Take out Bure, Selanne and Jagr. Which team is the worst?
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Originally Posted by vadim sharifijanov
selanne had some high scoring seasons, so did bure. selanne had one great year without kariya where he was an MVP candidate. his team didn't make the playoffs though, and i think that's telling of your chances when selanne is your top gun. (not saying that kariya was better than him, just that selanne was better served with other elite talent, unlike, say, jagr or bure.)
So you are saying that if Selanne was replaced with Bure or Jagr they would have made the playoffs that year? Same Bure whose team finished with even worse record that year (25 wins) while Bure played 81 games?
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Originally Posted by vadim sharifijanov
jagr and bure both have led teams that bad into the playoffs.
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Originally Posted by vadim sharifijanov
yes, bure led a terrible panthers team in '99-'01 to the playoffs. and jagr's pens in '98-'99 were horrendous, and they won a playoff round. everyone reading this who watched hockey in the 90s knows what years i was talking about.
And I disagree with both
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i can hear your response now: bure had whitney and kozlov. jagr had straka, kovalev, lang, and titov. those guys all had more goals and/or points than anyone on the ducks. yeah, but bure made kozlov. jagr made straka and titov. did selanne make anyone around him better? rucchin's production plummeted. kovalev was at his lazy, loafing worst then, lang was a waiver pickup and wasn't yet the lang who would briefly lead the league in scoring, whitney i'll give you, although his jump in points was bure-assisted.
Over 40 points:
Ducks: Selanne & Rucchin
Panthers: Bure, Mellanby,Whitney,Kozlov,Svehla,Parrish
Pens: Jagr,Straka,Titov,Kovalev,Barnes,Lang,Hrdina,Mille r
D who played over 40 games:
Ducks: Dave Karpa, Jason Marshall, Ruslan Salei, Dmitri Mironov, J.J. Daigneault, Pavel Trnka
Panthers: Jaroslav Spacek, Robert Svehla, Todd Simpson, Paul Laus, Brett Hedican, Lance Pitlick, Mike Wilson
Pens: Brad Werenka, Bobby Dollas, Kevin Hatcher, Jiri Slegr, Ian Moran, Darius Kasparaitis
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whitney i'll give you, although his jump in points was bure-assisted.
Whitney's jump in points? I know you are a huge Bure fan, but that's too much.
After he left Florida:
67gp 21g 40a 61pts 0.91
81gp 24g 52a 76pts 0.94
Before Bure 0.84 pgg
With Bure 0.82 ppg
After Bure 0.93 ppg
Your point was?
It was Bure who saw his production sky rocket when he started playing with Whitney
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. did selanne make anyone around him better? rucchin's production plummeted.
Did it? It was his 2nd best season to that point of his career and the 4th best season in his 12 year career.
94-95 0.4ppg
95-96 0.69ppg (Kariya, Selanne for 20+ games)
96-97 0.85ppg (Kariya and Selanne) 97-98 0.74ppg (Selanne, Kariya for 20+ games)
Plummeted? hah. Rucchin never would have even scored at a 0.74 pace without Selanne and/or Kariya.
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did selanne make anyone around him better
Very much so. He was alot better at that than Bure. Rucchin,Kariya,McDonald, Kunitz etc. Heck he even made Andrew freaking Ebbett score at a 0.67ppg pace.
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selanne had scott young in what should have been his prime. he had been a reliable scorer before
Scott Young
Colorado 96-97 72gp 18g 19a 37pts
Anaheim 97-98 73gp 13g 20a 33pts
Maybe it should have been his prime, but it sure didn't look like it.
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he had a declining tomas sandstrom in one of the healthiest seasons of his career yet sandstrom would do much better the next year, when he was injury riddled.
Didn't Selanne give him enough pep talks? They didn't play a single game together.
77gp 9g 8a 17pts
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i don't blame selanne for these guys failing, but i do give bure and jagr credit for getting then-career years out of whitney, kozlov, straka, and a crazy unforeseen bounce back year from titov at the end of his career.
Titov's "crazy unforeseen bounce back"? He was still a reliable scorer. Whitney,Kozlov,Titov and Straka are greater talents than anyone besides Selanne on that Ducks team.
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but neither the panthers nor the pens had a goalie nearly as good as hebert was at the time, neither team even had a legit starter at that point (no, an aging vernon and barrasso don't count; if they did, why would they have split time with guys like shtalenkov, kidd, skudra, and aubin?).
Is Mike Vernon/Trevor Kidd really that bad of a goalie tandem?
Aubin was supposed to be the next starting goalie for the Pens. 914% 2.58gaa in 51gp as a 22 year old. He had a great season. Barrasso still did his job as a backup.
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vernon and barrasso don't count; if they did, why would they have split time with guys like shtalenkov, kidd, skudra, and aubin?).
You do realize that the same Shtalenkov who you are talking about, started 40 games for the 97-98 Ducks and only 15 for 99-00 Florida?
If Hebert was so great why did he split time with a guy like him?
If we're trying to figure out who played on the worst team, why are we looking at the 1999-2000 Panthers? Bure also played on the 2000-01 Panthers, which was clearly a much worse team.
it's not as easy or literal as saying "if bure or jagr were on the '97-'98 ducks, they would have made the playoffs." bure's and jagr's performances in the aforementioned seasons leads me to believe that those ducks would have been better with bure and jagr than they were with jagr, whether or not they made the playoffs.
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but all this is beside the point. we can argue until the cows come home about who had the worst team. the point is, i think selanne's "best" season is overrated. he proved he could score without kariya, and maybe he carried his team, but where did they end up? that's why i have him behind chelios, leetch, belfour, messier, lindros, fedorov, and sakic.
1998 Ducks. Remember, Kariya is injured all year and earlier in the season he took part in his ill-advised holdout. Take Selanne off of that already bad team and who do you have? Steve Rucchin? (shudder)
The 1999 Pens and 2000 Panthers made the playoffs at least without much difficulty. Jagr played with scrubs too, but Straka and Kovalev are better than anyone else on the Ducks. The Panthers had a 98 point team. I'm not a huge Viktor Kozlov guy, but this was his one season where he did look rather dominant at times. They aren't a playoff team without Bure but they aren't in the running for the 1975 Capitals either like the 1998 Ducks minus Selanne
The '98 Ducks were the worst of the bunch. Very difficult to lead a team to the playoffs with a weak defense and almost zero secondary offense.
I see both sides in the debate as to where was Selanne's proper rank in the '90s. He didn't make the top 10, which seems unjust until you realize how many other great players didn't either.
Three forwards were voted #7-9: Sakic, Fedorov, and Lindros.
Selanne was perhaps a more consistent producer than any of the three during the '90s (although Lindros was better on a per game basis), but he also missed the first two seasons of the decade and played less than 7 seasons' worth of games in the decade. That, combined with playing for weak teams that didn't allow him much opportunity for long playoff runs, hurt his ranking.
If the #7-10 spots were instead Selanne, Lindros, Fedorov and Sakic (in that order), that wouldn't be wrong either.
If we're trying to figure out who played on the worst team, why are we looking at the 1999-2000 Panthers? Bure also played on the 2000-01 Panthers, which was clearly a much worse team.
