Round 2, Vote 8 (HOH Top Wingers)

[vadim sharifijanov]

Don't think it really adds much. Unless, of course, its really significant and not just attributable to playing with a big goal scorer.

As for Recchi, didn't he start out as a center?

not that i recall. but i didn't really notice him until his big year with cullen and stevens so i'm not really sure either way.

While I think it's worthwhile to know that a winger was more of a playmaker than a shooter, I don't give much "extra credit" for it. After all, it kind of shows up in their numbers anyway doesn't it? Perhaps even disproportionately, since a player always has more opportunity to register credit for an assist than for a goal.

But I also didn't really buy into extra credit for shoot-first centers. If anything, it seems hard to build a line around a shooting center unless you happen to have a playmaking winger lying around (ie, Stamkos/St Louis).

i feel like that way of thinking makes it not show up in the numbers, in the sense that career numbers with robitaille's distribution look more impressive than those with recchi's. see, for example, the maxim from TDMM:

All things equal, I would prefer the goal scorer over the playmaker, regardless of position.



I definitely agree with this. There are probably the rare players who are such elite passers where you can say that their assists are just as good as goals. But I don't think any of the wingers we have left were that elite at passing. I'm talking Gretzky, Orr, probably Oates, etc

I mean, passing is important and I think there could be an argument for a balanced player over a one-dimensional one. But IMO, wingers shouldn't get extra points for having more assists and fewer goals, just because its rarer

my threshold for "an assist is just as good as a goal" is a little lower than gretzky, orr, oates. i guess we all define "elite" differently, but to me the threshold is if a guy is an elite playmaker, then i don't inherently value a guy with similar numbers but more goals more than him.

but definitely, i'd always choose 30-30-60 guy than the 20-40-60 guy all other things being equal.

to me though, recchi was an elite playmaker, and one of the very few of his time that did it from the wing, where just by virtue of where you usually are on the ice it's tougher to pick up garbage assists. maybe i'm crazy but i think recchi is a top ten player of his era. gretzky, oates, mario, forsberg, gilmour, jagr and yzerman are all above him. but after those guys, i think recchi is right there with sakic, francis, messier, and anyone else you'd have in a dogfight for the 8-10 spots of that era. feel like i might be way in the minority on this one though.

as for the general theoretical rule, and not recchi specifically, i still have the sneaking feeling that playmaking wingers are harder to defend against. not inherently, but because few teams build their offense around a playmaking winger that's not something most defenses gameplan for, except obviously in a playoff series when you know it's coming. but even so, patrick kane gave us such fits.

but anyway, thanks for entertaining my theory.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

not that i recall. but i didn't really notice him until his big year with cullen and stevens so i'm not really sure either way.




i feel like that way of thinking makes it not show up in the numbers, in the sense that career numbers with robitaille's distribution look more impressive than those with recchi's. see, for example, the maxim from TDMM:



my threshold for "an assist is just as good as a goal" is a little lower than gretzky, orr, oates. i guess we all define "elite" differently, but to me the threshold is if a guy is an elite playmaker, then i don't inherently value a guy with similar numbers but more goals more than him.

but definitely, i'd always choose 30-30-60 guy than the 20-40-60 guy all other things being equal.

to me though, recchi was an elite playmaker, and one of the very few of his time that did it from the wing, where just by virtue of where you usually are on the ice it's tougher to pick up garbage assists. maybe i'm crazy but i think recchi is a top ten player of his era. gretzky, oates, mario, forsberg, gilmour, jagr and yzerman are all above him. but after those guys, i think recchi is right there with sakic, francis, messier, and anyone else you'd have in a dogfight for the 8-10 spots of that era. feel like i might be way in the minority on this one though.

as for the general theoretical rule, and not recchi specifically, i still have the sneaking feeling that playmaking wingers are harder to defend against. not inherently, but because few teams build their offense around a playmaking winger that's not something most defenses gameplan for, except obviously in a playoff series when you know it's coming. but even so, patrick kane gave us such fits.

but anyway, thanks for entertaining my theory.

You're not necessarily wrong, but...

I mean, strictly as point producers, Brett Hull and Mark Recchi aren't so different, but one was the much better goal scorer, right?

 

[MadArcand]

maybe i'm crazy but i think recchi is a top ten player of his era. gretzky, oates, mario, forsberg, gilmour, jagr and yzerman are all above him. but after those guys, i think recchi is right there with sakic, francis, messier, and anyone else you'd have in a dogfight for the 8-10 spots of that era. feel like i might be way in the minority on this one though.

A GM that'd trade any of those for Recchi would've been crucified by the fans and media, and rightly so. From all the times he was traded, he only returned a superior return once (PHI->MTL).

 

[seventieslord]

A GM that'd trade any of those for Recchi would've been crucified by the fans and media, and rightly so. From all the times he was traded, he only returned a superior return once (PHI->MTL).

That's usually what happens when you trade a star player.. you don't get a "superior" return. Was Pronger ever traded for a superior return? Gretzky? Francis? Gilmour? Thornton?

It's actually pretty rare that the package coming back proves to be superior as a whole. The Montreal/Philadelphia deal was a rare exception and it had nothing to do with Recchi's performance and everything to do with the fact that Montreal unknowingly traded a star forward for him.

Wouldn't a critic of Recchi use the result of that trade against him on its own, as opposed to using the fact that it only happened once against him? It's backwards.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I feel certain that Recchi played center at some point, probably in Montreal. I know for sure that he played some C when the Bruins were going through some injuries.

 

[unknown33]

Successful playmakers consistently create good scoring opportunities for their linemates.

It boggles my mind that the NHL still doesn't track stats like chances created. Even soccer where stats traditionally have little meaning does it.

Just look at the yearly leaders in goals and assists. The leaders in assists are probably a stronger group than the leaders in goals. Jonathan Cheechoo and Milan Hejduk led the league in goals because of the playmakers they played with. How often does the reverse happen?

I think it's problamatic to throw goals/primary/secondary assists together into one stat (points) and call it a day without any seperation and treating them equaliy valuable.

1) The definition of what actually is an assist changes through NHL history, resulting in how many assists per goal are awarded
2) There are in general more assists occuring than goals
3) Likewise ENG should be considers for goals, because the majority of cases they have a lower value for winning

Thornton had 70 something primary assists that year btw.

I'm also not saying that the assist leader is worse than the goals leader just that being primary a playermaker should result in higher point totals. Being first in assists generates more points than being first in goals.

 

[MadArcand]

That's usually what happens when you trade a star player.. you don't get a "superior" return. Was Pronger ever traded for a superior return? Gretzky? Francis? Gilmour? Thornton?

It's actually pretty rare that the package coming back proves to be superior as a whole. The Montreal/Philadelphia deal was a rare exception and it had nothing to do with Recchi's performance and everything to do with the fact that Montreal unknowingly traded a star forward for him.

Wouldn't a critic of Recchi use the result of that trade against him on its own, as opposed to using the fact that it only happened once against him? It's backwards.

Perhaps it's not the best argument I could've used, but one can't seriously claim that Recchi was a superior player to Sakic or Messier.

 

[unknown33]

i think recchi is right there with sakic, francis, messier, and anyone else you'd have in a dogfight for the 8-10 spots of that era.

Wait what? Messier might make sense for a very selected period where he was already in his mid 30s because they started a decade apart, but Sakic's and Recchi's career directly overlapped.

 

[MXD]

That's usually what happens when you trade a star player.. you don't get a "superior" return. Was Pronger ever traded for a superior return? Gretzky? Francis? Gilmour? Thornton?

It's actually pretty rare that the package coming back proves to be superior as a whole. The Montreal/Philadelphia deal was a rare exception and it had nothing to do with Recchi's performance and everything to do with the fact that Montreal unknowingly traded a star forward for him.

Wouldn't a critic of Recchi use the result of that trade against him on its own, as opposed to using the fact that it only happened once against him? It's backwards.

Onwards, Recchi was the 3rd best player in that deal.

 

[MXD]

Wait what? Messier might make sense for a very selected period where he was already in his mid 30s because they started a decade apart, but Sakic's and Recchi's career directly overlapped.

I think the comment was purely about his playmaking and nothing else.

 

[unknown33]

I think the comment was purely about his playmaking and nothing else.

But he has Francis who was more of a playmaker in the same group and Yzerman who was more a goalscorer above him.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Voting for Round 2, Vote 8 is scheduled to end today at 9:00 PM EST


Due to a conflict with my personal schedule (hockey game got rescheduled ) I won't be releasing the results for a few hours after the deadline.

 

[seventieslord]

Onwards, Recchi was the 3rd best player in that deal.

That's arguable, but yeah, my point was it wouldn't be better for Recchi if the team that traded him came out on top more often.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

You're not necessarily wrong, but...

I mean, strictly as point producers, Brett Hull and Mark Recchi aren't so different, but one was the much better goal scorer, right?

well, i think peak brett hull > peak recchi as point producers. the brett hull that scored 86 goals and 131 points and finished second to gretzky for the art ross was a better point producer than recchi by at least one magnitude. i think robitaille is the better comparison: '93 robitaille scores 63 goals and 125 points while recchi scores 53 goals and 123 points. i love robitaille, and think his offensive eliteness is very underrated, but i'd take the play-pushing and playmaking winger here. or at least, i object to looking at 63-62-125 and 53-70-123 and automatically siding with the 63 goals rather than at least saying "it's close and we need to look more deeply at the circumstances."

(but to clarify: not as a general rule of "assists are as good as goals," but in the specific case where both are wingers and one winger has elite assists totals.)

A GM that'd trade any of those for Recchi would've been crucified by the fans and media, and rightly so. From all the times he was traded, he only returned a superior return once (PHI->MTL).

Wait what? Messier might make sense for a very selected period where he was already in his mid 30s because they started a decade apart, but Sakic's and Recchi's career directly overlapped.

I think the comment was purely about his playmaking and nothing else.

yep. i have recchi in the running for probably #8-12th best playmaker of his era, but playmaker only. and yes, i have him alongside sakic, (peak hart-level) messier, (peak and jagr-boosted) francis, and probably one or two guys i haven't thought of yet (lafontaine? leetch?)

obviously all of those guys, overall, with the exceptions of francis and lafontaine, kills recchi overall.

as for sakic and recchi and their direct overlap, it's always extremely impressive to me when a modern winger leads the league in assists because a center will get more touches and therefore probably end up with way more incidental assists where he didn't really do anything or at least where he wasn't a primary factor on the goal.

this is why, for example, i have MSL even with or maybe even higher than iginla. post-expansion, the list of wingers who have led the league in assists is: MSL (1 outright win, 1 tie), recchi, jagr (2 outright wins, 1 tie), lafleur. whereas in the 20 years leading up to expansion, these are the wingers who led the league in assists: bentley, bentley, lindsay, howe, howe, howe, olmstead, olmstead, lindsay, moore, bathgate, bathgate, rousseau. so in more than half the years (two of those winger wins were ties). open question: how do we account for this? i'm no O6 expert, but there's got to be a strategy/style of play shift that would be important to figure out for this project, right?

okay, back to recchi and sakic; sakic did get more assists than recchi did in more seasons than not, but how much of that difference is due to winger touches vs. center touches? there's only a 51 assist gap between sakic and recchi during their directly overlapping primes ('91 up to the second lockout). a center of equal playmaking ability should get around four assists a year more than his corollary winger just by virtue of being a center right?

or am i "bure-ing" recchi here? i feel like i might be, or that it might look like i am, but i'm actually much more interested in the playmaking winger question as a general question about how to treat wingers, and as a possible riposte to the "goals > assists" maxim under certain conditions and in certain situations.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

But he has Francis who was more of a playmaker in the same group and Yzerman who was more a goalscorer above him.

francis was more of a playmaker than a goal scorer and yzerman was a more even goalscorer/playmaker, but yzerman was still a better playmaker than francis. or at least, that's my thought process here.

 

[unknown33]

francis was more of a playmaker than a goal scorer and yzerman was a more even goalscorer/playmaker, but yzerman was still a better playmaker than francis. or at least, that's my thought process here.

I don't know how much you want to attribute to Jagr-boosting but the gap Francis has over Yzerman in assist finishes huge.

 

[Captain Bowie]

This was by far the hardets order to vote so far. I know my order of players left over from last round were not the same, and I doubt that the left overs will be the same order next round lol.

 

[seventieslord]

I think I liked how I had it sorted out in the end, I wouldn't say it was that "hard" compared to a couple of rounds. I'm most interested in seeing how Recchi shakes out, knowing how a few others have him. Reading this round a lot of people would probably think I had him first, but I only had him 4th. I'm not adamant that he has to get in now.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I don't know how much you want to attribute to Jagr-boosting but the gap Francis has over Yzerman in assist finishes huge.

don't want to derail here, but to me, francis without jagr (and sometimes also mario on the PP) is a 60-70 assist guy. very good, legitimately elite production, fringe top ten guy, but at his best yzerman is a guy who can put up an APG by himself. the eye test told me that, but the stats back that up.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Voted. I dropped Kariya at the last minute, replacing him with Howe.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Go Back

What he's saying is that the player who came in in 38-39 were vastly different than in 39-40.

...

Go back to 1935-36 thru 1938-39.