To me, elite includes great two centres like Bergeron, Francis, and Gilmour. Those players are a rare find on any team. Perhaps Nieuwendyke is debatable but in my mind Gilmour is definitely elite.
Both those guys had great careers but Nieuwendyk never broke 100 points in a season in his career, Gilmour is probably the closest but I'd argue his elite seasons actually came as a Leaf.
If I were to rank the tiers as Good, Great, All-Star, Elite, and Generational then I think both would fall into the "All-Star" category in their time as Flames.
Neither were anywhere close to Hart trophy discussion, or Art Ross discussion in their time as Flames. Neither were top-5 in All-NHL end of season all-star team voting in their time as a Flames player. Niewendyk made the all-star team 4 times as a Flame, Gilmour never made an all-star team as a Flame.
Great careers but IMO never elite, top 5 (maybe even top 10) centers in their time as Flames.
(Just to clarify how I'd define elite here is who I'd say are elite NHL centers right now: McDavid, Mackinnon, Matthews, Crosby, Hughes, Pettersson, maybe Eichel/Draisatil)
Gilmour was underrated when he was a Flame IMO and a great example of how points are not the best way to measure a center. I don’t know what category of yours to put him in but IMO he was likely one of the best centers of the game at the time.
Nieuwendyk’s career is fascinating. An HHOFer who arguably had his best season as a rookie.
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Nieuwendyk never had a single 100-point season in the NHL, and that was in a generation when guys were regularly getting 130-140. Obviously a great player but the whole point is how great these guys were relative to their peers.
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but that's the thing, Bergeron was renowned for his two-way ability and won a bunch of awards for it ... Nieuwendyk was an incredible player but like SuperMatt said, he still wasn't quite at the very, very top of the pile compared to guys like Gretzky, Messier, Lemieux, and Yzerman
Flames have had a few No. 1 centres (Nieuwendyk definitely being one) but they've never really had a guy who could be called a top-3 or 5 centre in the league
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but that's the thing, Bergeron was renowned for his two-way ability and won a bunch of awards for it ... Nieuwendyk was an incredible player but like SuperMatt said, he still wasn't quite at the very, very top of the pile compared to guys like Gretzky, Messier, Lemieux, and Yzerman
Flames have had a few No. 1 centres (Nieuwendyk definitely being one) but they've never really had a guy who could be called a top-3 or 5 centre in the league
What could have been
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