Most Overrated [NHL] Player on your Team in the Last Decade

[It's Damn Real!]

Some call them fan favorites, others call them just flat out overrated. In a lunch pail hockey market like New York, where scoreless grinders are generally more cheered than enigmatic scorers, who are your picks for the top-5 most overrated NHL players on your particular team in the last decade.

There are no rules here except that the player had to be with the team from 2000 on. Hell, you don't even have to rank them if you don't want.

My personal choices for overrated New York Rangers since 2000:


5. Paul "The Beard" Mara – 2006-09

Of all the shitty defensemen to grace our wonderful franchise over the last decade, Mara takes the cake IMO for the single worst defender who also so happened to be the most loved (that's not to say he's the worst, just the worst who was loved). The only thing Paul was good for was about 2½ holding penalties a game and screaming "Raymond James!" about a dozen times on the ice during the course of any game. Statistically he's been on the decline for years (getting older), and his shot, skating and passing are all shells of what they used to be in his Phoenix hayday. His play here was no different IMO, and the fact that we were so dejected as a fanbase with the play of our team that some advocated giving someone as useless as Paul Mara the captaincy over Chris Drury is nothing short but a testament to just how overrated this sad sack was.


4. Jed "The Original Cantscoreahan" Ortmeyer – 2003-07

If ever there was a glorified fourth-line grinder who hardly deserved half his praise, it was Jed. Not only did he suffer from one of the worst first names in onomastic history, but he couldn't score with a handful of viagra and a wad of cash in a European brothel, let alone pot one on the ice.

Yeah yeah, I get it – he hustled, right? Whatever. Guy still sucked.


3. Colton "KO" Orr – 2005-2009

Big knuckles here was probably the worst skater I've seen on a Rangers team in nearly a decade. Kasparaitis was a better skater than Orr, and Kaspar was no figure skater himself. The guy had knuckles that made him a top-10 fighter in the league, sure, but when it came to playing the game of hockey there was little else he was capable of giving on any given game night. He really epitomized what it meant to be a "goon" seeing as he generally brought nothing but the physical game to contribute.

Sure, it was fun watching him KO Fedoruk, and for a while there he was one of our only players with a spine, but his time came and went, and the amount of love he got when he left was a little unfounded if you ask me.


2. Nigel "Mickey D's" Dawes – 2006-09

McNuggets himself. The little shrimp had all the tools necessary to actually be a pretty good player, and on a team of miscreants his ability to thread the needle was very, very noticeable if not for the same fact being true of his propensity to take numerous shifts off a game and ghost for long stretches during the season. Factor in that he came into the 2008-09 season looking like he spent the entire off-season eating cheeseburgers and gorging on happy meals from McDonalds, and it's pretty easy to understand why I grew to hate him so much, and why I consider him such an overrated Ranger.


1. Ryan "Cantscoreahan" Callahan – 2006-Present

You can thank me for that fantastic nickname, or maybe you should just be thanking his incredible propensity to miss shots from less than five feet out from the net mouth. Never before have I seen a hockey player with as poor a shot as Callahan. Even Ryan Hollweg shot better than him. Hell, I think Happy Gilmour had better accuracy than Cally. Adam Sandler himself, in fact, probably shoots better, or maybe even the "Mista Mista" lady he drops the AC on in the movie... you get the point.

Does he battle? Absolutely. Does he hit everything in sight? He tries to. Do I hate him as a player? Not at all, but I do think he's one of the most overrated players in the system right now. I certainly don't think he warrants the amount of ice-time he gets, or the shifts on our top-lines, or the PP time, but I'm not the coach, so I'll leave those mistakes to be made by someone else.

 

[Davi323]

This is tough...Its hard to see who is overrated on a team that has won mutiple Stanley Cups, the Red Wings...but, when I think of overrated, I think someone considered to be in the upper eschelon, when maybe they shouldn't be...so, with that in mind, I would have to go with Luc Robitaille. Yeah, he won the Cup in 02 with the Wings, but he never displayed much star power while in Detroit. This is only for when he was a Wing, and nothing to do with the rest of his career. We got Brett Hull the same time, and he was a monster on the ice. Luc never really showcsased himself like Hull did.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

IDR, the entire Rangers team is overrated despite, what, two or three playoff berths since 1998?

Anyway, let's take a look at an over rated player who plays on a winning team in the Atlantic Division, that being the New Jersey Devils.

Patrik Elias has to make the list. Now I say this despite the facts that:

• He's the Franchise's all-time leading scorer
• He holds the Franchise record for points in a season (96) and game-winning goals (70)
• He is tied for the all-time lead in Overtime Goals with guys named Sundin, Fedorov, and Jagr (15)

He's a brilliant player, but this thread is about being over rated, not poor or lackluster. I just feel that since he got Hep-A from the food in Russia during the NHL Lockout, he hasn't been the same guy. He was stripped of the Captain's "C" in favor of my boy Jamie Langenbrunner. He's been buried in the shadow of perennial all-star Zach Parise. He's played only 2 full, 82-game seasons in his career, scoring 96 and 81 points in each. He's roughly a point-a-game player, but he's a 2nd liner who has lost a lot of luster. Also, since Brian Gionta left, I feel he's lost a lot of his pop.

I'd still take him over ANY NY Ranger - except MAYBE Marion Gaborik with an insurance clause - but he's probably our "over rated" guy on a team of always under rated guys.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

IDR, the entire Rangers team is overrated despite, what, two or three playoff berths since 1998?

Anyway, let's take a look at an over rated player who plays on a winning team in the Atlantic Division, that being the New Jersey Devils.

Patrik Elias has to make the list. Now I say this despite the facts that:

• He's the Franchise's all-time leading scorer
• He holds the Franchise record for points in a season (96) and game-winning goals (70)
• He is tied for the all-time lead in Overtime Goals with guys named Sundin, Fedorov, and Jagr (15)

He's a brilliant player, but this thread is about being over rated, not poor or lackluster. I just feel that since he got Hep-A from the food in Russia during the NHL Lockout, he hasn't been the same guy. He was stripped of the Captain's "C" in favor of my boy Jamie Langenbrunner. He's been buried in the shadow of perennial all-star Zach Parise. He's played only 2 full, 82-game seasons in his career, scoring 96 and 81 points in each. He's roughly a point-a-game player, but he's a 2nd liner who has lost a lot of luster. Also, since Brian Gionta left, I feel he's lost a lot of his pop.

I'd still take him over ANY NY Ranger - except MAYBE Marion Gaborik with an insurance clause - but he's probably our "over rated" guy on a team of always under rated guys.

Eh, to an extent, I suppose. Players like Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan certainly, but the ISS and Central Scouting have the Rangers farm system ranked as the third best in the NHL for a reason, man – there's some serious talent coming through the pipes there – most notably in Derek Stepan, Ryan McDonaugh, Chris Kreider, Evgeny Grachev and Bobby Sanguinetti.

But I think the issue here is that you're not taking into account the difference between overpaid and overrated. Chris Drury, for example, is overpaid, not overrated. Enver Lisin (who'll walk in the off-season) on the other hand is overrated and not overpaid.

If I'm going through the Rangers roster right now, there's quite a number of performers well worth building a team around including Gáborík, Lundqvist, Callahan, Del Zotto and Staal. Perhaps some are overrated, but by no means does that mean they aren't worth building the team around.