Who in your opinion is the most overrated player of all-time?

[Coach]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Connor McDavid. The amount of hype this guy gets is higher than anyone in history. Is he great offensive player? Yes. He is not a complete player though and has not really proven anything in the NHL yet except he can rack up points. The media talks about him in the same breath as the all time greats and he just isn't.

[WacoKid]

Ok, time to end all this nonsense.

Eric Lindros

[GullFoss]

To me the list is:
Doan
Nash
Toews
Price
Jaybo
Heatley in his entire career
Yashin in Ottawa
Reddin in Ottawa

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by WacoKid

Ok, time to end all this nonsense.

Eric Lindros

Eric Lindros was absolutely dominant until injuries derailed his career

[RyZ]

Am I allowed to bring up PK Subban?

[Fire of the Phoenix]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Eric Lindros was absolutely dominant until injuries derailed his career

Yeah no kidding, he probably never watched him play live, what a treat that was. Lindros circa 95-97 was a force on ice. I personally haven't seen a power forward that physically dominating before or since. It is really too bad he was decimated by injuries. We are talking about a guy who was bigger and stronger than everyone and had the skill to go 50-70-120.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

Originally Posted by RyZ

Am I allowed to bring up PK Subban?

I think everyone is aware of how bad he is at this point. He was overrated at the time of his first trade, now he's a shadow of his former self. Faster path to irrelevancy than our own Dion Phaneuf. Not even legit top 4 at this point.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix

Yeah no kidding, he probably never watched him play live, what a treat that was. Lindros circa 95-97 was a force on ice. I personally haven't seen a power forward that physically dominating before or since. It is really too bad he was decimated by injuries. We are talking about a guy who was bigger and stronger than everyone and had the skill to go 50-70-120.

To the overrated, I'll second Scott Stevens.

You take away his borderline open ice hits, and his headhunting, and he was a decent D-man. Not the wunderkind that he was sometimes made out to be.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

To the overrated, I'll second Scott Stevens.



You take away his borderline open ice hits, and his headhunting, and he was a decent D-man. Not the wunderkind that he was sometimes made out to be.

Yeah I think you arent giving him enough credit. Dirty head hunter sure but basically Robyn Regehr on steroids. A true top pairing guy that teams were tripping over themselves to add. It sucks that the NHL allowed that type of play for so long but I think Stevens would still be relevant even in this era. He was really good.

[Erick Estrada]

Stevens was an elite all-around defensemen in the first half of his career. It was the back half when he transitioned to more of a defensive player and a very good one at that as you don't play over 1600 NHL games if you aren't amongst the best to ever play. One of the dirtiest players to ever lace up for the NHL for sure but I don't think he's overrated.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I also think you have to give Stevens the benefit of the doubt even on the headshots. They were legal at the time. No one knows if he could have adjusted and played clean by today's standards, had he started his playing career 20 years later.

Starting your career as an offensively oriented blueliner who puts up 60-70 points a season, then shifting later in your career to a shut down guy in order to adhere to your coach's preferred style of play and becoming the linchpin on the quintessential "defense-first" squad in NHL history, is no mean feat.

And it's not like anyone's putting Stevens among the best to play the game, either, he's just regarded as being a deserving HOFer and a great player. I think that's pretty much in line with what his career deserves.

[Flash Walken]

Stevens should be regarded similarly as yzerman imo.

Tremendous player who changed how he played to maximize team success.

He lead his team in scoring in 93-94 with a game 7 loss to the rangers preventing his team from the Finals.

Went on the captain 3 cups.

Stevens was elite. Like if Phaneuf transitioned into Regehr but was better than either at any point.

Elite. One of the best defenders of all time.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Eric Lindros was absolutely dominant until injuries derailed his career

He made scrubs like Leclair and Renberg into the legion of doom! haha

too bad Lindros was such a dick at the draft.

[Harry Lime]

Lidstrom was good, but he was no Stevens. I guess.

[jayswin]

Lidstrom and Lindros overated. Yeesh.

[WacoKid]

The small foreheads here seem to think I’m daft to consider Eric Lindros the most overrated player in history. Some surmise I never saw him play, that I didn’t see how gifted and dominant he was in his prime.

I’m 63 years old, so yes and yes. I’ve also been blessed to watch Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Beliveau, Lafleur, Gretzky and, in my opinion the greatest of all time, Bobby Orr (whose career was also cut short by injury).

So why is Lindros, the fabled “Next One” the most overrated.

To me, the term overrated encompasses the best player ever who never delivered and, also, cost his team most dearly in the bargain. In my view, delivering translates to the Cup. That’s the goal so that’s the measure.

The facts are these. The Flyers arguably gave up one and, likely, more Stanley Cups, not to mention $15 million, more than a fortune in the 90s era, to get him. The draft pick they gave away became Peter Forsberg, arguably an equal or better player. Quebec/Colorado instantly went from mediocrity to a perennial powerhouse, together with Detroit becoming one of the two best teams of the period.

And what did Lindros do? Well, he put up a lot of points and was a great player. But he was one among many of the 90s. He took his team to the playoffs four times and the finals once. The Flyers were a good team but not even close to the Wings or the Avs (the team that Lindros built).

And today, despite a hall of fame career, he’s pretty much an afterthought. He never, truly, lived up to his promise.

So yeah, you can claim McDavid or others are overrated. But no player has ever cost his team so much for so little as Lindros.

[Magnum PEI]

^
If he's an afterthought now, wouldn't that mean he's not overrated?

There's a lot of Internet bullying going on in this thread, so at risk of having more thrust upon me I'll say he's about perfectly rated by most people IMO. I don't think many people put him with the all time greats.

[TheScorpion]

"the small foreheads" is a new one, and it's also my new band name

[Nammer403]

Paul Byron?

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by WacoKid

The facts are these. The Flyers arguably gave up one and, likely, more Stanley Cups, not to mention $15 million, more than a fortune in the 90s era, to get him. The draft pick they gave away became Peter Forsberg, arguably an equal or better player. Quebec/Colorado instantly went from mediocrity to a perennial powerhouse, together with Detroit becoming one of the two best teams of the period.

And what did Lindros do? Well, he put up a lot of points and was a great player. But he was one among many of the 90s. He took his team to the playoffs four times and the finals once. The Flyers were a good team but not even close to the Wings or the Avs (the team that Lindros built).

Who cares about the cash, that didn't cost Philly any cups.

Peter Forsberg hadn't played a game in the NHL at that point so no one knew yet that he would become dominant. He wasn't traded as a draft pick, he was drafted the year before 6th overall after such all stars as Pat Falloon and Aaron Ward. If the Sharks had traded Falloon for Lindros would you be criticizing that? Falloon was the more highly regarded prospect at the time.

If Philly had kept Forsberg that wouldn't have made them any more of a cup contender. The Lindros trade certainly helped a lot but it wasn't what "built the team", what pushed Colorado over the top was the highway robbery that was the Roy trade combined with their already impressive depth from all of the high draft picks they had. If Lindros had joined Sakic and Roy on the Avalanche he would probably have as many cups as Forsberg did, possibly more. None of what you said makes Lindros over-rated IMO.