[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

You're missing 3 significant trophies from Nieuwendyk's case.

The 'stacked' team argument is for me, the worst.

The "stacked team" argument is no worse than the "he won three Cups" argument. Also, I didn't miss them, I alluded to them when I brought up international team success. The central point of my argument, however, was individual comaprison.

What does it say when two stacked teams go out of their way and pay a big price, to acquire a player who just happens to push them over the top to win the championship?

What does it say that New Jersey had already won championships a couple years earlier? Can you say that Niewuendyk actually pushed the Devils over the top?

Is this just some huge accident that Stanley Cup teams were falling all over themselves, trading players like Iginla and Arnott, for some schmuck of a third line centre that never made anyone around him better? Did Nieuwendyk just luck into being the second highest scorer in the playoffs for Dallas the year they won the cup?

Now you're just getting pissy. Also, it is hilarious that you whine about people using what-ifs later in your post, yet rely on a strawman argument here (unless, of course, you can show me where people are calling Niewuendyk a "schmuck of a third line center that never made anyone around him better" - and before you waste your breath and my time, I never said Nieuwendyk did not make anyone better. I said only that I can't think of anyone, and asked if you could.)

There is a corollary here. Good players can play for crap teams, and crap players can play for good teams, but guys don't win multiple cups on multiple teams as key contributors by accident. That's the domain of great players.

Sure, but that does not make for an effective trump card. Joe Nieuwendyk did not make the low-budget Flames any better than Iginla did.

You know what is one of the things that made these teams stacked? Having Nieuwendyk on their rosters.

Another strawman. Joe Nieuwendyk is no more individually capable of making a team stacked than Jarome Iginla is. Look for the word team and spend some time considering what it means.

Relying on these kinds of 'could've reviewed the goal', 'would've won the Conn' (highly, highly debatable btw), 'should've won the Hart' sort of illustrates the meat of the issue. The hypotheticals are needed to give weight to the argument against Nieuwendyk's actual accomplishment.

It says a great deal about your frame of mind in this debate that you ignore the numerous accolades that Iginla earned but Nieuwendyk did not, only to focus on Iginla's getting screwed out of the Hart. That is also an argumentative fallacy. It's called cherry picking. But you are right, Iginla did not win the trophy. But he came far, far closer than Nieuwendyk ever did.

Anyway, I look forward to reading your next cherry picked reply.