Round 2, Vote 11 (HOH Top Wingers)

[Canadiens1958]

Bert Olmstead

How does Olmstead compare to the likes of Armstrong, Gainey or Provost?
I had him below on my round 1 list.

Excellent question.


http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/o/olmstbe01.html

Bert Olmstead generated more offense due to his strong corner work and playmaking.

Provost and Armstrong were better goalscorers though, stil they averaged around 0.60 PPG over their careers.

Gainey was below 0.50PPG career.

Defensively, Gainey by a solid length, then Armstrong and Provost - both played defense in excellent harmony with their centers, followed by Olmstead.

Post season honours, skewed by the Selke Trophies that Gainey won, not available during the careers of the other three.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Alexander Yakushev

Well part of the reason why I hold Balderis as the slightly better player offensively goes back to that Balderis strained relationship with Tikhonov meant that he lost many opportunities to play with the national team. So I personally give the offensive edge to Balderis because he managed to keep up with Yakushev quite well internationally despite having more limited opportunities. Usually I put abit more weight on international play than domestic play though as international performances most of the time seems to have been considered more important by the soviet observers of the time. But like I said I personally feel like Balderis is a special case in that regard. However as a overall player Yakushev has a slight edge in my opinion because of his superior two way game.

Question is why did he have a superior two way game? Not only compared to Balderis but to all of the contemporay Russsian forwards or European forwards.

 

[thom]

1958-could you find minutes played per game by Gainey-thanks

 

[Canadiens1958]

Rod Gilbert

Honest question, are you perhaps a little selective about which one-dimensional guy you will champion when he's the top scorer not yet on the list? Because Gilbert really seems to fit that bill right now and he's not getting the Shriner/Drillon treatment from you.

Rod Gilbert is a very interesting player, especially when viewed in the context of RWs who entered the NHL during the 1960s O6 era and played through the seventies.

Setting the stage:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYR/1965.html

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYR/1966.html

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYR/1967.html

1965, healthy Rod Gilbert led the Rangers in scoring, 1966 - Gilbert misses half of the season due to back surgery - Bob Nevin assumes a more offensive role and leads the Rangers in scoring, 1967 Gilbert healthy, tied with Don Marshall for second in scoring on the Rangers. both led Ranger wingers in scoring but Gilbert's scoring ws down as the improved Rangers made the playoffs for the first time in five seasons.

The difficult part when appreciating Rod Gilbert is answering the question does he create enough separation between himself and the likes of Bob Nevin, Ron Ellis, Paul Henderson, Bobby Rousseau, Kenny Wharram.

Paul Henderson is the only one in the group that has a blank awards and honours sheet:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/h/hendepa01.html

Nevin shows-up in some voting:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/n/nevinbo01.html

But other than Gilbert's longevity and circumstances aligning there is little to choose between the players in the group.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Minutes Played

1958-could you find minutes played per game by Gainey-thanks

Recorded about 10 seasons after Gainey retired. But Gainey and Lafleur were the only wingers that Scotty Bowman extra shifted.

 

[thom]

Thanks-just curious how many minutes he played

 

[Batis]

2) Yakushev never played on the stacked Red Army team, and Balderis did. Batis, can you post what Balderis' stats looked like both on and off CSKA?

Yes certainly. This is Balderis stats during his prime (74/75-84/85). Split up in 3 different periods. His first Riga years, his CSKA years and his second Riga years.

First Riga years: 74/75-76/77

74/75
1. Vladimir Petrov 34 gp, 53 pts
2. Boris Mikhailov 35 gp, 51 pts
3. Helmuts Balderis 36 gp, 48 pts
4. Vladimir Vikulov 36 gp, 40 pts
5. Alexander Bodunov 36 gp, 39 pts
5. Valeri Kharlamov 31 gp, 39 pts

75/76
1. Viktor Shalimov 36 gp, 53 pts
2. Alexander Yakushev 36 gp, 51 pts
3. Alexander Maltsev 29 gp, 47 pts
4. Helmuts Balderis 36 gp, 45 pts
5. Vladimir Petrov 34 gp, 44 pts

76/77
1. Helmuts Balderis 35 gp, 63 pts
2. Vladimir Petrov 35 gp, 62 pts
3. Alexander Maltsev 33 gp, 58 pts
4. Boris Mikhailov 34 gp, 51 pts
5. Valeri Belousov -gp, 49 pts

Total 74/75- 76/77 First Riga years
1. Vladimir Petrov 103 gp, 159 pts
2. Helmuts Balderis 107 gp, 156 pts
3. Boris Mikhailov 105 gp, 141 pts
4. Alexander Maltsev 94 gp, 139 pts

CSKA years: 77/78-79/80

77/78
1. Vladimir Petrov 31 gp, 56 pts
2. Boris Mikhailov 35 gp, 52 pts
3. Yuri Lebedev 35 gp, 46 pts
4. Vladimir Golikov -gp, 44 pts
5. Valeri Kharlamov 29 gp, 42 pts
9. Helmuts Balderis 36 gp, 34 pts

78/79
1. Vladimir Petrov 43 gp, 63 pts
2. Piotr Prirodin 44 gp, 62 pts
3. Boris Mikhailov 43 gp, 54 pts
4. Alexander Golikov 37 gp, 53 pts
5. Helmuts Balderis 41 gp, 48 pts
5. Valeri Kharlamov 41 gp, 48 pts

79/80
1. Sergei Makarov 44 gp, 68 pts
2. Helmuts Balderis 42 gp, 61 pts
3. Viktor Shalimov 44 gp, 53 pts
4. Mikhail Varnakov 44 gp, 50 pts
5. Boris Mikhailov 41 gp, 50 pts

Total 77/78-79/80 CSKA years
1. Vladimir Petrov 106 gp, 160 pts
2. Boris Mikhailov 119 gp, 156 pts
3. Piotr Prirodin -gp, 143 pts
3. Helmuts Balderis 119 gp, 143 pts
5. Sergei Makarov 124 gp, 138 pts

Second Riga years: 80/81-84/85

80/81
1. Sergei Makarov 49 gp, 79 pts
2. Sergei Kapustin 44 gp, 61 pts
3. Nikolai Drozdetsky 44 gp, 58 pts
4. Valeri Belousov -gp, 58 pts
5. Viktor Zhluktov 49 gp, 55 pts
7. Helmuts Balderis 44 gp, 50 pts

81/82
1. Sergei Makarov 46 gp, 75 pts
2. Alexander Kozhevnikov -gp, 71 pts
3. Vladimir Krutov 46 gp, 66 pts
4. Viktor Shalimov 47 gp, 59 pts
5. Igor Larionov 46 gp, 53 pts
10. Helmuts Balderis 41 gp, 43 pts

82/83
1. Helmuts Balderis 40 gp, 63 pts
2. Alexander Kozhevnikov 43 gp, 57 pts
3. Vladimir Krutov 44 gp, 53 pts
4. Alexander Skvortsov 44 gp, 47 pts
5. Igor Orlov 44 gp, 45 pts

83/84
1. Sergei Makarov 44 gp, 73 pts
2. Vladimir Krutov 44 gp, 57 pts
3. Nikolai Drozdetsky 44 gp, 51 pts
4. Vyasheslav Fetisov 44 gp, 49 pts
5. Alexander Kozhevnikov 33 gp, 47 pts
X. Helmuts Balderis 39 gp, 39 pts

84/85
1. Sergei Makarov 40 gp, 65 pts
2. Vladimir Krutov 40 gp, 53 pts
3. Helmuts Balderis 39 gp, 51 pts
4. Vladimir Zubrilchev -gp, 47 pts
5. Igor Larionov 40 gp, 46 pts

Total 80/81-84/85 Second Riga years
1. Sergei Makarov 209 gp, 334 pts
2. Vladimir Krutov 221 gp, 269 pts
3. Helmuts Balderis 203 gp, 246 pts
4. Alexander Kozhevnikov -gp, 235 pts
5. Viktor Shalimov 231 gp, 225 pts
6. Igor Larionov 216 gp, 224 pts

Balderis best period domestically was probably his first Riga years when he only trailed Vladimir Petrov in scoring over a 3 season period. His CSKA years and his second Riga years are pretty close to each other in how he compared to the rest of the league. And six of Balderis seven best seasons compared to the second highest scorer in the league was spent in Riga. So it seems like Balderis thrived on being the number one player on a team rather than being one of many stars.

And in general I would say that Yakushev throughout his career had better linemates than Balderis. First Shadrin and Yaroslavtsev, then Shadrin and Zimin and finally Shadrin and Shalimov. While the only time that Balderis had linemates of that caliber was in his 3 seasons with CSKA when he most of the time seems to have played on a line with Zhluktov and Kapustin. If Balderis played on a line with Frolikov and Prirodin in Riga during the 80´s I guess we can say that he had pretty good linemates in his second Riga period to. I still think that Yakushev in general throughout his career played with better linemates than Balderis. But like mentioned before Balderis seems to have enjoyed and thrived on being the main player on his line and his team so I dont think that the weaker linemates argument should be used to much in Balderis favour either.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Reg Noble

One outstanding season 1917-18, a war year:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/n/noblere01.html

Next season, not a war year, was outscored in the same number of games by 35 year old Didier Pitre.

Overall solid but tended more to defense. impressed a bit with the Maroons who played with shorter rosters than most NHL teams. So like other Maroon players required positional diversity. Not yet.

 

[MXD]

One outstanding season 1917-18, a war year:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/n/noblere01.html

Next season, not a war year, was outscored in the same number of games by 35 year old Didier Pitre.

Overall solid but tended more to defense. impressed a bit with the Maroons who played with shorter rosters than most NHL teams. So like other Maroon players required positional diversity. Not yet.

Noble was a D in 18-19 according to material posted earlier.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Noble was a D in 18-19 according to material posted earlier.

Meaning he was the highest scoring defenseman, unless Pitre was also playing back that year.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Noble was a D in 18-19 according to material posted earlier.

Good catch. Though I think C1958 might be on to something - quickly scanning the hockey-reference stats, 1917-18 is the only season when Noble finished top 5 in scoring in the split-league NHL.

Do we know how many players were missing from the NHL because of WW1?

(Obviously, Noble was more than just his scoring though)

 

[Canadiens1958]

Lw/d

Noble was a D in 18-19 according to material posted earlier.

Reg Noble split time LW/D, due to roster shortages caused by other d-men missing playing time:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/TRA/1919.html

 

[Hardyvan123]

Excellent question.


http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/o/olmstbe01.html

Bert Olmstead generated more offense due to his strong corner work and playmaking.

Provost and Armstrong were better goalscorers though, stil they averaged around 0.60 PPG over their careers.

Gainey was below 0.50PPG career.

Defensively, Gainey by a solid length, then Armstrong and Provost - both played defense in excellent harmony with their centers, followed by Olmstead.

Post season honours, skewed by the Selke Trophies that Gainey won, not available during the careers of the other three.

he does belong in that group as a player who shouldn't be up yet IMO, his resume has tons of holes in it and it seems that he has the Hab dynasty bump going on but there are plenty of guys not even up yet with much more impressive resumes and more rounded careers IMO.

He won't make the cut this round with only 4 top 10 finishes in points and heck that's in a 6 team league to boot.

He has a 4 year peak (his 2 year assist playoff peak occurs at the same time) where he is 9,5,7 and 4th in points and obviously not driving the bus or even in any serious discussion for being a top 5 player on his team for any 2 year stretch over that time period.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Stanley Cup Finals

he does belong in that group as a player who shouldn't be up yet IMO, his resume has tons of holes in it and it seems that he has the Hab dynasty bump going on but there are plenty of guys not even up yet with much more impressive resumes and more rounded careers IMO.

He won't make the cut this round with only 4 top 10 finishes in points and heck that's in a 6 team league to boot.

He has a 4 year peak (his 2 year assist playoff peak occurs at the same time) where he is 9,5,7 and 4th in points and obviously not driving the bus or even in any serious discussion for being a top 5 player on his team for any 2 year stretch over that time period.

Yet the teams he played on made the Stanley Cup finals 11 out of 12 seasons between 1951 and 1962. Doubt you will find any other player with such a CV.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Reg noble probably played some d in those years but a lot of guys played most or all of the game so simply looking at full season stats isn't going to tell us much really.

In 17-18 it looks like Noble played most of the year as a forward and probably the same is true for the following year as well.

Dmen for the most part could relax and stay at home and play all game long.

 

[MXD]

Reg noble probably played some d in those years but a lot of guys played most or all of the game so simply looking at full season stats isn't going to tell us much really.

In 17-18 it looks like Noble played most of the year as a forward and probably the same is true for the following year as well.

Dmen for the most part could relax and stay at home and play all game long.

... Except we have some evidence that he was a forward in 17-18 and a D-Men in 18-19.

The evidence for the forward role in 17-18 is reproduced below (Tarheel's post).

The evidence for the defense role in 18-19 is EB's ATD-profile for Noble, which quoted The Trail (which has to be considered the best evidence for such sort of things).

As far as D-Men relaxing in that era, well, Harry Cameron and Sprague Cleghorne beg to differ. George Boucher would routinely hover in the PPG territory as well, and it's not like he could Hail Mary it either.

 

[tarheelhockey]

For more information on Noble's 1917-18, see this thread: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1725535

It's a long and detailed read, so if you want the summary:

- Noble started most games at LW. Twice he started at C.

- Noble scored goals in 14/20 games (70%) making him the most consistent scorer on the regular and postseason champion Toronto team. He also had one of the team's two 4-goal games (the other by Harry Cameron) and led the team in hat-tricks with 4. By any measure, he was the best goal-scorer on the team.

- In the playoffs, Noble started at C. Montreal swapped Newsy Lalonde and Joe Malone from their usual positions, putting Malone rather than Lalonde in the middle against Noble (this was the only time that entire season in which Montreal chose to do this). Lalonde scored twice from the wing but Malone was shut down. In game 2, the Habs moved Malone back to wing, and Noble scored the eventual Cup-winning goal.

- When Toronto played Vancouver for the Stanley Cup and had to play by 7-man rules in games 2 and 4, Noble was the player chosen to take over the unfamiliar rover position.

- In game 1 of the Finals, Noble scored twice in the first period as a LW before leaving with a shoulder injury. In games 3 and 5, he played at C against Cyclone Taylor. He held Taylor to 3 goals in 2 games, which was less than Taylor's typical 2-per-game.

- Early in the season, Frank Nighbor was unable to report to Ottawa because he was stuck in Toronto on war duty. Toronto proposed a trade that would bring Nighbor to their team so he could play the season -- Noble was the player they offered Ottawa in return. The Sens chose to wait for Nighbor (who, don't get me wrong, was a different caliber of player than Noble) but Toronto's logic in making the offer is revealing.

 

[Hardyvan123]

... Except we have some evidence that he was a forward in 17-18 and a D-Men in 18-19.

The evidence for the forward role in 17-18 is reproduced below (Tarheel's post).

we already know that he played as a forward for the 17-18 season we don't know how much d or LW he played in the 18-19 season, for some reason it wasn't in the next post as suggested.

The evidence for the defense role in 18-19 is EB's ATD-profile for Noble, which quoted The Trail (which has to be considered the best evidence for such sort of things).

It still is unclear as to how much LW or D Noble played in 18-19 here is the breakdown of positions and GP and from what we know starters would often played the majority if not all of the games so without a game by game breakdown what do we know

Here is the 5-13 Toronto team
Center
Corb Denney 16 GP
Jack Adams 17 GP

RW
Alfie Skinner 17 GP
Rusty Crawford 18 GP

LW Noble 17 GP (some on D as well)
Harry Meeking 14 GP 7 goals

D
Randall 14 GP
Cameron 7 GP
Mummery 13 GP
Dave Ritchie 4 GP

So depending on which games each player missed it's possible that Noble played part of the season on D but he is listed as a LW/C on hockey reference and he played the following year at a forward LW role as well.

As far as D-Men relaxing in that era, well, Harry Cameron and Sprague Cleghorne beg to differ. George Boucher would routinely hover in the PPG territory as well, and it's not like he could Hail Mary it either.

A PPG player in the early years was almost most regular players it was a very high scoring era with mainly 5 guys getting most of the ice time most games.

It is well written and known that rushing Dmen weren't the norm and the pace of the game with players playing a full game would be more akin to soccer than hockey in later years.

 

[MXD]

we already know that he played as a forward for the 17-18 season we don't know how much d or LW he played in the 18-19 season, for some reason it wasn't in the next post as suggested.



It still is unclear as to how much LW or D Noble played in 18-19 here is the breakdown of positions and GP and from what we know starters would often played the majority if not all of the games so without a game by game breakdown what do we know

Here is the 5-13 Toronto team
Center
Corb Denney 16 GP
Jack Adams 17 GP

RW
Alfie Skinner 17 GP
Rusty Crawford 18 GP

LW Noble 17 GP (some on D as well)
Harry Meeking 14 GP 7 goals

D
Randall 14 GP
Cameron 7 GP
Mummery 13 GP
Dave Ritchie 4 GP

So depending on which games each player missed it's possible that Noble played part of the season on D but he is listed as a LW/C on hockey reference and he played the following year at a forward LW role as well.




A PPG player in the early years was almost most regular players it was a very high scoring era with mainly 5 guys getting most of the ice time most games.

It is well written and known that rushing Dmen weren't the norm and the pace of the game with players playing a full game would be more akin to soccer than hockey in later years.

That's interesting, but I tend to prefer what the Trail has to say... I mean, unless the Trail is shown wrong, I assume it is right.

 

[tarheelhockey]

As a pre-existing side project, I have mostly finished a breakdown of lineups from the 1918-19 season. I'll wrap it up tomorrow (at least the Toronto section) and post the results.

 

[seventieslord]

This is an interesting way to view the effect of 3-line/4-line rotations.

For the sake of getting down to specifics, let's look at his 1972 (peak goal scoring) season. Here is how the league's most frequent shooters sorted out that season:

Player | Shots | Goals | S% | Team Shots Rank | Team Goals Rank
Esposito|1st|1st|15.5%|2nd|1st
Orr|2nd|11th|10.5%|2nd|1st
B. Hull|3rd|3rd|14.9%|11th|5th
Unger|4th|12th|11.2%|4th|10th
Goldsworthy|5th|t17th|10.5%|t7th|8th
M. Redmond|6th|9th|15.5%|t7th|4th
D. Hull|7th|20th|11.1%|11th|5th
Dionne|8th|NR|10.4%|t7th|4th
Lemaire|t9th|15th|12.0%|3rd|3rd
Martin|t9th|6th|16.5%|14th|12th
Keon|11th|NR|6.8%|5th|9th
Park|12th|NR|9.1%|1st|2nd
Mahovlich|13th|t7th|16.5%||3rd|3rd
D. Redmond|14th|NR|3.9%|12th|4th
Hadfield|15th|2nd|20.7%|1st|2nd
Tallon|16th|NR|7.1%|10th|13th
Gilbert|17th|t7th|18.1%|1st|2nd
Walton|18th|NR|11.9%|2nd|1st
Sabourin|18th|NR|11.9%|4th|10th
Tzachuk|20th|NR|10.4%|1st|2nd

Keep in mind that during this season, at the team level shots correlated strongly to goals -- and both shots and goals correlated strongly to wins. So a team that generated a lot of shots was more likely to win than one that didn't.

In that respect, we can see pretty clearly that Phil Esposito was massively valuable in 1972. He led the league in both shots and goals, with a high shooting%, and his team results were correspondingly strong. It's likely that Esposito was skating big minutes in order to get all those shots in the first place, but he certainly made them count.

An interesting comparable is Vic Hadfield. He was the most frequent-shooting forward on the most frequent-shooting team in the league, the Rangers. Yet I count 9 teams whose shot-leading forward took more shots than Hadfield. That strongly suggests to me that Hadfield was getting less ice time than those other players. The most logical way to square the difference between individual and team results is to infer that the Rangers were rolling 4 lines that year. But look at Hadfield's scoring results: he shot over 20% and finished second only to Espo in goals.

At the other end of the spectrum we have guys like Gary Unger, who finished 4th in shots. Unger's Blues shot the puck a lot, and he personally shot the puck a lot, but neither he nor the Blues came up with a particularly impressive goal total. The implication is that Unger was skating a lot of minutes and compiling goals based largely on volume of opportunity, rather than playing successful hockey on either the individual or the team level. Given the correlation between his personal stats and his team's results, we can infer that we was skating minutes that were consistent with a 3-line rotation.

So where does that leave Cournoyer? Well, we can see that he didn't even make the top 20 in shots and that his team's leading shooter was only 6th (average) among team leaders. Yet as a team the Habs were only a handful of shots short of a tie for 2nd overall, and they were 3rd in goal scoring. That would appear to confirm C58's assertion that the Habs were rolling 4 lines at this time.

Furthermore, Cournoyer was very close to the top of the goal scoring chart while shooting at a spectacular 22.6%, second best in the league. And of course we know that the Habs were one of the best teams in the league at the time, so this was all done as part of an effective, winning scheme. Essentially, he was the most efficient scorer in a system that was designed to win games at the expense of individual opportunities.

The shot/goal/% data seems to line up in support of what C58 has been saying about taking line rotations into account. In the sample season, players like Cournoyer and Hadfield maximized their opportunities while playing for successful teams. Their 1972 achievements are arguably more impressive than guys like Bobby Hull and Rick Martin, who were clustered around them on the scoring list while enjoying apparent advantages in ice time and volume of scoring opportunity.

This is all interesting, but I'm not sure how scientific it is. Can hypotheses about player SOG compared to team SOG ranks be compared to actual ice time in seasons where it is known, in order to test how reliable it is?

I know one thing that does directly correlate to time spent on the ice, and that's goals on-ice for. This has also been proven. Intuitively, it makes a lot more sense too, because SOG is something that a player gets credited for that they literally did. They control it. A goal for or against may have had lots to do with the player, or nothing at all. It's just something that happened and will continue happening, just as a symptom of being on the ice.

Anyway, I'm not saying that the conclusion about Cournoyer is incorrect. It very well may be. But we don't need to speculate to the degree that you are, using things are are loosely related (if at all) to TOI. The estimates that have been going around for years, based on GF and GA should tell us what we want to know.

From 1968 through 1978, Cournoyer's prime, the top-10 wingers in points per game who played at least 350 games were Lafleur, Martin, Mahovlich, Gilbert, Bucyk, Cournoyer, Robert, Hodge, Barber and McDonald. here they are, ranked by ESTOI per game over that time:

Martin 16.65
Mahovlich 16.28
Lafleur 15.86
Hidge 15.50
Gilbert 15.40
McDonald 15.15
Robert 15.14
Cournoyer 14.79
Barber 14.57
Bucyk 13.92

Although Cournoyer shows up pretty low there, the difference between him and most of the others probably isn't as pronounced as you would have thought.

As for the Habs rolling four lines while other teams rolled three... what exactly is that saying? Is that saying that they literally dressed only 12 forwards and others were dressing 9? Or is it saying that they all dressed 12, but other teams were barely playing their fourth line while the Habs played theirs relatively often? I would like to look further into this but first I'd like to understand what is being claimed.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

When overpass posts his megaposts, he includes "The percentage of the team’s even-strength goals the player was on the ice for, on a per-game basis," listed as EV%: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=93710987&postcount=235.

Iain Fyffe and overpass have done a lot of good work on estimating even strength ice time for historical players. EV% isn't a perfect proxy for ice time - When it comes to someone like Bob Gainey who plays low event hockey (not many goals scored on either end when he plays), it will likely underestimate ice time. But when comparing 2 scorers to each other (like Cournoyer and Gilbert), it seems like a great way to estimate ice time.

Anyway, Cournoyer looks to on the low end of even strength ice time, but not all that much lower than other players of his era.

Edit: Basically what 70s said. Pretty sure he's using the Iain Fyffe ice time estimator formula, which is mainly based off goals for and against when a player is on the ice.

 

[MXD]

As a pre-existing side project, I have mostly finished a breakdown of lineups from the 1918-19 season. I'll wrap it up tomorrow (at least the Toronto section) and post the results.

Good, very good.

I mean, if everything holds up about Noble, that would go a long way towards establishing that :

He's a viable top-10 candidate here;
He's somewhat comparable to Pitre.

I don't see him as equal to Pitre -- nobody would look that good while playing with Lalonde in a restrictive passing environment which doesn't make passers look good. And while one shouldn't expect from Noble to have destroyed post-consolidation NHL (he was no Bill Cook or King Clancy), the fact he was able to play for so long, even if at a level below what Pitre did in the non-consolidated NHL, speaks to his versatility.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Yet the teams he played on made the Stanley Cup finals 11 out of 12 seasons between 1951 and 1962. Doubt you will find any other player with such a CV.

At some point we have to distinguish between guys who were just there and somewhat replaceable and guys riding the bus.

If there is any case that he was a top 5 guy on that Hab dynasty over any 2 year period it would really help his case but I can't see it.

We are ranking players here not teams and guys like the Richards, Harvey, Big Jean...ect would have excelled anywhere, Olmstead not so much as we saw in his career.

It's somewhat like the Kevin Lowe argument for the top 60 Dman project, in that there isn't a strong case aside from the SC counting of rings.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I See....

At some point we have to distinguish between guys who were just there and somewhat replaceable and guys riding the bus.

If there is any case that he was a top 5 guy on that Hab dynasty over any 2 year period it would really help his case but I can't see it.

We are ranking players here not teams and guys like the Richards, Harvey, Big Jean...ect would have excelled anywhere, Olmstead not so much as we saw in his career.

It's somewhat like the Kevin Lowe argument for the top 60 Dman project, in that there isn't a strong case aside from the SC counting of rings.

Bert Olmstead finished sixth in Hart Voting 3 times and 5th once plus had two 2AST nominations in non-Hart seasons. Would like to see your explanation how he would not be top 5 on the team under those circumstances, especially 1955-56:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/o/olmstbe01.html