The greatest star TRIO with little team support

Big Phil

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Nov 2, 2003
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triple-Crown.jpg

This is your winner here, I think. First trio I thought of when I saw the thread title. Surprised it took a few posts to bring them up. Let's look at the biggest years for this line, 1980 and 1981.

1980 all three have at least 90 points. Taylor and Simmer played in 61 and 64 games or else they'd have had more. Dionne had 137. Goring, who was traded late in the season is next with 68. Then...........(gulp) Doug Halward with 56.

1981 is the first time three linemates had over 100 points (or the only time?). It gets a little worse here. Larry Murphy has a great rookie year with 76 points and Jerry Korab has 52 points. But they are both defensemen. Who is the next highest scoring forward after the Triple Crown of 135, 112, 105? It is Billy Harris with 49 points.

Granted, I always thought this line, and Dionne in particular, should have carried the Kings to a bit better of a playoff resume than they had, not winning a Cup per se but at least better than they performed. But that being said, it is no wonder teams feasted on them, they only had one line to stop and they knew it.
 

VanIslander

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I didn't mention the Kings because it was never just a trio of players, there was always an excellent fourth or fifth, though not much after that.

HHOF netminder Vachon was there until 1978.

Butch Goring was still a King in 1979-80, putting up 68 points in 69 games and playing a well-respected two-way game.

HHOF defenseman Larry Murphy scored 76 points in 80 games in 1980-81 for the Los Angeles Kings. Jerry Korab was a respected defenseman on that club as well.

I did not start this thread to talk about a trio of forwards (unless no great dman or goalie support made them THE trio for the entire club!) but a trio of great players for a team otherwise negligent in star performers.

So,... what have we learned? The next time someone says the poor Kings had ONLY the Triple Crown Line, we can say: "Hey, Goring was there. And when he left, Larry Murphy had a 78-point season providing blueline help!" The Kings were a quartet of top-end performers.
 

Talisman

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Nov 7, 2015
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how about in early 90s buffalos tio Lafontaine/hawercuck/Mogilny or in 80s minnesota Broten/bobby Smith/ciccarelli?
 

Big Phil

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I didn't mention the Kings because it was never just a trio of players, there was always an excellent fourth or fifth, though not much after that.

HHOF netminder Vachon was there until 1978.

Butch Goring was still a King in 1979-80, putting up 68 points in 69 games and playing a well-respected two-way game.

HHOF defenseman Larry Murphy scored 76 points in 80 games in 1980-81 for the Los Angeles Kings. Jerry Korab was a respected defenseman on that club as well.

I did not start this thread to talk about a trio of forwards (unless no great dman or goalie support made them THE trio for the entire club!) but a trio of great players for a team otherwise negligent in star performers.

So,... what have we learned? The next time someone says the poor Kings had ONLY the Triple Crown Line, we can say: "Hey, Goring was there. And when he left, Larry Murphy had a 78-point season providing blueline help!" The Kings were a quartet of top-end performers.

Okay fair enough. I disregarded Goring because he was traded late in 1980 and wasn't there after March and not for the playoffs either. In 1980 you had this sort of gap on the Kings:

Dionne - 137
Simmer - 101
Taylor - 90
Goring - 68
Halward (defense) - 56
Mike Murphy - 49

So take away Goring for the last quarter of the season and that's a significant gap. No rookie Larry Murphy to make up for that and your next best forward is Mike Murphy. This is why one-line teams usually don't get far in the postseason.

1981 the Triple Crown is even more prolific:
Dionne - 135
Taylor - 112
Simmer - 105
L. Murphy - 76
Korab - 52

Mario Lessard somehow was as 2nd team all-star in goal that year. So yeah, there was some support in other positions but this team was a one-line team and a lot more easy to key on. Maybe it comes down to coaching and such. Perhaps splitting them up would have helped spread things out more. I asked Dionne at a card show a few years ago what he thought was the biggest reason they didn't win a Cup and without hesitation he said: "Ownership."


how about in early 90s buffalos tio Lafontaine/hawercuck/Mogilny or in 80s minnesota Broten/bobby Smith/ciccarelli?

1982 would be the year you might be thinking about the most:
Smith - 114
Ciccarelli - 106
Broten - 98
Payne - 78
Hartsburg (D) - 77

I don't know if they apply here as much. I like your Sabres reference a bit better. 1992 they still had a full 91 point season from Andreychuk so there were 4 of them but in 1993 Andreychuk is traded mid season and they are left with three:

Lafontaine - 148
Mogilny - 127
Hawerchuk - 96
Bodger (D) - 54
Bob Sweeney - 47

Even in net there was a bit of a mix up of Fuhr in his mid career slump and Hasek not hitting his stride yet.
 

Big Phil

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1989 Penguins come to mind here too, to an extent.

Mario - 199
Brown - 115
Coffey - 113
Quinn - 94
Errey - 58

That trio definitely has Mario and Coffey in it and take your pick if you want Brown in there or rather have Quinn since Brown's points were based around Mario. Barrasso is in net but he did not have a good year.
 

Nick Hansen

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Bourque, Neely and Janney had a couple of years where they dragged the Bruins to the finals and CF back to back.
 

c9777666

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1992 they still had a full 91 point season from Andreychuk so there were 4 of them but in 1993 Andreychuk is traded mid season and they are left with three:

Lafontaine - 148
Mogilny - 127
Hawerchuk - 96
Bodger (D) - 54
Bob Sweeney - 47

Even in net there was a bit of a mix up of Fuhr in his mid career slump and Hasek not hitting his stride yet.

1992 also had a 5th decent contributor- rookie Donald Audette had 31 goals
 

brachyrynchos

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Apr 10, 2017
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'97-98 Capitals had Peter Bondra, Adam Oates, and Olaf Kolzig carrying the team.
Bondra (76-52-26-78) 1st on WSH in goals and points, 2nd in assists.
Oates (82-18-58-76) 1st in assists, 2nd in goals and points
Kolzig 64-33-18-10 .920 sv%, 2.20 gaa

Defenseman Calle Johansson was 3rd in points, 73-15-20-35
Steve Konowalchuk (80-10-24-34) was 4th in points (3rd forward)
Richard Zednik (65-17-9-26) scored the 3rd most goals

Bondra's 52 goals is 2 more than the Caps' next 3 in goals (Oates18, Zednik 17, Johansson15) combined (50).

Honorable mention to Zigmund Palffy and whomever he played with on Long Island.
 

streitz

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Jul 22, 2018
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Bourque, Neely and Janney had a couple of years where they dragged the Bruins to the finals and CF back to back.


You can include Janney in what was dragged. Without Neely and later Shanahan he was nothing.
 

Hoser

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Aug 7, 2005
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Like Lemieux, Jagr, Nedved in the 1996 playoffs. My Caps shut down Mario & Mario Jr in the first three games of the first round, up 2-1 in the series and went to 4OT in Game 4, one of the longest games of NHL history. Washington had great checkers on the star duo but third star for the Pens was the hero scoring his 5th goal of the series in the 4th OT to tie up the series. Pittsburgh would ride the trio to Game 7 of the Conference Finals where another great defensive team in Florida were victorious because the trio of Pens had no other offensive support.

Lemieux 11g 27p
Jagr 11g 23 p
Nedved 10g 20p

No other Pens forward had more than 5g, 9p.

(two dmen had double digit assists but only one goal each)

That's a pretty bad example in my opinion. You're totally forgetting that Ron Francis was on that team, and the only reason he was held to nine points in the post-season is because he was hurt and only played 11 of the team's 18 games. In the regular season the scoring went:

Lemieux - 161 P
Jagr - 149
Francis - 119
Nedved - 99
Tomas Sandstrom - 70 (in 58 games)
Sergei Zubov - 66 (in 64 games)
Bryan Smolinski - 64
Markus Naslund - 52 (in 66 games, before being traded to the Canucks)

The gap between 2nd and 3rd was larger than 3rd to 4th, and 4th to 5th. Even so, that team had a lot of offensive firepower on their second line. They didn't have much depth beyond that though, and their defense was putrid.

In that series against the Panthers Nedved, Lemieux and Jagr led the team in scoring with 6, 6 and 5 points respectively. Smolinski and J.J. Daigneault followed with 3 points apiece, and Sandstrom, Zubov, Glen Murray, Dave Roche and Chris Tamer had 2 points each. The only players who played in every game in the series and didn't register a point were defencemen Neil Wilkinson and Dmitri Mironov, and goon François Leroux.

Not that plus-minus is a be-all, end-all, but those "top three stars" were also among the worst on the team in that respect. They provided scoring but they were on the ice for many of the goals against too; again, pointing to the fact the team was not good defensively. The plus-minus leaders in the series were Zubov and Tamer, each +3; Lemieux was -1, Nedved was -2, and Jagr was -3. The worst on the team were Daigneault (-5) and Mironov (-8).
 

Pominville Knows

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I don’t know if I would go so far calling Gunslinger Nedved a "star", more like a "player with above average capability to put up a reasonably high amount of points if put in the right circumstances".
It was funny during the 1996 World Cup how the czech's saw it as a winner to split Jagr and Nedved so that they would have more than one scoring line. He had just had that 99 point season so it must be true, they thought.
 
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VanIslander

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Star of the game (4OT GWG), star of the series (5 goals to lead all scorers) and one of the three stars of the playoffs for the team.

This thread is about star performances, not labels of players based on careers.
 

WingsFan95

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There's actually been a ton. Especially if you're looking at star players in the 90s-00s with so many teams few even have 3 legit star players.

So I'm going to look at successful teams that only had 3 great+ ones.

06 Rangers: Other than Jagr & Lundqvist what do you have? A complete rebuild. Although Nylander was a support player the team got swept for a reason.

07 Thrashers: You want to see a statistical drop-off from 3 players? Kozlov, Kovalchuk and Hossa were the only guys with over 36 points on the year scoring 76, 80, 100. Tkachuk was picked up late in the year showed up in the 4 playoff games so maybe an upgrade over Kozlov. Lehtonen was a solid goaltender.

07 Penguins: It's not that we ignore Gonchar and Recchi but Malkin & Crosby elevate that team a ton and without them I really don't think this is a playoff team. Fleury also benefits from this but you can call him 3rd star.
 

Big Phil

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Just wondering.................has anyone mentioned the Kariya/Selanne/Rucchin combo yet? I am also not even sure I'd put Rucchin in there as he was vastly inferior to the other two and is best known to have basically won the lottery being the center between those two.

Anaheim from 1995-'00 there is just NO ONE else on those teams besides Kariya and Selanne. There are those two, then a big gap with Rucchin next and then a gap after that. I never felt Guy Hebert was anything more than an average goalie at best. I guess eventually Oleg Tverdovsky showed up on defense in 2000 if you want to count him...........and even then.
 

Nick Hansen

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Rucchin wasn't a star but to his credit, he was the one taking care of the garbage left behind by the wingers, so to speak. A little interesting that he came from the IHL into the NHL. I suppose the IHL must've been quite a bit better back then?
 

streitz

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Jul 22, 2018
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Rucchin wasn't a star but to his credit, he was the one taking care of the garbage left behind by the wingers, so to speak. A little interesting that he came from the IHL into the NHL. I suppose the IHL must've been quite a bit better back then?



It was slightly higher then AHL caliber.
 

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