Historical relevance of Kucherov and MacKinnon's 2024 season?

[jigglysquishy]

Important to note league scoring wasn’t overly high in a historical context compared to some other seasons.

I think this season is a great demonstration of how little value GPG/GPG actually provides.

I wouldn't be opposed to say Kucherov 24 and MacKinnon 24 are the two best non McDavid seasons post lockout.

 

[Vilica]

I think this season is a great demonstration of how little value GPG/GPG actually provides.

I wouldn't be opposed to say Kucherov 24 and MacKinnon 24 are the two best non McDavid seasons post lockout.

I find that conclusion amusing because I look at the finishers and have the exact opposite conclusion. Top 20 scoring parceled out just about how you'd expect it to be, we just had multiple outlier seasons. Even with leaguewide scoring being such a big sample, there's just a huge amount of variance in individual seasons that you can have 3 years similar in GPG (21-22 through this season), and have an expected year (21-22), a 1 huge outlier year (22-23) and a multiple outlier year (23-24). Go back to the 10-11 through 15-16 deadish puck era, when scoring was nearly identical year over year, and you have the same pattern, except this time the multiple outlier year of 14-15 is collective underperformance rather than overperformance.

Your other conclusion is right, by Average VsX they are behind the 2 McDavid outlier seasons of 20-21 and 22-23, but there are 2 other somewhat partial seasons that might otherwise have matched them. The first is Draisaitl's 19-20 pandemic-shortened season, with 110 points in 71 games, which prorates to somewhere around 127-128 in a full season. He would've needed an extra 4-5 points to match MacKinnon but over an 11 game sample there's enough variance to account for that. The other season is Ovechkin's 09-10, where again you have 10 missed games, 109 in 72, prorating to 124-125 in the full season. With lower league scoring, that boosts him into MacKinnon territory, despite the fact that the Capitals actually outscored the Avalanche in-season.

[As an aside, I think that scoring races tend to concentrate points in otherwise unexpected ways, and that's not really predictable in any fashion. It also has the partial effect of suppressing individual seasons in smaller leagues, as a player having a huge outlier year likely won't have any competition, and no incentive to keep pushing for points.]

 

[WarriorofTime]

Yes, this season, Kucherov lapped all but 44 players in scoring (1.375 per team). Last season, McDavid lapped all but 36 players in scoring (1.125 per team). 100th in scoring had 58 points, in 1995-96 that 100th player had 54 points. 3.11 goals per game vs. 3.14 goals per game (and doesn't HF count the shootout goals in goal per game since they are credited as team goals, but no individual players get goals/assists for them?). 100 in a 26 team NHL is 3.85 players per team, 100 in a 32 team NHL is 3.125 players per team, so 100 in 2023-24 NHL is more so the equivalent of player #81 in 1995-96, which gets us to... you guessed it, 58 points. There is a lot more flaws with "looking at elite players scoring" than it is to look at league scoring as a whole. It presumes the number of "elite" scorers in 1981-82 is constant to that of 2023-24 and not that it's possible there are more outlier level players in 2023-24.

Kucherov, Panarin, Pastrnak, Matthews, Draisaitl, Rantanen, Miller, Nylander, Kaprizov and more all are various degrees of less likely to exist depending on the precise era of Hockey that were are looking at. If they did not exist, then likely some Canadian guy is taking their ice time, and with that ice time is producing more goals/points in today's scoring environment, but likely not replicating their specific level of production (or else they would have had the ice time over them to begin with) and thus stats are lowered while there is not as strong a corresponding pull on league scoring (especially when consider that those guys not existing also means the Russian goaltenders, American defensemen etc. etc. also don't exist which will affect all scorers to various degrees across the board.. it's a bit of a chicken and egg question as far as the presence of elite skilled players bringing up league scoring and the presence of elite defensemen, two way centers and goaltenders bringing down league scoring, but for purposes of globalization analysis let's take an assumption that a globalized player pool they more or less negate each other with respect to leaguewide scoring). So in that world where we've removed many of the best players (and to which various degrees, looks similar to the world of the NHL in most of its history), we will see the standouts amongst the traditional areas, now only competing with players from other traditional areas and without the outliers from elsewhere, look perhaps even more outlier-ish than they do. So a VsX model is going to over-credit them because it assumes depth of "elite level scorers" (and how they are able to challenge the very best in a historical sense) remains relatively constant.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Yes, this season, Kucherov lapped all but 44 players in scoring (1.375 per team). Last season, McDavid lapped all but 36 players in scoring (1.125 per team). 100th in scoring had 58 points, in 1995-96 that 100th player had 54 points. 3.11 goals per game vs. 3.14 goals per game (and doesn't HF count the shootout goals in goal per game since they are credited as team goals, but no individual players get goals/assists for them?). 100 in a 26 team NHL is 3.85 players per team, 100 in a 32 team NHL is 3.125 players per team, so 100 in 2023-24 NHL is more so the equivalent of player #81 in 1995-96, which gets us to... you guessed it, 58 points. There is a lot more flaws with "looking at elite players scoring" than it is to look at league scoring as a whole. It presumes the number of "elite" scorers in 1981-82 is constant to that of 2023-24 and not that it's possible there are more outlier level players in 2023-24.

Kucherov, Panarin, Pastrnak, Matthews, Draisaitl, Rantanen, Miller, Nylander, Kaprizov and more all are various degrees of less likely to exist depending on the precise era of Hockey that were are looking at. If they did not exist, then likely some Canadian guy is taking their ice time, and with that ice time is producing more goals/points in today's scoring environment, but likely not replicating their specific level of production (or else they would have had the ice time over them to begin with) and thus stats are lowered while there is not as strong a corresponding pull on league scoring (especially when consider that those guys not existing also means the Russian goaltenders, American defensemen etc. etc. also don't exist which will affect all scorers to various degrees across the board.. it's a bit of a chicken and egg question as far as the presence of elite skilled players bringing up league scoring and the presence of elite defensemen, two way centers and goaltenders bringing down league scoring, but for purposes of globalization analysis let's take an assumption that a globalized player pool they more or less negate each other with respect to leaguewide scoring). So in that world where we've removed many of the best players (and to which various degrees, looks similar to the world of the NHL in most of its history), we will see the standouts amongst the traditional areas, now only competing with players from other traditional areas and without the outliers from elsewhere, look perhaps even more outlier-ish than they do. So a VsX model is going to over-credit them because it assumes depth of "elite level scorers" (and how they are able to challenge the very best in a historical sense) remains relatively constant.

Let me phrase it even simpler

the only way to assume that if say Kucherov, Panarin, Pastrnak, Matthews, Draisaitl, Rantanen, Miller, Nylander, Kaprizov, don't exist that somebody else in the League steps up to fill the void of 144, 120, 110, 107, 106, 104, 103, 98 and 96 points is if you assume that whomever on their team is receiving the primary benefit of the increased ice time is able to hit that number (which is unlikely considering if they were good enough, they'd receive that ice time anyways). It wouldn't be someone on a different team, because why isn't that person on a different team hitting that number anyways? Those listed players don't block their ice time.

But when it comes to league scoring, you also account for the defensemen/2-way forwards/goaltenders that contribute heavily towards goal suppression and it applies more standard across the entire league and the various stats, not just Top 12 scorers. Whether globalization contibutes to more or less scoring just depends on whether the "non-trad pool" leans more offense or defense heavy in a given year. If close enough to proportionate then likely no real effects either way.

 

[daver]

I think this season is a great demonstration of how little value GPG/GPG actually provides.

What do you mean?

 

[JackSlater]

Two great seasons, I see both as solidifying (adding to somewhat) their previous peaks, or in MacKinnon's case justifying that he was very likely the second best player in the NHL last season. I don't know how to rate them historically... something along the lines of peak Dionne or something off the top of my head.

 

[MadLuke]

What do you mean?

70-71 and 2023-2024 look exactly the same in gpg and power play goals per game.

But in reality if you were not on the Bruins team the league did not felt that high scoring and scoring 75 pts would have beat young Perrault or prime Ratelle/Mikita that season.

One big difference, there was 2.57 pts scored by goals scored on the Leaf that season, 2.56 on the Flyers.
This season Tampa bay had the usual more modern 2.72 pts for each goal scored (1.72 assist in average vs 1.56).

Little 5% there effaced by Boston 400 goals in a relatively small league, 10% less points by goals, scoring distribution a bit different and what do look 2 exact same scoring environment by using just league average gpg was in reality 15% different (and maybe more for points than for goals, etc...).

 

[daver]

70-71 and 2023-2024 look exactly the same in ppg, power play goals per game.

But in reality if you were not on the Bruins team the league did not felt that high scoring and 75 pts would beat young Perrault or prime Ratelle/Mikita.

There was 2.57 pts by goals on the Leaf that season, 2.56 on the Flyers.
This season Tampa bay it was 2.72.

Little 5% there effaced by Boston 400 goals in relatively small league, 5% less points by goals, scoring distribution a bit different and what do look 2 exact same scoring environment by using just league average gpg was in reality 10-15% different (and maybe more for points than goals, etc...).

The OP is focused on their performances vs. the Top 10/25/50 scorers, not the league GPG.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The OP is focused on their performances vs. the Top 10/25/50 scorers, not the league GPG.

Top 50 analysis is flawed if you aren’t adjusting for league size. Top x is flawed in general for globalization effects I’ve mentioned. McDavid playing in a crowded era for great scores doesn’t suddenly bring him down to Crosby’s level, especially when you are cropping middle of seasons for Crosby’s behalf in your analysis to lead to improper shooting percentage effects.

 

[jigglysquishy]

There isn't a perfect adjustment method. It's why it comes up every week and has on this forum for 20 years.

There are two main methods

1) GPG/GPG (the HockeyRef method). It does a good job of scaling with the league, but utterly fails to take into account scoring distribution differences. Deep leagues (like the early 60s) tend to have stars in depth positions and total scoring is higher vs. top scorers and renders the method unreliable. It also fails with very weak leagues (mid 80s) as it is artificially easy for 4th liners to score.

Things like the impact of PP availablity, or 3 on 3 OT, or coaching changes, get lost because the method cannot account for anything other than total goals.

HockeyRef is particularly bad as there are demonstrably false assumptions about pre 1960 ice time distribution.

2) VsY. Whether that is Vs2,Vs5,Vs10,Vs25. This method is great for accounting for cultural changes as it removes all non stars from the equation and only compares the top players versus each other in the same environment. Where it falls apart is with league size and league strength. In short time durations, one can expect the 25th best forward to have minimal differences (i.e. comparing 2015 to 2019). But over longer timeframes it doesn't work.

Where both methods particularly fail is that every season is under the unchanging rule.

It's why VsX is so popular here. It naturally scales with the league. But it recognizes that not all seasons are created the same. The Orr rule applies. Panarin (at 4th in points) can be the benchmark this year while 3rd can be the benchmark last year or 2nd in 2022.

There's an elegance to recognizing there are structural differences in eras (WWII,Orr). There's an elegance to allowing multiple great seasons in one year. There's an elegance to only comparing the top players to top players.

It's not perfect (my preference is for X to be lower in the scoring race than 2nd as the standard), but it bypasses the biggest issues found in the two common methods.

One day, we will get a better method. But it will only work if you get fudge rules.

 

[MadLuke]

I think this season is a great demonstration of how little value GPG/GPG actually provides.

I would say it point more to the issue with VsX2 (or VSX3) than GPG

McDavid 132 pts this season have a VsX2 of 0.942, that about the same has Scheifele in 2017 when he finished 7th in the scoring race with 82 pts and if Crosby (or Malkin) play more game that year it would be quite different or Bertuzzi in 2002.

The best 1-2-3 player in a year are way too noisy to be used alone imo.

McDavid this year or Yzerman in 1989 are not compared at all to the same performance (prime Gretzky or peak Mack playing with Makar and co outscoring McDavid) than Bure in 00 or Naslund in 2002.

The average of a certain amount of top player seem outside being more complicated to do if it is by hands just purely superior.

 

[WarriorofTime]

There isn't a perfect adjustment method. It's why it comes up every week and has on this forum for 20 years.

There are two main methods

1) GPG/GPG (the HockeyRef method). It does a good job of scaling with the league, but utterly fails to take into account scoring distribution differences. Deep leagues (like the early 60s) tend to have stars in depth positions and total scoring is higher vs. top scorers and renders the method unreliable. It also fails with very weak leagues (mid 80s) as it is artificially easy for 4th liners to score.

Things like the impact of PP availablity, or 3 on 3 OT, or coaching changes, get lost because the method cannot account for anything other than total goals.

HockeyRef is particularly bad as there are demonstrably false assumptions about pre 1960 ice time distribution.

2) VsY. Whether that is Vs2,Vs5,Vs10,Vs25. This method is great for accounting for cultural changes as it removes all non stars from the equation and only compares the top players versus each other in the same environment. Where it falls apart is with league size and league strength. In short time durations, one can expect the 25th best forward to have minimal differences (i.e. comparing 2015 to 2019). But over longer timeframes it doesn't work.

Where both methods particularly fail is that every season is under the unchanging rule.

It's why VsX is so popular here. It naturally scales with the league. But it recognizes that not all seasons are created the same. The Orr rule applies. Panarin (at 4th in points) can be the benchmark this year while 3rd can be the benchmark last year or 2nd in 2022.

There's an elegance to recognizing there are structural differences in eras (WWII,Orr). There's an elegance to allowing multiple great seasons in one year. There's an elegance to only comparing the top players to top players.

It's not perfect (my preference is for X to be lower in the scoring race than 2nd as the standard), but it bypasses the biggest issues found in the two common methods.

One day, we will get a better method. But it will only work if you get fudge rules.

What people ultimately want to do is take a way that takes into account powerplay and 1st line ice distribution (zone starts, etc.). That takes into account the league scoring, how much does it benefit to play heavily on the powerplay, how much powerplays are there, how much does it benefit to start heavily in the offensive zone That's what people are really trying to get at with things like scoring distribution, etc. how much easier is it to be a 1st line scorer and put up stats now comapred to some other timeframe. There's no real reason it can't be done, but the back of the napkin way is insufficient, league scoring gets hated on for not considering distributive factors but the VsX doesn't do this either.. someone gets hurt, someone else gets their powerplay time distributed, what's that guy doing with the powerplay time? We run into same problems, where we assume 'top scorer' is a relative constant across time, except we pick and choose when we knock out 'outliers'. Anything that doesn't look at the things i mentioned across the entire league and only looks at across a handpicked subset I think is going to be flawed and heavily so. I don't know any sort of sport analytic method Ice time/usage analysis can certainly be done at least for years where we have that information, to plug into an All in One formula can also be done realistically and be roughly for scoring, there just isn't a great appetite for it to build out the models and the processing to get there. I think for now league adjusted scoring is likely the closest proximator, the point about powerplays is of course, fair. 3 on 3 or empty net stuff is getting a bit noisy, teams score an extra 4-9 team goals per year in 3 on 3 overtime compared to no overtime to get distributed how it may and which does factor into leaguewide scoring already. Distributive effects of league scoring is difficult than first appears outside of simple powerplays because of how much usage varies by team and can vary over the course of a season, so it requires, as far as the real question of how easy is it to score as a 1st liner (and not a much more self-fulfilling and much vaguer, 'how easy it to score as a star')

 

[WarriorofTime]

I would say it point more to the issue with VsX2 (or VSX3) than GPG

McDavid 132 pts would have a VsX 2 of 0.942, Scheifele in 2017 was about the same or Bertuzzi in 2002.

The best 1-2-3 player in a year are way too noisy to be used imo.

McDavid this year or Yzerman in 1989 are not compared at all to the same performance (prime Gretzky or peak Mack playing with Makar and co outscoring McDavid) than Bure in 00 or Naslund in 2002.

The average of a certain amount of top player seem outside being more complicated to do if it is by hands just purely superior.

If you had to do some number for the sake of academics, it would be best to use a fairly deep number, like 2.5x with x being the league size. That is just a random number, not a real suggestion. I.e., player 80 on 2024, player 65 when the league had 26, player 52.5 (I guess split difference between 52 and 53 if not already equal) when had 21.

Of course rapid expansion at a time when teams varied rapidly because no salary cap and players not distributed for 15+ years solely via NHL Draft has you run into problems from 1967-1980 on their own, same as with any sort of method.

 

[daver]

There isn't a perfect adjustment method. It's why it comes up every week and has on this forum for 20 years.

There are two main methods

1) GPG/GPG (the HockeyRef method). It does a good job of scaling with the league, but utterly fails to take into account scoring distribution differences. Deep leagues (like the early 60s) tend to have stars in depth positions and total scoring is higher vs. top scorers and renders the method unreliable. It also fails with very weak leagues (mid 80s) as it is artificially easy for 4th liners to score.

Things like the impact of PP availablity, or 3 on 3 OT, or coaching changes, get lost because the method cannot account for anything other than total goals.

HockeyRef is particularly bad as there are demonstrably false assumptions about pre 1960 ice time distribution.

2) VsY. Whether that is Vs2,Vs5,Vs10,Vs25. This method is great for accounting for cultural changes as it removes all non stars from the equation and only compares the top players versus each other in the same environment. Where it falls apart is with league size and league strength. In short time durations, one can expect the 25th best forward to have minimal differences (i.e. comparing 2015 to 2019). But over longer timeframes it doesn't work.

Where both methods particularly fail is that every season is under the unchanging rule.

It's why VsX is so popular here. It naturally scales with the league. But it recognizes that not all seasons are created the same. The Orr rule applies. Panarin (at 4th in points) can be the benchmark this year while 3rd can be the benchmark last year or 2nd in 2022.

There's an elegance to recognizing there are structural differences in eras (WWII,Orr). There's an elegance to allowing multiple great seasons in one year. There's an elegance to only comparing the top players to top players.

It's not perfect (my preference is for X to be lower in the scoring race than 2nd as the standard), but it bypasses the biggest issues found in the two common methods.

One day, we will get a better method. But it will only work if you get fudge rules.

I think we can get so far into these methods that the starting point gets lost and by only focusing on numbers, all other factors get lost also.

HR is trying to place X player into Y era/season; to me this unnecessarily introduces hypothetical scenarios. The only inarguable claim that can be made in player comparisons is that we have no idea how Player X would do if they played in another era/season.

We can compare relative dominance using lots of data, not just one VsX. The more data the better. Of course statistical anomalies can present themselves and reasonably be accounted for.

IMO, some reasonable assumptions can be made.

(1) As noted above, we can assume that a player's performance is not going to be the exact same if they play in another era and/or on another team.

(2) When comparing elite offensive players, we can assume that the "pack of elite offensive players " e.g. 1st liners/Top 6 is relatively stable year in and year out. A reasonable measure of the scoring level of the pack is when differences between point totals and PPGs becomes minimal. E.g. the 10th place to 15th place scorers in the O6, the Top 20 to 25 scorers in the current era.

(3) There is enough overlap in careers to make assumptions that Player X would likely be as dominant/not as dominant as Player Y if they started their careers at the same time. Crosby/Ovechkin/Malkin played close enough to Jagr/Sakic/Forsberg to, IMO, confidently judge them equally on their relative dominance.

Back to the OP

Going into this season, McDavid was putting up seasons that were rivalling the best of the non Big 4 and statistically were getting into peak Howe territory (peak Jagr and peak Crosby were going there too).

One could easily argue that McDavid was heading for the consensus #5 player after 8 seasons given his multiple Art Ross wins starting at age 19 which notably gave him a edge over Crosby; the easiest #5 player candidate to compare to (Beliveau and Hull being the other most popular #5 picks among forwards.

Going into this season. Kucherov was making a case for being #5 forward since the lockout but was more of a rich man's Kane than a generational level talent like McDavid/Crosby/Ovechkin/peak Malkin. MacKinnon was lacking some deserved hardware like a Hart or a Ross due to minor injuries and like Kucherov, had a playoff resume befitting their regular status - #2 player in the world candidate.

Now they have placed themselves very close to 22/23 McDavid and we don't need to consider era or league GPG to put their numbers into context.

How does this change the narrative?

McDavid is still playing at a level that rivals peak Crosby and peak Jagr in terms of PPG dominance vs. their peers.

Noone was going to match Howe at his peak; not Beliveau, Hull or Mikita

Noone was going match peak Jagr at his offensive peak; not Sakic or Forsberg (Lindros could be debatable)

And it is debatable whether peak Malkin was quite at peak Crosby's level.

Now two players whose prior ceilings wasn't putting them into the "very best of the post lockout" have put themselves, statistically, into the "very best of the post lockout" conversation, arguably ONLY just behind McDavid.

 

[Matsun]

Noone was going to match Howe at his peak; not Beliveau, Hull or Mikita.

Disagree. Beliveau, Hull and Mikita all had the same kind of spike seasons that Kucherov and MacKinnon had this season they just didn't have it against peak Howe. Here is scoring in 1956:
Beliveau 88
Howe 79
Richard 71
Olmstead 70
Bathgate 66

Thats pretty similar to how it looked in some of Howes seasons just a few seasons earlier. Here is scoring in 1966 in Hulls peak:
Hull 97
Mikita 78
Rousseau 78
Beliveau 77
Howe 75

Massive domination. Here is Mikita in 67:
Mikita 97
Hull 80
Ullman 70
Howe 65
Wharram 65

All these seasons could've given Howe a great run in his prime, but just like how Kucherov would've lost to McDavid last season they would lose to Howe in 53 but I think these seasons stand up to every other Howe season.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Disagree. Beliveau, Hull and Mikita all had the same kind of spike seasons that Kucherov and MacKinnon had this season they just didn't have it against peak Howe. Here is scoring in 1956:
Beliveau 88
Howe 79
Richard 71
Olmstead 70
Bathgate 66

Thats pretty similar to how it looked in some of Howes seasons just a few seasons earlier. Here is scoring in 1966 in Hulls peak:
Hull 97
Mikita 78
Rousseau 78
Beliveau 77
Howe 75

Massive domination. Here is Mikita in 67:
Mikita 97
Hull 80
Ullman 70
Howe 65
Wharram 65

All these seasons could've given Howe a great run in his prime, but just like how Kucherov would've lost to McDavid last season they would lose to Howe in 53 but I think these seasons stand up to every other Howe season.

I'll point out that 1952-53 was lower scoring than this. Scoring slowly crept up from 1950-1967 and it can make taking a window hard as year 1 is similar to year 2, but year 1 is noticeably lower than year 5.

Howe 95
Lindsay 71
Richard 61
Hergensheimer 59
Delvecchio 59

Spots 2, 3, 4, and 5 are all lower in 1952-53 than in 1956, 1966, or 1967.

 

[daver]

All these seasons could've given Howe a great run in his prime, but just like how Kucherov would've lost to McDavid last season they would lose to Howe in 53 but I think these seasons stand up to every other Howe season.

I agree that their single peak season could give Howe a good run in any season other than 52/53, but 52/53 was farther ahead then McDavid's 22/23 was from Kucherov/Mac was this year.

That Howe had four seasons that match up against the best single season of his era peers is why he stands out as being superior.

McDavid has three seasons that match up against the best single season of his career peers in Kucherov and MacKinnon is why he stands out as being superior.

So the question is: Did Kucherov and MacKinnon reach "Best of the non-Big 4" plateau, a plateau that elevates them into Top 20/25 all-time, this past season?

Or was it an Yzerman 88/89 "one off" type season?

Was there any indication before this year that either of them had this level of season in them? Kucherov is age 30 and MacKinnon is age 28; one would have expected to see this prior. Kucherov certainly had a better than average Art Ross win in 18/19 and put up some impressive playoff numbers but there was maybe a sense of him being propped up by a great team. I don't think you can say that this year.

 

[WarriorofTime]

So the question is: Did Kucherov and MacKinnon reach "Best of the non-Big 4" plateau, a plateau that elevates them into Top 20/25 all-time, this past season?

These kind of questions are distractions. The book on them is still being written. For Kucherov and MacKinnon, this season wasn't as good as any Gretzky season from 1981-82 through 1986-87, then also throw in Gretzky's last hurrah in 1990-91 which was also amazing, then 1988-89 is pretty close with Gretzky's missed games. But they both stand out as better than any other Wayne Gretzky season outside of those ones. Lemieux has 1988-89 and 1995-96 that are clearly much better and 1987-88 which is comparable. After that you can get into the "per games played" stuff (i.e., the 160 in 60) and otherwise Kucherov and MacKinnon beat any other Lemieux season.

There is no reason to degrade Kucherov and MacKinnon's seasons because of some arbitrary name-test criteria. The Yzerman "one-off" doesn't even make sense in Kucherov's case, his 2018-19 season is already comparable to Yzerman's best season, this season is far better. So Kucherov2 = Yzerman1 and Kucherov1 is unchallenged by Yzerman. MacK is a bit younger, so I could see time for him to have a second monster season.

 

[daver]

I'll point out that 1952-53 was lower scoring than this. Scoring slowly crept up from 1950-1967 and it can make taking a window hard as year 1 is similar to year 2, but year 1 is noticeably lower than year 5.

Howe 95
Lindsay 71
Richard 61
Hergensheimer 59
Delvecchio 59

Spots 2, 3, 4, and 5 are all lower in 1952-53 than in 1956, 1966, or 1967.

As mentioned in my other post. Howe has three other seasons that match up against the best single season of the others; a level they were not able to replicate. I.e. they had one peak season.

As you point out, Howe's level of domination hit another level in 52/53 in what can be described as his single best "peak" season. It is not surprising that he hit another level that the others did not given he had multiple elite seasons that the others could only hit once.

 

[The Macho King]

Howe's 52/53 is insanely underrated broadly (HoH board generally rates it well) - that is competitive to the peaks of the rest of the Big 4. And is that the year he lost the Hart to that terrible goalie?

Edit: Thank god it wasn't.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Howe's 52/53 is insanely underrated broadly (HoH board generally rates it well) - that is competitive to the peaks of the rest of the Big 4. And is that the year he lost the Hart to that terrible goalie?

Edit: Thank god it wasn't.

Separately.. What happened in the postseason? A +89 team losing to a -20 team feel pretty oof. That's a much bigger gap than Tampa-Columbus in 2019 (+103 losing to +26)

		GP	W	L	T	GF	GA
	Detroit Red Wings	70	36	16	18	222	133	+89	90
	Montreal Canadiens	70	28	23	19	155	148	+7	75
	Boston Bruins	70	28	29	13	152	172	−20	69
	Chicago Black Hawks	70	27	28	15	169	175	−6	69
	Toronto Maple Leafs	70	27	30	13	156	167	−11	67
	New York Rangers	70	17	37	16	152	211	−59	50

 

[Michael Farkas]

Reports at the time suggest that after the Wings won game 1 7-0 that they didn't take Boston seriously. Detroit lost three straight.

Then the Wings came out angry in game 5. They scored three goals in the first 3:45. They held Boston to just 12 (or 16, it's tough to tell by the report) shots the whole game.

The Wings dominated game 6, but Sugar Jim Henry stole the show. The Wings outshot Boston 228-140 in the series, 38 to 23 per game). Veteran Woody Dumart was given a lot of credit for helping to keep Gordie Howe from running wild. Dumart had no points in the series himself, nor penalties.

 

[Professor What]

Separately.. What happened in the postseason? A +89 team losing to a -20 team feel pretty oof. That's a much bigger gap than Tampa-Columbus in 2019 (+103 losing to +26)

		GP	W	L	T	GF	GA
	Detroit Red Wings	70	36	16	18	222	133	+89	90
	Montreal Canadiens	70	28	23	19	155	148	+7	75
	Boston Bruins	70	28	29	13	152	172	−20	69
	Chicago Black Hawks	70	27	28	15	169	175	−6	69
	Toronto Maple Leafs	70	27	30	13	156	167	−11	67
	New York Rangers	70	17	37	16	152	211	−59	50

I'm not so sure that's a fair comparison. The Red Wings star forwards showed up for that series. Most of the rest of the team didn't. Howe put up seven points in six games, which for a guy that scored 158 points in 154 playoff games was about par for the course. You can say that he wasn't as good in the playoffs as the regular season that year, but you can't really say he wasn't good.

On the other side of the comparison, the Bolts' stars in 2019 didn't pull their weight. It's just like how I don't think it's fair to pin the Oilers not having a recent Cup on McDavid. He's done his part. Howe more or less did his part in 1953, but when much of the rest of the team isn't playing well, there's only so much that a couple of guys can do.

 

[jigglysquishy]

A few things of note.

Gordie Howe got married on April 15, 1953. The Detroit series started on March 24 and ended on April 5. Not to excuse Howe, but it's hard to be 100% focused on hockey two weeks before your wedding. Howe doesn't blame the wedding, but he does offer some insight into the playoffs in his book.

Once again, we finished on top of the league, 15 points clear of the second-place Canadiens. We were also 21 points better than Boston, whom we were slotted to face in the semifinals of the playoffs. We had owned them in our head-to-head matchups during the regular season and were feeling confident going into the series. Boy, were we in for a surprise. The Bruins beat us in six games and, just like that, our season was over. As the defending Stanley Cup champions, to fall flat against a team we thought we thoroughly outclassed was obviously a big letdown. That season, it wasn’t my only disappointment.

If I had to choose my favorite thing in hockey, it would be assisting on a goal. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed putting the puck in the net, but making a great pass strikes a different type of chord. It’s like distilling what it means to be part of a team into a single action. When you help a teammate to score, he wins, you win, and so does the club. It’s like hitting the trifecta. As much as I always looked to make the best hockey play, at the end of the 1952–53 season my teammates were less interested in being set up and more concerned with helping me to score. I was having a great year shooting the puck. Every time I got a clean look, it seemed like the puck found its way into the back of the net. In the third to last game of the season, I scored twice against Boston to put my tally at 49. I was 1 goal shy of the record set by the Rocket in 1945, with two games remaining. Everyone in the NHL knew that the Rocket took a lot of pride in that record, as well as in his status as the league’s top goal scorer. For the most part, I didn’t give too much thought to that sort of thing. I figured that if I played well, the team would win and everything else would fall into place. Given the rivalry between the Wings and the Canadiens, though, it would be a lie to say I didn’t want to break the Rocket’s record once I got close. We didn’t like the Habs and they didn’t like us. Taking away the Rocket’s record would have been a satisfying way to poke a stick in their eye. For his part, Jack Adams badly wanted to see it happen, as did Tommy Ivan and my teammates. In our penultimate game of the season, against the Black Hawks, Tommy gave me some extra shifts, but I came up empty. With one game left in the regular season, I remained stuck at 49 goals.

Our final game, at home against the Canadiens, had all of the elements needed to be fairly poetic. The press went into overdrive talking about the possibility of me breaking the record while skating against the Rocket himself. It was a nice thought, but when the puck dropped the game didn’t work out that way. Once again, Tommy had me on the ice for some extra shifts, but every time I jumped over the boards I found Montreal left winger Bert Olmstead attached to my hip like some sort of pesky shadow. I found out later that Dick Irvin told him to stick to me like glue. I think Irvin cared more about stopping me that night than he did about winning the game. At one point, I was at our net talking to Sawchuk during a break in the action, and Olmstead was right there with us. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t say a word. I almost have to admire him for following his coach’s instructions to the letter. Even with Olmstead stalking me, I had a few chances on Gerry McNeil that night, but didn’t manage to put one by him. Irvin was overjoyed and, true to form, pretty obnoxious about his boys shutting me down that night. He slid across the ice and raised the Rocket’s arm as if he were still the heavyweight champion of the world. As it turned out, 49 goals ended up being the high-water mark in my career. Along with my 46 assists, I finished the season with 95 points, which was the highest total anyone had ever put up at that point. The funny thing is, I think I did get that 50th goal. In February we had a game in Boston. Late in the third period, Red Kelly fired a shot from the blue line that got past goalkeeper Jim Henry. I was pretty sure I tipped that shot in, and a lot of my teammates agreed, but the officials didn’t see it. At the time, I wasn’t as close to the 50 goal mark, so I wasn’t too concerned. But looking back, it would have been nice if that one had counted.

Some people, including Irvin, suggested that the reason we lost to Boston in the playoffs that year was because I was too tired from chasing the Rocket’s record during the regular season. I don’t really buy into that line of thinking. I might have taken a few more shifts, but for the most part I was just playing hockey as usual. I was still only twenty-five years old at that point, and my body recovered pretty quickly. Physically, I don’t remember running out of steam against the Bruins. Mentally, I can’t say that I recall the pressure being too hard to handle either. The chase for 50 goals that season certainly wasn’t anything compared to the pressure I felt in 1963 when I was closing in on the Rocket’s career total of 544. That was definitely more of a grind. Sometimes there’s just no convenient explanation for why teams lose. I still think we had a great squad in 1953. Rather than trying to figure out why we lost, credit should really go to Boston for beating us. Unfortunately for the Bruins, they couldn’t keep it going in the next round. They ended up losing to the Canadiens in five games. It was Montreal’s third straight appearance in the finals, but their first Stanley Cup since 1946. We knew they’d be tough to beat in the following season. Then again, we knew we would be, too.

 

[Michael Farkas]

More on the 1953 semi-final.

"The Blanket Line" - which I've never heard of...

Lynn Patrick, who has come up with some weird and wonderful line combinations in his three years as coach of the Boston Bruins, concocted another for the Stanley Cup playoff series with the Detroit Red Wings.

It was the Blanket Line, composed of Capt. Milt Schmidt, Woody Dumart and Joe Klukay, for playoff purposes a three-man detective bureau.

The Blanket Line’s assignment was a testing one, to shadow, haunt and otherwise heckle the Detroit line on which Gordon Howe and Ted Lindsay played.

...

To further his purposes he equipped the Blanket Line with a unique defense, a man-to-man checking system which evolved into an end-to-end press.

Every time Howe had the puck, there was Dumart. Every time Lindsay had it, there was Klukay. Sometimes Schmidt relieved one or the other of his linemates, and other times the Bruins’ captain covered whichever other Red Wing posed a threat.

And the most unusual part of the defense was that when neither Howe nor Lindsay had the puck, they stilt had either Dumart or Klukay at their elbows. For the series they were twosomes, Howe-Dumart and Lindsay-Klukay, with Schmidt frequently making the twosomes a crowd.

It took the Blanket Line a game—the first one—to shake off the habits of long standing and become accustomed to its new duties. Then the Bruins won the next two games.

...

Patrick’s imaginative creation didn’t look good in the first-game confusion, but the Bruins’ coach stayed with his brain-child.

“The only way to beat Detroit,” he preached, “is to stop Howe and Lindsay. The other lines look to them for scoring leadership. Stop the big guys and you stop the Red Wings.”

...

It was quite a sight, the defense in operation, because how long is it since anyone has seen a line making no attempt to score goals? That’s the way Schmidt. Dumart and Klukay worked.

...

“We needed practice,” observed the 36-year-old Dumart. “I had never tried anything like it before. The idea of staying with a man behind his own net even when he didn’t have the puck, for example, was something entirely new to us, and I imagine It was to Howe and Lindsay, too.

It is doubtful that Patrick could have tried the move without Schmidt, Dumart and Klukay. Joe and Woody are both professionnal penalty-killer, accustomed to thinking in terms of defense, however, and the indominable Schmidt can do just about anything he tries.