You're not even trying BTW, you're just namedropping players who were near the top of the Chicago scoring list.
Larmer combined with Creighton on just two ESP all season, and Thomas & Graham just one each. His linemates were quite obviously Roenick (94 pts) and Goulet (65). But that doesn't sound nearly as impressive as "a mix of Creighton, Thomas, Graham, Roenick and Goulet", does it?
For the record, obviously it was a very good season, and I've said for years, anytime a winger outscores his center we should pay attention, particularly when the center is also very good.
I like how you can look up scoring logs when it suits you.
You can focus on a small sample size of 12 games if you like - I'll pay more attention to what happened in the other 70 games. You don't need to put words in my mouth, I never said he was dragged anywhere, but if you don't think centering the league's top offensive player helped him that season then I don't know what to tell you.
there's no mental gymnastics, you're just far too focused on my use of a single word. let's be real here, we all know you're here right now because I said that Backstrom's 09-10 wasn't as impressive as Hawerchuk's 83-84 or Savard's 87-88 and you just can't let something like that stand, but all you could muster in response was a critique of the word "dragged" and here we are many posts later still quibbling over that word. Point is, we all know who was driving the bus on the top lines of the 84 jets, 88 Hawks, and 2010 Capitals.
All things being equal, you don't think 100 points = 100 points if one of those players had a 120 point linemate and one had an 80 point linemate, right?
OK, sure, Larmer was better at a lot of little things than his one-dimensional center Savard. That's not untrue, and players like him are probably unappreciated in the grand scheme of things. But that's a huge leap to say that he was a better player overall. Larmer's role on the top line, if he was unable to fill it, could have been filled by another winger on the team fairly adequately - Al Secord topped 75 points three times - and if they didn't have such a player, they could have found one via trade. Only Savard could be Savard. They could not just promote Lysiak or Murray and expect them to do the things Savard could do. He was a special, irreplaceable offensive talent, among the top few in the league.
Ken Hodge and Wayne Cashman were "better than Esposito in most respects", Dave Taylor was "better than Marcel Dionne in most respects", Alexandre Burrows was "better than Henrik Sedin in most respects", Brian Sutter was "better than Bernie Federko in most respects", heck, we could probably say that Jari Kurri was better than Wayne Gretzky in most respects, but I don't see how any of those statements make any of those wingers better overall players than their centers.