Round 2, Vote 10 (HOH Top Wingers)

[Hawkey Town 18]

IMPORTANT NOTE: Post 2 of every voting thread will contain instructions as to who to send your votes to. If you send your votes to the wrong person, we can't guarantee that they will be counted.

MOD: This is a strictly on-topic thread. Posts that don't focus on the wingers listed in Post 2 will be deleted or moved at the discretion of the moderators. This will be strictly enforced in every Round 2 voting thread, regardless of who the OP is - TDMM

Before we begin, just a recap on how Round 2 will operate:

Round 2

• The top 8-12 ranked players from the aggregate list will be posted in a thread
• Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias
• Player merits and rankings will be open for discussion and debate for a period of at least five (5) days. Administrators may extend the discussion period if it remains active
• Final voting will occur for two (2) days, via PM. Everyone ranks their top 10 players.
• Top 5 players will be added to the list
• Final results will be posted and the process repeated for the next 4 places with remaining players until a list of 60 wingers is obtained
• If there are major breaks in the Round 2 voting totals, we may add more or less than the targeted 4 players in certain rounds
• The number of players available for discussion at once will increase from 8 as we move down the list, based on natural breaks in the aggregate list put together in Round 1

These might be tweaked to allow longer or shorter debating periods depending on how the process moves along.

Additionally, there are a couple guidelines we'd ask that everyone agree to abide by:

• Please try to stay on-topic in the thread
• Please remember that this is a debate on opinions and there is no right or wrong. Please try to avoid words like "stupid" "dumb" "wrong" "sophistry" etc. when debating.
• Please treat other debaters with respect
• Please don't be a wallflower. All eligible voters are VERY HIGHLY encouraged to be active participants in the debate.
• Please maintain an open mind. The purpose of the debate is to convince others that your views are more valid. If nobody is willing to accept their opinions as flexible there really is no point in debating.

Eliglible Voters (23):
Andros , Art of Sedinery , BillyShoe1721 , Dennis Bonvie , Hawkey Town 18 , intylerwetrust , kmad , MadArcand , reckoning , Rob Scuderi , ted1971 , TheDevilMadeMe , the edler , tony d , Ursaguy , bigbuffalo313 , Canadiens1958 , Darth Yoda , Hardyvan123 , MXD , tarheelhockey , unknown33 , seventieslord , Johnny Engine

All posters are encouraged to participate in the debates and discussions, but only those listed above will be eligible for the final votes.

Click to read more...

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Vote 10 will begin now and debates are scheduled to run through Monday December 8th. You may PM votes to Hawkey Town 18 starting on Sunday December 7th.

We will be sending out confirmations when we receive ballots from the voters. Any voter who does not get a confirmation within 24 hours of submitting a ballot should assume we never received it and should resubmit it and post in this thread saying they did so.

There are 14 eligible candidates for Vote 10 because of the natural breaks of Round 1 point totals.

***You will now rank your Top 10 when voting.***

Here are the candidates, listed alphabetically:

Daniel Alfredsson
Helmut Balderis
Roy Conacher
Yvan Cournoyer
Gordie Drillon
Patrik Elias
Rod Gilbert
Michel Goulet
Marian Hossa
Ilya Kovalchuk
Vladimir Krutov
John LeClair
Cam Neely
Didier Pitre

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Here's praying Cam Neely doesn't turn into Pavel Bure 2.0

 

[MXD]

!"/$()"/%(*"(%"(%*"*$%. Only Leclair from my wishlist made it. Good thing Goulet didn't make it, or else my #1 would probably have been not available for voting.

I say probably, because Roy Conacher has IMO a very solid resume in this group.

I had Neely in the high 30ies in my initial list. BIG OOOOOPS. But he's still interesting at this stage, as, as far as I'm concerned, start in contention for the Top-10.

 

[seventieslord]

at first glance, there might be enough good candidates to keep Pitre and Krutov off my ballot again. And no, of course I do not mean Neely.

Rod Gilbert's "help" ratio is 1.30. So it appears he had more help (though maybe not significantly more) than players like Robitaille and Shanahan and Hossa. Which is probably going to be a very important consideration, because his production is as good as any modern winger here, isn't it?

Elias vs. Hossa vs. Alfredsson - love it.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Why 14 players? I have a hard enough time trying to keep track of 10. Seems like too many.

Anyways, maybe we'll finally see what the hubbub about Cournoyer is. I've seen people complain about him not getting respect but not providing an argument for him. Let's hear it.

 

[seventieslord]

Here's praying Cam Neely doesn't turn into Pavel Bure 2.0

I suspect that won't be a problem. While the fact that some people clearly overrated Neely on their round 1 lists is why he's available now, I don't get the impression that there's anyone as committed to getting Neely as high a spot on the list as possible. No one here has the same feelings for Neely that others had for Bure, at least I don't think so.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Glad to see Gordie Drillon available. Very one-dimensional guy, but has the best peak as a scorer of anyone here. Best All-Star record at RW available. Strong goal scorer in the playoffs too.

On my initial list, I had the active guys with Hossa first, then Alfredsson/Elias close, then Kovalchuk.

LeClair seems like a factor this round. Gilbert... meh, maybe I'm missing something.

It's a little surprising to me to see Balderis appear before Yakushev, though at least Ursaguy can finally tell us what he sees in Balderis.

Neely.... easy not top 10.

 

[MXD]

Glad to see Gordie Drillon available. Very one-dimensional guy, but has the best peak as a scorer of anyone here. Best All-Star record at RW available. Strong goal scorer in the playoffs too.

On my initial list, I had the active guys with Hossa first, then Alfredsson/Elias close, then Kovalchuk.

LeClair seems like a factor this round. Gilbert... meh, maybe I'm missing something.

It's a little surprising to me to see Balderis appear before Yakushev, though at least Ursaguy can finally tell us what he sees in Balderis.

Neely.... easy not top 10.

What do you make of :

- The benching ?
- The fact he basically voluntarily retired VERY young ?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

7 Year weighted Vs-X scores 1927 to 2014

A formula for determining the quality of a player's point production in his best 7 regular seasons, compared to a typical #2 scorer in the league those years.

Details here and here

War years players - I am now listing the "war year fudge" first with the raw VsX in parenthesis, since I think the war year fudge is a much better estimate of offensive value.

11 | Mike Bossy | 94.4
12 | Teemu Selanne | 92.9
13 | Martin St. Louis | 92.9
14 | Sweeney Schriner | 91.9
15 | Bernie Geoffrion | 90.2
16 | Busher Jackson | 90
17 | Mark Recchi | 88.6
18 | Brett Hull | 88.2
19 | Jari Kurri | 88.1
20 | Gordie Drillon | 88.1
21 | Doug Bentley | 87.2(96.2)
22 | Jarome Iginla | 87
23 | Dickie Moore | 86
24 | Pavel Bure | 86
25 | Frank Mahovlich | 85.5
26 | Paul Kariya | 85.4
27 | Roy Conacher | 85.4(88.8)
28 | Toe Blake | 85.3(92.6)
39 | John Bucyk | 85.3
30 | Bryan Hextall | 84.5
31 | Luc Robitaille | 84.4
32 | Syd Howe | 84.3(87.9)
33 | Ilya Kovalchuk | 84.3
34 | Markus Naslund | 83.6
35 | Paul Thompson | 83.2
36 | Aurel Joliet# | 83.1
37 | Marian Hossa | 82.6
38 | Daniel Alfredsson | 82.6
39 | Theoren Fleury | 82.3
40 | John LeClair | 82.1
41| Dany Heatley | 81.5
42| Ziggy Palffy | 80.6
43| Rod Gilbert | 80.2
44| Ken Hodge | 79.9
45| Brendan Shanahan | 79.3
46| Michel Goulet | 79.3
47 | Patrik Elias | 79.3
48 | Keith Tkachuk | 79.3
49 | Cecil Dillon | 78.4
50 | Alexander Mogilny | 78.1
51 | Daniel Sedin | 77.3
52| Bun Cook |76.6
53| Bert Olmstead | 76.3
54| Bobby Bauer | 76.2
55| Patrick Kane | 76.0
56| Bobby Rousseau| 76.0
57 | Alex Kovalev | 75.8
58| Herbie Lewis | 75.6
59| Pavol Demitra | 75.2
60 | Johnny Gottselig | 75.0
61| Lanny McDonald | 74.6
62| Vincent Damphousse | 74.2
63| Rick Middleton | 74.0
64| Milan Hejduk | 73.8
65| Yvan Cournoyer | 73.6
66| Woody Dumart | 73.5
67| Patrick Marleau | 73.3
68| Tony Amonte | 73.3
69| Gaye Stewart | 73.1
70| Ray Whitney | 73.0

Cam Neely 63.8

Cam Neely is not included because his VsX score is too low (at 64.5 Bill Guerin and Vaclav Prospal are the lowest ranked players Hockey Outsider listed scores for: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=83988553&postcount=156. Neely is lower than them).

_______________

10-year VsX for post-expansion players

The voting results last round showed that the majority doesn't seem to care about 10-year primes, but it is the preferred standard for comparing post-expansion players with each other.

Ilya Kovalchuk 78.5
Marian Hossa 78.4
Daniel Alfredsson 78.4
Rod Gilbert 78.2
Patrik Elias 74.9
John LeClair 73.5
Michel Goulet 73.2
Yvan Cournoyer 69.6
Cam Neely 55.6

Remarkably, Hossa and Alfredsson have the exact same score in BOTH the 7 year and 10 year metrics.

*If anyone wants to figure out Neely's scores based off the weighted VsX formulas, I can add them to the tables. Needless to say, his scores are A LOT lower than anyone else this round*

 

[ted2019]

lol at Neely being up already. I had Neely somewhere after 50.

 

[seventieslord]

Rod Gilbert gets absolutely trashed by the above vsx because 4 of his 5 best seasons are 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975, when Orr and Esposito broke the system. if you were to compare his points to the points of the actual 2nd best scorer or best non-outlier in those years, instead of players influenced by Orr and Esposito, he'd look a lot better.

...for that matter, Cournoyer gets trashed this way, too.

 

[seventieslord]

Gordie Drillon - great 7-year vsx - clearly - but, they're his only 7 seasons. I'm not sure how I feel about him in this class of players just yet.

 

[tarheelhockey]

*If anyone wants to figure out Neely's scores based off the weighted VsX formulas, I can add them to the tables. Needless to say, his scores are A LOT lower than anyone else this round*

Out of curiosity, is this primarily an effect of his missed GP? Surely he isn't the worst player here on a per-game basis?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Rod Gilbert gets absolutely trashed by the above vsx because 4 of his 5 best seasons are 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975, when Orr and Esposito broke the system. if you were to compare his points to the points of the actual 2nd best scorer or best non-outlier in those years, instead of players influenced by Orr and Esposito, he'd look a lot better.

...for that matter, Cournoyer gets trashed this way, too.

I did notice last round that Cournoyer looked a little better based off top 10/20 finishes than VsX

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Out of curiosity, is this primarily an effect of his missed GP? Surely he isn't the worst player here on a per-game basis?

Missing games definitely hurt Neely, but he did have 7 consecutive seasons playing between 69 and 75 games, so it isn't going to hurt him THAT much in a 7 year metric

Only top 10 in points-per-game twice. 9th in 90-91 and 2nd in 93-94 (the year Adam Oates helped him score 50 goals in 49 games): http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/n/neelyca01.html

The thing with Neely is that his assist numbers are BAD - basically Bure-bad, but in a higher scoring era, so in reality, quite a bit worse.

 

[seventieslord]

I did notice last round that Cournoyer looked a little better based off top 10/20 finishes than VsX

on that note, 6th-20th place finishes mean a little less in the 70s, don't they? you've gotta imagine a few europeans and a few WHA players fill out those spots most seasons, right?

 

[seventieslord]

Missing games definitely hurt Neely, but he did have 7 consecutive seasons playing between 69 and 75 games, so it isn't going to hurt him THAT much in a 7 year metric

Only top 10 in points-per-game twice. 9th in 90-91 and 2nd in 93-94 (the year Adam Oates helped him score 50 goals in 49 games): http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/n/neelyca01.html

The thing with Neely is that his assist numbers are BAD - basically Bure-bad, but in a higher scoring era, so in reality, quite a bit worse.

I took a look and Neely missed 82 "adusted" games in his 7 best seasons (meaning I called his 6 missed 1995 games 10 missed games). So really, you could say that at least per-game wise, Neely's VsX 7 year score was achieved in 6 seasons' worth of games.

So there's that, I guess.

 

[MXD]

Gordie Drillon - great 7-year vsx - clearly - but, they're his only 7 seasons. I'm not sure how I feel about him in this class of players just yet.

I tend to agree with you.
But...
- He lost years to the War
- Subsequently didn't come back.

I mean, it's not like he tried to make a team and couldn't. Sure, retirement is retirement (besides, I have a hard time believing he would have maintained its numbers after the war due to lack of ice time), but the War Years...

I mean, I'm probably having him out anyways or very far down the list. But the 7 seasons only is... I don't know, not quite fair ?

Speaking of Drillon. Looking at his resume. How does he differ significantly from Kovalchuk ? Switch St.Petersburg for the lovely Moncton, and lockouts for War, and you have two players who cannot be that far apart.

 

[Rob Scuderi]

Cam Neely's seven year weighted VsX score is 63.77. His ten year weighted score is 55.61.

re: Tarheel's question about Neely's scores. He just never had very high scores combined with a shortened career.

Take Gordie Drillon, he had seven seasons but each earned him a VsX score of at least 70*. Bure had six seasons with a VsX above 70, and three more above 50.

Neely on the other hand had two seasons above 70 (79.13 and 71.32), and five more above 50. Neely only finished in the top 30 in points twice (15th and 20th) so it's not like his VsX scores are being crippled by harsh benchmarks.

*I didn't apply the war year fudge for 1942-43 which would probably drop him below 70 in his final season.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I took a look and Neely missed 82 "adusted" games in his 7 best seasons (meaning I called his 6 missed 1995 games 10 missed games). So really, you could say that at least per-game wise, Neely's VsX 7 year score was achieved in 6 seasons' worth of games.

So there's that, I guess.

If Cam Neely played a full schedule (without looking at anyone else's GP), his weighted seven-year VsX would have been 77.1 using 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996. Didn't bother trying to do anything with 1993 and 1994 (20 goals and 30 points in 22 games). So as a per-game player, he's not bad, especially if you give goal scorers extra credit. Of course, missing an average of 15 GP in those seven years is pretty bad.

 

[unknown33]

Here's praying Cam Neely doesn't turn into Pavel Bure 2.0

You guessed that one right, I will include his missed games and injuries more than other voters (might) do it. (No, I likely won't rank him this round)


John LeClair has an impressive number of AS selections at this point, is a strong goalscorer and great adj. +/-
I think how much he benefited from Lindros (numbers w & w/o Lindros) etc. was studied already, but I can't recall the result.


Looking forward to hear more about Balderis. Amazing per game numbers, undoubtedly was hurt by being Latvian.

Alfredsson - Elias - Hossa, all have a chance considering I had Hossa rather high last round.

 

[MXD]

Rod Gilbert gets absolutely trashed by the above vsx because 4 of his 5 best seasons are 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975, when Orr and Esposito broke the system. if you were to compare his points to the points of the actual 2nd best scorer or best non-outlier in those years, instead of players influenced by Orr and Esposito, he'd look a lot better.

...for that matter, Cournoyer gets trashed this way, too.

...And Goulet, too.

 

[ted2019]

You guessed that one right, I will include his missed games and injuries more than other voters (might) do it. (No, I likely won't rank him this round)


John LeClair has an impressive number of AS selections at this point, is a strong goalscorer and great adj. +/-
I think how much he benefited from Lindros (numbers w & w/o Lindros) etc. was studied already, but I can't recall the result.


Looking forward to hear more about Balderis. Amazing per game numbers, undoubtedly was hurt by being Latvian.

Alfredsson - Elias - Hossa, all have a chance considering I had Hossa rather high last round.

As someone who watched LeClair every night as a flyer, They both benefited from each other. When Lindros did miss time, LeClair still put up points.

 

[quoipourquoi]

As someone who watched LeClair every night as a flyer, They both benefited from each other. When Lindros did miss time, LeClair still put up points.

I did the numbers for LeClair's two highest-scoring seasons (1996-97 and 1997-98) before. In terms of goal-scoring, there wasn't too much of a dip, but the point totals went down by roughly 0.30 per game.


Lindros out until November 26th, 1996
LeClair: 23 GP, 13 G, 22 PTS (0.57, 0.96)
Remainder of Season: 59 GP, 37 G, 75 PTS (0.63, 1.27)

Lindros out from early-March to early-April in 1998
LeClair: 18 GP, 11 G, 15 PTS (0.61, 0.83)
Remainder of Season: 64 GP, 40 G, 72 PTS (0.63, 1.13)