Round 2, Vote 15 (HOH Top Centers)

[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 centers 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 8-10 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 8 players.
• Top 4 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 centers 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):
bigbuffalo313; BillyShoe1721; Canadiens1958; DaveG; Dennis Bonvie; hardyvan123; Hawkey Town 18; intylerwetrust; Jigglysquishy; MadArcand; Mike Farkas; MXD; reckoning; Rob Scuderi; seventieslord; Sturminator; tarheelhockey; ted1971; the edler; TheDevilMadeMe; tony D; VanIslander; vecens24

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 15 will begin now and debates are scheduled to run through Tuesday March 4 at 9PM EST. You may PM votes to Hawkey Town 18 starting on Monday, March 3.

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.

Vote 15 will be for places 58 through 60 (3 places) on the Top 60 list.

There are 19 eligible candidates for Vote 14. You will still only rank your Top 8 when voting.

Here are the candidates, listed alphabetically:

Rod Brind'Amour
Guy Carbonneau
Neil Colville
Tommy Dunderdale
Bernie Federko
Frank Foyston
Duke Keats
Pat Lafontaine
Jacques Lemaire
Joe Nieuwendyk
Frank McGee
Bernie Morris
Milan Novy
Joe Primeau
Jeremy Roenick
Henrik Sedin
Vyacheslav Starshinov
Steven Stamkos
Pierre Turgeon

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Please Note:

1. This is the final vote

2. The discussion period is 2 weeks

3. We are only adding 3 players

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

VsX 7 year scores for the available NHLers

Remember that VsX-7 is a measure of a player's best 7 regular seasons from a point-scoring standpoint compared to his peers, nothing more, nothing less.

Rank|Player|Score
31 | Dale Hawerchuk | 85.9
32 | Denis Savard | 85.4
33 | Eric Lindros | 85.4
34 | Alex Delvecchio | 84.9
35 | Gilbert Perreault | 84.6
36 | Darryl Sittler | 84.1
37 | Henrik Sedin | 82.8
38 | Clint Smith* | 82.6
39 | Mats Sundin | 82.3
40 | Doug Gilmour | 82.3
41 | Pierre Turgeon | 82.3
42 | Mike Modano | 81.7
43 | Jeremy Roenick | 81.5
44 | Ted Kennedy | 81.5
45 | Sergei Fedorov | 81
46 | Evgeni Malkin | 80.7
47 | Bernie Nicholls | 80.3
48 | Cooney Weiland | 79.4
49 | Pavel Datsyuk | 78.9
50 | Pat LaFontaine | 78.8
51 | Hooley Smith | 78.8
52 | Doug Weight | 78.6
53 | Brad Richards | 78.4
54 | Phil Watson | 78.1
55 | Alexei Yashin | 77.6
56 | Bernie Federko | 77.3
57 | Vincent Lecavalier | 77.2
58 | Henrik Zetterberg | 76.7
59 | Joe Primeau | 76
60 | Don McKenney | 75.8
61 | Jacques Lemaire | 75.5
62 | Jason Spezza | 75.2
63 | Phil Goyette | 74.9
64 | Vincent Damphousse | 74.2
65 | Bill Thoms | 74.2
66 | Marc Savard | 73.9
67 | Eric Staal | 73.8
68 | Neil Colville | 73.2
69 | Dave Keon | 73.2
70 | Rod Brind'Amour | 72.8
71 | Tod Sloan | 72.8
72 | Kent Nilsson | 71.7
73 | Dennis Maruk | 71.7
74 | Rick MacLeish | 71.6
75 | Buddy O'Connor* | 71.3
76 | Patrick Marleau | 71
77 | Ed Litzenberger | 70.8
78 | Joe Nieuwendyk | 70.5
79 | Pete Mahovlich | 70.3
80 | Billy Taylor* | 69.5
109 | Steven Stamkos | 63.6 N/A | Guy Carbonneau | N/A

*wartime star

Note on Stamkos: His score is so low because he only played 5 seasons (4 spectacular, 1 basically a write-off), so he gets zeros for his 6th and 7th best seasons. His 7 scores that are used to calculate the 7 year total: 100, 100, 91.92, 87.16, 48.81, 0, 0

Note on Carbonneau: He's so far behind the rest, it isn't worth listed. He's also the type of player that VsX should not be used for, since VsX is pinned to the top scorers in the league who receive ample PP time. If anyone wants to compare Carbonneau's offense to others, adjusted even strength points would be the best method, I think.

Note on Colville: He spent part of his career as a defenseman, so these numbers likely underrate him somewhat

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Top 10 finishes in points - NHL players

Stamkos: 2, 2, 5, 5
Sedin: 1, 4, 7
Primeau: 2, 2, 6
Lemaire: 4, 5, 10
Lafontaine: 2, 8
Roenick: 5, 7
Turgeon: 5, 7
Federko: 8, 9, 9, 9, 10
Colville: 7, 7, 10, 10

Brind'amour: none
Carbonneau: none
Nieuwendyk: none

Stamkos easily has the best 4-year regular season peak, but he did absolutely nothing outside those 4 years.

____________________

Top 20 points finishes (post-expansion only)

Copied from the preliminary discussion thread, available centers in bold.

Note this is NOT intended as a list of the best centers of all-time, just one of several points of reference that may be helpful.

Once again, remember that competition matters. In years of greater competition, a 20th place finish may actually be closer to 1st or 2nd place than a 10th place finish in years of weaker competition.

Credit to Hockey Outsider for compiling most of this list.

*Remember that for players like Stan Mikita and Phil Esposito, only post-expansion seasons are counted here.

Like above, we are using something of a junk stat for sorting - adding together the number of top 5, top 10, top 15, and top 20 finishes.

PLAYER | TOP 5- | TOP 10 | TOP 15 | TOP 20 | TOTAL
Wayne Gretzky | 16 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 67
Marcel Dionne | 7 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 43
Joe Sakic | 6 | 10 | 11 | 14 | 41
Mario Lemieux | 9 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 41
Phil Esposito* | 8 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 36
Mark Messier | 4 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 30
Steve Yzerman | 3 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 29
Jean Ratelle | 2 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 29
Ron Francis | 3 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 28
Adam Oates | 3 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 28
Bryan Trottier | 3 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 27
Gilbert Perreault | 3 | 5 | 9 | 9 | 26
Dale Hawerchuk | 2 | 4 | 8 | 10 | 24
Bobby Clarke | 3 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 24
Peter Stastny | 4 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 24
Joe Thornton | 4 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 24
Peter Forsberg | 4 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 23
Darryl Sittler | 1 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 21
Denis Savard | 2 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 20
Stan Mikita* | 3 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 19
Sidney Crosby | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19
Bernie Federko | 0 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 19
Mats Sundin | 1 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 17
Pierre Turgeon | 1 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 16
Mike Modano | 0 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 16
Steven Stamkos | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 16
Bernie Nicholls | 1 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 14
Doug Gilmour | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 14
Eric Lindros | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 14
Jeremy Roenick | 1 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 14
Pavel Datsyuk | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 14
Henrik Sedin | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 14
Evgeni Malkin | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 14
Jacques Lemaire | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 13
Rick MacLeish | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 11
Pat LaFontaine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 11
Pavol Demitra | 0 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 11
Sergei Fedorov | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 11
Jason Spezza | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 11
Brad Richards | 0 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 11
Jason Allison | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 10
Kent Nilsson | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 10
Marc Savard | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 10
Eric Staal | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 10
Ryan Getzlaf | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 10
Syl Apps, Jr | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9
Dennis Maruk | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 9
Mike Rogers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 9
Norm Ullman* | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9
Henrik Zetterberg | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9
Nicklas Backstrom | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 9
Alexei Yashin | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 8
Alex Delvecchio* | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8
Barry Pederson | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8
Jean Beliveau* | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8
Vincent Lecavalier | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8
Claude Giroux | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 8
Fred Stanfield | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7
Pete Mahovlich | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 7
Doug Weight | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6
Jimmy Carson | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6
Martin Straka | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6
Phil Goyette | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6
Red Berenson | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6
Walt Tkaczuk | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6
Mike Ribeiro | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6
Bobby Smith | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6
Rod Brind'Amour | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5
John Cullen | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5
Neal Broten | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5
Pierre Larouche | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5
Patrick Marleau | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5
Anze Kopitar | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5
Tim Young | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4
Gary Unger | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4
Craig Janney | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4
Joe Nieuwendyk | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4
Peter McNab | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4
Butch Goring | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4
Olli Jokinen | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4
Robert Lang | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4
Alex Zhamnov | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4
Jonathan Toews | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4
John Tavares | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4

 

[MXD]

3 guys in for that whole group?

Okay.

Well, the three guys I wanted discussed are here (Colville, Carbonneau and Novy), so there's that.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

All-Star voting finishes among available players

Henrik Sedin: 1st (2010), 1st (2011), 5th (2012)
Steven Stamkos 2nd (2011), 2nd (2012), 3rd (2010), 3rd (2013)
Neil Colville: 2nd (1939), 2nd (1940), 3rd (1938). As D = 4th (1948), 6th (1949)

Joe Primeau: 2nd (1934), 3rd (1932), 4th (1933)*, 6th (1931)*, 6th (1935)*

Pat Lafontaine: 2nd (1993), 5th (1990), 5th (1992)
Jeremy Roenck: 4th (1992), 4th (2000), 5th (1991), 5th (2002), 5th (1994)*

Jacques Lemaire: 4th (1973), 4th (1978), 8th (1977). As a LW = 6th (1970)*
Bernie Fedekro: 4th (1979)*, 5th (1981), 6th (1980)*, 6th (1984)*,

Joe Nieuwendyk: 5th (1998), 6th (1995)*
Pierre Turgeon: 6th (1990)*

Rod Brind'amour: NO VOTES AS CENTER. As a LW = 3rd (1998)
Guy Carbonneau: NO VOTES

*small number of votes

I wrote this last time: "Lemaire's All-Star record is significantly less impressive than the others. If he's going to be added to our list at all, it will be strictly on the basis of the playoffs." Now, Federko is about the same as Lemaire, Niewendyk and Turgeon are behind, and Brind'amour and Carbonneau got nothing in terms of All-Star votes (while getting a lot of Selke votes).

 

[tarheelhockey]

This is a really fascinating slate of candidates. Can't wait to see some of the arguments.

My immediate questions:

- Who can we write-off as simply not top-60 material?

- What can we do to rank Novy and Starshinov against the North Americans?

- How much of a bump do Carbo and Brind'Amour get for their defense?

- Who is the best remaining early candidate and is he top-3 in this group?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

This is a really fascinating slate of candidates. Can't wait to see some of the arguments.

My immediate questions:

- Who can we write-off as simply not top-60 material?

- What can we do to rank Novy and Starshinov against the North Americans?

- How much of a bump do Carbo and Brind'Amour get for their defense?

- Who is the best remaining early candidate and is he top-3 in this group?

I think it's easy to write off Niewendyk and Turgeon based off the tables I posted above. Niewendyk is self-explanatory if you look at them - weak scoring record (without the D to make up for it), weak All-Star recognition. Turgeon is in the same tier as Sedin and Roenick in offense but WAYYYY behind them in awards recognition. I actually find the Tin Man's complete lack of All-Star support shockingly bad, considering his stats.

Brind'amour and Carbonneau are interesting cases; again, I was very surprised to see the complete lack of All-Star support for Brind'amour. (Carbonneau's lack of support didn't surprise me - his offense just isn't that good).

Starshinov shouldn't be on our list; I'll post more on him later, but I think he'll be easy to write off. Basically a big fish in a small pond in the 60s USSR who didn't stand out against the higher level of international competition (and not like 60s international was THAT strong either). Novy is interesting - 2nd best forward to Martinec when CSSR was at it's peak in the mid-late 70s. Basically, I think he's Nedomansky's equal in his prime, but he didn't do well in North America in his 30s like Nedomansky did.

I think the most interesting new candidates are Novy (who was in my original top 60 but under Nedomansky), Colville (who wasn't but maybe that was a mistake, or maybe not), and... Stamkos (seriously)

(On another note, Keats is the only player who is a lock for my top 3, but that shouldn't be surprising to anyone now)

 

[MXD]

This is a really fascinating slate of candidates. Can't wait to see some of the arguments.

My immediate questions:

- Who can we write-off as simply not top-60 material?

- What can we do to rank Novy and Starshinov against the North Americans?

- How much of a bump do Carbo and Brind'Amour get for their defense?

- Who is the best remaining early candidate and is he top-3 in this group?

1 - Here are mines :

Rod Brind'Amour
Tommy Dunderdale
Bernie Federko
Joe Nieuwendyk
Frank McGee
Bernie Morris
Milan Novy
Joe Primeau
Jeremy Roenick
Henrik Sedin
Vyacheslav Starshinov
Steven Stamkos
Pierre Turgeon

Those are my "not top-3". I know that the possibly Top-3 guys list is extremely big.


Bold is "controversial". I'm not voting for them, but they might end up being considered real high for some reason.

Underlined is "so far". Basically, the two guys I could change my mind on. Both happen to be Europeans.

2 - See 1. Starshinov would be a hard sell. And Starshinov within 3 ranks of Nedomansky would be totally unsupportable. Still...

3 - From my perspective, Carbonneau can go as high as 1st this round. By going with a "replacement value" conception of his game, that is. Defense being extremely hard to replace, while some of the offence provided by those players may be easier to find or just "too short career".

4 - With such a pool? Extremely hot-or-cold choices technically advantaged. Otherwise, Duke Keats.

 

[Sturminator]

If we put in another modern NHLer, it should be Roenick. He had a better career than what Hank has put together thus far. Close in peak scoring, and brought a ton more intangibles and longevity.

I also like Keats, Foyston and Novy this round. Hmmm...that makes four guys I like. This will not be easy.

Guys I will probably not have in my top-8:

Guy Carbonneau (not at all convined he's a better player than a bunch of defensive centers not on this list like Pit Lepine. Offense does matter, and Carbs brought very little of it)
Tommy Dunderdale (meh)
Bernie Federko (double meh)
Joe Nieuwendyk (triple meh, double axle combination)
Frank McGee (four year prime)
Vyacheslav Starshinov (Merited Master of Meh)
Pierre Turgeon (...)

 

[seventieslord]

I think it's easy to write off Niewendyk and Turgeon based off the tables I posted above. Niewendyk is self-explanatory if you look at them - weak scoring record (without the D to make up for it), weak All-Star recognition. Turgeon is in the same tier as Sedin and Roenick in offense but WAYYYY behind them in awards recognition. I actually find the Tin Man's complete lack of All-Star support shockingly bad, considering his stats.

Turgeon is actually in a tier ahead of those two offensively. He averaged 1.18 PPG in his best 700 games compared to 1.07 for each of them. That's a 10% advantage, which is not small.

Comparable available modern players with 700+ games available for comparison:

Turgeon 1.18
LaFontaine 1.10
Roenick 1.07
Sedin 1.07
Nieuwendyk 0.98
Brind'Amour 0.97

Yes. Turgeon is that much ahead of his un-voted-in contemporaries offensively, including a guy with an art ross and a guy with a 148 point season.

Then there is Stamkos, who has averaged 1.14 APPG in his 390 games so far (of course, that's not very generous to him, as his first season as a green and little-used 18 year old is included in that - he's averaged 1.28 in his 311 games since then - Turgeon averaged 1.26 in his best 344 - that said, it's hard to say Stamkos hasn't had the best individual regular season absolute peak in this class of players)

So, among these 19 players we have a few classes: one very early guy, 4 PCHA era guys, 2 post-merger guys, 3 post-expansion guys, 2 expansion era europeans, 6 post-1990 guys (above), and one active-and-likely-not-even-peaked guy.

With only three players able to make it this round, and with the very real and legitimate possibility that some voters choose to completely ignore the post-1990 class, it's still a real tough sell, but I thought it would be important to at least demonstrate one more time how much ahead of these guys Turgeon is offensively. If you can only take one from this group, he's arguably the guy. If you REALLY like 4-season peak, you could take Stamkos, and if you REALLY like defense, you could take Brind'Amour. But if your priority is a sustained prime, or an extended prime, Turgeon's your guy.

Definitely he's short on intangibles. However, Stastny (36), Oates (39), Perreault (41), Ratelle (45), Hawerchuk (48), Savard (50) and Sundin (54) are all, like Turgeon, moderately high peak, extended prime players, who all range from negatives to fairly weak positives in the intangibles department themselves, while being only incrementally better offensively (if at all!) during their primes. (I'd go more into this; however, the majority of these players played during the 1980s and a straight up comparison of HR adjusted stats is not fair to them; I don't currently have the time or energy to work out "adjusted adjusted" numbers for them - maybe someone else will? The general premise is that as much as scoring changed from the 1980s to the 1990s and beyond, only half of that change is typically observed in the top tier scorers, so straight up adjusted points comparisons between top end 1980s and 1990s players will be biased in favour of the 1990s guys). As far as comparable players go:

- Oates averaged 1.20 APPG in his best 700 game period, with far fewer goals and better linemates (better looking final number, but is it actually better, all things considered?)
- Sundin averaged 1.12 APPG in his best 700 games (not as good a number, but remarkable consistency, face of a franchise, etc)

So anyway... vote as you will, but be aware that the cream of the crop offensively among the post-90 guys is Pierre Turgeon, and do your best to be consistent. How much better are these other guys in non-offensive areas, and does it bridge the gap? If you voted more one dimensional players ahead of guys like Norm Ullman, Doug Gilmour, Pavel Datsyuk, and Hooley Smith, think about what that said about how much you value offense and/or how unimportant intangibles are to you (not you in particular, TDMM... anyone in general)

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Federko's placement on the tables are interesting. Racked up a lot of low top 10/20 finishes, bit VsX shows he was never that close to the leaders.

And his All-Star record doesn't impress (though he did play at a time when Gretzky owned the 1st Team)

 

[tarheelhockey]

I feel like the following chart of AS voting totals is a good way to visualize the ebb and flow of careers during periods where we have multiple candidates playing simultaneously. It's also a quick way to make note of the strength/weakness of the talent in each year, which of course is extremely important to keep in mind.

Candidates are bolded, players already added to the list are struck through.

Year|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th
1990| Messier 287 | Gretzky 173 | Yzerman 44 | Lemieux 37 | LaFontaine 18 | Turgeon 7
1991| Gretzky 328 | Oates 132 | Sakic 61 | Yzerman 44 | Roenick 20 |Fleury 4
1992| Messier 233 | Lemieux 192 | Gretzky 73 | Roenick 70 | LaFontaine 11 | Yzerman 6
1993| Lemieux 250 | LaFontaine 71 | Gilmour 67 | Oates 35 | Yzerman 1 | Turgeon /Ricci 1
1994| Fedorov 223 | Gretzky 147 | Gilmour 68 | Oates 26 | Roenick 9 | Modano 4
1995| Lindros 75 |Zhamnov 33| Francis 18 | Sakic 8 | Fedorov 1 | Nieuwendyk 0
1996| Lemieux 256 | Lindros 80 | Messier 57 | Sakic 43 | Forsberg 19 | Fedorov 16
1997| Lemieux 256 | Gretzky 65 | Forsberg 58 | Modano 54 | Lindros 25 | Sundin 14
1998| Forsberg 195 | Gretzky 130 | Francis 87 |Allison 27| Nieuwendyk 11 |Holik 7
1999| Forsberg 187 |Yashin 157| Lindros 101 | Sakic 33 | Modano 19 | Yzerman 5
2000| Yzerman 186 | Modano 176 | Sakic 104 | Roenick 32 | Sundin 8 |Straka 3
2001| Sakic 291 | Lemieux 112 |Weight 34| Modano 28 |Allison 23| Forsberg 22
2002| Sakic 193 | Sundin 160 | Francis 85 | Modano 29 | Roenick 19 |Allison 16

Year|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th
2010| Sedin 536 | Crosby | Stamkos 73 |Backstrom 66| Thornton 5 |Kopitar 3
2011| Sedin 532 | Stamkos 294 |Toews 170|Kesler 71| Crosby 26 |Richards 22
2012| Malkin 735 | Stamkos 379 |Giroux 146|Spezza 53| Sedin 16 |Tavares 6
2013| Crosby 725 |Toews 404| Stamkos 235 |Tavares 193| Datsyuk 22 |Getzlaf 12

Thoughts:

- Roenick looks pretty good here, particularly because he was playing pretty well in obscurity during his later years.

- Kind of hard to tell who has the better peak between Sedin and Stamkos.

- This makes Nieuwendyk and Turgeon look awfully weak.

 

[seventieslord]

If we put in another modern NHLer, it should be Roenick. He had a better career than what Hank has put together thus far. Close in peak scoring, and brought a ton more intangibles and longevity.

I also like Keats, Foyston and Novy this round. Hmmm...that makes four guys I like. This will not be easy.

Guys I will probably not have in my top-8:

Guy Carbonneau (not at all convined he's a better player than a bunch of defensive centers not on this list like Pit Lepine. Offense does matter, and Carbs brought very little of it)
Tommy Dunderdale (meh)
Bernie Federko (double meh)
Joe Nieuwendyk (triple meh, double axle combination)
Frank McGee (four year prime)
Vyacheslav Starshinov (Merited Master of Meh)
Pierre Turgeon (...)

I agree with all the meh, aside from Turgeon... I think the other two guys from the post-1990 class with a real good shot are Roenick (not so far behind Turgeon offensively that can't arguably make up most/all of it with jam/personality) and Brind'Amour (he hangs with this group fairly well offensively and has more defensive value than all of them put together)

this is a really tough round for me. even if I outright eliminate the top 6 you eliminated, and Lemaire (not a star), Sedin and Lafontaine (neither produced better than Turgeon or had intangibles to make up for it), that still leaves 10 guys from which I have to cut two more:

Rod Brind'Amour
Neil Colville
Frank Foyston
Duke Keats
Bernie Morris
Milan Novy
Joe Primeau
Jeremy Roenick
Steven Stamkos
Pierre Turgeon

one thing that would help me sort out Turgeon and Morris would be to assume Morris was every bit as one-dimensional (he probably was) and compare how good he was to Cyclone Taylor (who is 12th on our list) on the basis of pure production, then do the same for Turgeon compared to Sakic (who is 10th on our list). If one is disproportionately ahead of the other, they probably should be in this round, too. Let's see what I can come up with... as of now, Morris could be a candidate for as high as 2nd behind Foyston, or as low as right off my list.

 

[sr edler]

Surprised to see a guy like Nieuwendyk here. Kind of ambivalent group of players.

 

[seventieslord]

Federko's placement on the tables are interesting. Racked up a lot of low top 10/20 finishes, bit VsX shows he was never that close to the leaders.

And his All-Star record doesn't impress (though he did play at a time when Gretzky owned the 1st Team)

Yes, federko is out of his league here. Doesn't even compare to Turgeon, who apparently just one person is considering voting for...

 

[seventieslord]

Based on the most recent study I did of PCHA offensive dominance, Bernie Morris is about 82% as good as Cyclone Taylor offensively:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=31600448&postcount=912

Using "best 700 games", Sakic is at 1.397 adjusted PPG, meaning Turgeon is 84% the producer Sakic is, by this measure.

Dang. I was hoping one would kinda rise above the other, but this has them within the margin of error. Turgeon is a little closer to a player who's a little better, but still...

this probably means they should be ranked extremely close to eachother, like 1-2 spots apart.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Based on the most recent study I did of PCHA offensive dominance, Bernie Morris is about 82% as good as Cyclone Taylor offensively:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=31600448&postcount=912

Using "best 700 games", Sakic is at 1.397 adjusted PPG, meaning Turgeon is 84% the producer Sakic is, by this measure.

Dang. I was hoping one would kinda rise above the other, but this has them within the margin of error. Turgeon is a little closer to a player who's a little better, but still...

this probably means they should be ranked extremely close to eachother, like 1-2 spots apart.

Morris had a single defining playoff run in 1917 and actually got All-Star votes.

 

[unknown33]

The case for Turgeon looks like extreme number crunching and cherry-picking of single stat.

Turgeon being ahead 10% in PPG over +700 games doesn't equal him being 10% better offensively in an overall comparison.
Why not VsX 7 years?

BTW. where do you have the numbers from?

 

[seventieslord]

Morris had a single defining playoff run in 1917 and actually got All-Star votes.

and did anyone ever answer you when you asked whether those were at RW or C?

I'm not sure of the answer myself.

I'm actually kind of surprised how much scattered all-star votes still matter to you this far down. for the most recent generation of players they mean little more than "highest scoring center" so counting them is essentially just double dipping.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

and did anyone ever answer you when you asked whether those were at RW or C?

I'm not sure of the answer myself.

I'm actually kind of surprised how much scattered all-star votes still matter to you this far down. for the most recent generation of players they mean little more than "highest scoring center" so counting them is essentially just double dipping.

Nobody answered; Morris is listed in the sticky as C/RW most of those years... Great.

I don't care about small differences in AS voting, but the fact is that Turgeon got 9 voting points once, a single vote (which I never count for any player) twice and that's it. That's horrendously bad for a guy who put up points and did nothing of note in the playoffs

 

[Sturminator]

and did anyone ever answer you when you asked whether those were at RW or C?

I'm not sure of the answer myself.

Based on the little bit of primary source evidence we have, Morris was an all-star at both positions. This document, if you read the article to the end, says that Dunderdale has been playing center as effectively as Morris did the previous season - so we have strong reason to believe that he was a center in 1918-19.

This document shows that he was an all-star at RW in the 1921-22 season, with Foyston at center.

So we're basically back where we started. We know he played both positions with distinction. Exactly when he was a center, and when a RW is still unclear except in a couple of cases.

 

[Killion]

^^^ Nice work Sturminator.

 

[seventieslord]

The case for Turgeon looks like extreme number crunching and cherry-picking of single stat.

Turgeon being ahead 10% in PPG over +700 games doesn't equal him being 10% better offensively in an overall comparison.
Why not VsX 7 years?

what the heck do you call vsX 7 years if not number crunching?

anyway...

a few reasons. First of all, vsX is very situational. It's based on a specific player each season which is meant to be a good thing, but isn't always. Just to use 1993 as an example, Mario Lemieux isn't considered an outlier by the system because he didn't meet the arbitrary 10% he had to be ahead of Pat Lafontaine - because he got cancer. So, because Mario Lemieux got Cancer, every player in the NHL ranks 4% lower than they would if he hadn't, because the benchmark is 148 instead of 142. but every player in the league is the same player whether Lemieux gets cancer or not - they're no better or worse! But vsX makes it look like they are.

Get a hold of the current vsX sheet. Take a look from season to season and look at how many players meet a certain threshold: 65, 70, 75, 80, etc, and you'll see wild swings in that number, not because scoring changed drastically from year to year, not because the number of players hitting relative points benchmarks changed drastically, but because the benchmark from one year to another is drastically different due to the rigid rules being applied regarding which player is the benchmark.

another thing I've noticed is that vsX ends up treating seasons with a rather "blah" leaderboard the same as those with a good handful of dominant seasons posted at the same time by multiple players. Sometimes the benchmark is a player whose point total is very dominant relative to league scoring level, other times it is not. but vsX calls them the same thing by making them each the benchmark for their respective seasons.

second, vsX doesn't necessarily show who was a better producer or better offensively or whatever else you want to call it. it's a composite measure of a player's per-game production and their ability to play a lot of games. The latter is important, but over the long haul, most players play more than enough games to judge them by, that focusing heavily on individual season results (where the GP total can be anywhere from 10 to 80) gets you further from the truth, not closer. Quick example, who's been the best offensive player post-lockout? Sidney Crosby, right? And it's not really that close either. But vsX doesn't say so (as of the end of the 2012 season, my rough adding of best 7 post lockout has it Ovechkin 640, thornton 619, sedin 571, crosby 568, stlouis 560, kovalchuk 549, which is not at all representative of Crosby's place in the offensive pecking order or public perception). However, he has 528 games behind him proving he's the best offensive player in the league, his 1-2-3-3-6 scoring finishes don't even do justice to the gap he's created between himself and the pack. I want to know what happened in the 528 games he's played, not specifically 82-game segments he may or may not have played all of.

third, vsX suffers from the same compartmentalization problem that we'd experience by looking at "best raw point totals in x number of seasons" or "best adjusted point totals in x number of seasons", in that it treats any point total attained as though it was earned in a full 82 games, regardless of how many games it actually took the player to earn that many points. Two players could each miss 100 of 800 games in a 10-year period and have the exact same number of points over that time, but if one guy missed 33 games three times, and the other missed 10 per season every season, an analysis of their best x number of seasons is going to show one player to be better than the other - even though he's no better. Or more durable! The timing of their missed games was just different.

as it applies to someone like Turgeon, it's true that using a "best x games" method as opposed to a vsX method is going to affect him more than most. And this is mostly because he was extremely unlucky. The first point affected him in seasons like 1989, 1993 and 1996. The 2nd and 3rd points really affect him in 1998, 2000 and 1994, three of his best per-game seasons in which he suffered poorly-timed injuries. These seasons get treated by vsX as though he scored 94, 68, and 66 points in a combined 248 games, when he actually did it in 181 games. These are treated by vsX as his 5th, 9th and 10th best seasons (the latter two being thrown out when they are 112 games of excellent hockey - and that's all I've ever said we should do with seasons like that - call them what they are, 60 and 52 games of excellent hockey, no more, but please, be fair and don't call it less than that either)

So really, when I show you these numbers, I'm showing you what these players actually did on the ice - with no confounding factors in the way.

BTW. where do you have the numbers from?

I mentioned in the previous thread... hockey-reference adjusted points. all lockout seasons are compressed back to 48 games, and the current season is counted as the appropriate length based on the number of games any active player's team has currently played. So there's NO credit for shortened seasons, NO forgiveness for injuries, NO projections, just what actually happened in their best 700 games.

(if you go back to last thread, I did run the numbers for best 400 games as well, Turgeon was still at the top of the pack that included Lafontaine, Sedin, Sundin and Zetterberg - not that I think regular season offense is the only thing to consider - I still put Zetterberg first - but it's a very important thing to consider, perhaps the most important)