Sturminator
Love is a duel
Yeah, they also rated Phillips over Taylor, and Scotty Davidson (who played like, what, two seasons?) over Dye. You are being over-credulous. There were some obvious sentimental picks on that list.
Yeah, they also rated Phillips over Taylor, and Scotty Davidson (who played like, what, two seasons?) over Dye. You are being over-credulous. There were some obvious sentimental picks on that list.
I don't think leaving out someone with Hooley's Hart record should be "easy" at this point, especially when you consider that he spent some years with Nels Stewart holding him back.
In Dink Carroll's 1952 column quoting Dick Irvin calling Milt Schmidt, Sid Abel, and Ted Kennedy "driving type players" who "would not be classified as playmakers," Carroll specifically listed Frank Boucher, Neil Colville, Joe Primeau, Marty Barry, Hooley Smith, and Cooney Weiland as players who could "set up plays."
http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AJ&pg=4301,1318041&dq=lach+morenz+irvin&hl=en
If Smith was a classic type of playmaker (which back then seemed to involve controlling the puck through the neutral zone as much as actually passing the puck in the offensive zone), it really would have been an adjustment of his style of play to play RW with Nels Stewart while the S Line was together.
I think Smith's poor playoff record might be enough to leave him out of my top 4, but I have a hard time leaving him out of my top 8. (edit: but then I'll have a hard time leaving the rest of the 9 out, so who knows?) What does Datsyuk have on Smith, for example?
The largest problem with Hooley is obviously his playoff resume, which for some reason people are bending over backwards to excuse here. My guess is that many of the same people might have held Dionne's resume against him but we shall see on that note I guess.
also the Hart voting record is only part of the story, his all star and Hart voting outside of those 4 seasons isn't the greatest either and it's hard to get a clear and real picture of what he was like.
Even if he was truly worthy of those Hart votes, what about the non Hart seasons?
And I'm not sure Nels held him back either Hooley was always a passenger on his teams with other guys driving the bus, or at the very least there was alot of seat sharing going on.
Voting is now open and will close on Monday the 20th at 9pm EST. Please PM me your votes for only the top 8 centers with numbers next to each name (i.e. 1. Wayne Gretzky). You will receive confirmation that your vote has been received within 24hrs. If you do not receive confirmation please re-send votes and let me know with a post in this thread.
*PLEASE NOTE VOTING CLOSES AT AN EARLIER TIME THAN PREVIOUS VOTES
Thanks,
HT18
voted earlier in the week and haven't seen anything to alter my view but I might have time tommorrow to look at the thread and resubmit.
Generally, "passengers" on their teams don't finish top 4 in Hart voting 3 times.
Are we evaluating 1930s centers in the right order? As in, is there anyone else from the era we should be looking at first? If not, and Hooley is the right choice, can we really justify putting in yet another center active in 1981 over him? I agree that there should be more Hooley/perreault caliber players in later years too... but to that degree?
Are we evaluating 1930s centers in the right order? As in, is there anyone else from the era we should be looking at first? If not, and Hooley is the right choice, can we really justify putting in yet another center active in 1981 over him? I agree that there should be more Hooley/perreault caliber players in later years too... but to that degree?
There are a very limited number of players who received serious Hart consideration in more than three seasons - at this point almost all of them have already been included in the list. Smith likely has the 3rd best Hart trophy voting results of this round's eligible players - and if we use the "what has he done outside of his Hart years" argument, the only two players ahead of him (Lindros and especially Malkin) have done virtually nothing that would make them worthy of our list.
Marty Barry has significantly better regular season stats that Hooley, and he was likely the most "clutch" player of the decade. Hooley has a significantly better Hart and a somewhat better All-Star record than Barry. Barry got into the HHOF first, if that matters to anyone.
I had Barry over Hooley on my initial list, though I am uncertain if I would keep them in that order if I were to do it today.
You often have the before season rankings by the hockey news. Do you have these for Malkin and Datsyuk? I'm honestly curious.
THN 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 editions:
2010-2011:
4) Datsyuk
8) Malkin
2011-2012:
2) Datsyuk
6) Malkin
I don't have the voting info on 2010-2011, but the 2011-2012 edition was voted by the players. They had 5 players per team vote for who they thought the top 5 players were. Players couldn't vote for their own teammates.
I'm assuming these were published at the beginning of the season? So summer of 2010 and summer of 2011 respectively?
Where would Igor Larionov's Soviet years rate in comparison to the top NHL centres of the 80s? I'm just asking because he had a very impressive run in the NHL; overall better than his teammates that came over with him. So if he did that well after age 29, it makes you wonder how good he would've been in his prime. But then again, during his Soviet years, wasn't he considered as the weakest member of his line?
I have THN from 2007 to 2009 and TSN from 2010 to 2013. Here they are (from 2007 to 2013):
Datsyuk: 36, 4, 4, 7, 3, 5, 5
Malkin: 44, 9, 3, 4, 22, 2, 2
Datsyuk also has placements of 37, 31 and 35 from 2004 to 2006 (THN).