SoVi3t
Registered User
- Sep 16, 2009
- 1,142
- 1,271
Paul Marner's Baby Boy is the top of the list for me. Turns into an absolute ghost every playoff. I am 100% certain he is incapable of growing a playoff beard.
Who Are The Worst Playoff Performers Of All Time?
- Thread starter NVious
- Start date
BLNY
Registered User
He was certainly second fiddle at best in their 16 and 17 cups.
Was it 02 he played with broken ribs?
BLNY
Registered User
My own nomination: Hellebuyck. Since 2021, I've not been impressed with him when it counts. I wouldn't be able to rely on him for a critical/timely save.
The funny thing is 2 of his 4 series with the Isles he was actually their best player or close to it, the other 2 he was Ofer in 10 games but he was already well past his prime by then but he was decent vs Toronto and Ottawa in 02 and 03.
Barrsy
Registered User
- May 14, 2017
- 3,078
- 3,313
That guy scored a MASSIVE playoff goal one year for the Oilers
Huokaus
Registered User
- Oct 29, 2010
- 1,157
- 682
There's definitely something to be said about his performances in big games, but criticizing him for leaving the bubble to be with his sick daughter I won't tolerate. It's disgusting what people (especially so-called Bruins fans) said about him after he made the right decision.
BobCole
Registered User
- May 21, 2014
- 1,728
- 1,371
This might well be the answer. Those Canucks teams should have contended, and Cloutier was practically the worst goalie in the league during three consecutive playoffs between 01-03.
Personally would also check these numbers against the winning averages. High season winning average with a low playoff winning average is perhaps enriched view of whether or not they ghost or are rendered irrelevant in the playoffs.
Compare the three statlines:
Player | Season Games | Season Goals | Season Assists | Season Points | Season Wins | Playoff Games | Playoff Goals | Playoff Assists | Playoff Points | Playoff Wins | Ratio In Question |
Al Smith | 80 | 35 | 55 | 90 | 0.65 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.2 | 0.109 |
Bob Pierre | 80 | 30 | 50 | 80 | 0.64 | 12 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 0.5 | 0.586 |
Chris Sandstrom | 80 | 25 | 45 | 70 | 0.63 | 17 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 0.529 | 0.903 |
Calderon
Registered User
- Mar 24, 2006
- 1,153
- 752
Somehow I missed that he did finally get one postseason with over a point per game when he scored 6 goals and one assist in a six game series against the Preds as a 40-year-old. Other than that only two 1.0 ppg post seasons and overall 0.68 career playoff ppg while in the regular season he got just over 1.0 career ppg. Pre 30-y-o he did score 13 goals in 21 PS games but didn't get that much assists. Definitely an underwhelming playoff performer overall, though it's true that those early Jets and Mighty Ducks teams weren't good.
Mrb1p
PRICERSTOPDAPUCK
Matthews and Hellebuyck come to mind.
Pacioretty on the Habs side.
Pacioretty on the Habs side.
Hockey Outsider
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- Jan 16, 2005
- 9,185
- 14,579
Dave Andreychuk got into the Hall of Fame for his goalscoring. He scored just 43 goals in 162 playoff games (an average of just 22 goals per 82 games). Horrific for a player who scored close to 650 goals in the regular season. (This is made worse since roughly half those games were in the high-scoring 1980's to early/mid 1990's).
Keith Primeau was legitimately great in his final playoff run. But he was terrible up until that point - 9 goals and 41 points in 110 games.
Keith Primeau was legitimately great in his final playoff run. But he was terrible up until that point - 9 goals and 41 points in 110 games.
Pietrangelo
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- Oct 26, 2015
- 832
- 1,083
abo9
Registered User
- Jun 25, 2017
- 9,101
- 7,196
I did a very botched analysis using the top point-per-games players according to hockey-reference, and compared with the best ppg players in the playoffs (NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Points Per Game | Hockey-Reference.com)
I say botched, because due to the nature of the tables I used, I have to manually add the players who fall outside the top 250 career playoff ppg (or I think haven't played enough games actually).
So, I looked at both ppg in RS and playoffs, and then calculated the difference.
The biggest drops are
1. Alexander Mogilny from 1.042 ppg to 0.694 ppg (33.4% down)
2. Dave Taylor from 0.962 ppg to 0.641 ppg (33.4% down)
3. Artemi Panarin from 1.162 ppg to 0.783 ppg (32.6% down)
4. Teemu Selanne from 1.004 ppg to 0.677 pgg (32.6% down)
5. Pavol Demitra from 0.907 ppg to 0.628 ppg (30.8% down)
HM to Marcel Dionne (6th for RS ppg, but 30.1% down in playoffs) and Kent Nilsson (10th for RS ppg, but 29.0% down in playoffs).
For those curious, the worst active players are:
1. Artemi Panarin from 1.162 ppg to 0.783 ppg (32.6% down)
2. Auston Matthews from 1.155 ppg to 0.8703 (-24.6%)
3. Steven Stamkos from 1.051 ppg to 0.795 ppg (-24.4%)
4. Vladimir Tarasenko from 0.838 ppg to 0.653 ppg (-22.1%)
5. Johnny Gaudreau from 0.974 ppg to 0.785 ppg (-19.3%)
6. Mitch Marner from 1.109 ppg to 0.907 ppg (-18.2%)
Yes I used a top 6 to include Marner - can you paint a more succinct and clearer picture of "why" Toronto is doing nothing year after year in the playoffs?
The very best performers:
1. Barry Pederson 63.9% up (what's the story here?? 32 pts in 17 games as a 21 years old cemented a high playoff ppg)
2. Leon Draisaitl 36.6% up
3. Gabriel Landeskog 25.5% up
4. Kevin Stevens 23.8% up
5. Brian Leetch 19.7%
HM Rantanen and Mackinnon both in the top 10.
McDavid is 6.1% up - which is kind of crazy with his RS totals.
Ovechkin is -13.5% down
Crosby is -11.1% down, Malkin -10% down.
Goes to show you that this difference in production needs to be contextualized, but I thought it was a fun way to bring up diverse names and back some earlier nominations with some actual data.
I say botched, because due to the nature of the tables I used, I have to manually add the players who fall outside the top 250 career playoff ppg (or I think haven't played enough games actually).
So, I looked at both ppg in RS and playoffs, and then calculated the difference.
The biggest drops are
1. Alexander Mogilny from 1.042 ppg to 0.694 ppg (33.4% down)
2. Dave Taylor from 0.962 ppg to 0.641 ppg (33.4% down)
3. Artemi Panarin from 1.162 ppg to 0.783 ppg (32.6% down)
4. Teemu Selanne from 1.004 ppg to 0.677 pgg (32.6% down)
5. Pavol Demitra from 0.907 ppg to 0.628 ppg (30.8% down)
HM to Marcel Dionne (6th for RS ppg, but 30.1% down in playoffs) and Kent Nilsson (10th for RS ppg, but 29.0% down in playoffs).
For those curious, the worst active players are:
1. Artemi Panarin from 1.162 ppg to 0.783 ppg (32.6% down)
2. Auston Matthews from 1.155 ppg to 0.8703 (-24.6%)
3. Steven Stamkos from 1.051 ppg to 0.795 ppg (-24.4%)
4. Vladimir Tarasenko from 0.838 ppg to 0.653 ppg (-22.1%)
5. Johnny Gaudreau from 0.974 ppg to 0.785 ppg (-19.3%)
6. Mitch Marner from 1.109 ppg to 0.907 ppg (-18.2%)
Yes I used a top 6 to include Marner - can you paint a more succinct and clearer picture of "why" Toronto is doing nothing year after year in the playoffs?
The very best performers:
1. Barry Pederson 63.9% up (what's the story here?? 32 pts in 17 games as a 21 years old cemented a high playoff ppg)
2. Leon Draisaitl 36.6% up
3. Gabriel Landeskog 25.5% up
4. Kevin Stevens 23.8% up
5. Brian Leetch 19.7%
HM Rantanen and Mackinnon both in the top 10.
McDavid is 6.1% up - which is kind of crazy with his RS totals.
Ovechkin is -13.5% down
Crosby is -11.1% down, Malkin -10% down.
Goes to show you that this difference in production needs to be contextualized, but I thought it was a fun way to bring up diverse names and back some earlier nominations with some actual data.
The Panther
Registered User
Except I wasn't talking about leading one's team in scoring --- I was talking about leading THE SERIES (i.e., both teams) in scoring. Thornton appeared in 33 playoff series, and exactly zero times he led both teams in scoring. Here are some historical comparisons:
Most Times leading a playoff series in scoring:
24 - Gretzky
10 - Kucherov / Sakic
9 - Lemieux / Bossy / Gilmour / Modano / Fedorov
8 - M. Richard / Lafleur / Howe / Savard / Brett Hull
(move way down the list...)
4 - Draisaitl / Bure / Drillon / Sorrell / Payne / Orr / Conacher / Giroux / Staal / Keeling / Marchessault / Straka / Leach / Ullman / Hawerchuk / Mats Naslund / H. Smith (+ many more)
0 - Thornton
Best %, "#1 PTS" in Playoff Series
57% - Gretzky
45% - Lemieux
44% - Draisaitl
38% - Kucherov
36% - Bure
33% - Sakic / McDavid / Scheifele
32% - Bossy
31% - M. Richard / Drillon / Sorrell
30% - Perreault / Guentzel / Lafleur
(move way down the list...)
20% - Marchand / M. Tkachuk / Zibanejad / Smyl
0 - Thornton
NHL forwards who have been in the most playoff series without ever being #1 in scoring in that series:
44 - Draper
43 - Carbonneau
32 - Keane
37 - MacTavish
36 - Shanahan
34 - Holmstrom / D. Hunter / Nystrom
33 - Thornton / Maltby / McCarty / Krushelnyski
SopelFanThe3rd
Cock of the Walk
Thornton, Marleau and Nash
I'm impressed that Draper and Carbonneau were in that many playoff series. Those are winners.
Masterplan
Registered User
- May 9, 2022
- 101
- 103
Thornton, Marleau, Markus Naslund and Bertuzzi, Tkachuk(Keith). Seguin, Stamkos. Turgeon(both of them). Cash in Yashin and Mogilny(he was only good in the playoffs during contract years). Off the top of my head, not including goalies.
Bathgate(before my time) and Dionne played for bad teams. So it's hard to judge them the same.
There are other guys like Primeau, Andreychuk, Owen Nolan(even if he was 1OA), Mellanby. Who generally take too much heat considering none of them were super skilled talents. They were middle tier players not really capable of taking a playoff series over consistently.
Bathgate(before my time) and Dionne played for bad teams. So it's hard to judge them the same.
There are other guys like Primeau, Andreychuk, Owen Nolan(even if he was 1OA), Mellanby. Who generally take too much heat considering none of them were super skilled talents. They were middle tier players not really capable of taking a playoff series over consistently.
dtown77
Registered User
- Dec 29, 2005
- 282
- 201
TooManyHumans
Registered User
- May 4, 2018
- 2,401
- 3,412
The worst playoff performers are actually some third or fourth line scrubs we won't even think of because they are so forgettable. They definitely aren't all the stars people are mentioning in this thread.
BrokenFace
Registered User
Rask was the best Bruin in the 2019 finals. He was let down by the team in front of him. That's the curse of being a goalie though, you're always the easiest guy to blame.
It's not a lazy narrative.
The Story of Joe Thornton can be shown in by "sorting order" of Regular season points, and Playoff points.
Thornton notoriously drops off in the playoffs, while Pavelski, Clowe, and Couture elevated.
Not once or twice but SEVERAL seasons Joe could lead the sharks in the RS, but then fell off in the playoffs.
He wasn't built for playoff hockey.
| Regular Season Scoring: | Playoffs Scoring: |
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