While I think one could make that argument, I would disagree-
Naslund has a better peak, even if Heatley were to have that one extra great season. Three first team AS nods, two 2nd place Art Ross finishes, and a Lindsay tops what Heatley could realistically achieve in one additional season. However, Heatley was a premier player for longer than Naslund, even before an additional season- 6 seasons of note vs 4, and Heatley has some better PO numbers. Another good/great season puts him at 7 seasons of premier-level play, with 5(?) of them being as one of the bigger offensive stars. Heatley also has a pretty decent international record, and- as I remember it, at least- a greater impact on the game outside of points.
I will admit that I was/am a Heatley fan- he was a player I really enjoyed watching while in Middle/High School, so I may not be 100% unbiased.
i think it's a six of one, half dozen of the other kind of thing with those two.
naslund has the higher best two seasons, heatley in this scenario would have more of the third/fourth best-level seasons.
And as much as I like Naslund, he doesn't have Heatley's 50 goal seasons, or trip to the Final to fall back on, both of which voters like to see.
i think insofar as naslund has a rep as a bad playoff performer, heatley does too. the difference is naslund's memorable weak performances came early, and actually not even in the playoffs if you think about it. the last game of the '03 regular season, the minnesota series in '03, and if you count international competition, veritable no shows in the '02 olympics and '04 world cup. to some degree, those are memorable only to fans of the canucks and sweden, because who really watched that game against LA or a vancouver/minnesota series where half the games started at 10 PM eastern time and all of them were coached by jacques lemaire but did not include brodeur or stevens? the belarus game was famous for the tommy salo highlight, but how many of us (other than señor edler) actually watched that game?
heatley, on the other hand, has a poor rep precisely because he went to the finals and everyone saw him totally disappear (one goal/point in five games). to a lesser degree, also his embarrassing showings in the small market but memorable 2006 buffalo/ottawa series (two points in the first game, zero in the other four) and the 2011 series against a much more high profile canucks team (one assist/point), maybe also in 2010 when everyone thought it was the sharks's time to go to the finals but were swept by chicago (two assists).
remember also that fans' out-of-market access to watching games in heatley's prime was astronomically higher than in naslund's.
all to say, naslund, while legitimately poor, is probably remembered as poor on paper. heatley was poor and we all saw it. i think that sticks with him, maybe even more than it does to naslund.
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and one fine point about naslund's career that i think most people don't really know: the two big years are 2002 and 2003 obviously. but his third best year wasn't 2004, it was 2001. statistically, that's not obvious, because '04 naslund was near the top of the scoring race all year, but that 2001 year is really forgotten as a great year by him.
i think in all fairness, naslund got a first team all-star in 2004 that really should have gone to elias. he probably could have fairly duked it out in a toss up for the second team with rocket trophy kovalchuk. but in 2001, back from the dead robitaille got naslund's second team all-star (by two measly points, mind you).
here's the case: the canucks hadn't been in the playoffs since 1996, coincidentally naslund's first year in vancouver. after messier left, naslund made a jump like no one expected. he was legitimately a top five winger in the league (and got five hart votes that year, including a first and second place—now that was silly, mind you, but it still says
something that nobody that year other than sakic, mario, and him got a first place vote). and this was a year when jagr was still winning art rosses, and elias, bure, and palffy all had career years.
up to when he broke his leg and missed the rest of the season (the last ten games, plus the colorado sweep), the canucks were 34-22-8-7. at the literal moment he broke his leg, midway through the third in a game against buffalo, he'd just gotten his second assist of the game to tie it up 2-2. after he went down, steve heinze of all people scored his second goal of the game to go up 3-2, then got his hat trick on the empty netter. including that game, the canucks went 2-6-3-0 to close out the regular season and come within a tie-break of missing the playoffs.
naslund finished the season 7th in goals (33rd in points), despite missing the last ten games. when he went down, he was 3rd in goals and 11th in points. and this is on a team with nobody on it. the number one center was andrew cassels, bertuzzi and morrison were 55 point players, the sedins were 30 point rookies, the only real offensive help he had was jovo in his breakout year, taking over after mccabe and aucoin were both traded away.
