Round 2, Vote 2 (HOH Top Wingers)

[BillyShoe1721]

I'm a little disappointed Bathgate isn't up for voting this round. He was in my original top 10.

As for the playoffs, he only played 54 games and had 21 goals. In the 50 & 60s that's actually very good, especially considering Bathgate was more of a playmaker than goal scorer. Its a better goal scoring percentage than Jagr had in the playoffs.

From 56-68, he was 31st in points, 19th in goals, while 31st in PPG and 16th in GPG.

Bathgate is not a good playoff scorer. When he comes up, there will need to be a discussion about how to view his playoff resume considering he was a one-man-show in NY and all opponents had to do was stick to him like glue and the Rangers were done. But, let's save that conversation for when he's up.

 

[MXD]

Going by best stretch of 6 consecutive seasons:

Points| 1st| Top 5| Top 10| Total
Guy Lafleur (74/75-79/80)| 3| 6| 6| 15
Bill Cook (27/28-32/33)| 2| 5| 6| 13
Charlie Conacher (30/31-35/36)| 2| 5| 5| 12
Ted Lindsay (47/48-52/53)| 1| 4| 6| 11
Mike Bossy (78/79-83/84)| | 5| 5| 10
Alexander Ovechkin (07/08-12/13)| 1| 4| 5| 10
Frank Mahovlich (60/61-65/66)| | 3| 3| 6

Goals| 1st| Top 5| Top 10| Total
Charlie Conacher (30/31-35/36)| 5| 5| 5| 15
Mike Bossy (78/79-83/84)| 2| 5| 6| 13
Bill Cook (27/28-32/33)| 3| 4| 6| 13
Alexander Ovechkin (07/08-12/13)| 3| 5| 5| 13
Guy Lafleur (74/75-79/80)| 1| 5| 6| 12
Ted Lindsay (47/48-52/53)| 1| 4| 6| 11
Frank Mahovlich (60/61-65/66)| | 4| 5| 9

There's no doubt in my minds that Mahovlich is an afterthought and better left for next round.

Addition : if you take out Gretzky, Bossy has 3 first places, and an additionnal Top-5.

Mahovlich also had like three of its finest season, including what was probably his 2nd best, out of that stretch.

I mean, sure, by that metric, he's gonna look bad, but that's also probably the worst metric you could've chosen, at least as far as Mahovlich's candidacy is concerned.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Addition : if you take out Gretzky, Bossy has 3 first places, and an additionnal Top-5.

I see your point, but that's a slippery slope.

 

[unknown33]

What happened to Charlie Conacher in 1932/33?

Year|Games|Goals
30/31|37|31
31/32|44|34
32/33 | 40 | 14
33/34|42|32
34/35|47|36

 

[MXD]

I see your point, but that's a slippery slope.

It is to a certain extent, but 99 being 99, it's widely accepted.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Addition : if you take out Gretzky, Bossy has 3 first places, and an additionnal Top-5.

Mahovlich also had like three of its finest season, including what was probably his 2nd best, out of that stretch.

I mean, sure, by that metric, he's gonna look bad, but that's also probably the worst metric you could've chosen, at least as far as Mahovlich's candidacy is concerned.

Gee, thanks.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'll keep this very short because the topic has been covered ad nauseum in other threads on this site. But I realize I kind of threw a bomb there so I'll back it up.

Ovechkin's scoring finish in 2012-13 was almost entirely driven by power play scoring - at a PP scoring rate he had never reached. In a shortened season, teams had no opportunity to game plan for opponents, and Ovechkin scored a bunch of goals on Washington's unusual power play.

In the playoffs over the past three seasons combined -- when teams have time to game plan properly -- Ovechkin has 6 goals and 11 points in 21 games.

He's also -41 over the last three seasons combined. Similar to Guy Lafleur being -25 over two seasons playing for one of the worst teams in history after coming back from a few years of old-timers games.

He was -35 last year alone. Its not a 3 year trend like you make it sound.

As for 2013, I believe the power play goal still counted as a goal, correct? Ovechkin went on a tear and the Caps finished 11-1-1 down the stretch. They needed that just to make the playoffs. That was a big reason he got the Hart trophy.

 

[Batis]

A lot has been said about Makarov in the previous thread. But here is one other consideration. He was named to the World Championship All Star Team SEVEN TIMES. That's the best result ever for forwards and second best overall. Here is the list:

Fetisov: 9X
Makarov: 7X
Ragulin, Firsov, Maltsev, Vasiliev, Kasatonov, Nummelin, Holecek: 5X
Petrov, Krutov, Suchy: 4X
Kharlamov, Yakushev, Larionov, Malkin, Jagr, Reichel, Koivu, Pospisil, Svedberg, Smith, Tretiak, Martin, Hasek, Salo: 3X
http://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/Team-Canada/Men/World-Championship/2013-Stockholm/All-Stars

8 times actually according to Chidlovski which of course makes it even more impressive. http://www.chidlovski.net/1954/54_player_info.asp?p_id=m003 Eliteprospects also says he was a all-star 8 times http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=27696

The hockeycanada link seems to have made a mistake on the 1985 all star team where they say Larionov made the team instead of Makarov. All other sources i have found says Makarov made the team in 85 which seems more likely also considering he was named the best forward of the tournament and won the scoring title while Larionov had a relatively weak tournament productionwise. http://www.passionhockey.com/hockeyarchives/mondial1985.htm

 

[Rob Scuderi]

Gee, thanks.

I read it as more of a comment about Mahovlich than your work. I found your tables helpful since we've been talking about consistency.

Mahovlich's just a weird case. He has three top 10 finishes then five years off before hitting that threshold again.

 

[overpass]

What happened to Charlie Conacher in 1932/33?

Year|Games|Goals
30/31|37|31
31/32|44|34
32/33 | 40 | 14
33/34|42|32
34/35|47|36

He broke his collarbone in December 1932.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...8hpAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mqQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1407,225818

It was just one of many injuries in Conacher's career - see the linked article for a list up to that point - so it's not clear that this injury was a factor in his decreased scoring. He was not among the league scoring leaders at the time of the injury (Cook was leading with 18 points in the previous weekly update, and no Leafs were in the top 10, which cut off at 13 points).

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Not sure if this exercise will help but was thinking that mostly you see people trying to predict how a particular Soviet/Euro player would have done had they been in the NHL, but what about looking at it the other way? Which of these NHLers do you guys think could have had the scoring finishes and awards that Makarov put up had they been in the USSR instead of him? Off of the top of my head I can see Lafleur, Bossy, and Cook doing it, so ultimately it doesn't help me with my rankings of them but maybe you guys can convince me otherwise.

Likely Ovechkin as well, going just by talent and not considering what kind of clashes his personality and/or playing style might have with the Soviet system.

I have trouble believing that Mahovlich or Lindsay could do it but in Lindsay's case he brings some very high end intangibles to the table that Makarov did not...more comparable to Mikhailov in that sense

 

[Elvis P]

Requiring Playoff Games Played >= 128

Totals Per Game
Rk Player From To Tm Lg Pos GP G A PTS +/- PIM EV PP SH S S% TOI G A PTS S
1 Mike Bossy* 1978 1987 NYI NHL RW 129 85 75 160 3 38 50 35 0 118 13.6 0.66 0.58 1.24 2.95
2 Jari Kurri* 1981 1997 TOT NHL LW/RW 196 106 127 233 74 123 71 25 10 467 19.5 0.54 0.65 1.19 2.81
3 Guy Lafleur* 1972 1989 TOT NHL RW 128 58 76 134 -2 67 43 15 0 26 3.8 0.45 0.59 1.05 1.63

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...at=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points_per_game

All of Bossy's career overlapped with LaFleur's so era is not a factor and Mike outscored Guy by almost .2 PPG in the playoffs. I'll take Bossy over LaFleur on my playoff team.

 

[Andros]

I'll keep this very short because the topic has been covered ad nauseum in other threads on this site. But I realize I kind of threw a bomb there so I'll back it up.

Ovechkin's scoring finish in 2012-13 was almost entirely driven by power play scoring - at a PP scoring rate he had never reached. In a shortened season, teams had no opportunity to game plan for opponents, and Ovechkin scored a bunch of goals on Washington's unusual power play.

In the playoffs over the past three seasons combined -- when teams have time to game plan properly -- Ovechkin has 6 goals and 11 points in 21 games.

He's also -41 over the last three seasons combined. Similar to Guy Lafleur being -25 over two seasons playing for one of the worst teams in history after coming back from a few years of old-timers games.

I'm not a huge fan of Ovechkin's latest Hart win and I don't think the overall impact of the last three years on his resume in a historical context is huge by any means, but I don't think you're being entirely fair on him either.

Him being a -41 over the last three seasons is factually accurate of course, but it is mainly driven by last seasons -35. The other two seasons aren't anything out of the ordinary for a star forward on a pretty bad/mediocre team. As for last season, the Capitals' 5 on 5 shooting percentage and save percentage with Ovechkin on the ice were abysmal: 6.58% and 89.8% respectively. His individual shooting percent was 8.97% which means the horrible on-ice shooting was mainly his teammates' doing. The underlying numbers (shot differential based stats) suggest that the change in his ability to contribute to driving even strength play is not nearly as dramatic as pure +/- would suggest. Unless you think that the drop in on-ice percentages can be largely attributed to Ovechkin individually, which the evidence doesn't support (here is some work on shooting percentage and here is a look at save percentage, for reference and ballpark figures for individual effect)

Also, 21 games is an awfully small sample size to draw conclusions about anything.

 

[tarheelhockey]

If -- as at least one poster said in the last thread -- Jagr's Washington years didn't add anything to his case, I don't see why Ovechkin's last three seasons should add anything to his.

I think Ovechkin is currently suffering from much the same syndrome as pre-lockout Jagr. He consistently does things nobody else can do, which in itself makes him all but unique in the modern game, but nevertheless it'll be a while before we really grasp the scope of it all.

Maybe when we go 10 years without a repeat 50-goal scorer, it'll sink in how special it is for a guy to break that mark so routinely that it fails to impress.

 

[Pominville Knows]

Maybe when we go 10 years without a repeat 50-goal scorer, it'll sink in how special it is for a guy to break that mark so routinely that it fails to impress.

You dont think Stamkos will do it repeatedly in the very near future?

 

[kmad]

Lindsay is a tough call, he had his career really take off when Howe became the guy in Detroit and that says more about Howe than Lindsay but it's still a big "what if"?

No doubt he was a great player but it's really hard to separate how much the Howe affect was.

Yep, I had Lindsay higher than Cook and Makarov in my original list but observing discussions and stats and especially looking at his Chicago numbers had me push him to 9th, and I might even put him further down the list now that I see how significantly his production depended on Howe and how weak his AST competition was for many of the years where he won.

 

[edinson]

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...at=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points_per_game

All of Bossy's career overlapped with LaFleur's so era is not a factor and Mike outscored Guy by almost .2 PPG in the playoffs. I'll take Bossy over LaFleur on my playoff team.

That metric includes fewer "outside playoff peak" games for Bossy than it does for Lafleur, and Lafleur's case rests solely on peak, both in RS and PO. During Lafleur's five best playoff years (75-79), he played 69 games, whereas Bossy played 93 games during his five best (80-84). Lafleur's sample includes four dynasty cup wins and the year before the first win, Bossy's sample includes four dynasty cup wins and the run to the finals after the fourth win.

Lafleur's stats during his peak are:
69 48 58 106 1.54

Closest behind him in PPG are Sittler and Ratelle with 1.24 and 1.13 respectively.
Closest team mates are Shutt and Lemaire with 1.10 and 1.07 respectively.
http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points

Bossy's stats during his peak are:
93 69 60 129 1.39

Gretzky and Kurri have better PPGs, so do Pederson and Stastny, but with only 30GP. Federko(39GP) has 1.28 and Middleton(44GP) has 1.25.
Closest team mates are Trottier and Potvin with 1.26 and 0.93 respectively.
http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points

All in all, both were amazing during their playoff peaks and I think it's hard to choose one of them. I may lean a little towards Lafleur since he was the clear offensive star of the Montreal dynasty and never failed to produce.

 

[VMBM]

Yes you can help here too a lot, obviously. You're the one who first made the case that Kharlamov might be rated so highly because of his performances at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, in addition to the first 4 games of the Summit Series, right?

I certainly hope not, because that's not what I think at all!
I'm pretty sure I've never been that 'dismissive' about him. Actually I'm quite a Kharlamov supporter, even though his prime was kind of short (1969-1976).

IMO Kharlamov had maybe the highest peak of all Soviet forwards, and was even more dominating than Makarov was at his best. It's true, though, that Kharlamov did most of his heroics between 1972 and 1976 (kind of like Lafleur 1975-80); he was far and away the best player in the 1972 Olympics, he was the player whom the Canadians (obviously) feared the most in 1972, he was a 3-time WHC all-star LW (1972-73, 1976) during that time period, was the clear star of the team (CSKA) in the 1975-76 Super Series, had very good Olympics in 1976 etc. But it shouldn't be forgotten that he was a star already in 1969-1971 too, although Firsov was probably still ahead of him a little bit.

There's e.g. a nice comment by Pat Stapleton, which makes the assumption that the Soviet system held Kharlamov back and that he would have been much more effective in the NHL. I'll try to 'make a transcript' of it at some point (it's in a documentary on the 1974 Summit Series).

 

[VMBM]

A lot has been said about Makarov in the previous thread. But here is one other consideration. He was named to the World Championship All Star Team SEVEN TIMES. That's the best result ever for forwards and second best overall. Here is the list:

Petrov, Krutov, Suchy: 4X

Where's Vladimir Martinec (1974-77)???!

EDIT: Nedomansky (3X) missing too

 

[overpass]

I'm not a huge fan of Ovechkin's latest Hart win and I don't think the overall impact of the last three years on his resume in a historical context is huge by any means, but I don't think you're being entirely fair on him either.

Him being a -41 over the last three seasons is factually accurate of course, but it is mainly driven by last seasons -35. The other two seasons aren't anything out of the ordinary for a star forward on a pretty bad/mediocre team. As for last season, the Capitals' 5 on 5 shooting percentage and save percentage with Ovechkin on the ice were abysmal: 6.58% and 89.8% respectively. His individual shooting percent was 8.97% which means the horrible on-ice shooting was mainly his teammates' doing. The underlying numbers (shot differential based stats) suggest that the change in his ability to contribute to driving even strength play is not nearly as dramatic as pure +/- would suggest. Unless you think that the drop in on-ice percentages can be largely attributed to Ovechkin individually, which the evidence doesn't support (here is some work on shooting percentage and here is a look at save percentage, for reference and ballpark figures for individual effect)

Also, 21 games is an awfully small sample size to draw conclusions about anything.

I realize that single season plus-minus can be noisy. That's why I looked at the last three seasons. It's a bit much to tell me that I should have looked at a single season and then to tell me that single season numbers include a lot of randomness!

We can look at the advanced stats if you prefer. From hockey-reference - the percentage of shots and missed shots taken by Ovechkin's team while he was on the ice.

2007-08: 57.4
2008-09: 56.2
2009-10: 56.0
2010-11: 53.4
2011-12: 47.7
2013: 48.4
2013-14: 48.6

It's pretty clear that something went wrong for Ovechkin in the last three seasons at even strength. Even if you want to blame it on coaching, we're talking about the top wingers of all time. We don't have advanced stats for the other candidates here but, for the vast majority of them, I really doubt they ever had a shot ratio below 50% in their prime*. Hence my contention that Ovechkin was a short prime player - I think his prime ended back in 2010.

*Frank Mahovlich is a possible exception - he had some real off-years in the middle of his "prime" and played in a 6 team league. He also had some no-shows in the playoffs along with some excellent performances.

 

[MXD]

I read it as more of a comment about Mahovlich than your work. I found your tables helpful since we've been talking about consistency.

Mahovlich's just a weird case. He has three top 10 finishes then five years off before hitting that threshold again.

This. The tables were useful, but Mahovlich's was obviously the one who'd look back on it. And it helps put Conacher in perspective.

 

[tarheelhockey]

You dont think Stamkos will do it repeatedly in the very near future?

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. He just lost his HOF winger.

All I know for sure is that since the lockout (which coincides perfectly with Ovechkin's career) there have been only four guys to repeat. Heatley and Kovalchuk did it twice back when scoring was higher... Stamkos did it twice... and Ovechkin did it five times and it would have been six in the half-season. That's just a stupid level of domination.

In fact now that I'm paying closer attention to the numbers, Ovechkin's five 50-goal seasons is tied for the most of any player since the 1980s.

 

[Sentinel]

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. He just lost his HOF winger.

In fact now that I'm paying closer attention to the numbers, Ovechkin's five 50-goal seasons is tied for the most of any player since the 1980s.

We did have this thing called "Dead Puck Era," when nobody scored. The scoring talent was obviously there (Bure, Selanne, Kariya, etc).

It will be interesting to see how Stamkos performs without MSL.

 

[unknown33]

We did have this thing called "Dead Puck Era," when nobody scored. The scoring talent was obviously there (Bure, Selanne, Kariya, etc).

Bure is tied with 5 +50 seasons, his next best is 34 in 1991/92 and the others wouldn't make it with higher scoring.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I see little value in comparing AS selection across position AND across era.

Basically.

Not really what you are saying at all, but it is useful to look at the 1955-56 All Star Team to see that Lindsay was considered to have had a better season than Bert Olmstead, despite Olmstead outscoring him - basically Lindsay was seen as a star in his own right, while Olmstead was the third wheel on the Olmstead-Beliveau-Geoffrion line (the season Beliveau won the Art Ross by a wide margin).

If -- as at least one poster said in the last thread -- Jagr's Washington years didn't add anything to his case, I don't see why Ovechkin's last three seasons should add anything to his.

(The 2013 Hart trophy was the most bizarre awards voting result I can remember. You'll never convince me Ovechkin was a top 30 player in the league that year.)

Not top 30 at even strength maybe... But powerplay goals count too and Ovechkin dragged an otherwise terrible Washington team into the playoffs pretty much on the strength of his powerplay scoring.

Only thing I'll say about Jagr in Washington this thread - the issue was that he refused to buy into the team system and do anything his coach wanted to help the team. Ovechkin bought into whatever crazy system his coaches wanted. Dale Hunter wanted him to play as an "offensive ringer" who would be benched in close games in favor of grinders? Ovechkin did it without complaining. Adam Oates wanted him to move to right wing, a position he had never played in 6 years of professional hockey, and play like the second coming of Brett Hull? Ovechkin did that too.

Personally, I don't think Ovechkin gets enough credit for willingly buying into whatever crazy scheme his coaches throw at him.

I'll keep this very short because the topic has been covered ad nauseum in other threads on this site. But I realize I kind of threw a bomb there so I'll back it up.

Ovechkin's scoring finish in 2012-13 was almost entirely driven by power play scoring - at a PP scoring rate he had never reached. In a shortened season, teams had no opportunity to game plan for opponents, and Ovechkin scored a bunch of goals on Washington's unusual power play.

In the playoffs over the past three seasons combined -- when teams have time to game plan properly -- Ovechkin has 6 goals and 11 points in 21 games.

He's also -41 over the last three seasons combined. Similar to Guy Lafleur being -25 over two seasons playing for one of the worst teams in history after coming back from a few years of old-timers games.

It's possible that his powerplay production was unsustainable (although he maintained the production into the first half of 2013-14, at one point there was a "50 in 50?" watch for Ovechkin). But in the context of a 48 game season, it was what his team needed to make the playoffs. When Ovechkin's cooled off a bit towards the end of 2013-14, his team fell out of the playoff picture. Say what you want about the Capitals at even strength (Adam Oates' system was horrendous among other things), but they lived and died with Ovechkin's PP production the last 2 seasons.

Also, if you want to talk about shortened seasons, it took Ovechkin about 10 games to get used to playing RW, and in the time he was pretty bad. That 10 games was a decent chunk of a 48 game season (and why you sometimes see that Ovechkin won the Hart, despite playing poorly for 1/4 of the season), but would have been a much lower percentage of a 82 game season.

Going by best stretch of 6 consecutive seasons:

Points| 1st| Top 5| Top 10| Total
Guy Lafleur (74/75-79/80)| 3| 6| 6| 15
Bill Cook (27/28-32/33)| 2| 5| 6| 13
Charlie Conacher (30/31-35/36)| 2| 5| 5| 12
Ted Lindsay (47/48-52/53)| 1| 4| 6| 11
Mike Bossy (78/79-83/84)| | 5| 5| 10
Alexander Ovechkin (07/08-12/13)| 1| 4| 5| 10
Frank Mahovlich (60/61-65/66)| | 3| 3| 6

Goals| 1st| Top 5| Top 10| Total
Charlie Conacher (30/31-35/36)| 5| 5| 5| 15
Mike Bossy (78/79-83/84)| 2| 5| 6| 13
Bill Cook (27/28-32/33)| 3| 4| 6| 13
Alexander Ovechkin (07/08-12/13)| 3| 5| 5| 13
Guy Lafleur (74/75-79/80)| 1| 5| 6| 12
Ted Lindsay (47/48-52/53)| 1| 4| 6| 11
Frank Mahovlich (60/61-65/66)| | 4| 5| 9

There's no doubt in my minds that Mahovlich is an afterthought and better left for next round.

Is anyone surprised Lafleur has the best 6 year stretch? It's what he did outside that stretch that gives a couple of other players this round cases over him.

As for Mahovlich, hopefully we'll have better players than him come available next round (Bathgate, Geoffrion, Selanne)