Round 2, Vote 4 (Stanley Cup Playoff Performers)

[overpass]

Funny how I found quotes about both Stevens and Coffey playing the best at the defence position since Bobby Orr. My guess is that there are quotes out there about at least a dozen other defencemen saying they are playing the best hockey of any defenceman since Bobby Orr. Which is not to underestimate the level of hockey that Coffey and Stevens reached in the playoffs -- it was clearly very high for both of them.

I remember Coffey getting criticized for shoddy defensive play in 1996 much moreso than in 1995.

I guess the point of the above quote is that his shot blocking technique wasn't very good?

That's how I read it. Great effort and willingness to sacrifice, but his defensive technique may have been lacking.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I remember Coffey getting criticized for shoddy defensive play in 1996 much moreso than in 1995.

I think that gets overblown since they won without him the next year. He left that Colorado series at an even plus-minus while his partner was a minus-6. He scored enough goals to off-set the ones he put into his own net.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Coffey against Colorado in 1996:

Game 1

Responsible for two GF, one GA. First, he opens the scoring on a shot from the point. Later, when Osgood over-commits to a shooter, the puck gets banked off of Coffey who was covering a backdoor pass. Finally, Coffey ties the game on a rush. Overall, a good game for Coffey. Osgood had two spectacular saves, and two blunders. Lidstrom is caught at center on the OT goal.




Game 2

Only on the ice for one goal against. Lidstrom tries to play physical against the boards, losses his battle and Primeau misses intercepting a pass to Ozolinsh while covering the right side. Shot up high goes past Coffey, but he was still in position. His bad back takes a beating at the end, and he misses the next two games.




Game 5

Responsible for 2 GF, 1 GA. Ricci outmuscles Coffey on the powerplay and scores. Two minutes later on a Red Wing powerplay, Coffey dominates, eventually throwing a puck at the net - it gets tipped, and the Wings go back up by two. Lidstrom, however, gets caught up ice, and the Avalanche score again. In response, Coffey, again, throws a puck at the crease and a Red Wing tips it in.




Game 6

Responsible for 1 GF, 2 GA. Scores a goal to tie the game during Lemieux's major. Sakic dangled him on his second of the night later in the second. Forsberg strips him of the puck and abuses him and Lidstrom down low to put it out of reach.

EDIT: Figure I should preemptively clarify that I am in the same boat as MXD: Lidstrom before Coffey.

 

[overpass]

Nicklas Lidstrom

Nicklas Lidstrom in the playoffs, from the pages of Sports Illustrated

Lidstrom was almost never the main story in SI when writing about the Detroit Red Wings. Even in 2002, when he won the Conn Smythe, he was an afterthought in the articles. He got the most ink as the first European captain to win the Cup in 2008.

You could certainly make a case that Lidstrom was overlooked by the media, or that he just wasn't an interesting story compared to many of his teammates.

Michael Farber in SI, June 2, 1997 – Down and Dirty

https://www.si.com/vault/1997/06/02...-face-off-with-the-flyers-for-the-stanley-cup

If the Red Wings are going to win their first Stanley Cup since 1955, Bowman must reunite star defensemen Vladimir Konstantinov and Niklas Lidstrom and hope they can keep Eric Lindros, John LeClair and their big teammates away from Vernon, a monumental task. Size counts, but Detroit has enough talent to win the Cup
in seven games.

(Note: the SI article on June 9 was a feature on Vladimir Konstantinov. It appeared that he, not Lidstrom, was viewed as the key Detroit defenceman going into the finals.)

Michael Farber in SI, June 16, 1997 – Crushed

https://www.si.com/vault/1997/06/16...hitting-and-outplaying-the-overmatched-flyers

Bowman surprised Murray--and everybody else--when he didn't use rugged defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov against Lindros and LeClair. Instead of the nastiest blueliner in the NHL, Bowman trotted out Nicklas Lidstrom and Larry Murphy, two finesse-oriented defenders. They handle the puck better than any other Detroit defensive pair, and that ability helped them stifle Philadelphia's vaunted forechecking. In Lindros's 103 even-strength shifts in the four games, Lidstrom and Murphy played together against him 62 times.

"Some other teams that played the Flyers in the playoffs tried to hammer their big players," Red Wings associate coach Dave Lewis said. "[Those teams attempted to] go after them with strength and size, and be in their face. When the opportunity is there, you can do it. But they'll wear you down before they get worn down. So there are other things to use."

1998 – Literally no mention of Lidstrom in the articles on the Red Wings for the final two rounds of the playoffs. There were articles featuring Slava Kozlov and the role players, Chris Osgood, and Steve Yzerman. Peter Forsberg was featured in an article about clutch playoff scorers.

2002 – No articles or even paragraphs featuring Lidstrom, just a lot of passing mentions. Michael Farber noted that Chris Chelios is the player the Wings were missing since they lost Vladimir Konstantinov, and while Lidstrom was Norris-caliber every year they had no one who scared opponents. Pierre McGuire predicted that Lidstrom and Olausson would match up against Ron Francis and Carolina’s top line because they were a finesse line, not a power line. Lidstrom’s Game 2 power play goal from Lidstrom was mentioned as an example of Arturs Irbe’s struggles up high. Scotty Bowman said the veterans were the key to the victory and they lost in the playoffs in the 90s because Yzerman, Fedorov, and (Conn Smythe winner Nicklas) Lidstrom had no veterans to lead the way.

Michael Farber in SI, June 9, 2008 – Spreading Their Wings

https://www.si.com/vault/2008/06/09/105700899/spreading-their-wings

The glass ceiling was about to be shattered. With the Red Wings' Nicklas Lidstrom ready to lift the world's most elegant and imposing 35-pound weight—Detroit led the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup finals three games to one with Game 5 being played when SI went to press on Monday night—the team captain was poised to break the last barrier to making the NHL a truly global game. The Red Wings' fourth Cup in 11 years, and the 11th in franchise history, would validate their claim to being the dominant NHL team of their era, the triumph of puck possession over chip-in-and-chase hockey as well as old-time verities like scouting, drafting and player development. But most important, a Detroit victory would dispel the hoary notion that a European-born and trained player—in this case, Lidstrom, a Swede—could not captain a Stanley Cup champion: the old myth and the C.

*****

At the time, the Red Wings were barging through the postseason with six forwards on their top two lines and two exceptional defensemen, all from Europe. Lidstrom, the 38-year-old cyborg blueliner, is a finalist for a sixth Norris Trophy; fellow Swedish defender Niklas Kronwall throws seismic bodychecks, which were infrequent on the larger international-sized rinks that he grew up on but play a prominent role in North America.

*****

Two things: 1) Lidstrom is "the kind of classy person you want representing your organization," Yzerman says; and 2) he delivers.

"He's so humble, so solid," says forward Dan Cleary of Lidstrom, whose team won only twice when he missed six games after spraining a knee in February. "A great role model as a captain: He has everybody's ear and everybody's respect. For me, I respect him so much that I don't want to let him down."

*****

For the Red Wings, Lidstrom's ascension from alternate captain when Yzerman retired before the '06--07 season was seamless, given the defenseman's longevity in the organization—Lidstrom was a third-round pick in the 1989 draft—and the two players' similar low-key leadership styles.

Indeed the most vocal that Lidstrom became during this year's playoff run was before Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, after Detroit had lost two straight to the Dallas Stars. According to Cleary, Lidstrom said, "O.K., boys, this is going to be a good night for us. Do what we do, boys. Just believe in ourselves, and let's not be nervous." The Red Wings won 4--1 to clinch the series.

Michael Farber in SI, June 16, 2008 – Fantastic Finish

https://www.si.com/vault/2008/06/16/105703012/fantastic-finish

These will be remembered as the Red Wings of Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk—has the value of the Euro ever been higher?

Michael Farber in SI, June 1, 2009 – Spirit of ‘89

https://www.si.com/vault/2009/06/01/105819840/spirit-of-89

Holland has long vowed to retire the same day as Lidstrom, a wan half joke that underscores the significance of the defenseman. Lidstrom had scored 13 points this postseason and had sent the boyish Kane to his room (no points, four shots in the first three games) before missing Sunday's Game 4 with a lower body injury. In 2009 you can't find a player like Lidstrom; in 1989 you could barely find him at all.

Michael Farber in SI, June 8, 2009 – Containing Crosby

https://www.si.com/vault/2009/06/08/105822132/containing-crosby

With the last line change that came with his home ice advantage in the first two games, Detroit coach Mike Babcock had to decide which of the two Penguins most deserved the privilege of a full-time escort from Zetterberg and the attention of the No. 1 defense pair of Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski.

Crosby won—or in this case, lost.

Michael Farber in SI, June 22, 2009 – The Pens Are Mightier

https://www.si.com/vault/2009/06/22/105828590/the-pens-are-mightier

Of course, unlike Evgeni Malkin, the Conn Smythe Trophy winner who had 36 points in 24 games, Crosby had to spend the finals playing against Zetterberg and later Zetterberg and Datsyuk plus Detroit's No. 1 defense pairing of Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski. (Red Wings coach Mike Babcock's choice to continually match his heavyweights against Crosby confirmed that the captain is Pittsburgh's fulcrum, Malkin the complement.)

Finally, another drive-by shot at Paul Coffey, from Farber's 1997 article about the Stanley Cup finals.

The other cornerstone of Detroit's strategy was to dog 36-year-old Paul Coffey, the defenseman whom Bowman banished from the Red Wings at the start of the season and then smeared before a Detroit-Philadelphia game in January. Bowman claimed that Coffey, the highest-scoring defenseman in history, doesn't help the power play as much as people think and that the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 1991 in spite of him. (Bowman was Pittsburgh's director of player development at the time.) The fact is, including this season's Red Wings, four teams have reached the finals or won the Cup within a year of trading Coffey. Bowman softened his criticism of Coffey a bit after Detroit's 4-2 victory over Snow in Game 2, but he never apologized. He had little reason to. During the Wings' two wins in Philadelphia, Coffey was on the ice for six of the eight Detroit goals and was in the penalty box for another. While the City of Brotherly Love was buzzing about the Flyers' game of musical goalies--smartly dubbed a Murray-go-round--the Red Wings considered their former teammate a pressure point. "We wanted to hit him when he had the puck," Lewis said. "And hit him when he didn't."

McCarty knocked Coffey woozy with a clean check in the third period of Game 2, forcing him to remain in Philadelphia for Game 3 with a concussion. Coffey, at last, was a stay-at-home defenseman.

 

[overpass]

Larry Robinson

Larry Robinson in the playoffs, from the pages of Sports Illustrated

J.D. Reed in SI, May 24, 1976 – But God Blessed the Canadiens

https://www.si.com/vault/1976/05/24/614852/but-god-blessed-the-canadiens

Despite the closeness of the scores, the swift-skating Canadiens shocked the former Broad St. Bullies by beating them at their own game of intimidation. Defenseman Larry Robinson rattled Philadelphia bodies off the boards, onto the ice and even into the benches; the only good check from a Flyer was a jolting high-stick by Bill Barber that missed Yvan Cournoyer's head and caught Flyer Defenseman Jack McIlhargey flush on the face, opening a 14-stitch gash. Robinson slammed Gary Dornhoefer so hard into the boards in one game that play had to be suspended so workmen could nail some slats back into place.

*****

Best of all, they also located a John Ferguson-style gendarme in the 6'3", 205-pound Robinson, the mustachioed defenseman who was a skating S.W.A.T. squad against the Flyers by showing them where the buck—and the puck—stopped. Robinson introduced himself to the Broad St. Bullies back in 1974 when he registered a TKO over Schultz. "I was in the dressing room getting stitched up when a big fight started," Robinson said. "I laced up my skates, went back out and saw that Schultz was battling Guy Lafleur. I didn't think that was a fair matchup, so I stepped in."
Robinson relished his role as Montreal's designated hitter. "I never have trouble getting up for games against Philadelphia," he said. "When you play the Flyers, there are more opportunities to hit people." However, he dismissed all talk about being the new policeman. "Aw, heck," he said, "any player would do it for another guy on his team. I'm not doing anything special. When a teammate looks as though he might be in trouble, it's automatic that you go help him."

Peter Gammons in SI, May 23, 1977 – They Ruined the Bruins

https://www.si.com/vault/1977/05/23/621774/they-ruined-the-bruins

The Canadiens demonstrated throughout the Boston series that they indeed possess marvelous and diversified talents. They did not need to resort to highlight films to get this message across to the Bruins either, just half a dozen picture postcards with italicized inscriptions:
• Montreal Defensemen Larry Robinson and Savard and Guy Lapointe standing menacingly in front of Dryden, their sticks reaching from one side of the rink to the other. "Our game is to muck around the net and hack at rebounds," said Cashman, "but with those big defensemen, we never got close."
• Bowman, obviously sensing the impending fisticuffs, sending his SWAT bunch onto the ice for the final moments of Game Two: Robinson (6'3", 210 pounds) and Bill Nyrop (6'2", 209) on defense, with Pierre Bouchard (6'2", 202), Rick Chartraw (6'2", 210) and Yvon Lambert (6'1", 195) as a makeshift forward line. "People used to say, 'Hit the Canadiens and you'll beat them,' " Bouchard said, "but now we're the biggest team in hockey."

*****

"We played as well as we could play," Cherry said. But it was not well enough. Robinson, Savard and Lapointe deflected shots, cleared rebounds and removed cruising Bruins with solid body checks. "They're the key," Cherry said. "They could make Washington a contender."

Peter Gammons in SI, June 5, 1978 – The Cup Runneth Over

https://www.si.com/vault/1978/06/05...r-an-unexpected-battle-from-the-boston-bruins

Larry Robinson, the imperial defenseman who almost singlehandedly ruined Boston last week as Montreal broke open the series by winning the last two games by the same convincing score, is trying to convey the sadness he feels for the vanquished Bruins. Now, he says, "They will have to spend their summer vacations answering the most depressing question of all: 'Why didn't you win?' "

*****

Red Fisher of the Montreal Star, who has covered every Canadien team for the last 24 years, is agreeing with Gainey. "This team didn't have a Beliveau or a Henri Richard at center, a Rocket Richard and a Boom-Boom Geoffrion at right wing. And as good as Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe are on defense, I don't think any one of them is a Doug Harvey. To me, any of those Canadien teams of the late '50s—when Montreal won five straight Stanley Cups—was better than this '78 team."
Ken Dryden, the lawyer-goaltender, is disputing Gainey's thesis and not commenting on Fisher's. "This team had more depth and better flexibility than any of the Cup champions I've played on," Dryden says.

*****

Cherry shakes his head. "It's a funny thing, or maybe right now it's not such a funny thing," he says, "but three of my best friends in hockey are those three big Canadien defensemen—Robinson, Savard and Lapointe. I got to know them real well when I was one of Team Canada's coaches during the Canada Cup in 1976. All three of them like to have the odd beer, just like me, and we all spent a lot of time together sweating it off in the sauna. Believe me, there aren't three nicer gentlemen anywhere."

Maybe not, but with friends like Robinson, Savard and Lapointe, Cherry hardly needs enemies. After the Bruins had squared the series at two games apiece by winning Games 3 and 4 in Boston, Robinson, Savard and Lapointe—no doubt the three best defenders ever to play on the same team—shut off the Boston attack with their slick stick checks and bruising body checks, and then awakened the slumbering Montreal offense with their strong rushes and their precise long passes to breaking forwards.

"Those three guys never let us do anything," Cherry says. "Lafleur's lucky he never has to play against them. And their fourth defenseman—Bill Nyrop—is unlucky because he's lost in their shadows and people will never know how good he is."

The 6'3", 210-pound Robinson, who won the Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs, personally signaled the Canadiens' revival during the early moments of Game 5 Tuesday night at the Forum. Robinson had been one of the very few Canadiens to put out in both games at Boston, and now, back on home ice, he was even more menacing. He rattled two Bruins into the boards with hard body checks, and when some combative Bostonians tried to get at Lafleur after he had hit one of them illegally with the butt end of his stick, Robinson rushed to the scene and put an end to all overt threats.

On such occasions Robinson adopts a De Gaullish posture: he stands squarely in the center of the fray, towering over his opponents, and lets his scowl do the talking. Robinson fought regularly during his first few seasons with the Canadiens in the early 1970s, but he has not been challenged since one night two seasons ago when he came out of the dressing room with his skates untied and half-falling off and outpunched Philadelphia's Dave (Hammer) Schultz, then the NHL's heavyweight champion.

"I don't want to fight and hit all the time," Robinson says. "If I do, I'll end up being only 4'8"."

*****

In Game 5 Robinson took the puck behind his own net in the eighth minute of the first period. The game was scoreless at the time. Lafleur and Park both were in the penalty box, and Robinson had plenty of ice at his disposal. He started slowly, building speed, and by the time he reached the red line he was in full flight—"Like a runaway locomotive," Boston Goaltender Gerry Cheevers recalls. Robinson swooped around the overmatched Boston defense and bore in on Cheevers.

"I had to play the odds," Cheevers says. "I couldn't go out and challenge Robinson the way I'd have challenged most other players. He's got the longest reach and the longest legs I've ever seen, and he can fake you out like nothing. So I had to stay back in the crease and move across with him." It was a futile move: Robinson shot and scored.

E.M. Swift in SI, May 21, 1979 – A Woolly Week for Serge

https://www.si.com/vault/1979/05/21...third-and-the-rangers-beat-montreal-in-game-1

Leading 2-1 midway through the game, the Rangers sealed their victory when Defenseman Larry Robinson, who had a terrible game, failed to clear the puck and Phil Esposito beat Dryden from the slot. Moments later, Dave Maloney completed the insult by scoring the Rangers' sixth shorthanded goal of the playoffs—an NHL record.

"We gave the Rangers three goals like you give up in junior hockey," Savard moaned afterward, recalling the three pass interceptions that the opportunistic Rangers converted into goals. "We didn't play a disciplined game, and now they're going to be tough to beat. They're a much better club than the Bruins."

*****

The 6'2", 210-pound Savard is a prototype of what general managers now consider the thoroughbred of the species—the big, mobile defenseman. It is generally accepted that because the Canadiens have three such defenders—Savard, Lapointe and Robinson—they have taken a long lease on the Stanley Cup. But while Lapointe has made the first or second all-star team four times, and Robinson twice, Savard, who scores fewer points but plays more defense, has never been selected for that honor. "It's a joke," says Awrey.

Note: The article is mostly about Serge Savard. One turn of phrase I enjoyed from the article: His movements are slow and thorough, almost studied, like those of a man who can spread cold butter on his bread without tearing holes in it.

E.M. Swift in SI, May 28, 1979 – They Were Singing That Old Song Again

https://www.si.com/vault/1979/05/28...w-york-to-win-its-fourth-straight-stanley-cup

Montreal totally dominated the overtime and, in fact, scored twice—fairly unusual for sudden death. First, Larry Robinson slapped a long shot past Davidson, but the puck traveled so fast that neither the goal judge nor the referee saw it enter the net and slingshot out. But then Savard, who seems to pace himself for such moments, took a pass from Lafleur and backhanded it over Davidson's shoulder—and the red light went on.

E.M. Swift in SI, May 19, 1986 – The Habs Have a Hot One

https://www.si.com/vault/1986/05/19/638325/the-habs-have-a-hot-one

"It's impossible to win here for some reason," said Ranger forward Pierre Larouche, a former Canadien who, with just two assists, was a virtual no-show in the series. "It was like they had more than five men on the ice. It must be the ghosts of the Rocket and Lafleur."

More like the ghosts of Larry Robinson, 34, and Bob Gainey, 32, who have been skating as they did in their prime—which in Robinson's case was at least five seasons ago. The only two holdovers from the powerhouse Canadiens teams that won four straight Stanley Cups from 1975 to 1979 (Mario Tremblay would have been a third, but he has missed the playoffs with a broken collarbone), Robinson and Gainey have waged a two-man assault on the notion that post-30 in the NHL means postmortem. "It makes you proud to come this far with eight rookies," says Montreal G.M. Serge Savard, whose draft choices of the past three years—Roy, Claude Lemieux (he of the two overtime goals, including the seventh-game winner to beat the Whalers) and Stephane Richer—are suddenly bearing fruit. "But the veterans are the ones who have carried the club. When the rookies see Robinson and Gainey giving all that they have at their age, they think, 'Yes, I can, too.' "

*****

The Rangers came out flying in Game 3 in Madison Square Garden, but Roy was phenomenal, turning back 44 of 47 shots to keep Montreal in the game...From the third period on, the Rangers had outshot the Canadiens 25-7, but had been outscored 3-1. "That's the best goaltending we've had since I've been here," said Robinson afterward, a shocking endorsement, considering that Robinson had played six years with Hall of Famer Ken Dryden.

E.M. Swift in SI, June 2, 1986 – In the End, The Habs Sure Had It

https://www.si.com/vault/1986/06/02/638348/in-the-end-the-habs-sure-had-it

"Patrick's been our stopper all along," said 34-year-old defenseman Larry Robinson, drenched in champagne and hoisting the Cup to his lips for the sixth time in his great career. "I've been wailing seven years for this. You'd have to say that this one is more special than the others since I'm not exactly at the peak of my career."

Oh, but you would never have known it from his play, or from that of Canadiens captain Bob Gainey, 32, who was sitting a few feet away, speaking quietly and with dignity about the years of frustration since the team won four straight Cups in the '70s. Then, absorbing the pandemonium around him, Gainey's face almost imperceptibly brightened. "And we've come out of it again, eh?" he said. "It's just a great feeling to be part of a championship team."

*****

It was old-fashioned six-team-NHL hockey, minus the superstars of the '50s and '60s—the Howes, Hulls and Richards—who, despite being smothered with bodies, could still bring the fans out of their seats. Montreal's best players were the ones doing the smothering: Gainey and Robinson, of course, but also stay-at-home defensemen Rick Green and Craig Ludwig and pesky center Guy Carbonneau.

Montreal's style was never more apparent than in Game 4, a 1-0 Canadien win that unraveled into a bloody, seamy scrum at game's end. "We have to get bigger," a Flames official had said before the game. "I don't mean we have to come out fighting, but we have to reestablish that we deserve to be here. Montreal obviously isn't intimidated with any part of our game. We've got to go out and run their goalie, get position in front and hit some guys."

 

[ThreeLeftSkates]

With the time period adjusted goal numbers, Mike Bossy had only three game winning goals in the 1983 conference finals against the Bruins, not four as originally reported.

 

[quoipourquoi]

With the time period adjusted goal numbers, Mike Bossy had only three game winning goals in the 1983 conference finals against the Bruins, not four as originally reported.

Is that your cute way of saying that you disagree with contextualizing scoring based on opponent strength? Because Peter Forsberg also scored more points than Mike Bossy (171 to 160), led the playoffs in scoring more often (2 to 1), had more game-winning points (37 to 25), and through the same number of games Bossy played in his career (129) had just 7 fewer points while playing a better 200ft game.

He even scored 4 game-winning points in a series too. And he scored 3 game-winning points and 2 game-winning points in a series more often than Bossy did (3 to 2 and 7 to 2 respectively).

See? There are reasons to acknowledge that Forsberg was better than Bossy in the playoffs before we even get into the fact that Forsberg's opponents averaged 208.1 GA to Bossy's opponents' 285.6 GA.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Voting is open for the weekend.

 

[ThreeLeftSkates]

Is that your cute way of saying that you disagree with contextualizing scoring based on opponent strength? Because Peter Forsberg also scored more points than Mike Bossy (171 to 160), led the playoffs in scoring more often (2 to 1), had more game-winning points (37 to 25), and through the same number of games Bossy played in his career (129) had just 7 fewer points while playing a better 200ft game.

He even scored 4 game-winning points in a series too. And he scored 3 game-winning points and 2 game-winning points in a series more often than Bossy did (3 to 2 and 7 to 2 respectively).

See? There are reasons to acknowledge that Forsberg was better than Bossy in the playoffs before we even get into the fact that Forsberg's opponents averaged 208.1 GA to Bossy's opponents' 285.6 GA.

It has nothing to do with Forsberg(who played more games and scored fewer goals), or anyone else for that matter. It is my cute way of saying no one else ever scored 4 GWG's before or since in a series. Not points, GOALS. How he is not in the discussion among the top playoff scorers with his goals per game average is silly. See Lemieux for his only real competitor in this area.
Just curious, how do you define better 200 foot game?

 

[quoipourquoi]

It has nothing to do with Forsberg(who played more games and scored fewer goals), or anyone else for that matter. It is my cute way of saying no one else ever scored 4 GWG's before or since in a series. Not points, GOALS. How he is not in the discussion among the top playoff scorers with his goals per game average is silly. See Lemieux for his only real competitor in this area.
Just curious, how do you define better 200 foot game?

Mike Bossy is in the discussion with the top playoff scorers. He's been eligible for a few rounds now. And of his 4 game-winning goals against Boston in 1983 (incredible series, no doubt), I think he broke a tie once, so even that might be a little overstated.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Mike Bossy is in the discussion with the top playoff scorers. He's been eligible for a few rounds now. And of his 4 game-winning goals against Boston in 1983 (incredible series, no doubt), I think he broke a tie once, so even that might be a little overstated.

Very overstated.

Game winning goal in an 8-3 win is fairly irrelevant.

 

[Killion]

Very overstated.

Game winning goal in an 8-3 win is fairly irrelevant.

Well, just a minute here Mr.Bonvie, not always.... If a games like 2-2 or 3-2 and Team A scores against Team B either breaking the tie & going up by one or going up 4-2 not entirely uncommon to see any given Team B then collapse like a cheap cardboard suitcase left out in the rain. Believe me, as a long time Leafer... seen it more times than I care to remember. That tie-breaker or going up by 2 just takes the wind right out of some teams sails, opens the floodgates.... So sure, some tie breakers going up by 1 or up by 2 game winners in eventual blowouts are noteworthy, particularly so in important Playoff or Tournament games. Common enough expression, "game was over early in the 1st"... Like on the night of December 26th, 1991 - Pittsburgh 12, Leafs 1.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Well, just a minute here Mr.Bonvie, not always.... If a games like 2-2 or 3-2 and Team A scores against Team B either breaking the tie & going up by one or going up 4-2 not entirely uncommon to see any given Team B then collapse like a cheap cardboard suitcase left out in the rain. Believe me, as a long time Leafer... seen it more times than I care to remember. That tie-breaker or going up by 2 just takes the wind right out of some teams sails, opens the floodgates.... So sure, some tie breakers going up by 1 or up by 2 game winners in eventual blowouts are noteworthy, particularly so in important Playoff or Tournament games. Common enough expression, "game was over early in the 1st"... Like on the night of December 26th, 1991 - Pittsburgh 12, Leafs 1.

Not always, but I was alluding to a specific 8-3 game, Bruins/Islanders playoffs 1983. Along with 7-3 and 8-4 games that Bossy scored the "game winner" in.

I still claim a degree of irrelevance in that situation.

 

[MXD]

I dunno -- against the '83 Bruins, getting the game winner in a 8-3 game isn't a bad thing, because that was a team supposed to be good and who wasn't allowing that many goals (usually). It's not akin to clutch goalscoring, however.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Blah, these last couple of weeks have been rough for me...wish we had more time to discuss this round...

 

[MXD]

Blah, these last couple of weeks have been rough for me...wish we had more time to discuss this round...

Yup... Project-wise, Having that many players at the same time made it a little tougher to focus. And real-life wise, well, things aren't that nice around here. Floodings and all.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Heh...looking over my research in preparation for this thing, I realize that I never cut-and-pasted Frank Nighbor's name into my actual list from my original watchlist...yoi... ...that was not intentional...


I'm actually a tiny bit surprised that Coffey didn't come with Kurri in this thing...I had them pretty tight...

 

[quoipourquoi]

Posting the next one.