bolded ones came when the dead puck era was at its deadest, on a florida panthers team having viktor kozlov|rob niedermayer as the first line center ...

bure never had an adam oates, mario lemieux, wayne gretzky, peter forsberg playmaker on his side. he created his own plays [as opposed to brett hull or kevin stevens, for example] alongside greg adams, murray craven, trevor linden, viktor kozlov, ray whitney ... not absolutely terrible, but in comparison

who else scores 5 goals in an olympic semi final 7-4 win?

if you say bure's overrated please develop the point ... if you're trying to make one?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

can't say i hate hockey players. i'm not 12. but i would say messier is overrated, by some. others sees him in a more accurate light.

the fact that he only scored one 50 goals season [and not 50+]. and that was early in the 80's when he played some wing on gretzky [the year gretzky scored 92]

the fact that he was a mediocre skater. or that he, when he was at his best in edmonton, placed 4th in ppg on his team, behind gretzky, kurri, and coffey.

or the fact that he made much of his way with cheap shots and bullying [particularly on players smaller than himself] ...

the fact that he played on power house's and never was the top producer on them [not even in new york or post-gretzky edmonton ... i mean brian leetch, and craig simpson!]

... with that logic, sure, henri richard has 11 cups. he must be 5 times the better player than mario lemieux then, who only has 2 cups?. if we're into cup counting here ...



wow, did you ever see him play when he was at his best?

the kid was dynomite!, he scored 60, 60, 59, 58, 51 goals seasons in the nhl. every season in the nhl when he played over 65 games he scored over 50 goals. the bolded ones came when the dead puck era was at its deadest, on a florida panthers team having viktor kozlov|rob niedermayer as the first line center ...

bure never had an adam oates, mario lemieux, wayne gretzky, peter forsberg playmaker on his side. he created his own plays [as opposed to brett hull or kevin stevens, for example] alongside greg adams, murray craven, trevor linden, viktor kozlov, ray whitney ... not absolutely terrible, but in comparison

who else scores 5 goals in an olympic semi final 7-4 win?

if you say bure's overrated please develop the point ... if you're trying to make one?

You must be thinking of some other Messier if you think he was a mediocre skater.
Or you could have vision problems.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

can't say i hate hockey players. i'm not 12. but i would say messier is overrated, by some. others sees him in a more accurate light.

the fact that he only scored one 50 goals season [and not 50+]. and that was early in the 80's when he played some wing on gretzky [the year gretzky scored 92]

the fact that he was a mediocre skater. or that he, when he was at his best in edmonton, placed 4th in ppg on his team, behind gretzky, kurri, and coffey.

or the fact that he made much of his way with cheap shots and bullying [particularly on players smaller than himself] ...

the fact that he played on power house's and never was the top producer on them [not even in new york or post-gretzky edmonton ... i mean brian leetch, and craig simpson!]

... with that logic, sure, henri richard has 11 cups. he must be 5 times the better player than mario lemieux then, who only has 2 cups?. if we're into cup counting here ...

I'm not getting into a Messier overrated debate again here. My issue is that you called him a "point collector", which is completely inaccurate. A point collector is worth less than what their point totals indicate. They pick up their points, but are not often seen as a true difference-maker, and contribute little besides their point total. How anybody could think that Messier fits that description is just beyond me. The guy who became Edmonton's top center in the post-Messier era, Doug Weight, was more of a point-collector if you're looking for an example.

 

[Felonious Python]

Didn't see his great early Calgary and Toronto days, but it seems to me like Lanny Mcdonald is an over rated player. Am I wrong?

I don't think Lanny is overrated. At least not on HFBoards. He was a good player, even excellent some years, but is more of a fan favorite type than someone who'd regularly be picked for an 'all-time' team. Save for the Flames of course.

 

[thefifthsedin*]

You must be thinking of some other Messier if you think he was a mediocre skater.
Or you could have vision problems.

i've watched him skate in games, not live but on television, and i wasn't overly impressed. not terrible, but not great ... in other words mediocre. but he was a better skater than gino odjick

when messier played with the gretzky 99 show team [i remember fedorov was on it] when it was a lock out in 94-95 i actually got his autograph on a hockey card, when the team was in stockholm and practiced before a game [i wasn't on the actual game]. but the card was kind of ugly and i didn't really liked him as a player [as a result of the 93-94 playoffs] so the card disappeared into the fuzzyness of death ... if not i could have given it to some hfb fan

 

[NOTENOUGHJTCGOALS]

Pavel Bure.

"One of the greatest Russians to ever play" my ass.

I think he's only overrated by the casual fans that think exciting goals are worth twice as much as garbage goals.

 

[bunjay]

i think gretzky is so overrated mostly because of how protected he was. the other 'alltime greats' didnt have this luxury and in fact were targeted. gretzky had plenty of talents but i feel like he was mostly removed from the physical aspects of the game, and thats a BIG part of hockey.

 

[eric71*]

How the hell can ANYONE say Bure is overrated. Saying Bure is overrated would be the same as saying Ovechkin is overrated. Theyre both ****ing AMAZING.

A real overrated player though, is Mike Modano...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

How the hell can ANYONE say Bure is overrated. Saying Bure is overrated would be the same as saying Ovechkin is overrated. Theyre both ****ing AMAZING.

A real overrated player though, is Mike Modano...

This thread is about overrated forwards, not whether they are amazing or not.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

A mod should make a sticky post describing exactly what the word "overrated" means. I think it would help a lot of people out, who seem to confuse it with "bad". A player can be both excellent, and overrated.

Example:

I think Maurice Richard is overrated by many. I also think he's one of the top-10 forwards to ever play. These things are not mutually exclusive.

I doubt even that would work...

 

[Macke*]

Steve Yzerman and Pavel Bure

Oh and Trevor Linden

 

[thefifthsedin*]

I think he's only overrated by the casual fans that think exciting goals are worth twice as much as garbage goals.

exciting goals aren't worth more than a tomas holmström goal, on the scoreboard ... only in the souls and hearts of the fans

but to say that bure was a one dimensional cherry picking player who only scored flashy exciting goals are phony, and always when i see or hear that here on the boards it makes me wonder if the poster actually saw him play when he first broke into the league in 1991

in his very first nhl shift he got the puck in his own zone and end to end rushed the whole winnipeg jets ... that was the kind of plays he made, with the speed, the stick handling and the goal scoring

 

[BostonAJ]

Ron Francis is overrated. He was never a top guy.

Pavel Datsyuk is overrated. Playoff performances really hurt him.

Jeremy Roenick is overrated. Gets a lot of attention for his personality. Personality goes a long way, tho. Just ask Crosby.

Jari Kurri is overrated. He should be renamed Greztky's partner.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Ron Francis is overrated. He was never a top guy.

Pavel Datsyuk is overrated. Playoff performances really hurt him.

Jeremy Roenick is overrated. Gets a lot of attention for his personality. Personality goes a long way, tho. Just ask Crosby.

Jari Kurri is overrated. He should be renamed Greztky's partner.

Agree with everything but the last one. Kurri actually had more points in his first year without Gretzky (102) than his last year with him (96). Obviously, he would have scored fewer points (and especially goals) in his best years if he didn't play with Gretzky, but he would have been a superstar regardless.

 

[AleksandarN]

Wayne Gretzky.

Here's why.

In my opinion he's 6th greatest all time, maybe 5th.

However in the NHL in general he is hyped up to be THE BEST and I mean THE ABSOLUTE BEST.

He got his number retired BY THE WHOLE LEAGUE, I mean Jordan and Chamberlain didn't have that happen to them in the NBA.

But no, and every time you have a Top 20 or Top 10 list the broadcasters are talking about all the greats up until #2 and then at #1 they say " and of course Gretzky is #1 ".

He's one of the best ever no question but the general cencus seems to be he's 5 times better than #2 and NOBODY can argue with that.

Orr and Mario are by far MUCH better than Gretz so really it's always pissed me off.

far much better give me a break. Let me ask you who was better when it mattered most? Yeah that's right Gretzky. He was the better clutch player. He was the best playoff performer of the top 20 players. When defenses are at it's best (in the playoffs) Gretzky performed.

 

[AleksandarN]

That's just it, I still put Gretz in the Top 10 players of all time ( when you include goalies ) and #6/#5 in terms of greatest skaters.

I still give him cred.

But I just can't understand his reasoning as being as Bettman himself stated " the amabssador of hockey ".

I mean, like seriously what? WHAT?

Compare Lemieux and Gretz, please, and I hate the Penguins I even bet they'd lose in the 2nd round, but Lemieux was a God, period.

I don't look at career stats, which is what Gretz and Howe had, I look at goal scoring machines, those are the best forwards of all time and Gretz benefited GREATLY from his protection and amazing lineup.

Not many players from Lemieux's lineups were great without him.

Without Gretzky, Coffey was still golden, many players with great stats who played with Gretzky, well, they didn't play anywhere else, the core lineups and players were kept, unlike say in Pittsburgh where Mario was always top notch.

Richard, he was just a God, he was better than Gretzky, look at his goal scoring in his day he finished with GPG of .556 that's amazing, he finished with more career goals than points, that's blistering.

Bossy is questionable that's why I always say Gretz is my 6th/5th because the Bossy factor, just in my opinion I think he was the better goal scorer, he wasn't protected as much.

Yeah Gretzky had so much protection that Denis Potvin was so scared of hitting him that he lied to everyone saying Gretzky was too hard to hit because of vision I guess Potvin was afraid of dave semenko.

 

[CC Chiefs*]

With all the over/underated threads I thought I would continue the trend..

So who do you think the most overrated forward of all-time is?

I know people aren't going to agree but I think Steve Yzerman is overated he never had 100+ points after 1993. Don't get me wrong Yzerman was a great player and an excellent captain but when it comes to greatest players of all-time Yzerman does not make my top 20.

This has be the most ridiculous statement I’ve read on HF boards. Yzerman is 8th in all-time goals. That didn’t happen by mistake. Don’t talk about a long career because he played 242 games less then Messier and was only 2 goals behind him. Their GPG is as follows: Yzerman .457 and Messier .395. Completely dumb to debate one of the best players in the history of the NHL. To call him overrated is like calling Glenn Hall overrated as goalie. Complete failure.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

It's delightful that someone decided to bump this troll-filled thread while I was away for the weekend. Thanks. Much appreciated.