Quote:
Originally Posted by bigjack
Schultz averaged 30 points a year over 80 games with 343 penalty minutes over his career. I wrote that I feel he could of been a 40-50 point player and I wrote that for a few reasons:
One is I find it amazing that he could average 30 points a season and remember that average was lowered by his last full year where he only scored 18 points and his 1 point in 13 meaningless games playing for Scotty Bowman in 1979/80!
Schultz from 1973-78 averaged 35 points in 80 games over 5 seasons with 381 penalty minutes!
So I have no issues in writing that Schultz was basically a 35 point player with a ridiculous amount of penalty minutes. If he lowered the penalty minutes to say 200 minutes and stopped with all the misconduct penalties that caused him to sit in the penalty box with wasted minutes and focused more on hockey, I feel very comfortable writing that he could of been a 40-50 point man!
The other thing is that Hound Kelly showed us all what ice time and playing hockey could do for a guy with some hockey skills!
Remember that Fog Shero always said if Hound Kelly was scoring 20 goals then Shero was doing a poor job in using him! In other words don't play Kelly a regular shift but use him to rev up the team and the crowd in the proper moments having him run around banging guys and bouncing off them like a pinball!
In 1980/81, Hound Kelly was 31 years old and was dealt to the Capitals and played a regular shift and guess what he scored?
26 goals, 62 points with a rugged but not crazy 157 penalty minutes!
Schultz was a player like Kelly in terms of skills and with some icetime and focus on hockey playing, Hound Kelly at age 31 scored 26 goals and 62 points!
I think it is reasonable to think that Schultz could of been a 40-50 point man like a Bobby Nystrom was or Dan Maloney was! |
Hahaha, I think you're backpedaling a little there Jack. Nystrom averaged 23 goals over nine seasons and was almost a PPG guy in the Isles first cup run, including the cup winner. O'Reilly scored 77 and 90 points in his best back-to-back years. Cashman is a borderline HOFer in my book. Hound was definitely a better skater than Schultz and obviously had a career year when he got a regular shift in DC. Kelly's skating was pretty good for the time. His role in Philly was much more 4th line energy guy and step up when Schultz was in the box or kicked out.
I respect your opinion but Schultz was a great role player with adequate skills, at best, for his day. He probably didn't fulfill his potential as a player due to his shenanigans but we obviously have different opinions on where that upside topped out.