Big Phil
Registered User
- Nov 2, 2003
- 31,703
- 4,146
The thing is though....Gretzky wasn't even the fastest, most skilled or talented when he was getting 200+ points a season either.
It was Gretzky's creativity, craftiness, intelligence and hockey sense that made him the best ever and I'm sorry but Sid is not even close in to him in these area's.
I'll add one thing here. Certainly Sid is faster and stronger. But is he more talented? Why isn't creativity and hockey sense a talent? Or anticipation? Yes these are God-given gifts too but you have to work on them. A story I once heard was Gretzky watching a game on TV and he'd have a piece of paper and a marker. He'd watch the screen and trace where the puck was on the ice. After a while he'd look at his paper and be able to see what areas the puck was situated in the most. That's smart. And in my opinion being that smart is a talent as well.
Sundin is sure one underrated guy in this section, it's not his fault that he was traded to TO and never had a great supporting cast.
Sundin was the better player (of him and Sakic) and 2 years younger when he got traded to Toronto and the rest became history.
One guy is associated with being a winner while Sundin isn't.
Hmmmm, I've said it before I will support Sundin's induction for the HHOF. I won't pretend he was only an inferior player to Sakic because of his "situation".
Sakic was in charge of his own destiny. Colorado does not win the Cup in 1996 or 2001 without him. He had probably the best Conn Smythe performance of anyone over the last 15 years (Malkin in 2009 is close). He won the Hart Trophy. He was a 1st team all-star three times, two of those times going directly against very good years Sundin had.
At the time of the trade the two of them had played 4 seasons together. Sundin outpointed Sakic in one of them........barely. In 1994 at the time of the trade Sundin had an 85 point season while Sakic had 92. Let's not forget either, the Maple Leafs were a very good team from 1998-'04. Yes he didn't get a great winger until an older Mogilny arrived but no one would have stopped the press had the Leafs won a Cup in those years. Sundin was often criticized for not elevating his game come playoff time. It was a knock that Leaf fans held against him. The "We'll never win a Cup with him as captain" idea was prevelant. The sad thing is we long for those days now but there was never any time when Sundin was a Leaf that anyone would have given up Sakic straight up for him. As a Leaf fan, I knew who the better player was and we didn't have him. The Leafs had good depth, goaltending and two very good defensemen (McCabe and Kaberle) in those years. Yet we didn't win the Cup despite outpointing Colorado different times in that span.
Sakic > Sundin