Seriously, Frisco, are you actually Sylvain Turgeon or another relative of Pierre's? You've carried this argument on for, like, 25 pages now...
I do have to admit I did find the Sylvain thing funny (sorry Frisco, I like the debates, and it's all good)
Just trying to correct the great injustices of the Hockey Hall Of Fame one player at a time. Next up: Tom Barrasso.
My Best-Carey
I can get behind the Barrasso thing. I've said it myself.
That's the thing. If you take the Datsyuk who was 25 in his prime on a 109-point Detroit team upset in the second round by Calgary when he scores zero goals in 12 games I'd rather have Turgeon. Or the Stanley Cup finalist where Datsyuk scores once in sixteen games (playing with injury perhaps) I can't see how a prime Turgeon wouldn't have had a bigger impact.
I mean if you JUST look at the big years Datsyuk or Zetterberg had and simply ignore the dud playoffs where they played poorly and then do the opposite for Turgeon, of course those guys are going to come out ahead. The only fair thing to do is aggregate out the entire career in a large sample and compare:
Turgeon 97 points/107 games: 0.89/game (64th all-time)
Zetterberg 120 points/137 games: 0.88/game (72nd all-time)
Datsyuk 113/157 games: 0.72/game (176th all-time)
No I'm not knocking Zetterberg or Datsyuk. Far from it. They have and deserve their reps as clutch playoff guys. It's just when Turgeon puts up similar numbers his playoff resume is somehow held against him. That doesn't seem right.
My Best-Carey
Granted, I am not sure how Datsyuk got dragged into this, I don't think he falls into the category of "legendary" playoff performer or anything. He does have those empty years before Detroit really took some good runs (and won a Cup). But I think you could at least see him do it once and if you throw in his defense presence he definitely would be a guy that I think a GM would say they wanted for a playoff run over Turgeon. Zetterberg for sure as well.
Hawerchuk is a fine example of what Turgeon might be. 99 points in 97 games. I don't get into the whole playoff PPG thing but he does beat Turgeon in this regard. However, he barely got out of the first round. Hawerchuk is a different case because he was much more dominant in the regular season and overall was a better player than Turgeon so his HHOF status isn't questioned, but he was normally the same, a first round exit but with around a PPG. Never had a dominant postseason, never even got into the 3rd round until 1997 when he made the final as more of a depth player. It wasn't all his fault of course, but if there is a knock on Hawerchuk it is that we could have at least seen one deep run where he was the central focus, but we didn't.
Turgeon is similar to that way, except I think I would take Hawerchuk on my team over him for a series and definitely a season.