Who is the most underrated goal scorer in NHL history?

[Randall Graves*]

I have a few names in mind, and i'll start with one that I think was an extremely underrated goal scorer.

Wayne Gretzky.

I think a lot of people associate Gretzky with his passing and playmaking but I feel in the grand Scheme he's really underrated as a goal scorer.

A lot of the top 3 or 5 lists i've seen rarely include him, and I ask why?

50 in 39 is a record that will not be broken unless they remove goalies completely from the game.(But I would like to know what the adjusted eqivolent would be)

He had 894 career goals, first all time, 5 years over 60 goals, and perhaps the best most accurate slap shot in NHL history...his is the best i've seen. Some guys can shoot it really hard, some are really accurate but it's rare to see a guy who can combine those two elements to a slap shot IMO.

Anyways that's my case but i'd like to see where you all would rank goal scorers who never received the credit that they deserved.

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[Al Bundy*]

Mark Messier.

Over 600 in his career, a reliable goal-scorer for many years in his prime (From his rookie year to 1997), usually in the 25-45 range.

Had one monster season (50 goals in 1981-82) and many solid seasons after that.

 

[MiamiScreamingEagles]

Not "the" most underrated but Rick MacLeish deserves mention. He was a prolific goal scorer during much of the 1970s and oftentimes his goals, especially in the playoffs, were key tallies. In fact, he was probably the Flyers best offensive forward on the two Cup teams in 1974 and 1975.

http://www.legendsofhockey.net:8080/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayer.jsp?player=13476

The Flyers opted to start MacLeish in the AHL in 1971-72 before recalling him late in the year. The next season he broke through with 50 goals while playing the power play and taking a regular shift with Gary Dornhoefer and Ross Lonsberry. Over the next two season he continued to produce on offense but was asked to take on penalty killing and defensive responsibility. MacLeish's excellence was a key component on the Flyers' consecutive Stanley Cup wins in 1974 and 1975. During the first title run he led all playoff goal scorers with 13 goals and 22 points. Overall, MacLeish was named to play in the 1976, 1977 and 1980 NHL all-star games.

 

[Randall Graves*]

I'll throw Rick Vaive out there, he had some fantastic goal scoring years especially his string of 3 straight 50 goal seasons with the Leafs in the 80's. 27 goals in 54 career playoff games, not bad. Too bad he never had a chance to play on a really top end team in his prime.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Gretzky was the first name that popped into my mind.

One guy that you hear almost nothing about these days is Tony Amonte, I guess since he fell right off the map after leaving Chicago. Eight 30 goal seasons, cracked 40 three times in a low-scoring era. Actually, it would probably be fairly accurate to call Amonte 90's version of Rick MacLeish, minus the two great playoff runs.

 

[TANK200]

Ron Francis - didn't come close to winning any scoring titles, but 500+ goals still isn't bad

 

[BM67]

Based on the HOH Top 100 discussion, I'll throw out Phil Esposito. He isn't your typical sniper. He certainly has a lesser skill set than Bossy or Jagr, but the guy just produced.

Bobby Hull set a new NHL record with 58 goal in 68-69. Phil set a new record with 76 goals in 70-71. Phil also topped Hull's old record of 58 in 3 of the next 4 seasons. It wasn't until Reggie Leach scored 61 in 75-76 that any other player topped Hull's old mark of 58.

Until Gretzky set the new record with 92 in 81-82, Mike Bossy was the only player able to crack Esposito's hold on the top 3 spots.

 

[the_speedster]

OMG it HAS to be mike bossy....

No one brings him up when talking about goal scoring any more.. I hear hull jr and senior... lemieux, jagr and of course ovechkin (With his mighty 2years)

Mike bossy started late (At 20)then retired at 30, yet still had 573goals in 752 games, . gretz played about double the amount of games he did... hull jnr. 1200..

Imagine if bossy had gotten to 1000games... hell even had 300 more games... No way wayne would've been the goal scoring leader in history.. points? yes.. goals.. hell no.

Health permitting the boss would have ended the 86/87 season at 600goals or so... 600 goals in 10yrs... leaving him only 300 from destroying the record. No way bossy wouldn't have ended up with less than 900goals

 

[BM67]

OMG it HAS to be mike bossy....

No one brings him up when talking about goal scoring any more.. I hear hull jr and senior... lemieux, jagr and of course ovechkin (With his mighty 2years)

Mike bossy started late (At 20)then retired at 30, yet still had 573goals in 752 games, . gretz played about double the amount of games he did... hull jnr. 1200..

Imagine if bossy had gotten to 1000games... hell even had 300 more games... No way wayne would've been the goal scoring leader in history.. points? yes.. goals.. hell no.

Health permitting the boss would have ended the 86/87 season at 600goals or so... 600 goals in 10yrs... leaving him only 300 from destroying the record. No way bossy wouldn't have ended up with less than 900goals

OMG, who are you talking to about goal scorers? THN had him as the greatest goal scorer in their Greatest Debates special. It would be hard to consider that underrated.

For the record, Gretzky played during 8 of the 10 years that Bossy did (9 if you count his WHA season) and scored 543 goals (589 if you count the WHA) in 632 games (712 including WHA).

A healthy Bossy might have kept up a 40 goals a season pace for the next 10 years, and beat Gretzky, but it's unlikely.

 

[reckoning]

Rick Martin: Forgotten today but was regarded as one of the best scorers in the game in the 70s. In his first nine seasons (72-80) he had more goals in that span than anyone except Esposito, Lafleur and Dionne. Unfortunately at the age of 29 he suffered what would be a career-ending knee injury when he and Mike Palmateer collided going after a loose puck (Martin angrily claimed Palmateer went after his knee on purpose and vowed to shoot at his head the next time they played, Palmateer claimed it was an accident. ) Scotty Bowman insisted on putting Martin back in the lineup too early, which did further damage to the knee and resulted in Martin filing a lawsuit against Bowman and the team.

Considering that Martin had 375 goals after his first 9 seasons, if we assume that he would've played as long as Perreault and that his production would've dropped at the same rate as Perreault's, then Martin would've finished his career with approximately 640 goals. Those numbers at the time would've made him an easy first ballot Hall of Famer.

Charlie Simmer: Another player whose totals were hurt by injuries. Unbelievably, Simmer couldn't hold down a regular spot on the California Golden Seals lineup. After three years there back and forth between the Seals and the Salt Lake franchise in the CHL, he was released. He tried out for the L.A. Kings the following training camp, and spent a year and a half on their AHL team in Springfield. Midway through the 78-79 season he was called up to the Kings. They decided to try putting him on a line with Marcel Dionne and Dave Taylor, and everything clicked perfectly. One of the top lines of the 80s was born.

The next two seasons, Simmer had 56 goals in 64 games and 56 goals in 65 games. Both of years he would've had a very good shot at 70 goals had he stayed healthy and played a full schedule. While everyone remembers Mike Bossy being the 2nd player in NHL history to score 50 goals in 50 games in 80-81, many forget that Simmer was matching him almost every step of the way and the goal scoring lead kept going back and forth between the two of them (Simmer got his 50th goal in his 51st game).

Interesting link between Simmer and Martin: Los Angeles was having a great year in 80-81, were near the top of the standings and were thought to be a legitimate Cup contender. But in March in a game against Toronto, Simmer fell awkwardly on a fluke play and broke his leg. It was close to the trading deadline and the Kings were desperate for a scoring LW, so Scotty Bowman "benevolently" offered to trade them Rick Martin. L.A. jumped at the opportunity, not realizing Martin's injury was far worse than Bowman had revealed. Martin would end up only playing 4 games for L.A. before he had to retire. What the Kings traded to Buffalo to get Martin was a 1st round pick in `83, who turned out to be Tom Barrasso.

 

[Analyzer*]

Keith Tkachuk - has almost 500 goals.

Mark Recchi has over 500.

Don't know if people consider them underrated, or not. Just, I hear little about Recchi and even less about Tkachuk.

 

[Diving Pokecheck*]

It was close to the trading deadline and the Kings were desperate for a scoring LW, so Scotty Bowman "benevolently" offered to trade them Rick Martin. L.A. jumped at the opportunity, not realizing Martin's injury was far worse than Bowman had revealed. Martin would end up only playing 4 games for L.A. before he had to retire. What the Kings traded to Buffalo to get Martin was a 1st round pick in `83, who turned out to be Tom Barrasso.

I believe that the Sabres told the Kings that Martin was healthy, when he clearly was not. A healthy Martin would have replaced Simmer on the triple crown line very well.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Mike Gartner, Mats Naslund, Mike Foligno, Mike Bossy

 

[Montreal Shadow]

I have a few names in mind, and i'll start with one that I think was an extremely underrated goal scorer.

Wayne Gretzky.

I think a lot of people associate Gretzky with his passing and playmaking but I feel in the grand Scheme he's really underrated as a goal scorer.

A lot of the top 3 or 5 lists i've seen rarely include him, and I ask why?

50 in 39 is a record that will not be broken unless they remove goalies completely from the game.(But I would like to know what the adjusted eqivolent would be)

He had 894 career goals, first all time, 5 years over 60 goals, and perhaps the best most accurate slap shot in NHL history...his is the best i've seen. Some guys can shoot it really hard, some are really accurate but it's rare to see a guy who can combine those two elements to a slap shot IMO.

Anyways that's my case but i'd like to see where you all would rank goal scorers who never received the credit that they deserved.

No doubt he was arguably a great goal scorer but, his playmaking abilites were just far more amazing. I don't think he's underrated goal scorer. Wasn't he the one who scored 92 goals in a single season.

 

[lucky13]

Mike Gartner, Mats Naslund, Mike Foligno, Mike Bossy

i was gonna say mike gartner...alotta people forget about him....

another would have to be pat verbeek.....

 

[Velociraptor]

Obviously Mike Gartner

 

[BAuldie]

Obviously Mike Gartner

I was going to say Gartner..

sometimes I don't think Luc Robitaille gets a lot of attention for what he was able to do as wel.

 

[blamebettman*]

Dave Andreychuk and Michel Goulet

 

[WingsFan95]

Noody talks about Mike Bossy anymore, anybody notice this?

Guy holds the record for most consecutive 50 goal seasons.

Guy holds the highest goals per game average ever.

Guy was amazing.

Yet a lot of people have forgotten him, that's my take on it.

Whenever you ask people who was the best goal scorer they say " Gretzky, Lemieux, Bure was pretty good " those are the three I usually hear about.

Then people go back and say The Rocket and Gordie Howe.

Mike Bossy was an absolute beast, A BEAST!

Not too many people ever talk about Marcel Dionne either.

 

[capn89*]

One thing I hate about threads like this is when you talk about "all time" best anything, it's really not fair. You look at goalies "back in the day" and they just flat out STUNK compared to today's WORST goalies. Looks at some of the 60 foot goals scored with goalie barely moving for the puck, it's just sad. For some reason numbers mean everything to most people and since Gretzky has so many of those numbers people tend to disagree when you say things like "he wouldn't be dominent playing in today's game. He'd be good, but not great. Just as I think guys like Ovechkin and Crosby would double the figures Gretzky put up if THEY played in HIS era."

 

[Big Phil]

OMG it HAS to be mike bossy....

No one brings him up when talking about goal scoring any more.. I hear hull jr and senior... lemieux, jagr and of course ovechkin (With his mighty 2years)

Everyone talks about Bossy. he would be my #1, and a whole lot of other people would agree

 

[Big Phil]

When I think of underrated goal scorers I dont think of guys who had a long career that were GOOD goal scorers like Messier or Andreychuk. I think rather of guys who had a short peak, and dont quite stack up in career numbers that never get mentioned. Or even a guy like Bernie Geoffrion. One of the greatest ever to play, but as well one of the greatest goal scorers. The 2nd player to hit 50 goals in 1961.

But some of the other choices are pretty good too. Martin, Vaive are not bad choices.

 

[Ogopogo*]

Gordie Howe. Howe is the greratest goal scorer of all time but virtually nobody knows it.

 

[Ogopogo*]

Obviously Mike Gartner

Gartner is overrated if anything. He was never among the best in the NHL, he was never dominant, he simply put together 20 good seasons.

Good + good + good...= good, not great.

 

[foame]

Tim Kerr holds the pp-goals record

Dino Ciccarelli had some good years (record for most goals by rookie in stanley cup)

Peter Bondra was also good