Ron Francis

[RabbinsDuck]

There is no possible way I can respond to this wall of text that was presented to me, but I will make the concise point that nowhere did I say that hockey prior to your time should not be discussed. Only that you must admit that your perception of a player that you didn't get to experience in their prime is going to always be incomplete. No two ways about that. That particular piece of information is what makes the elitist attitudes that emanate from this section of the board to be highly confusing and frustrating.

This isn't an elaborate ploy to have Ron Francis recognized as the greatest player in hockey history. The discussion took a detour from there to a more broad issue regarding this section. A poster comes here making a statement about X player being better than Y player and has that opinion corroborated by several posters under 25 that couldn't have conceivably seen them at the height of their abilities.

It's like going to a middle school today and asking kids who is better in concert between Alice in Chains and Nirvana. Not only is the initial question subjective, but the people that you're asking for an answer from are highly unqualified to answer you to start with.

Just my two pennies.

Was Francis better than Sid Abel and Alex Delvecchio? I saw the entirety of Francis' career, without seeing but a smattering of games with the latter two. and I fully believe Francis falls short of them. If you want to get back on topic please present an argument for Francis over these two.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

There is no possible way I can respond to this wall of text that was presented to me, but I will make the concise point that nowhere did I say that hockey prior to your time should not be discussed. Only that you must admit that your perception of a player that you didn't get to experience in their prime is going to always be incomplete. No two ways about that. That particular piece of information is what makes the elitist attitudes that emanate from this section of the board to be highly confusing and frustrating.

This isn't an elaborate ploy to have Ron Francis recognized as the greatest player in hockey history. The discussion took a detour from there to a more broad issue regarding this section. A poster comes here making a statement about X player being better than Y player and has that opinion corroborated by several posters under 25 that couldn't have conceivably seen them at the height of their abilities.

It's like going to a middle school today and asking kids who is better in concert between Alice in Chains and Nirvana. Not only is the initial question subjective, but the people that you're asking for an answer from are highly unqualified to answer you to start with.

Just my two pennies.

i think every poster on this board readily acknowledges that his (or her?) knowledge of any player, even ones he (or she?) did see is incomplete. most of us have not seen every pro game of any player, let alone junior/minor games, international games, practices, etc. and if we had, we certainly have not seen every pro game of all of that player's other possible comparable peers. so i think it is obvious to the point of not needing to be said: our perceptions are limited.

as for your nirvana/alice in chains point, any twelve year old can download everything those two bands ever recorded in a matter of minutes. this kid didn't see them live, but how many times did any of us who are "old enough" see them live? at what point can any of us say we have a representative sample? or maybe it would be easier to all just agree that none of our experiences, regardless of age, are final or infallible and try our best to make do with what we have. same goes, i think, for your ron francis point.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

And listen, I can understand being an expert in something that you didn't live through. I understand the principal of history majors doing extensive study to partially complete a knowledge about things that happened before they were born. However, the amount of dedication that takes is tremendous. The amount of resources that takes is tremendous.

Speaking as someone who has attempted that (with goaltending), you're right - it's a hell of a lot of work. I didn't start watching hockey until 1991 or so, one of the hazards of growing up in the Seattle area. But it can be done.

 

[Big Phil]

Another question, at any point in his career was Francis ever good enough to be the best player on a Cup winning team? I don't think so.

One of the best complementary forwards of all time, combined with ridiculous longevity. But the guy was never a dominant player in the NHL.

Hmmmm. Probably not. Someone did bring up a good point that he was the Canes best player in 2002 when they lost in the final. But that's as far as it goes. Could you build a winner around him? If you couldn't do it with Jean Ratelle a very comparable player to him, then it's unlikely you could do it with Francis.

Complimentary is a word that gets thrown around a lot when talking about him. I think it's accurate to an extent. He was a star in the supporting role for the Pens. Nothing to be ashamed of there considering Lemieux was the superstar. When you combine that with incredible longevity you have a great career. He has gotten a lot of years out of that and I will agree that some people lose sight of the fact that he was never robbed of a Hart or anything like that but he did have some really good spike years where he had stellar, but not the cream of the crop elite, seasons. They were 1990, 1995, 1996, 1998 to name a few. I was really impressed with him then.

 

[Big Phil]

Was Francis better than Sid Abel and Alex Delvecchio? I saw the entirety of Francis' career, without seeing but a smattering of games with the latter two. and I fully believe Francis falls short of them. If you want to get back on topic please present an argument for Francis over these two.

I've said on here before that Delvecchio and Francis were two very comparable players. Probably even more so than Ratelle. But I think by a hair I still take Delvecchio who is so similar to Francis in the fact that he had a long career, was a supporting player (but still great contributor) on some Cup winning teams and has good career totals and good longevity but when you look at it has a surprising amount of finishes in the top 10 in scoring which people forget.

 

[Chili]

May 9,1992

One of those games, I'll never forget. To me, the most important game of the 1992 playoffs. If the Pens had lost, they'd have gone back to NY for game five down three games to one. No Lemieux that night either, Graves had slashed him a game or two before so he was out.

Rangers were ahead 3-1 late second when RF got his first goal. But the Rangers made it 4-2 early third and then the Pens got a five minute major against them.

I remember RF being brilliant on the pk (a goal would have made it 5-2) and then after the penalty he scored the Pens third goal to make it 4-3. The Pens then tied it to force ot.

Guess who scored the winner, from memory he took the puck off Messier's stick and went in to score the game winner and complete his hat trick.

I can't remember now but did the Pens lose another game after that before winning their second cup in a row?

Became a fan of Ron Francis that night, one of the great playoff performances I've seen.

 

[Rhiessan71]

Ronnie is one of those players that is both overrated and underrated at the same time. He is a blue collar player that bordered on white collar numbers.
Like you can't honestly put him in the same class as Yzerman, Sakic and Bourque for example but where do you put him then?
For me he was one of the best lunch pail/blue collar players in history, the king of the Mike Gartner's so to speak.
Somewhere between the best of the best and best of the rest is about the closest I can describe him.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Well, when he was 38 the Canes got to the finals and he led them in scoring during the regular season and the playoffs. So I guess he wasn't far off.

That was the best season of Francis's career, and the only season he got any Hart consideration (finishing a distant 6th behind a relatively unimpressive crop). But still, the Canes got their butts kicked in the finals. The have been quite a few weak finalists in the past 2 decades or so, but none of them have ever won the whole thing, and they usually get their butts kicked in the finals.

1995 Devils? 1993 Canadiens?

Scott Stevens and Patrick Roy were much more dominant players than Ron Francis ever was.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Good enough to be the best player, while in the decline of his career at 38, on a cup finalist at least.

A lot of people underrate his scoring outside of Pittsburgh as well. He produced at a slightly lower PPG pace in Hartford as the lone weapon there (1.033 PPG) as he did in Pittsburgh while surrounded by vastly superior talent (1.15 PPG). It's not until he went to Carolina in the downswing of his career that his production started to drop.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not foolish enough to put him in my top 50 players of all time or anything, but there's absolutely no question in my mind that there are many players ahead of him on our top 100 list that I would take him over.

When you consider that the league was significantly higher scoring when Francis was in Hartford in the 1980s than it was for most of his time in Pittsburgh, it really shows how his statistical prime was inflated by playing with Jaromir Jagr (and occasionally Mario Lemieux) after he turned 30.

Big Phil called him a "superstar as a supporting player." I can agree with that. Any contender would make itself instantly much better by adding a player like Francis. But he wasn't the kind of guy who regularly changed games by himself. (Like Jaromir Jagr, Scott Stevens, Patrick Roy, or other true superstars).

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

My comment regarding the 35+ was in relation to people old enough to have seen Francis, Gartner, Dino, etc. in their prime years. Nothing about the older players. It's just that talking about the history of hockey, with authority, as somebody under 25 just smacks of irony. My philosophy is that you really don't understand the intricacies of the game until you're old enough to really appreciate what you're looking at. I have watched American football since I was a tot and I didn't understand the enormity of the sport until I was 16-17 years old. You have to have a certain amount of knowledge to really formulate opinions on players.

I'm 31 and started watching hockey seriously when the Penguins were winning their 2 Cups. I watched hockey very seriously through the mid 90s, when Francis was having his best statistical seasons. So basically, I saw all of Francis in Pittsburgh. He was my favorite Penguins player - I loved the way he went about helping his team win in a quiet, cerebral, hard-working-but-clean way. The Penguins were always in the same division as NJ, so I saw a lot of them, and I enjoyed watching them in the playoffs.

Francis was a great player, but he couldn't hold Jaromir Jagr's jock.

The thing with Francis is that you never once got the sense while watching him that you were watching a future HOFer. The fact that he played forever without declining allowed him to rack up really impressive stats that caused you to look back and remember his contribution to helping teams win - that's why he's in the HOF. But when people try to put him in on the same planet as truly dominant guys like Jagr or Messier or Yzerman, it's ridiculous.

No, I didn't really see much of Francis in Hartford, but statistically, he was nothing special in those years, and unless you believe that the reason the 1980s was the highest scoring decade in history was because the all the players were better, the fact that he was never top 10 in scoring in Hartford is telling as to how dominant he actually was.

 

[DaveG]

When you consider that the league was significantly higher scoring when Francis was in Hartford in the 1980s than it was for most of his time in Pittsburgh, it really shows how his statistical prime was inflated by playing with Jaromir Jagr (and occasionally Mario Lemieux) after he turned 30.

Big Phil called him a "superstar as a supporting player." I can agree with that. Any contender would make itself instantly much better by adding a player like Francis. But he wasn't the kind of guy who regularly changed games by himself. (Like Jaromir Jagr, Scott Stevens, Patrick Roy, or other true superstars).

I'd agree with that for the most part. There are definitely things he did and things he struggled with that were indicative that he is not a truly dominant player. In fact that fifth from last word before the brackets at the end of your reply is the key. There are times that he HAS taken a team on his back like that but he didn't do it often enough to be in that top 50 of all time conversation. The awards history backs that up for the most part, where the only awards he was truly a serious candidate for more then a couple outlier years were the Lady Byng and the Selke.

I would call him the ultimate complimentary player, but IMO that's underrating him a bit. He doesn't have that ability that say Jagr or even a Fedorov/Forsberg type had to simply take over a game regularly. That said he had superior prime longevity to both of the later which makes me put Francis back in the conversation there.

The strange thing though is that he's done a few things that would make me say he's solidly in the top 100. I can't say there's too many centermen who would have been able to help make Jeff O'Neill a 40 goal scorer and a back to back to back 30+ goal scorer at the height of the dead puck era. Likewise with Kevin Dineen of the Whalers (although he did have one 35 goal season in Philly, I can't remember who his linemates were there). He also outscored Jagr in the playoffs a good bit of the time when the two were teammates in Pittsburgh. Most of the time there it was with Francis playing a second line role with Jagr playing with Stevens and Mario. I'm not saying he was better then Jagr by any means, I like you was old enough at the time to know that was not the case. But yet he was still far more productive then one would expect a player like him to be both in the regular season and the post season.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Maturation

I'm 31 and started watching hockey seriously when the Penguins were winning their 2 Cups. I watched hockey very seriously through the mid 90s, when Francis was having his best statistical seasons. So basically, I saw all of Francis in Pittsburgh. He was my favorite Penguins player - I loved the way he went about helping his team win in a quiet, cerebral, hard-working-but-clean way. The Penguins were always in the same division as NJ, so I saw a lot of them, and I enjoyed watching them in the playoffs.

Francis was a great player, but he couldn't hold Jaromir Jagr's jock.

The thing with Francis is that you never once got the sense while watching him that you were watching a future HOFer. The fact that he played forever without declining allowed him to rack up really impressive stats that caused you to look back and remember his contribution to helping teams win - that's why he's in the HOF. But when people try to put him in on the same planet as truly dominant guys like Jagr or Messier or Yzerman, it's ridiculous.

No, I didn't really see much of Francis in Hartford, but statistically, he was nothing special in those years, and unless you believe that the reason the 1980s was the highest scoring decade in history was because the all the players were better, the fact that he was never top 10 in scoring in Hartford is telling as to how dominant he actually was.

Watching a player's career and maturation. Most of the readers know how old I am within a couple of years and my background.

Started watching Ron Francis in 1980, part of scouting Midget AAA and junior hockey. Francis played for Sault Ste. Marie and was part of the group of 3 centers eligible for the 1981 draft - Hawerchuk, Doug Smith and Francis.Liked him better than Smith who was a 67's Kilrea product.

Even in junior, the few times I saw him play you could see that he was a player, who if he matured physically, stayed healthy would have a long and productive career with HHOF potential.Certain qualities reminded me of Jacques Lemaire as a junior. Played only one position - and while he did not generate the eye-catching numbers Ron Francis simply could play.

In Hartford he played for an organization that was poorly managed with weak coaching. Played hurt at times and with less than ideal linemates.

With Pittsburgh and afterwards, Ron Francis was surrounded with better players, coaches and management. With Bryan Trottier, Francis took care of the mundane duties that the offense first types were not willing to do, contributing to two SCs. Later with Pittsburgh he was to Jagr what Jacques Lemaire was to Guy Lafleur, the defensive conscience, the responsible player. With Carolina he was the veteran presence that produced leading by example and showing the younger players the nuances of a complete game.

Ron Francis is a member of the HHOF on merit, like many players who do not have the flashy numbers - Lemaire, Keon, H. Richard, Delvecchio, amongst others.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Watching a player's career and maturation. Most of the readers know how old I am within a couple of years and my background.

Started watching Ron Francis in 1980, part of scouting Midget AAA and junior hockey. Francis played for Sault Ste. Marie and was part of the group of 3 centers eligible for the 1981 draft - Hawerchuk, Doug Smith and Francis.Liked him better than Smith who was a 67's Kilrea product.

Even in junior, the few times I saw him play you could see that he was a player, who if he matured physically, stayed healthy would have a long and productive career with HHOF potential.Certain qualities reminded me of Jacques Lemaire as a junior. Played only one position - and while he did not generate the eye-catching numbers Ron Francis simply could play.

In Hartford he played for an organization that was poorly managed with weak coaching. Played hurt at times and with less than ideal linemates.

With Pittsburgh and afterwards, Ron Francis was surrounded with better players, coaches and management. With Bryan Trottier, Francis took care of the mundane duties that the offense first types were not willing to do, contributing to two SCs. Later with Pittsburgh he was to Jagr what Jacques Lemaire was to Guy Lafleur, the defensive conscience, the responsible player. With Carolina he was the veteran presence that produced leading by example and showing the younger players the nuances of a complete game.

Ron Francis is a member of the HHOF on merit, like many players who do not have the flashy numbers - Lemaire, Keon, H. Richard, Delvecchio, amongst others.

This is interesting, and I like the Jacques Lemaire (as a player) comparison to Francis. Francis will of course be rated much higher on an all-time list due to his insane longevity, but I can definitely see the comparision. Even the Jagr comparison to Lafleur works.

 

[BraveCanadian]

This is interesting, and I like the Jacques Lemaire (as a player) comparison to Francis. Francis will of course be rated much higher on an all-time list due to his insane longevity, but I can definitely see the comparision. Even the Jagr comparison to Lafleur works.

No doubt he was a damn good player for a long time.

I think the questions start being raised when people say silly things like on the main board like he was top 10 all time.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

No doubt he was a damn good player for a long time.

I think the questions start being raised when people say silly things like on the main board like he was top 10 all time.

Well, the comparison made was to Jacques Lemaire, who is probably something like the 250th best player of all time. That's a lot closer to Francis's value, though obviously his vastly superior longevity brings him up. Up far enough to be a Top 100 player of all time? The voters who put together the last completed Top 100 list thought so. I'm not entirely sure.

 

[StormCast]

Hilarious Commentary

No doubt he was a damn good player for a long time.

I think the questions start being raised when people say silly things like on the main board like he was top 10 all time.

He is nowhere near the top 10 of all time. His career was similar to Don Sutton's in baseball - very good for a long time but not either an all time great or even close to the best of his generation.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Not Even Close

Well, the comparison made was to Jacques Lemaire, who is probably something like the 250th best player of all time. That's a lot closer to Francis's value, though obviously his vastly superior longevity brings him up. Up far enough to be a Top 100 player of all time? The voters who put together the last completed Top 100 list thought so. I'm not entirely sure.

My ranking Lemaire around 85th, Francis around 100th.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

In Hartford he played for an organization that was poorly managed with weak coaching. Played hurt at times and with less than ideal linemates.

hartford was not an elite team when ronnie was there, but it's not like he played with the guys lafontaine did on the island after bossy and potvin were gone and trottier had declined.

francis came into the league with stoughton, who was a very good offensive player for a few years of francis' career. mark howe was there the first year, mark johnson was there as the other top six center to take the pressure off of him, dave keon was there to tutor him. later on, he had babych, who was a very good offensive d-man in the 80s, sylvain turgeon, kevin dineen, ray ferraro, and pat verbeek and scott young at the end.

i think it's an insult to francis to say that we can excuse him for not being an elite player because he didn't have lemieux, jagr, stevens, murphy, etc. he was a very good player his whole career; he just was never a game-breaking talent like yzerman, sakic, or lafontaine.

Ronnie is one of those players that is both overrated and underrated at the same time. He is a blue collar player that bordered on white collar numbers.
Like you can't honestly put him in the same class as Yzerman, Sakic and Bourque for example but where do you put him then?
For me he was one of the best lunch pail/blue collar players in history, the king of the Mike Gartner's so to speak.

i get your meaning here, but to call francis "kind of the gartners" is also a huge insult to him. a "gartner" would be all the guys who were one-dimensional offensive guys who couldn't produce at an elite level, but were around forever. a "gartner" is also a guy who wasn't a winner. andreychuk is a gartner, ciccarelli is mostly a gartner, and-- i like luc and think he's become somewhat underrated by many on this board, but-- robitaille is probably the king of the "gartners," at least among guys of that generation.

i see francis as a really really great version of guys like mikko koivu or ryan kesler (i also really like the lemaire comparison). this guy can be your number one center, and he will be a top 20 center in the league, but you're probably never going to win anything with him as your top guy unless you have some game-changing superstars at other positions. but if this guy is your number two center, given all of the intangibles he brings, the offensive production, all the role player stuff that most number one centers don't do, this kind of player as your second line center is what potentially great teams are made of.

this isn't like having a legit game-breaking superstar like messier or fedorov or forsberg as your number two center, but it's a very valuable role that not a lot of guys can fill, and not a lot of teams are able to find a guy to fill (because guys like this often waste large portions of their careers as miscast number ones on average-to-bad teams). dale hunter, neal broten, bobby smith, vinnie damphousse, rod brind'amour, francis is the king of these guys, but he was WAY better than them.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Ideal Linemates

Should have provided more details.

With Hartford Ron Francis was not supported with size. Ray Neufeld was the only forward with decent size who played with a bit of an edge. The others - Ferraro, Dineen, Verbeek, were smallish who played a bit bigger than they were but eventually would wear down. See Yzerman in Detroit.

Ideally an offense has a reciprocal blend - from the center to the wings and from the wings to the center, supported by the defense in both instances. Stoughton and Sylvain Turgeon were not strong at getting the puck to the center. Dineen was okay.

In Pittsburgh this changed.

 

[MuzzMacPherson]

Watching a player's career and maturation. Most of the readers know how old I am within a couple of years and my background.

Started watching Ron Francis in 1980, part of scouting Midget AAA and junior hockey. Francis played for Sault Ste. Marie and was part of the group of 3 centers eligible for the 1981 draft - Hawerchuk, Doug Smith and Francis.Liked him better than Smith who was a 67's Kilrea product.

Even in junior, the few times I saw him play you could see that he was a player, who if he matured physically, stayed healthy would have a long and productive career with HHOF potential.Certain qualities reminded me of Jacques Lemaire as a junior. Played only one position - and while he did not generate the eye-catching numbers Ron Francis simply could play.

In Hartford he played for an organization that was poorly managed with weak coaching. Played hurt at times and with less than ideal linemates.

With Pittsburgh and afterwards, Ron Francis was surrounded with better players, coaches and management. With Bryan Trottier, Francis took care of the mundane duties that the offense first types were not willing to do, contributing to two SCs. Later with Pittsburgh he was to Jagr what Jacques Lemaire was to Guy Lafleur, the defensive conscience, the responsible player. With Carolina he was the veteran presence that produced leading by example and showing the younger players the nuances of a complete game.

Ron Francis is a member of the HHOF on merit, like many players who do not have the flashy numbers - Lemaire, Keon, H. Richard, Delvecchio, amongst others.

I might be a little biased since I've known "Ronnie", and played hockey with him since we were 5 years old. I've certainly followed his career from the beginning so to speak. Ron's value to a team wasn't displayed through flash or flair, but through hard work, and dedication. No, he could not score goals like Mario or Jaromir, but if you needed a faceoff won in your end, or a shot blocked, in the dying seconds of a game...he was your man.

Very few players have been as cerebral on the ice as Ron. His physical skills weren't great, and in all honesty, he was a terrible skater, but he did all the little things exceptionally well. He may have gotten more out of less than any other player in the history of the league.

More importantly to me, as I grow older in years, is the fact that you won't meet a better human being than Ron Francis. So I'm 100% certain he belongs in the HHOF. Is he a top ten forward? No. Is he in the top 100 all-time...of course. I'm just thankful that I got to see him play, and better yet, got to see him turn into such a fine person.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I might be a little biased since I've known "Ronnie", and played hockey with him since we were 5 years old. I've certainly followed his career from the beginning so to speak. Ron's value to a team wasn't displayed through flash or flair, but through hard work, and dedication. No, he could not score goals like Mario or Jaromir, but if you needed a faceoff won in your end, or a shot blocked, in the dying seconds of a game...he was your man.

Very few players have been as cerebral on the ice as Ron. His physical skills weren't great, and in all honesty, he was a terrible skater, but he did all the little things exceptionally well. He may have gotten more out of less than any other player in the history of the league.

More importantly to me, as I grow older in years, is the fact that you won't meet a better human being than Ron Francis. So I'm 100% certain he belongs in the HHOF. Is he a top ten forward? No. Is he in the top 100 all-time...of course. I'm just thankful that I got to see him play, and better yet, got to see him turn into such a fine person.

Great post. And I think we all agree he is a worthy hall of famer and was a really strong two way player for a long time. Definitely a class act by all accounts too.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

That was the best season of Francis's career, and the only season he got any Hart consideration (finishing a distant 6th behind a relatively unimpressive crop). But still, the Canes got their butts kicked in the finals. The have been quite a few weak finalists in the past 2 decades or so, but none of them have ever won the whole thing, and they usually get their butts kicked in the finals.


Scott Stevens and Patrick Roy were much more dominant players than Ron Francis ever was.

Your point was that Francis could never be the best player on a team that could win a Cup. Well, he was the best player on that team. And they could have won the Cup with a break (like Lidstrom's wrist) or two. Was Ray Bourque good enough to be the best player on a team that won a Cup? Well, he never was one either.

What I was addressing there was the statement that non-elite teams could get to the finals but not win. Well, the 1993 Canadiens and the 1995 Devils were not elite teams and they both won the Cup.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Your point was that Francis could never be the best player on a team that could win a Cup. Well, he was the best player on that team. And they could have won the Cup with a break (like Lidstrom's wrist) or two. Was Ray Bourque good enough to be the best player on a team that won a Cup? Well, he never was one either.

What I was addressing there was the statement that non-elite teams could get to the finals but not win. Well, the 1993 Canadiens and the 1995 Devils were not elite teams and they both won the Cup.

How were those teams not elite? They each went 16-4 in the playoffs, the Habs won the Cup in 5 games and the Devils in 4. That sounds pretty elite to me.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'd agree with that for the most part. There are definitely things he did and things he struggled with that were indicative that he is not a truly dominant player. In fact that fifth from last word before the brackets at the end of your reply is the key. There are times that he HAS taken a team on his back like that but he didn't do it often enough to be in that top 50 of all time conversation. The awards history backs that up for the most part, where the only awards he was truly a serious candidate for more then a couple outlier years were the Lady Byng and the Selke.

I would call him the ultimate complimentary player, but IMO that's underrating him a bit. He doesn't have that ability that say Jagr or even a Fedorov/Forsberg type had to simply take over a game regularly. That said he had superior prime longevity to both of the later which makes me put Francis back in the conversation there.

The strange thing though is that he's done a few things that would make me say he's solidly in the top 100. I can't say there's too many centermen who would have been able to help make Jeff O'Neill a 40 goal scorer and a back to back to back 30+ goal scorer at the height of the dead puck era. Likewise with Kevin Dineen of the Whalers (although he did have one 35 goal season in Philly, I can't remember who his linemates were there). He also outscored Jagr in the playoffs a good bit of the time when the two were teammates in Pittsburgh. Most of the time there it was with Francis playing a second line role with Jagr playing with Stevens and Mario. I'm not saying he was better then Jagr by any means, I like you was old enough at the time to know that was not the case. But yet he was still far more productive then one would expect a player like him to be both in the regular season and the post season.

He led his team in scoring 7 times.

The year he was traded to Pittsburgh he was leading the Whalers in scoring 68 games in. Came in second anyway.

Finished 2nd to Jagr 3 times.

Finished 3rd to Jagr & Lemieux twice.

Finished second twice to Jeff O'Neil in Carolina (2 points and then 4 points) though he was obviously the better player.

Finished 3rd (by 1 point) as an 18 year-old rookie who didn't come up until November but scored 68 points in 59 games.

You are correct, calling Ron Francis a complimentary player is vastly underrating him.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

How were those teams not elite? They each went 16-4 in the playoffs, the Habs won the Cup in 5 games and the Devils in 4. That sounds pretty elite to me.

The Devils were 22-18-8 that season. Fifth in their conference.

Canadiens 48-30-6. Fourth in there conference.

Must have been a lot of elite teams those years.