HOH Top 60 Centers of All Time
- Thread starter TheDevilMadeMe
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Johnny Engine
Moderator
- Jul 29, 2009
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Before him, there was no one named Connor McDavid playing for the Oilers. Now there is.
Mike C
Registered User
Agree with every word in this post and the answer to this poster is forever
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
But...Brady's focus is mostly the worst/most random playoff in sports. His regular seasons are great, but they aren't even the best of his own generation, much less all time...
Also, Brady clearly out-performed his own technical skill. It's almost the opposite for McDavid. The claim for McDavid being #1 is that he's an even bigger hyperspeed superstar than the first hyperspeed superstar (Crosby)...it's hard to think that any decent QB evaluator on the planet would consider Brady to be a better passer (again, just technical skill, not result) than Manning, Brees, Rodgers, certainly...
The comparison doesn't really make sense to me...distractingly so, apparently...
ChiTownPhilly
Not Too Soft
Funny this thread got bumped- quite recently, I had a "before & after" look of the Centers as rated in this project and Centers as rated in the top-100/top-200 projects of a little while back.
Taking the obvious one first- the process of rating Connor McDavid is kind of like pegging an in-flight missile by its position is in the sky right now. We're guaranteed to miss... but trying to "lead" it is an exercise in speculation. Unlike inanimate solid-motion objects, career-paths don't follow predictable, repeatable laws of physics. Of this, I am convinced- if it's McDavid's fate to not win a Cup, he will go down as the best player to never have done so- and it will be one of those uncommon times where 'ainec' will be appropriate.
Our "with-a-bullet" rises, pretty much exclusively due to the hockey that's been played over the last decade-or-so, are Crosby [22 to 5], Malkin [40 to 20], the aforementioned McDavid [gleam-in-eye to 42... and (predictably enough) looking woefully obsolete already], Bergeron [g-i-a to 46], Toews [g-i-a to 51], Kopitar [g-i-a to 53] and Stamkos [g-i-a to 58].
On a 60-deep list, new additions necessitate departures-- and the departures are Larionov, Sittler, Keats, Lemaire, and Colville. I don't think any of these names are jarringly inconsistent with inevitable attrition. So- what's different?
In the top two-dozen, except for our Southern Hemisphere aqua-birds, not much. Oh, there are little tweaks here-and-there (most notably Mikita dropping three places (one of the three being rightfully occupied by Crosby, so how radical a move is that, anyway?!). Looking back, I'd say the WHOLE TIER occupied by Nighbor (at six) to Cyclone Taylor (at twelve) falls safely within de gustibus non est disputandum territory. Next drop of significance is Joe Thornton, slipping four places, with Malkin surging ahead of him, and Crosby lapping him a couple times. So- like Mikita, a significant portion of his drop is simply better players coming along. [That said, I don't think his hang-on act did any favors to his legacy... but that's just me.]
Eric Lindros ROSE from 38 to 31, by dint of nothing he did on-the-ice between then and now. In this case, I think that some panoramic detachment from the drafts, hold-outs, parental involvements, and franchise actions that were arguably more puerile than anything camp Lindros ever did have served to allow us a fairer viewing.
Put glibly, Eric Lindros and Norm Ullman roughly traded places, Lindros rising seven and Ullman dropping nine. One day, someone should do a "standard deviation" study of the Ullman rankings, the way I did for (most notably) Fedorov. He really seems to divide opinions, too. His ranking might be contingent upon which camp shows up more prominently and argues more forcefully on any given panel.
Russel Bowie rose from 44 to 36, which is a more significant jump than even the raw numbers show- on account of the Crosby-Malkin thing. Just how much credit should be given to someone who has a case for the best hockey talent pre-Cyclone Taylor? I think under-rating him is a greater danger than over-rating him. I'm at peace with this reconsideration.
However, the player who got by far the biggest Nerf MorningStar was Jean Ratelle. The drop was fourteen points [45 to 59] and the "better players have come along since" only explains half of it. [And even at that, I'd say that the assertion is arguable in the case of Stamkos. Kopitar, and Toews.] The flippant way of explaining this is to attribute a dichotomy between those who'd seen him play vs. those who hadn't. Bill James famously said "all else fades before the numbers." I believe Ratelle to have been a better player than his numbers indicate. Still, there's more numerical research that can be done...and it'll have to be- in order for Ratelle to maintain his place as even a middle-of-pack Hall-of-Famer (or to buttress the idea that maybe he's a lower-third guy, after all).
Taking the obvious one first- the process of rating Connor McDavid is kind of like pegging an in-flight missile by its position is in the sky right now. We're guaranteed to miss... but trying to "lead" it is an exercise in speculation. Unlike inanimate solid-motion objects, career-paths don't follow predictable, repeatable laws of physics. Of this, I am convinced- if it's McDavid's fate to not win a Cup, he will go down as the best player to never have done so- and it will be one of those uncommon times where 'ainec' will be appropriate.
Our "with-a-bullet" rises, pretty much exclusively due to the hockey that's been played over the last decade-or-so, are Crosby [22 to 5], Malkin [40 to 20], the aforementioned McDavid [gleam-in-eye to 42... and (predictably enough) looking woefully obsolete already], Bergeron [g-i-a to 46], Toews [g-i-a to 51], Kopitar [g-i-a to 53] and Stamkos [g-i-a to 58].
On a 60-deep list, new additions necessitate departures-- and the departures are Larionov, Sittler, Keats, Lemaire, and Colville. I don't think any of these names are jarringly inconsistent with inevitable attrition. So- what's different?
In the top two-dozen, except for our Southern Hemisphere aqua-birds, not much. Oh, there are little tweaks here-and-there (most notably Mikita dropping three places (one of the three being rightfully occupied by Crosby, so how radical a move is that, anyway?!). Looking back, I'd say the WHOLE TIER occupied by Nighbor (at six) to Cyclone Taylor (at twelve) falls safely within de gustibus non est disputandum territory. Next drop of significance is Joe Thornton, slipping four places, with Malkin surging ahead of him, and Crosby lapping him a couple times. So- like Mikita, a significant portion of his drop is simply better players coming along. [That said, I don't think his hang-on act did any favors to his legacy... but that's just me.]
Eric Lindros ROSE from 38 to 31, by dint of nothing he did on-the-ice between then and now. In this case, I think that some panoramic detachment from the drafts, hold-outs, parental involvements, and franchise actions that were arguably more puerile than anything camp Lindros ever did have served to allow us a fairer viewing.
Put glibly, Eric Lindros and Norm Ullman roughly traded places, Lindros rising seven and Ullman dropping nine. One day, someone should do a "standard deviation" study of the Ullman rankings, the way I did for (most notably) Fedorov. He really seems to divide opinions, too. His ranking might be contingent upon which camp shows up more prominently and argues more forcefully on any given panel.
Russel Bowie rose from 44 to 36, which is a more significant jump than even the raw numbers show- on account of the Crosby-Malkin thing. Just how much credit should be given to someone who has a case for the best hockey talent pre-Cyclone Taylor? I think under-rating him is a greater danger than over-rating him. I'm at peace with this reconsideration.
However, the player who got by far the biggest Nerf MorningStar was Jean Ratelle. The drop was fourteen points [45 to 59] and the "better players have come along since" only explains half of it. [And even at that, I'd say that the assertion is arguable in the case of Stamkos. Kopitar, and Toews.] The flippant way of explaining this is to attribute a dichotomy between those who'd seen him play vs. those who hadn't. Bill James famously said "all else fades before the numbers." I believe Ratelle to have been a better player than his numbers indicate. Still, there's more numerical research that can be done...and it'll have to be- in order for Ratelle to maintain his place as even a middle-of-pack Hall-of-Famer (or to buttress the idea that maybe he's a lower-third guy, after all).
jigglysquishy
Registered User
Watching the opinions change over time is one of my favourite parts of the lists. Seeing the ascension of Nighbor has been an absolute treat. He went from fourth highest ranked pre consolidation centre to first. And is now just a smidge back of Morenz for best pre-Beliveau centre.
Mikita falling behind Messier and Nighbor has been interesting to see. I took place in the top centres project, but not the top 200 so I can't comment on the reasoning.
Bowie's leap is absolutely justified. Ian Fyffe's article really illuminates just how dominant he was offensively. I'm excited for our discussions on him in the top pre consolidation project.
In general, the top 200 placed less value on O6 players than the 2013 top 100. So names like Mikita and Ullman falling are demonstrative of that.
Mikita falling behind Messier and Nighbor has been interesting to see. I took place in the top centres project, but not the top 200 so I can't comment on the reasoning.
Bowie's leap is absolutely justified. Ian Fyffe's article really illuminates just how dominant he was offensively. I'm excited for our discussions on him in the top pre consolidation project.
In general, the top 200 placed less value on O6 players than the 2013 top 100. So names like Mikita and Ullman falling are demonstrative of that.
It's still really hard to see the case, made by the previous poster in cool blue that Morenz and Beliveau are both still ahead of Crosby right now.
I'd really like to know what metric or reasoning is being used there.
Nighbor obviously had a couple of really good seasons to prop himself up on the list.
To be fair though we can see how a narrative can influence peoples opinions on Hart and awards voting and something similar happened with Nighbor.
I'm always fascinated by peoples views on players from that era but not really sure how to place them accurately historically given the vastly different dynamics and lack of information for that era.
I think that the less value in the top 200 of 06 players comes down to a numbers game and emergence on non Canadian superstars more than any mindset shift.
The Panther
Registered User
This is the classic case of this forum under-rating Lindros.
When was Norm Ullman considered the pre-eminent player in the sport? When was he the leader of team Canada in a best-on-best tournament? It's not like Ullman won the Stanley Cup (Lindros's Flyers won more playoff rounds in a season than Ullman's teams ever did).
Literally, the only reason to rank Ullman in the same ballpark as Lindros is the former's longevity.
