Does Doug Gilmour belong in the Hall of Fame?

Last night's Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony got me thinking about Doug Gilmour. Is he a Hall of Famer? No, he does compare to any of the players that got in last night. But there are players who weren't nearly as good as Yzerman, Hull, Robitaille and Brett Hull and they've been inducted. So here it goes: The definitive examination of Doug Gilmour's candidacy into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The Case for Doug Gilmour:

20 Seasons in the league
450 Career goals (54th overall)
964 Career assists (12th overall)
1414 Career points (17th overall)

60 Career playoff goals (T-27th overall)
128 Career playoff assists (5th overall)
13 Game winning playoff goals (T-13th overall)
0.703 assists per playoff game (T-17th overall)


Eight very good-to-great seasons: 1986-87 to 1993-94
During this period, Gilmour averaged 29 Gs, 68 As, +20 (+26.5 in years with Calgary and Toronto; no less than +20 during these six years). In his first 206 games in Toronto (January 1992 to April 1994), he posted 74 Gs, 213As, +70, 8 GWGs. His average over an 84 game season in Toronto would have been 30 Gs, 87 As, +29.


One elite playoff run:
'93 Leafs (21 GPs, 10 Gs, 25As, +16, second in points, most among players who didn't make the final - Lost in Conference finals)


One semi-elite playoff run:
'94 Leafs (18 GPs, 8 Gs, 18 As, +3, Fourth in points, most among players who didn't make the final - Lost in Conference finals)

(More on both of these runs and seasons later.)


Two great playoff runs:
'86 Blues (19 GPs, 9 Gs, 12 As, +3, 2 GWGs, Lost in Conference finals);
'89 Flames (22 GPs, 11Gs, 11As, +12, 3 GWGs, Won Stanley Cup);

I'm not old enough to comment on quality of Gilmour's play in the '86 playoffs. All that I can do is look at the his numbers in the regular season (74 GPs, 25 Gs, 28 As, -3), see the massive jump in he took in that post-season (see above), observe his major improvement in the '87 campaign (80 GPs, 42 Gs, 63 As, -2) and extrapolate from the whole thing that Gilmour had made "The Leap."

As for '89 with Calgary, he was a key factor in a team that won the Stanley Cup; That in and of itself might cement a player's career.


Runner-up for the Hart Trophy in '93
Gilmour posted an impressive 32 Gs, 95 As, +32 season and finished (a distant) second to Mario Lemieux who finished the season with 69 Gs, 91 As for 160 pts in 60 games on a Presidents Trophy winning team. The 2.67 ppg is the best in history and he did this while being treated for Hodgkins Disease. He also led the league with a plus/minus of +55. Nobody but Super Mario was winning the MVP that year, wining 49 out of a possibly 50 first place vote. What's really strange is that anyone but Mario (Pat Lafontaine in this case) could receive even one first place vote.


Won the '93 Selke, runner up in '94
Gilmour was not only best player-maker on the '93 Leafs, but the best defensive forward on the team that surrendered the 2nd fewest goals in the league. The Black Hawks were first in that regard, but had Ed Belfour in goal (Belfour won the Vezina). The Leafs had Grant Fuhr (on his way over the hill and out of Toronto by mid-season) and rookie Felix Potvin. That's a big difference.

He lost in '94 to Sergei Fedorov, who led all forwards in plus/minus (granted plus/minus doesn't tell everything.) Fedorov also won the Hart and finished second in scoring.


Understood his role on a team and adjusted his talents accordingly
In the aforementioned '87 season, Gilmour scored 42 goals on a pretty bad Blues team (yes, it won the Norris division but they did so with a 32-33-15 record.) By "pretty bad" team, look at their line up. Is there anyone but Bernie Federko that you would want? Gilmour also scored 36 goals in the '88 season, finishing second on the team. Gilmour was sent to Calgary in a shotgun trade, largely done to get him out of the United States. Unfortunately, the '89 Flames already had goal scorers (Joe Mullen and Joe Nieuwendyk both scored 51 and Hakan Loob was coming off a 50 goal season) but was missing a true play-maker. Gilmour became that guy, tallying 59 assists in 72 games (tied with Mullen for the team lead and did so in seven fewer games) and only took 161 shots (sixth on the team). He went on to tally 155 assists in his remaining 194 games in Calgary. Gilmour continued this trend with the Maple Leafs, culminating in '94. That season he finished a distant third on the team in shots with 167 behind Andreychuk (333 and 53 goals) and Clark (275 and 46 goals). All three still had shooting percentages between 16.7 and 15.9 and Gilmour still scored 27 goals in the process. Finally he never lost his scoring touch as he still scored on 15% of his shots in Calgary and Toronto. Gilmour knew that when he had the personnel in place, he could play the role of the setup man.


Best Argument in his favour: Defined an era (January 1992 - May 1994) in Toronto.

Prior to the Gilmour trade, the 1991-92 Leafs were 10-25-5 (25 points). Quick side note: If the Leafs only have 25 points on New Year's Day this year, then panic. Going further back, in the 13 year period from 1978-79 to 1990-91 (the season after the Leafs were in the NHL semi-finals to the year before acquiring Gilmour) Toronto missed the playoffs five times (an almost impossible feat considering that during this period 16 out of 21 teams made the playoffs. You had to really suck to miss this many times), were eliminated in the first round six times and were knocked out in the second round in the remaining two seasons (what's impressive is both times that the Leafs did this, they finished fourth in the Norris and defeated the first place team.)

With Gilmour in the lineup, Toronto finished the season with an impressive 20-18-2 record (42 points). SEVENTEEN points better than without him. In fact, they were only three points back of the North Stars for the final playoff spot in the Norris division. If not for the idiotic players strike in April 1992, the team has a slim chance of catching Minnesota (the Leafs were 7-5-1 in March including two wins over the North Stars and a mini-streak - three wins - that included a win over the eventual Cup Winning Penguins; Minnesota went 6-8-0 which included a five game losing streak.) The Leafs would have needed to win all three games played after the strike had hope the North Stars gained no more than one point. In the end, Minnesota only earned one point, but the Leafs could only win one their final three games. Still, an impressive turn around.

1992-93 saw the Leafs finish 44-29-11 for 99 points and third place in the Norris division. Again, a THIRTY-TWO point improvement and a post-season birth. In the playoffs, the Leafs upset Detroit in the opening round (a series that included a famous game seven overtime win at Joe Louis Arena), knocked out the upstart St. Louis Blues in seven (a series that saw Curtis Joseph play his best hockey not in a Toronto Maple Leafs uniform until the 6-0 drubbing in game seven), and were finally eliminated in the conference championship by the Los Angeles Kings (and only after considerable controversy/shenanigans/bullshit/whatever you choose to call it in game six and Wayne Gretzky's self-defined greatest game of his career in game seven).

1993-94 saw the Leafs start the season a franchise best 10-0-0, finish 43-29-12 for 98 points and second place in the Norris (talk about consistency there). Dave Andreychuk (acquired at the deadline in '93) became the third (and last as of now) Leaf to notch 50 goals. Wendel Clark pocketed 46 goals in spite of the fact that he still missed 20 games. As for Gilmour he was, well, Gilmour (27 Gs, 84As, +25, ho-hum). The team defence was again strong, with Toronto finishing 6th overall in goals against despite having a mediocre year from Potvin (17th in GAA and 10th in Save percentage despite playing for the 6th stingiest defence in the league). The season culminated with playoff wins over Chicago and San Jose (which included another game seven win at the Gardens) before running into Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden and the Canucks. Vancouver was able to get a split at the Gardens before taking all three games on the West Coast.

And just like that, the window had closed. Clark was traded to Quebec in the off-season for Mats Sundin. Then the lockout happened and New Jersey proved you could win on goaltending and suffocating (border-line illegal) defence. Even though Clark returned in February '96, the Leafs didn't have the goaltending/defence to hang with anyone (they suffered back-to-back first round losses in '95 and '96 to Belfour's Black Hawks and MacInnis's Blues). Gilmour (and Clark) were never the same and on February 25, 1997, the Leafs wisely (and in spite of justifiable fan outrage) sent Doug Gilmour (as well as Dave Ellett and a third round pick) to New Jersey for Jason Smith, Steve Sullivan and rookie Alyn McCauley. The Gilmour era was over in Toronto.

Was all of this because of Gilmour? Certainly not. Clark had been there the entire time though he was never the player he could have been because the back injury that he suffered in the 1986-87 season (he begun his career with back-to-back 30 goals seasons before the injury. After that, he never played more than 66 games in a season while with the Leafs.) Gilmour at centre gave Clark the play-maker he always needed and he responded with 46 goals in 1993-94. In addition when Toronto acquired Andreychuk in February of 1993, he proceeded to score 25 goals in the remaining 31 games of the season and 12 more in the post-season (more than Gilmour and Clark). The three made up arguably the league's best line in 1993-94. (Don't believe me, go to Hockey Reference's 1993-94 season summary page. Click on as many teams as you want. I defy you to find a better one. If Pittsburgh had managed a full season of Mario-Jagr-Stevens, that line would have been better but Mario only played 28 games. Francis was wonderful as Mario's deputy, but he still wasn't Mario. And to continue this point, here another debate for the future: Who was the more tragic figure? Mario or Bobby. Where was I? Oh yeah, back to Gilmour and the Leafs.) So yes, there was more than just Gilmour to this team but he and the trade came to define the Post-Ballard, Early-Cliff Fletcher era.


The Case against Doug Gilmour:
Gilmour's career was a history of being great when it was necessary to be elite.

Stats
0.305 Goals per game (233rd overall)
0.959 Points per game (76th overall)


Never made an All-NHL team. Not once.
His best chances were in '93 and '94. In '93, Mario had the arguably the greatest single season of all-time (I mentioned it earlier) and Pat LaFontaine put up 53 Gs, 98 As, +11 and helped feed Alexander Mogilny to his 76 goals. The voters for the the All-NHL team weren't on Gilmour's side.

In '94, he was either the third or fourth best centre in the league after Sergei Fedorov (MVP; 57 Gs, 63 As, +48; First Team All-NHL; Led the Red Wings to a Central Division with Steve Yzerman out of the lineup for 26 games), Gretzky (Scoring leader; Led the league in assists; 38 Gs, 92 As, -25; 2nd Team All-NHL; Best player on offensive skilled but defensively atrocious team) and maybe Oates (Five more goals, four fewer assists than Gilmour; +10 to Gilmour's +25; Played on a Bruins team that lost Cam Neely for 35 games in Neely's 50 goals in 49 games season. Still finished 2nd in the Northeast division.) In a pinch, Gilmour's defence should give him the nod for third but again not first or second team.


Never was the dominate player on a team that made the Stanley Cup final.
At this point, Leafs fans will say "But he should have been in the Cup in '93 if not for Kerry Fraser." Here's my problem with this argument: The Leafs as a franchise had never lost a game seven at Maple Leaf Gardens. Never. The narrative after game six shouldn't have been about the high-stick; it should have been about Fortress Maple Leaf Gardens. Game seven should have been a guarantee. Instead, Gretzky embarrassed the Leafs on home ice with a three goal, one assist performance (he set up Tomas Sundtrom for the Kings second goal to put them ahead 2-0.) The Great One recorded the only hat-trick in game seven history which included the series winning goal - This one was the most embarrassing. With less about 3:30 to play and the Kings up 5-3, Gretzky skated behind the Leafs goal (right into "The Office"), saw Dave Ellett with his head turned the wrong way and banked the puck in off his skate to beat Potvin. All the while, Todd Gill is on him. Go to 3:20 on this clip.

Here's the weird thing (and this is becoming a trend), Gilmour still posted a great game. Three assists for one the game's top play-makers is about all one can ask for. (Go to 2:46 on the same clip for his Gretzkyian behind the net pass to a waiting Wendel Clark.) In fact, it should have been enough. It just wasn't. Gilmour's great game (and Clark's two goal performance as well for that matter) was topped by Gretzky's all-time elite game.

The Leafs '94 playoff simply can't compare to their run in '93. They were so dominated by the Canucks in Vancouver that it broke the hearts of both the team and the city of Toronto. There was no controversy in the loss to Vancouver, only sadness.

Finally, no one can honestly say he was either dominant or the best player on the'89 Flames. Was he very good? Yes. Was he better than MacInnis or Vernon? No. Was he better than Mullen or Loob? Probably not. Was he more important than Lanny MacDonald? Not a chance.


Best Agrument Against Him: Never emerged an Elite Centre
During Gilmour's career, the following players also played centre: Gretzky*, Lemieux*, Messier*, Yzerman*, Francis*, Denis Savard*, Hawerchuk*, LaFontaine*, Oates, Lindros, Sakic, Forsberg, Federov, Modano, etc (* represents Hall of Famers.) You get the point.

Doug Gilmour was a very good-to-great centre who played in era that featured great-to-elite centres (including the indisputable two greatest centres of all time.) Should he be punished that he wasn't a top-ten all time player? No. But does his career/prime of his career best any of the players that I've mentioned earlier? Maybe Hawerchuk and LaFontaine and probably Lindros and Oates (though I think that we forget how great of a player Lindros was until his first run of concussions.) Even if these men are excluded, that's 10 players who played during the same period that I would unquestionably prefer as my first line centre over Doug Gilmour.

Now if the Hall of Fame housed a number of very good-to-great centres, Gilmour would have been rubber stamped. The problem is that this isn't the case. The only centres that meet these criteria from an earlier era are Bernie Federko and maybe Norm Ullman (no Cups for Ullman but one 1st-team All-NHL and a 2nd-Team as well.) Given the precedent that the HHoF has set, without elite status it becomes difficult for any centre (including Gilmour) to overcome this barrier.


My final Thoughts
No one can or should fault Doug Gilmour for playing during this time period. We're all victims of history in some respect. And Gilmour played as well as he could given the teams that he played for. He's remembered fondly in at least two cities (again, I don't know much about his time in St. Louis. Only the babysitter incident.), was a top-five player on a team that won the Stanley Cup and the best player a team that made a pair of conference finals. He also was one of the better play-makers of his era and consistently stepped up his already impressive game in the post-season. Then again, he was never the best at his position over an entire season nor was he considered the second best (though '93 is as debatable as it gets.) Finally, he could never claim to be the best player on a team playing in the Stanley Cup final.

I'm going to leave this one up to one to what you (my readers) think qualifies as a Hall of Famer to evaluate Gilmour candidacy. Can you be consistently very good and occasionally touch greatness, or does that greatness have to be transcendent?