Always find these borderline cases interesting. I wouldn't really protest Turgeon getting in, but it's definitely a debatable case. His numbers are great, but there's just
something about him that screams "very good" and not "great"...
Turgeon; 1st overall pick in '87
1327 points in 1294 regular season games (1.03 PPG)
97 points in 109 playoff games (.89 PPG)
Modano; 1st overall pick in '88
1374 points in 1499 regular season games (0.92 PPG)
146 points in 176 playoff games (.83 PPG)
Sundin; 1st overall pick in '89
1349 points in 1346 regular season games (1 PPG)
82 points in 91 playoff games (.9 PPG)
Checking the 'era-adjusted' point totals out of curiosity (
NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Adjusted Points | Hockey-Reference.com):
Puts Turgeon at 1315 points (1.02 PPG), Modano at 1408 (0.94), and Sundin at 1410 (1.05)
A slight adjustment. Doesn't hurt Turgeon's case as much as I thought it might.
Hardware/awards comparison:
Sundin: 9 all-star games, 2 second all-star team selections, 1 Mark Messier Leadership Award (granted that shouldn't count for much haha, but it is a sign of respect from his peers)
Modano: 8 all-star games, 1 second all-star team selection, all-rookie team, 1 Cup
Turgeon: 5 all-star games, 1 Lady Byng
Both Modano and Sundin have pretty illustrious international careers too. 1 Olympic gold, 3 golds, 2 silvers, and 2 bronzes in WCs for Sundin, 1 Olympic silver and 1 gold and 1 silver World Cup for Modano, while Turgeon was essentially frozen out of Team Canada (perhaps unfairly due to Piestany, but I don't know if ever declined national duty?)
(edit: I see torniojaws and others already beat me to the international stats! And the adjusted stats... apologies for skimming the thread too much haha)
I was also curious about captaincies. Sundin was the Leafs captain for 10 years, Modano was the Stars captain for only 2 years (I forgot about Hatcher's reign with the Stars!), while Turgeon really only had 1 year as captain of the Canadiens and was barely an assistant captain either.
All-Star selections are obviously an imperfect metric, but combined with his lack of captaincies, it does paint a picture of a player who was never granted 'elite' respect in his day, justified or not.
Again, wouldn't be too against Turgeon getting in, but putting out a few possible reasons why the general perception seems to be he just misses the cut. (As I looked at the above, it made me wonder about Modano's case a bit, but I'm admittedly a biased Leafs fan that doesn't have the perspective of a Stars fan!)