Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
Maybe, but a guy like Nilsson was Calgary's first legit star, led the league in points (a feat matched by only one other Flame and no other Flame draft pick) and was a PPG guy very year in the NHL, everywhere he played. And like Gaudreau, drafted in the 4th round. The only guy with more points in his draft year is Federko who played almost twice as many games.
I think as a player, Gaudreau was more on a level with Chouinard or Loob than Nilsson.
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Nilsson never led the league in points. In his best season, 1980-81, he was third behind Gretzky and Dionne -- 33 points behind Gretzky. In 2021-22, Gaudreau was second (tied with Huberdeau), only 8 points behind McDavid.
Gaudreau was also an insane +64 that year, and surprisingly, only 25 points came on the power play. Nilsson had 53 power play points and was only a +14 in 1980-81.
Gaudreau was a point a game player in his time with the Flames, at a time when scoring was much lower than the era Nilsson played in. Also, at the time of his death, he was second in points of his draft class behind Kucherov.
It can be easy to dismiss voting for Gaudreau as recency bias but when you look at the hard numbers, he really is one of the best players in franchise history. He was the best player for this team during a stretch that was arguably the second-best iteration of the Flames after the team from the mid-late 80s.
He is 12th all-time in games played with the franchise, and 5th in points. He's 9th in points-per-game (ahead of Iggy), but the only player in the top-10 who didn't play a large chunk of his career in the high-scoring 80s and early 90s.
If anything, recency bias probably makes us underrate how good he really was.