this is where i would ask myself: where does kariya fall on the marcel dionne to markus naslund spectrum? somewhere in between obviously, but how far to either side of "undeniable, despite..." and "you're fffing kidding me"?
lindros of course is undeniable. but the thing i don't like about him is if you give him back those two years he voluntarily didn't play, he almost certainly hits 400 and 1,000 and he would have been in years ago. ditto kariya: if he doesn't miss the first 32 games of the '98 season, he hits 1,000 points and 1,000 games.
but i think that was also symptomatic of the short term thinking plaguing the game at the time: by players, agents, owners, bettman, etc.-- always the short term score not the big picture. the suter hit probably happens anyway, but maybe not as bad? i remember as he was trying to come back from that concussion there was a little piece on his training on tsn where they showed him doing boxing exercises for neck strength, so his head wouldn't snap back when he gets hit. could missing training camp and however much other training from his contract impasse (losing access to team facilities, etc) have affected how he took that hit? but i digress: what endorsement opportunities did kariya miss out on not playing those two tokyo games, especially if the plan was to plant a seed for the olympics later on, knowing now that he very well could have been the difference maker and hero for canada, with a relatively thin, albeit still peak hasek-sized, margin between the bronze game and the gold? he wouldn't have been yao ming, but an agent looking at the long term and big picture instead of just the one contract in front of his nose would have recognized that an energized and fully trained and midseason form kariya could have made back those dollars from the lower contract and probably way more by being hockey's first crossover asia/pacific rim star (assuming, of course, that no one could have predicted the suter hit).
gretzky, for instance, always understood the larger ramifications of his actions to the game, and that if the game grows, he will make back his piece and more.