I hope that's a joke.
I think he's talking about future 2000 goal scorer Angelo Esposito
And he's right. The guy lacks puck poise.
I hope that's a joke.
Interesting question - nobody scores 500 goals by accident and it's clearly an achievement, so in part the question is who on the list is the biggest over-achiever. There's also the element of "help" as in Bobby Orr banking in God-knows how many pucks off Phil Esposito's stick resulting in Espo goals while Espo was simply squatting in the crease ( no offense there Phil ).
So who was banking them off Phil when he was the best player in the Summit Series?
Poor Phil, gets no love...
Tough to say. I might go with Pat Verbeek. And I really really like the little ball of hate.
As weird as it seems, Esposito gets underrated on this boards, Bobby Orr was a legend on his own but I see Phil as the best power forward to ever play the NHL. The love for Orr tends to take his credits away.
That would be Gordie Howe, everyone else is battling for second.
The problem is, Esposito's stats were 50% better with Orr than without, the effect chemistry had on him is unreal. And we never saw a healthy Orr minus Esposito. So, it's hard to predict how much was chemsitry and how much was Orr's greatness. The other problem is, Esposito's prime was all spent with Orr, so how much was natural decline? Was Esposito a 1st line center without Orr? Yeah, no doubt about it. Was Espo a top ten all-time center without Orr? No. Top 20 maybe.
That would be Gordie Howe, everyone else is battling for second.
Esposito was the best player in the 1972 Canada/Russia series without Orr. I think Phil could stand on his own quite nicely.
Gartner,Verbeek and Richard
Please cite all the years in which Turgeon was a top 10 player, besides '93.
Gartner was never even the 3rd best player at his position according to all-star team voters.
Andreychuk was almost never his teams go to guy, and the team sucked when he was. And, for the record, Gord Drillon wrote the book on standing in the crease.
Robitaille is both underrated and overrated. He's overrated because that highest scoring LW does not reflect his status in history where he is not top 10 all time and is borderline top 10 in NHL history. He's underrated because people forget that he had hands of silk when he plays in L.A.