I think Mark Howe should finish first in the voting this round.
Briefly stated, he was a very good two-way defenseman, and he was the best player on an excellent team.
Howe was neither a dominant defensive presence or a dominant offensive player. Rather, he excelled in transition first and foremost. He was a great skater and passer who could move the puck very effectively and drove his team's possession and territorial game while he was on the ice. The result of his game was his record of +400 in the NHL regular season and +54 in the NHL playoffs, a superb number for a player who didn't play on a dynasty.
Recapping his career:
The forward years
Howe had an extremely promising start to his career. At age 16, he played on the US Olympic team. At age 17, he dominated the Memorial Cup with a great performance that left NHL scouts drooling. At age 18, he decided to jump to the WHA to play pro with his dad instead of waiting until age 20 to join the NHL. He won the rookie of the year award and was a 2nd team all-star at LW, and his team won the AVCO Cup. At age 19 he led Houston in playoff scoring as they won the AVCO Cup again.
At the time, he was on pace to compile a winning record that would put Scott Niedermayer to shame.
But Howe couldn't maintain that meteoric pace. He surpassed his dad to become the team's top forward, and his all-around game and scoring totals increased, but he never really became a dominant forward in the WHA. When he joined the NHL with Hartford in 1979 at age 24, his career didn't look like a future HOFer.
The Hartford years
Howe's time in Hartford can be divided into two time periods - before and after the injury.
In his fourth regular season NHL game, Howe was moved back to defence. His coach wanted to give him more ice time and more scope to impact the game with his tremendous skating skills.
Howe thrived in his new position. He scored 80 points in 74 games in 1979-80, leading all defencemen, and he finished 5th in Norris voting. In the following season, Howe scored 44 points in his team's first 36 games, sitting tied for 10th in scoring among all players. In later years, Howe compared his play during those seasons as being in the style of Paul Coffey, always rushing the puck.
William Houston, Globe and Mail, May 25, 1985:
"I was never as good offensively after the accident," Howe said this week between games of the Stanley Cup final. "I used to rush the puck all the time, the way Paul Coffey does now. I haven't been able to do that since then. And my statistics are down." That might be so, but he still ranks among the best four or five defencemen in the National Hockey League.
But then Howe's career was almost ended by the gruesome injury in which he was impaled on the centre post of the net.
Amazingly, Howe returned to the ice in only six weeks. But he had dropped from 190 pounds to 168 pounds, and he struggled during the rest of the season. Hartford fell apart after Howe's injury and never recovered. Howe's struggles continued into the following season, as he was still not completely recovered. In fact, it wasn't until 4 years after his injury that he got back up to 190 pounds. (Houston, 1985)
The Philadelphia years - peak
Mark Howe was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers before the 1982-83 season. He became the face of the Flyers' transition from a team based on toughness to a more disciplined, faster team. In his first season with the Flyers, the team improved by 19 points and allowed 73 fewer goals. Howe was a close second to Rod Langway for the Norris trophy and led all d-men in postseason all-star voting.
Neil Campbell, Globe and Mail, Feb 8, 1983:
One of the problems is that there are many definitions of the phrase "most valuable." Those who vote simply for the player who has had the best season might stick with Gretzky.
But if one prefers to cast one's ballot for the player most important to his team, one might consider Boston Bruins' Pete Peeters, New Jersey Devils' Chico Resch or Philadelphia Flyers' Mark Howe.
Howe is the chief difference for the Flyers, who have the best chance to overtake the Bruins in the over-all standing down the stretch. The first really mobile defenceman the Flyers have had, he set the tone for the team's switch in emphasis from intimidation to finesse.
During his first five seasons in Philadelphia, the team was the second best regular season in the NHL, and went to two Stanley Cup finals. Mark Howe was their best player. Unfortunately for Howe and co., the Edmonton Oilers were the best team in the world at the time, and beat them in both Finals.
Howe's game matured at this time. He was no longer able to rush the puck as he had before his injury, but he improved his defensive game. And he was still a great player in transition, moving the puck and driving the play like few others could. In 1985-86, he had a great season, scoring 82 points and posting an unbelievable +85 (together with partner Brad McCrimmon.) That might be the best season by any player up for voting, although it failed to beat Paul Coffey's 138 points for the Norris trophy.
Howe posted a +11 in the 1985 playoffs and a +14 in the 1987 playoffs, leading the Flyers both times.
E.M. Swift, Sports Illustrated, May 27, 1985:
One of Gretzky's favorite ploys is to pull up as he crosses the blue line, letting the pursuit pass by him and the defense sag goalward—in effect creating open ice within which to work his wonders. When he does this, the Flyer defense must stay up and force Gretzky wide. That requires quickness, and the only Flyer defenseman who has the speed to match Gretzky's is Mark Howe. His performance—and Howe has been spectacular in the playoffs—will be the key to keeping Gretzky off a spree.
Howe, along with Edmonton's Paul Coffey, is probably the finest skating defenseman in the NHL. Unlike Coffey, he seldom gets so involved in his team's offensive thrusts that he is out of position defensively. That should make it difficult for the Oilers to spring Gretzky on breakaways. Howe is also accustomed to an inordinate amount of ice time, especially now that Brad McCrimmon is out for the duration with a separated left shoulder. Look for Keenan to have Howe on the ice whenever Gretzky's there; and for Edmonton coach Glen Sather to counteract by getting his team to throw the puck into Howe's corner time and again in an effort to tire him out. How well Howe holds up may determine the outcome of the series.
William Houston, Globe and Mail, May 27, 1985:
Although his offensive totals were greater when he was young, Howe believes he is a much more complete player now. "The first time I was taught anything about defence was last year," he said. "Ed Van Impe (the former Flyer defenceman) helped me a lot and the new coaches have shown me little things like positioning myself in our zone and how to defend against against certain players. I can't rush the puck as much, but I think I'm a better all- round defenceman now."
Bill Lyon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb 26, 1986:
To appreciate the impact and the influence of Mark Howe on a hockey game requires videotape, because what he does is so subtle that it often goes unnoticed in the passions and the collisions of the moment. For the purist, for the connoisseur of the sport’s intricacies, Howe is to be savored at leisure.
You want to settle back, wind the tape, let the play unfold in slow motion, and watch his true worth emerge; the 2-on-1 break that is casually defused, the quick, precise pass that generates the bust-out from your own end, the calm control of the puck while setting the proper power-play alignment, the anticipation and the interception while killing a penalty. Textbook stuff, all of it, clinical, complete.
For the last decade or so, it has been widely agreed that the best way to observe how one player can dictate the outcome of a basketball game while never dominating the ball is to watch Bobby Jones of the Philadelphia 76ers. Mark Howe of the Philadelphia Flyers is hockey’s version of this phenomenon. No wasted motion. No frills. No French pastry. No curlicues and flourishes. No flamboyance. No flair.
His game is clean, crisp, economical. It does not call attention to itself. Neither does he. His game face is always sternly in place, eyes squinting in study, face puckered in concentration, He is quiet, introspective.
If he threw off more rooster tail sprays of ice and trash-talk, maybe he finally would get some of the things that should be coming to him, like, for starters, the Norris Trophy as hockey’s most accomplished defenseman.
The problem is, Howe is not a specialist. He does everything well. And in an understated manner. A Paul Coffey, a Ray Bourque may have better offensive numbers, and a Rod Langway may be regarded as the prototypical defensive defenseman, but Howe is the more complete player, the all-round contributor. He can stem a rush with one flick of his stick, can accelerate himself end-to-end and turn a steal into a goal, can handle most any position on the power play, can kill off penalties adroitly, shrewdly.
That doesn’t leave much else.
But he remains one of those players whose stats forever sneak up on people.
Craig Wolff, New York Times, Apr 21, 1987:
From where Mark Howe sees it in the deep end of the ice where he smoothly gathers up the puck, bodies are usually flying around in front of him, someone is usually falling over someone else, and maybe, someone is throwing a punch. Then he starts out.
If the opening is there, he will take the puck all the way in. If it is there for someone else, he will thread a pass. If there is no opening, he will perhaps circle, hang back, wait.
It is a patient game the non-star defenseman of the Philadelphia Flyers plays, a stop-see and do-whatever-is-called-for style. It is his style that is really the foundation of the Flyers. But unless you are tuned to it, you might only notice the more extravagant parts of the Flyers game – Tim Kerr knocking in pucks, the gritty center Dave Poulin weaving in, the goalie, Ron Hextall, clanging his stick on the goal pipes, or Dave Brown knocking over bodies.
Meanwhile, Howe is out there, moving in one of his several different speeds, and quietly. That’s why he’s the non-star, the players the Flyers trust will never break down.
“It is a very comforting feeling” said his coach, Mike Keenan, “that when I start writing down my lineup, I can start with Mark.”
“He really never does anything wrong,” said his general manager, Bobby Clarke, a former teammate. “And I’ve never seen a player who can bring his game to so many different levels. He’s like a base-stealer who steals only when it will help his team.”
Robert Fachet, Montreal Gazette, May 6, 1987:
The Flyers scored three equal-strength goals in their 4-3 victory and Howe was on the ice for all of them. Not surprisingly, he watched Montreal's two equal-strength scores from the bench.
The plus-three night lifted Howe to plus-19, tops for the playoffs; his closest pursuers are partner Brad McCrimmon and Canadiens defenceman Rick Green, both plus-13.
Howe led the NHL a year ago with a remarkable plus-85 rating. This season, forced to sit out 11 games because of the sore back, he slipped to plus-57. Only Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky (plus-70) was better.
Is Howe that good, or do the statistics lie? McCrimmon, who has benefited from three years at Howe's side, believes he is that good.
"He can do everything," McCrimmon said. "He's got all the skills and he gets the job done every night. The big thing is he stays within the team concept. As a team, we work, we try to keep the puck out of our own end and our net. It's a team-style philosophy, all five men on the ice working together, not an individual style. Mark may have more talent than the rest of us, but he never breaks things down by trying to do too much."
Asked to define defence, Howe responds in similar fashion: "Defence is all five guys working patiently, waiting for the breaks.
"I've changed my style since my two years in Hartford, where my job was to get more involved in the offence. Here my job is to get the puck out of our end. I get involved when I can, but this is a more defensive-minded team."
Of his closely meshed partnership with McCrimmon, Howe said, "We've been paired for three full years and we've been roommates the whole time. When you play with the same people, you kind of develop a natural instinct and we have that.
"I can throw blind passes and I know he'll be there. Somebody else, I'll throw a blind pass and, when the guy isn't there, I'll wonder, 'Now why isn't he there?'
Injury struggles
Howe sustained a knee injury from a Mark Messier hit in Game 1 of the 1987 Stanley Cup finals, and knee and back problems plagued him during the late 80s and early 90s. Philadelphia fell off from being a Cup contender to struggling to make the playoffs. Part of this was because players like McCrimmon and Propp were traded away. Part was because Mark Howe couldn't stay on the ice. He played only 101 regular season games in a three year stretch where the Flyers narrowly missed the playoffs in a tough Patrick division three times in a row.
Final chapter
Howe moved on to Detroit for the final three seasons of his career in an effort to win the Stanley Cup that had eluded him. He was one of the oldest players in the league at this point, and played in a bottom pairing role. After Detroit lost to New Jersey in the 1995 Cup Finals, Howe hung up his skates at the age of 40.
). Carry on...
