On the 28th of every month, I spend some time making the case for Blackhawks legend Steve Larmer to have his number retired and, even more importantly, be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Over the past months, we’ve looked at his postseason resume, his performance against some key opponents like the North Stars and Oilers, and how he produced against the entire league.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers, shall we?
On Hockey Reference, they track Goals Created. They define the stat as “calculated by adding goals scored to 0.5 times assists, then multiplying by team goals divided by team goals plus 0.5 times team assists.” It’s a composite number that attempts to value the total impact of a player on the box score in relation to the team’s performance.
In his career, Larmer is credited with 396.75 goals created, which ranks 78﷽th in their records.
Here are the players in the 77 above Larmer on the all-time list who haven’t been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame (yet) with their rank on the list:
3. Jaromir Jagr — 717.53
10. Alex Ovechkin — 626.07
17. Sidney Crosby — 549.61
26. Joe Thornton — 528.16
43. Patrick Marleau — 472.48
44. Jeremy Roenick — 467.21
47. Bernie Nicholls — 458.74
51. Evgeni Malkin — 455.58
52. Patrick Kane — 453.98
55. Vincent Damphousse — 445.95
57. Rod Brind’Amour — 441.16
63. Keith Tkachuk — 431.92
64. Pat Verbeek — 430.04
67. Steven Stamkos — 422.09
68. Theo Flurry — 421.52
70. Anze Kopitar — 413.35
71. Brian Bellows — 411.10
72. Alexander Mogilny — 410.58
73. Eric Staal — 410.30
75. Dave Taylor — 408.22
Among the 20 players ahead of Larmer who aren’t in the Hockey Hall of Fame (yet), seven are still actively playing in the NHL and three more — Jagr, Thornton and Marleau — haven’t been eligible for induction yet. So half of the players with more goals created than Larmer in their careers aren’t even eligible.
The player who immediately follows Larmer on the list at No. 79: Patrice Bergeronꦏ. Among players already inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame who are below Larmer on the all-time list: Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Martin St. Louis, Rod Gilbert and Ted Lindsay.
Let’s also keep in mind that Larmer reached that number in 1,006 regular-season games. For the sake of comparison, Tkachuk appeared in 1,201 and Verbeek appeared in 1,424. Ovechkin has played in 1,347 games already in his great career.
Larmer’s 0.394 ranks 60th in NHL history, ranked between Hall of Famer Jacques Lemaire (61st) and Nathan MacKinnon (59th). There are only eight players ahead of Larmer on that list who are already retired (nine if we include Jagr). And his goals created per game rate is better than inducted Hall of Famers Stan Mikita, Mike Gartner, Luc Robitaille, Paul Kariya, Ron Francis, Joe Nieuwendyk, Sergei Fedorov, Brendan Shanahan and Bobby Clarke. Patrick Kane’s average is 0.385, which ranks 75th.
Players who spent the majority of their NHL career with the Blackhawks who rank ahead of Larmer all-time in goals created per game: Bobby Hull and Denis Savard. That’s it. Only two players who were primarily Blackhawks in their careers have a better goals created per game rate than Larmer — another reason his number should hang in the rafters.
