HOH Top Non-NHL Europeans: Rules Discussion thread (see post 205 for new rules draft)

[Theokritos]

Before the project can get under way, we need to figure out the rules. The following questions are the first to arise:

1) Eligibility criteria. Which players do we want to cover? Only players with zero NHL games? (But what about the likes of Václav Nedomanský and Slava Fetisov? And what about the WHA?) Players who didn't get to play in North America prior to a certain age (if they played in NA at all)?

2) Length of the ranking. Do we want a top 40 list or a top 50 or a top 60?

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[Michael Farkas]

I'd keep the North American pro games to a minimum, right? It's a shame for Fetisov or Makarov, but we know those guys...I think the purpose - maybe - is to really expand our knowledge of the non-NHL guys. I don't mean to be extreme, but if Nedomansky or Fetisov or Makarov are in...where does it stop? Dominik Hasek has to have like 10 pro seasons outside of the NHL himself...is he in this?

I'd probably keep a low ceiling for NHL/WHA games, eh?

 

[Pominville Knows]

I think we know guys like Fetisov and Makarov about as good as Krutov so i dont understand why we cant have them all in this. As a matter of fact their NHL careers leaves somewhat little to their resumé anyways.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I really think we should include any players who peaked in Europe, and that would include Makarov, Fetisov, and Nedomansky for me.

 

[VMBM]

I think we know guys like Fetisov and Makarov about as good as Krutov so i dont understand why we cant have them all in this. As a matter of fact their NHL careers leaves somewhat little to their resumé anyways.

I really think we should include any players who peaked in Europe, and that would include Makarov, Fetisov, and Nedomansky for me.

Hear hear.

Guys who played their first NHL and/or WHA game when they were over 30 should be eligible.

And I know it will be difficult to draw the line, but this 'hardline policy' does not sit well with me.

 

[Eisen]

I really think we should include any players who peaked in Europe, and that would include Makarov, Fetisov, and Nedomansky for me.

I think so as well. Otherwise you would exclude a lot of the 80s.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Couldn't it just be Euros before the collapse of the Iron Curtain? Anyone who played in Europe before is automatically eligible.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Couldn't it just be Euros before the collapse of the Iron Curtain? Anyone who played in Europe before is automatically eligible.

So Hasek is eligible? Meh. (not to mention, Fedorov and Bure technically would be).

 

[Theokritos]

So Hasek is eligible? Meh. (not to mention, Fedorov and Bure technically would be).

The list goes on. Börje Salming, Kent Nilsson, Peter Šťastný, Jari Kurri, Teppo Numminen. And, in fact, Nicklas Lidström and Jaromír Jágr too. And Peter Bondra.

Guys who played their first NHL and/or WHA game when they were over 30 should be eligible.

Larionov (28) and Krutov (29) were under 30 when they first played in the NHL.

My suggestion would be the following definition:
Eligible is every European player with a maximum of two seasons in North American professional hockey behind him at the time of his 30th birthday.

 

[VMBM]

Larionov (28) and Krutov (29) were under 30 when they first played in the NHL.

Makarov, Fetisov and Nedomansky were mentioned in the previous posts, so I was referring specifically to them. But fair enough.

My suggestion would be the following definition:
Eligible is every European player with a maximum of two seasons in North American professional hockey behind him at the time of his 30th birthday.

This would rule out Raimo Helminen, Ville Peltonen, Vladimir Ruzicka etc, right? It would be kind of a shame, but I guess I could live with it.

 

[steve141]

Larionov (28) and Krutov (29) were under 30 when they first played in the NHL.

My suggestion would be the following definition:
Eligible is every European player with a maximum of two seasons in North American professional hockey behind him at the time of his 30th birthday.

Calling Larionov a Non-NHL-player seems like a stretch, considering he played 14 seasons in the NHL. The above rule would make Larionov eligible, but not Hakan Loob, who only played 6 seasons in the NHL, but 11 in the Swedish league.

 

[steve141]

I think we need to decide what kind of project we are trying to do. Either:

1. The aim of the project is to rank Europeans who never played in North American leagues, in which case this is really a project about pre-70s Russian/Czechoslovakian hockey+2-3 Swedes/Finns. Almost all the top Swedish players from the mid-70s played at least some games in North America.

2. Or, the aim of the project is to rank the Europeans who did most outside of North American leagues, in which case it really doesn't matter whether they also spent some time in the NHL. Larionov's European career is not really affected by his Stanley Cups. It doesn't matter if Fedorov's eligible or not, because he didn't do enough outside of the NHL.

3. Or, the aim of the project is to rank early Europeans, in which case it might be better to put a hard year-based cutoff, for example only include hockey before 1980. That would exclude KLM and Hasek, but we already ranked these in the position-based ranking projects anyway.

Which project are we talking about?

 

[Cruor]

Before the project can get under way, we need to figure out the rules. The following questions are the first to arise:

1) Eligibility criteria. Which players do we want to cover? Only players with zero NHL games? (But what about the likes of Václav Nedomanský½ and Slava Fetisov? And what about the WHA?) Players who didn't get to play in North America prior to a certain age (if they played in NA at all)?

2) Length of the ranking. Do we want a top 40 list or a top 50 or a top 60?

I guess both questions tie together somewhat, for example one of my favourite international players ever is David Vyborny, for the Czech Republic. Extremely solid hockey player, in the Czech league aswell. But then he had a somewhat underwhelming (depending on how critical you want to be I guess) stint in the NHL. Should that disqualify him? After all he has 5 golds with the Czech Republic. And would he even be a top 40 player? I'm not sure. Jonas Bergqvist and Jörgen Jönsson could serve as similar examples, both had much shorter stints in the NHL but were legends in international and Swedish hockey at the same time.

The big upside with doing a non-NHL exclusive list is that we would shine the light on some more esoteric players during history, which could be well needed. I'm not sure where I stand on this. A cut-off of maximum games played in the NHL?

 

[kmad]

To me the most logical way to do it would be to make all players eligible, but evaluate their European and international careers strictly. No Makarov after 1990, no Hasek after 1992 etc, except for Olympics, World Cups, etc.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I think we need to decide what kind of project we are trying to do. Either:

1. The aim of the project is to rank Europeans who never played in North American leagues, in which case this is really a project about pre-70s Russian/Czechoslovakian hockey+2-3 Swedes/Finns. Almost all the top Swedish players from the mid-70s played at least some games in North America.

2. Or, the aim of the project is to rank the Europeans who did most outside of North American leagues, in which case it really doesn't matter whether they also spent some time in the NHL. Larionov's European career is not really affected by his Stanley Cups. It doesn't matter if Fedorov's eligible or not, because he didn't do enough outside of the NHL.

3. Or, the aim of the project is to rank early Europeans, in which case it might be better to put a hard year-based cutoff, for example only include hockey before 1980. That would exclude KLM and Hasek, but we already ranked these in the position-based ranking projects anyway.

Which project are we talking about?

For me personally, #2 is by far the best option.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

To me the most logical way to do it would be to make all players eligible, but evaluate their European and international careers strictly. No Makarov after 1990, no Hasek after 1992 etc, except for Olympics, World Cups, etc.

So Selanne would rank really high? Not really sure how I feel about that.

And I assume we just exclude North Americans like Heatley?

 

[Theokritos]

Calling Larionov a Non-NHL-player seems like a stretch, considering he played 14 seasons in the NHL. The above rule would make Larionov eligible, but not Hakan Loob, who only played 6 seasons in the NHL, but 11 in the Swedish league.

Loob was 23-28 years old when he played in the NHL, Larionov 28-43 years old. Don't you think Loob's six years in the NHL give us a better picture of what he was able to do at that level than Larionov's long post-prime career in North America gives us?

To me the most logical way to do it would be to make all players eligible, but evaluate their European and international careers strictly. No Makarov after 1990, no Hasek after 1992 etc, except for Olympics, World Cups, etc.

So we're going to rank (for example) Kharlamov over Mikhailov, being convinced that the former was a better player than the latter, but we're going to rank Mats Sundin over Nicklas Lidström based on their international resume, even though we're convinced the latter was better? That goes against the inner logic of the ranking IMHO.

 

[tarheelhockey]

To me the most logical way to do it would be to make all players eligible, but evaluate their European and international careers strictly. No Makarov after 1990, no Hasek after 1992 etc, except for Olympics, World Cups, etc.

I think that might be the most enlightening way to do this thing. Three reasons:

1) If we totally exclude guys like Hasek and Larionov, the lower end of the list is going to involve some fairly obscure players. That's not a bad thing in itself, but do we have the resources to really evaluate a lightly-documented early Russian player? There's going to be an information problem if we get too far down the rabbit hole.

2) We already covered some of this ground with the Haseks and Fetisovs during the position ranking projects. We have an opportunity to apply some of that research and argumentation to a new project, and hopefully build on it. It would feel kind of pointless to go over Nedomansky's NHL career again, but a close look at his European career could bear some valuable results.

3) It seems kind of arbitrary to discuss Tretiak's performance against Team Canada in 1972, but not Hasek's performance against Team Canada in 1998. What is the significance of the detail that Hasek was taking time off from a club team in Buffalo instead of a club team in Moscow?

 

[Theokritos]

It seems kind of arbitrary to discuss Tretiak's performance against Team Canada in 1972, but not Hasek's performance against Team Canada in 1998.

Hašek can (*and must*) primarily be judged on what he did in the NHL (*if we want to do him justice*). After all that's where the lion's share of his resume lies. With Tretyak and others we don't have this option and those are the the guys I figured we would look into. Arbitrary? I think we're just adjusting to the kind & amount of evidence that happens to be available.

 

[DaveG]

I really think we should include any players who peaked in Europe, and that would include Makarov, Fetisov, and Nedomansky for me.

I may come back in for this one, and this is the direction that I'd be leaning.

A guy like Hasek I wouldn't include as his peak was most definitively in the NHL.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Hašek can (*and must*) primarily be judged on what he did in the NHL (*if we want to do him justice*).

Clearly he can be judged that way, but why must he be judged that way? He had an outstanding club career in Europe and a downright legendary Olympic run.

Edit: TBH it isn't the end of the world to be a bit arbitrary about where we set the boundaries, but if it's going to end up that way then let's recognize it early and get on with things.

 

[Theokritos]

Clearly he can be judged that way, but why must he be judged that way? He had an outstanding club career in Europe and a downright legendary Olympic run.

He was 25 when he came to North America. Do you think his earlier career is more significant or as significant as his NHL years?

 

[Theokritos]

And for the record:

Of course a definition like "Eligible is every European player with a maximum of two seasons in North American professional hockey behind him at the time of his 30th birthday" is arbitrary, there is no way around it. The question is: Is it pertinent too?

 

[tarheelhockey]

He was 25 when he came to North America. Do you think his earlier career is more significant or as significant as his NHL years?

I think his earlier career combined with his international career makes him relevant in a discussion of all-time great European goaltending.

Again -- what's the significance of his club affiliation in relation to his Olympic performances? I think the answer to that question will help define the boundaries of this project.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

seems like the biggest grey areas are guys like loob and kamensky where their careers are not far from 50/50.

larionov or fetisov don't seem like they should make it very hard for you guys unless you want them to, and really neither should hasek.