For the second straight year, Loui Eriksson has been chosen as the most underrated player in the NHL in a major poll of his fellow NHL players. Last season, he came out tops on THN's poll and this year, he garnered 16 percent of the vote in Sports Illustrated's poll of 179 players.
Frankly, though, by the time a player is universally called underrated, the label should no longer fit. The reason it endures is something I call the TNP (Teppo Numminen Phenomenon). TNP is when a player on a team that does not receive major media attention reaches All-Star status and still gets called underrated year after year pretty much solely because his team doesn't get lots of print and TV exposure.
Jamie Benn finished second in the SI poll. I do think Benn was legitimately underrated last year, because he had pretty much taken over for Brad Richards as the team's single most important forward in the second half of the season.
Nevertheless, Richards still got the lion's share of the attention, first in terms of trade rumors and then in terms of folks pretty much dismissing Dallas' chances of making the playoffs without him when he departed for the Rangers as a free agent. Entering this year, though, I think pretty much everyone around the Stars figured it was going to be a breakout year for Benn (regardless of the team's win-loss record).
The Stars as a team have overachieved thus far. I would say that Benn has generally played to the high level the team needs him to play, but I wouldn't see he's overachieved until the post-Christmas period.
Benn has come through his November-December scoring slump and has been one of the best players in the NHL over the last few weeks. He's been doing it all -- scoring, creating, hitting, double-shifting, you name it.
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