HHOF Discussion - Is One of These Guys Alot Better the Other?
Why has the national hockey media consistently fawned over one of these guys, and not the other?
One of the guys above — “Player A” — has played 1294 regular season NHL games, scored 427 goals, 613 assists, 1,040 points. The same player averaged .75 points per game in 170 playoff games and played on one Stanley Cup Champion team.
The other guy — “Player B” — has played 1373 regular season NHL games, scored 419 goals, 792 assists, 1,211 points. This player averaged .82 points per game in 97 playoff games and played on two Stanley Cup Champion teams.
Even the most biased hockey writer or fan has to agree that these numbers are comparable, and that both guys have had fantastic careers with almost identical numbers while playing during the same hockey era.
Yet in spite of this objective evidence, one of them won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward SIX times - an award voted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association. The other one - the one with two championship rings - won the same award only twice. One guy was ranked by ESPN as the 10th best player of the 21st century, whereas the other guy was ranked by the same poll at 21st. Why?
Don’t misunderstand - I think Bergeron was great…but was he that much better than Kopitar to have been recognized by the media for his excellence three-times as often?
