Quote:
Originally Posted by Macindoc
At that time, most of those players were in the prime of their careers, considerably older than our current core.
Best current matches with your list (player I expect to eventually turn out to be superior in bold, taking into account the differential in league scoring in the two different eras):
Gaudreau-Loob
Monahan-Niewendyk
Lindholm-Mullen (40 is the new 50, better all-around game)
Tkachuk-Gilmour
Bennett-Roberts
Jankowski-Otto
Neal-McDonald
Giordano-Macinnis (for the shot alone)
Valimaki-Suter
Backlund-Fleury (less offensive flash and grit but elite defensive capability)
Overall, a I would give the advantage to the Stanley Cup winners, at least among the marquee players, but I believe that the 2nd and 3rd D pairings of the current Flames roster will surpass their counterparts on that team (of course, the goaltending is another story and yet to be determined). And I am predicting that if the current Flames win a Cup, then Gaudreau, Tkachuk and Gio will all be enshrined in the HOF. And who knows whether any of our promising young D will eventually make that list.
I do agree with you, if Bennett turns out to be anywhere near the player Roberts was, then this team will be great, and IMO will win a Cup or two.
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Backlund is better than Fleury? Fleury was all-world at one point, and he had as much talent as anyone in the game IMO. Over 1000 points despite his well-known issues (and that's the rough benchmark for HOF). Or are you just comparing them at the particular point in time (2018 versus 1989)? In that case, I guess. I would have said Backlund was more like Colin Patterson or maybe Hrdina.
You are seriously underselling Mullen. Including his all around game. I will wait to see if Lindholm gets near 40. He's on a career pace, but let's see him break 20 before we pencil him in for 40. Mullen was a no doubter HOF guy.
Loob is underrated as well. But, yeah Gaudreau easily beats him. I think Mullen versus Gaudreau is the better comparison, actually. Then Lindholm has a much more favorable matchup against Loob (whose stats suffers from a short career, despite one monster year).
I will give you Tkachuk versus Gilmour, who I think was really good but slightly overrated because he played for Toronto (and TBF had bigger numbers there). Tkachuk.
When all is said and done, I could see Gaudreau getting into the Hall and maybe Tkachuk, if they each crack 1000 points. Not Gio, Monahan or Lindholm, because I see lots of comparable players who didn't get in.
Back OT, if Bennett wants to emulate Roberts, I'm 100% behind that. By all accounts, Newy had a big part in the transformation of Roberts from grinder to scoring forward (both in development and in advocating to coaches).