vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
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Almost every high pick in NHL history has joined a bad team as that's who gets the high picks. For example, Dale Hawerchuk joined an abysmal Jets team as the #1 overall. They basically had zero chance of advancing beyond a playoff round with Calgary and Edmonton in their division for the entire 80's. Hawerchuk has been often criticized for his lack of playoff success. Despite this, Hawerchuk ended up playing over twice the amount of playoff games as did Kariya. Making the playoffs and winning Cups is the name of the game. It is up to the great players to get them there. Kovalchuk and Kariya didn't get the job done.
we can argue all day long about whether kariya and dionne being saddled with one line teams, whereas hawerchuk generally had much weaker linemates but better support on the second line with dave christian as his 2C, then thomas steen. but it should be noted that hawerchuk never ever had a goalie like hebert, to say nothing of giguere.
still, before hfboards i had actually never ever heard anyone criticize hawerchuk for his lack of playoff success. i mean, as an 18 year old joining a last overall team hawerchuk led the team to a home ice playoff spot, then scored eight points in a four-game first round loss, with four points in his team's single win (5-2), against a blues team that had the previous year's vezina winner and a top line that combined for a ridiculous 11 goals and 32 points in the series. jets goalies doug soetaert and ed staniowski combined for a luongo-esque 14 goals against in the last two games.
hawerchuk retired with a higher than point/game scoring rate in the playoffs, finishing with a career total of one single point under 100. his scoring rate in his peak, when he made the playoffs every year from his rookie year to 1988, is 6th among players over that period. his scoring rate in winnipeg, so adding the 1990 playoffs, is 5th over the period. over his prime, the twelve years from his rookie year up to '94, is 7th. his entire career is 28th all time, among all players, ever. obviously, those per games look a little better than they should because he rarely played deep into the playoffs, when points are harder to come by (with the exception of his old man runs in philadelphia, which actually skew his career per game down because they make up almost 1/3 of his total playoff games), but still those are not the numbers of a bad playoff performer. certainly not a guy who belongs in any conversation with dionne or kariya.
now back to kovalchuk, he had hawerchuk's problems. didn't have the greatest linemates (but he was an individualist so he arguably did not need them), but in his best years had at least one star-level player on another scoring line to help him. it was, though, obviously harder to make the playoffs on this kind of team in the 2000s than in the 80s, especially when kovalchuk's goalies were usually garbage, save for the new jersey years obviously.