Runner-Up #3: Peter Statsny
Many younger fans today might see the name and think I made a typo. This fact is not notorious enough. Paul Statsny’s a distinguished NHL player, but Paul’s father Peter was one of the all-time greats. He was also the first major star to break out of the Soviet Bloc and, unquestionably, the greatest Slovakian player to ever play.
From the 1980-81 season through to the 1987-88 season, the elder Statsny scored 713 points in 463 games, averaging 126 points per season.
In the 1981-82 season, he scored an incredible 139 points, which would have won him an Art Ross in every one of the last 23 seasons. He didn’t win, of course, since that was one of the years Gretzky scored over 200. But that should only serve to remind us how completely out of this world Wayne Gretzky was.
Over a career of 984 games, Peter Statsny has the 7th highest All-Time PPG (Points Per Game). That also makes him the player with the highest PPG to not win the Art Ross Trophy.
Runner-Up #2: Bobby Clarke
Few hockey images are as memorable as a toothless-grinning Bobby Clarke.
He was one of the premier scoring forwards in his day. In the 1972-73 season, he was second only to Phil Esposito. At the time, Esposito was shattering the scoring records set in previous eras. But Bobby Clarke was a perennial contender.
From 1972-73 until 1977-78, he scored 605 points in 462 games, averaging 107 points per game. That would have been good enough to win the Art Ross Trophy each year it was awarded from 1947-48, all the way to 1966-67, the first year Esposito won. That means Bobby Clarke averaged more points than Stan Mikita, more than Bobby Hull, and more than Gordie Howe ever scored in any one year.
But what really sets Bobby Clarke from the pack is his three Hart Trophies (awarded to the most valuable player each year by the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association).
That puts him in the same company as Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, and Alex Ovechkin. And that’s more Harts than Sidney Crosby, and Connor McDavid each have (there’s still time, Connor).
That makes Bobby Clarke the only player (within my criteria) to have won that many Harts without an Art Ross Trophy. The only players to have won more Harts than Clarke are Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky (and Eddie Shore, who won 4, but he’s a defenseman).
So I rank Clarke’s three Harts highly. In fact, the Art Ross winner usually wins the Hart as well. That has happened in 4 out of the last 5 years and 40 times in the last 72.
And Clarke did something no Art Ross Trophy winner has – he’s won the Frank Selke Trophy for best defensive forward. While that may ironically hurt his chances at winning the Art Ross, that certainly shouldn’t count against his legacy.
In addition to that, he captained the Flyers to the first two Stanley Cups won by a modern-era expansion team. Twenty years would pass before another team from that expansion class won a Cup (that would be the Penguins, in 1992-93).
Runner-Up #1: Steve Yzerman
In the 1988-89 season, Steve Yzerman scored 155 points. That tally would have been good enough to win the Art Ross in every one of the 72 years it was awarded, except for 11 of them, all of which were won by either Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux. In fact, Gretzky and Lemieux are the only two players to have ever scored more than 155 points.
From the 1987-88 season to 1992-93, Yzerman scored 732 points in 466 games, averaging 129 points per year. Incidentally, 129 points would have been enough to win the Art Ross Trophy in 48 of 72 seasons.
And he won both the Calder (best Rookie) and Conn Smythe (Playoff MVP), along with three Stanley Cups, captaining the Red Wings to all three championships.
And like Bobby Clarke, Yzerman also won the Selke later in his career. I give the edge to Yzerman, of course, because even though he never won the Hart Trophy (let alone 3), his point production was unreal, and that is what the Art Ross Trophy measures, after all.