Your view of Keith Primeau?

[Mike Martin]

How do you rank him when considering his size, toughness, and career scoring stats? He scored 30 goals in 3 different seasons. Would you say he was a less productive Eric Lindros?

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[Hawksfan2828]

He was a solution to Eric Daze but was a successful player.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

holik without the intangibles and worse defense.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

overrated primadonna who had one great playoff run in the twilight of his career after years of disappointment and for some reason is remembered for it.

Pretty good penalty killer and would have been a great 3rd line center with size if his ego would have allowed it.

 

[He Lied to Mario]

My view of Keith Primeau is of his backside as he gets dumped over the boards due to his poor balance.

 

[overg]

Keith "the puck rolls off his stick" Primeau. Lots of size, but little inclination to use it. A good skater with hands of absolute stone. A decent third line center who mistakenly believed he was being held back playing behind Yzerman and Fedorov.

One of the most frustrating Wings I've witnessed in over 20 years of watching hockey. The number of great opportunities which died on his stick were the stuff of legend.

Nothing about him reminded me of Lindros.

 

[VanIslander]

overrated primadonna who had one great playoff run in the twilight of his career after years of disappointment and for some reason is remembered for it.

Pretty good penalty killer and would have been a great 3rd line center with size if his ego would have allowed it.

TDMM and I are Vulcan mind melding on this. Bang on.

Also, he was the worst skater on Canada's 1998 Olympic team and many wondered if it was unwise to have him on the squad. But he did score a pretty good goal on a slapper I recall.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Good player who whined his way into mediocre situations and out of an ideal scenario with Detroit, if ideal means "winning a Cup" rather than "getting the spotlight".

 

[Mayor Bee]

In the first 110 games of his playoff career, Primeau scored 9 goals. Nine. Goals.

The one year that he showed up in the playoffs (2003-04), he doubled his career playoff output. So he finished with 18 playoff goals in 128 games.

Just an incredibly disappointing player.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Ah, the Primeau-donna. Let's see, what do I remember about this guy.


Highly-touted 3rd overall pick in a strong draft. He was almost 30 before you could say he was a 1st liner on a good team.

Never fit as the 3rd center that the Wings needed him to be. Never fit as the winger that the Wings were willing to settle for. Apparently he thought the Wings were the problem. They won back-to-back Cups with the trade returns.

The Hurricanes stupidly gave him the "C". He thanked them by holding out for half a season. They went to 2 Finals and won a Cup with the trade returns.

Internationally he was a minor part of two cringe-worthy losses for Team Canada.

He had the one good regular season with Philly, then a big gap, then the one good playoff. Frankly I think that made his career a little less awkward for everyone. Kind of a "bless his heart" ending, for those who speak Southern.


Yep, that adds up to one of the most disappointing careers ever.

 

[mja]

As a Flyers fan, I have no complaints. He very nearly willed us to the finals in 04, and had we'd beaten Tampa in game 7 I think we would have gone on to defeat Calgary in the finals. I've never seen anything like that playoff run.

 

[Big Phil]

I haven't forgotten about the real Keith Primeau. In Don Cherry's Rock Em Sock Em #5 you see him congratulating teammate Sergei Fedorov after a goal and Fedorov blatantly turns away from him and makes it look obvious. I once started a thread on if anyone knew that backstory. Not that I didn't know Primeau was a hard guy to play with as it was, but why Fedorov did it publicly. That being said, maybe he was simply just THAT disliked.

I don't know why Canada picked him twice on tournaments we ended up losing. Probably because he was 6'5" and somewhere along the way you wanted him on your team once he started to figure things out because he looked like he could dominate a game, but didn't. He did have a fine wrist shot and even though he probably could have thrown his weight around better he wasn't pushed around either.

Okay, now the more negative stuff. Primeau holding out from Detroit was awful for him. Let's face it, it didn't take a rocket scientist to know this team was as close as any team in NHL history of winning a Cup. He then got Paul Coffey traded with him to Hartford in favour of Bredan Shanahan. I always thought the Coffey trade out of Detroit deflated Coffey's career. He was never the same. He was great in 1996, very good in the 1996 World Cup and it's as if he just lost some passion after that happened because what did he still need to prove? Nothing, and to do it on Hartford was depressing. Anyway, the Wings win the Cup with Shanahan.

Primeau then held out of Carolina, got traded to Philly and Philly lost a lot of their heart and soul when BrindAmour left. I remember there being excitement in Philly when Lindros and Primeau would be together. Two BIG guys down the middle, who is going to beat Philly? As it turned out, lots of teams. They never made the final, and despite a big "Sportscenter" moment as a guy who scored a lovely wrist shot in the 5th overtime against Pittsburgh in 2000 there wasn't much from Primeau.

Then 2004 happens. He scored 7 goals that year. He made the all-star game. In the history of the all-star game I remember the comment that there quite possibly hadn't been a worse player playing in a season to make the all-star game. Then Primeau comes out of nowhere and scored 9 goals in the playoffs. People went nuts for him. I remember at this point thinking Primeau was an afterthought but when the 2004 World Cup team was announced in the middle of the playoffs I remember people on these boards and a specific interview with Wayne Gretzky by CBC where he was asked just how in the world "someone" like Brad Richards - and they said him by name - could make the team over Primeau. Let that sink in for a minute. This is mid-postseason, Richards eventually beats Philly and goes onto win the Conn Smythe and the hockey world can't understand how he gets picked over Primeau. Richards just finished a season with 79 points.

I remember thinking the media was so stupid pushing their agenda again like they do with guys they like (hello Chris Kunitz in 2014) and I remember specifically hoping that the replacement on the team for Yzerman - who had to back out - would be Vincent Lecavalier and it was. Lecavalier won the World Cup MVP. So despite a horrible regular season where Primeau was the butt end of a bunch of jokes he is all of the sudden Jean Beliveau because of a big postseason at a time when he was always a major disappointment. I didn't get sucked into thinking his career was resurrected.

Anyway, so that's Primeau's legacy to me.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

A slightly better version of Chris Gratton, big tough centers who were highly touted coming in, both were tried to play at LW, and both had sprinkles of productive years but were also major disappointments for not quite living up to the lofty hype they entered the league with.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i think gratton's going too far. gratton's more like a rich man's version of wayne primeau.

but how about bobby smith with no hockey sense and an attitude problem?

by the way, i'm really enjoying the way he's being savaged here. i mean, one single playoff run where he almost played like trevor linden did every year...

 

[Sentinel]

I remember him as a tradebait for Brendan Shanahan. Keith was so irritating to watch in both 95 and 96 playoffs... Grrrr.

 

[GMR]

I remember the 2004 playoffs, I remember him fighting his brother, and I remember him ending one of the longest games in NHL history.

 

[Stephen]

Keith Primeau is a poster child for an ugly decade of teams trying to find their own version of Eric Lindros. He's also criminally overrated for that one run in 2004, which speaks to the power of almost getting it done in a large market.

 

[nwaZ*]

Let's ask Phil Esposito:

Keith Primeau has been added to the cast of Sportsnet’s Trade Deadline Show, so there will be two Philly guys in Toronto that day. There was an amazing interview on XM last week where Phil Esposito told Keith that “during the 04 playoffs when you and the Flyers took the Lightning to seven games, you were the most dominating player I ever saw. More than Orr, Howe, Gretzky, or anyone.” Quite a compliment from Espo.

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=5562

 

[danincanada]

I was never a big fan of Primeau but this thread really turned into a bash fest quickly. He was what he was - he was never going to be Lindros and he probably thought too highly of himself but he was a very useful player when at his best. He used to run Chelios all game when with the Wings and was quite good at it.

His career was cut short due to concussions so he may have had a few more good seasons and playoff performances left in him.

I remember seeing him after a Wings game in the early to mid 90's and was he ever skinny. I was really surprised by that. Obviously he was always a tall lanky guy but I still expected him to have bigger arms then he had.

 

[Tackla]

Keith Primeau was a dominating force for the Hartford Whalers and clearly their star player in 96-97. I think it bummed him out more than anyone to leave Hartford on that note, where the team had a playoff spot in the palms of their hands and blew it and the second to last regular season. Then the Whalers get shipped to Greensboro NC, and any player who played on those Hurricanes teams will get a shiver when you mention those years to them. It was a brutal deflating experience in NC. Had Keith and the Whalers stayed in Hartford, he would've been their star player and obviously the team was headed in the right direction on the ice, off the ice was the problem and it didn't work for Preems.

 

[Thenameless]

Keith "the puck rolls off his stick" Primeau. Lots of size, but little inclination to use it. A good skater with hands of absolute stone. A decent third line center who mistakenly believed he was being held back playing behind Yzerman and Fedorov.

One of the most frustrating Wings I've witnessed in over 20 years of watching hockey. The number of great opportunities which died on his stick were the stuff of legend.

Nothing about him reminded me of Lindros.

Agreed. Lindros had soft hands that could both score and pass. Lindros was kinda scary to play against. Primeau was neither of these.

 

[Copmuter*]

From this thread I started, some felt he was better than Arnott...

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1724377

 

[Epsilon]

overrated primadonna who had one great playoff run in the twilight of his career after years of disappointment and for some reason is remembered for it.

Pretty good penalty killer and would have been a great 3rd line center with size if his ego would have allowed it.

Keith "the puck rolls off his stick" Primeau. Lots of size, but little inclination to use it. A good skater with hands of absolute stone. A decent third line center who mistakenly believed he was being held back playing behind Yzerman and Fedorov.

One of the most frustrating Wings I've witnessed in over 20 years of watching hockey. The number of great opportunities which died on his stick were the stuff of legend.

Nothing about him reminded me of Lindros.

Good player who whined his way into mediocre situations and out of an ideal scenario with Detroit, if ideal means "winning a Cup" rather than "getting the spotlight".

In the first 110 games of his playoff career, Primeau scored 9 goals. Nine. Goals.

The one year that he showed up in the playoffs (2003-04), he doubled his career playoff output. So he finished with 18 playoff goals in 128 games.

Just an incredibly disappointing player.

Ah, the Primeau-donna. Let's see, what do I remember about this guy.


Highly-touted 3rd overall pick in a strong draft. He was almost 30 before you could say he was a 1st liner on a good team.

Never fit as the 3rd center that the Wings needed him to be. Never fit as the winger that the Wings were willing to settle for. Apparently he thought the Wings were the problem. They won back-to-back Cups with the trade returns.

The Hurricanes stupidly gave him the "C". He thanked them by holding out for half a season. They went to 2 Finals and won a Cup with the trade returns.

Internationally he was a minor part of two cringe-worthy losses for Team Canada.

He had the one good regular season with Philly, then a big gap, then the one good playoff. Frankly I think that made his career a little less awkward for everyone. Kind of a "bless his heart" ending, for those who speak Southern.


Yep, that adds up to one of the most disappointing careers ever.

Basically all of this, pretty much a perfect summary of a player who for whatever reason got a huge pass from criticism (from the media, and a lot of fans) almost his entire career.

Also with regards to that Phil Esposito quote, that wouldn't be the first time that Phil said something really dumb.

 

[MS]

Good player who whined his way into mediocre situations and out of an ideal scenario with Detroit, if ideal means "winning a Cup" rather than "getting the spotlight".

This is pretty much it.

He had all the tools, and should have been one of the best two-way physical forwards in the NHL. But he was mentally weak and a prima-donna, and not a guy who fit well in dressing rooms. Finally figured it out in the 2004 playoffs, and then his career was over pretty much right after.

 

[Big Phil]

Let's ask Phil Esposito:



http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=5562

As much as I love Phil Esposito that's hyperbole. Primeau had a couple of 4 point games in that postseason but overall had 16 points in 18 games. That isn't a "great" postseason but rather a very good one. I think Primeau has gotten a lot of miles from there.