Who Is The Best Player That Nobody Talks About?

[Fig]

Datsyuk?

 

[JTmillerForA1stLOL]

Trocheck

 

[KopitarFAN]

It's somebody in a "non-hockey market", whether that's Barkov (who is awesome, like Kopitar pre-2012), Huberdeau, Trocheck (like him too), bet you guys didn't think I watched so many Panthers games, or if it's Aho or Slavin, could even make a case for Rakell in Anaheim.

You kinda see where i'm going with this, the games that no one watches/are never on nationally, and the teams that play after most have gone to bed. (mostly referring to media)

Hey! This is a family forum.

Also, I laughed way too hard at this.

 

[Jeffhabs20]

Evgeny Kuznetsov
A. Barkov
Jonathan Marchesseault
Johnny Gaudreau
Tyson Barrie
John Carlson
Logan Couture
Sebastien Aho
Oliver Ekman Larsson
Mats Zuccarello
Keith Yandle
Erik Haula
Aaron Ekblad
Mikael Backlund
Nick bjugstad
Pavel Buchnevich

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Surprised no one has brought up Spurgeon. Easily a #1Dman and has consistently been reliable offensively while excellent defensively. Must be overshadowed by Suter. But Spurgeon is almost never brought up among great Dman.

 

[Tavares to Marner]

Fredrik Anderson

 

[dasaybz]

Jon Marchessault

 

[sapperdaddy]

At the risk of sounding homerish, but hasn't it been long decided that Nick Backstrom is the quintessential underrated/ignored elite player in the league?

Dude does literally everything, scores goals, gets loads of assists, basically runs the PP, regular on the PK, is a two way player, mocks James Neal for punching himself in the face, etc etc etc, and he gets little to no love outside DC really.

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

I'm just saying his endorsement potential is a fraction of what it would be in a big market, or even a small American market.

Case in point, Pittsburgh is considered a small TV market by American pro sports standards. However, it is still almost twice as big as Edmonton, and both Sid and Geno are world mega stars. I don't think McDavid is getting that kind of attention among non hard-core NHL followers.

Pittsburgh is considered a small market because of the population relative to other major markets. When it comes to fans and TV viewership, Pittsburgh is not a small market. Pittsburgh is one of the most die hard sports towns in this country.

 

[angrymnky]

I'll throw in the Laine quote from his player tribune bit about Wheeler
“He blew me away,” Laine said. “He was so good. I thought, O.K., this guy is the superstar of the team. He is the big deal. I assumed he was like the biggest star in the NHL. But when we started going on the road and people weren’t really talking about him. Even in Winnipeg he doesn’t get that much attention. I don’t get it. He’s as good as anyone in the league.”

 

[Fledgemyhedge]

For the Flyers, probably Jake Voracek

Quietly had an 85 point season last year (his 2nd 80 plus point season in the last 4 years) in the shadow of Girouxs offense and Couturiers two-way play.

I had no idea he put up that many points, literally have heard nothing about him. Good answer

 

[Saekk]

Off HF Barkov doesn't get nearly the amount of love he deserves.

He gets pretty fairly rated in here though.

 

[slimbob8]

I agree with the majority on this one. Wheeler and Barkov are waaay better than their reputations, especially Wheeler. 91 points, stellar D, what more does the guy need to do to get recognized?

As far as d-men go, it may be a homer vote but outside of Leaf fans Rielly doesn't get anywhere close to the respect he deserves. He's not just a guy with potential to be good anymore, he's an indisputable #1D today IMO. People just keep associating the Leafs with crappy D and wrongly assume Rielly can't be that good, but he is. Both the eye test and metrics back it up.

 

[Luc Labelle]

John Gibson. Only 25 and already putting up top-5 numbers for the last two/three years. If he hadn't been hurt in the 2017 playoffs there's a good chance Anaheim would've gone to the SCF.

Gibson as a starter for Anaheim the past three seasons, he has been rock solid. Out of all number 1 goalies who managed to play over 40 games he finished 4th in save percentage at .926 behind Raanta .930 Fleury .927 and Rinne .927. Most astonishing is the fact he received ZERO votes for the Vezina trophy this season from the leagues GM's (no 1st, 2nd or 3rd place votes).

Looking up Gibson, it was surprising to see Raanta's stat line with Arizona. Perhaps he should get mention in this thread, rescued Coyotes from what could have been an alltime worst NHL season.

 

[shtorm2005]

 

[SHANNYPLAN]

Jamie Benn

Man I’d love to have Benn

 

[Bank Shot]

Off HF Barkov doesn't get nearly the amount of love he deserves.

He gets pretty fairly rated in here though.

Barkov gets talked about constantly.

I don't understand that answer.

I'd go with Richard Rakell.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

It's a Panther but it's not Barkov or Huberdeau. It's Trocheck.

Actually it is Huberdeau. It's Trocheck too but at least he gets some talk. Nobody says anything about Huberdeau.

 

[Mathew Barzal]

EDIT: Disqualified

 

[Bank Shot]

Homer vote, but I really think Horvat will have a Scheifele-esque career trajectory. Esoecially once some of our young talent starts rolling in.

Any player from a Canadian team is immediately disqualified from this thread.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

It will probably be a lot of west coast players in this thread.
With that theme in mind, I'll bring up Kopitar. I know he gets talked about, but not as much as one would think. I think he should be getting the Bergeron hype, but he doesn't.

Good thread by the way.

 

[Mathew Barzal]

Any player from a Canadian team is immediately disqualified from this thread.

Fair.

 

[Keduzin]

Anybody from the Maple Leafs

 

[quacktastic93]

Josh manson, if he can learn to score more goals i would reach a lil and sat he might be the best overall defenseman in the league. The dude can level people with hits, fight heavyweights, shut down the best players every night and still ended up with a crazy plus minus. He is also sneaky fast.

 

[Iceman]

Barkov, the most underrated player by media atleast

That’s the player I read the most about on HFB.