Ray Bourque was universally regarded as one of the top 3 defensemen of all time before he got that hail mary cup with Colorado. He carried some mediocre Bruins team on his back to the finals twice and had the misfortune of running into the 80's oilers twice. Nobody held it against him because his personal play was elite and he carried those teams further than they should have gone.
The guys who get flak for not winning are the Joe Thornton's and Marcel Dionne's because despite their personal awards, they were predictable and played like shit when it counted. Yzerman and Ovechkin used to get that treatment until they finally won them at ages 32 and 33 and then it all went away
Hail Mary??????? It had Forsberg, Sakic, Roy, Hedjuk, Little League World Series Winner Chris Drury, Foote and just for lols added Rob Blake at the deadline. That team won the President's Trophy. We can say Ray left to chase a Cup and no one begrudged him for doing so, but it wasn''t a hail mary, he picked a good team.