Split League Consolidated All Star Team Discussion

[jarek]

Moose Johnson, Si Griffis, Fred Lake, Hamby Shore + three HHOFers I shouldn't even have to mention~!

We're talking *specifically* about players whose best years clearly were before 1910. If you want to mention Si Griffis, he wasn't even a defenseman until 1912 or so, at least as far as I know.

I don't even believe Shore or Lake spent significant time at defense until around 1910.

 

[seventieslord]

We're talking *specifically* about players whose best years clearly were before 1910. If you want to mention Si Griffis, he wasn't even a defenseman until 1912 or so, at least as far as I know.

I don't even believe Shore or Lake spent significant time at defense until around 1910.

I was going to say the same thing. Other than lake a couple of seasons, I don't think any of them were defense before NHA.

 

[ResilientBeast]

We're talking *specifically* about players whose best years clearly were before 1910. If you want to mention Si Griffis, he wasn't even a defenseman until 1912 or so, at least as far as I know.

I don't even believe Shore or Lake spent significant time at defense until around 1910.

What do you mean he was most certainly a defenceman when Kenora won the cup in 1907. I lump cover point and point into the same role for the sake of simplicity.

I'll try and find the quote, but he was originally listed as a rover, but was moved from the position because he wasn't the best playmaker.

 

[seventieslord]

What do you mean he was most certainly a defenceman when Kenora won the cup in 1907. I lump cover point and point into the same role for the sake of simplicity.

I'll try and find the quote, but he was originally listed as a rover, but was moved from the position because he wasn't the best playmaker.

Griffis? 1907 perhaps. The rest? Don't think so. Check the summaries in The Trail.

 

[seventieslord]

I would also like to see us use as many contemporary articles as possible. We already know their styles of play, but team MVPs, articles saying players are having a particularly good or bad season, and such would be nice.

Yeah, absolutely. The item in my list that said:

- Reputation/star power (quotes from surrounding seasons would be helpful, but from within each season is best)

...means just that.

I don't see it. I've re-read the thread three times.


This does NOT reflect the first 18-20 years of Stanley Cup hockey!

It does reflect what most posters in this thread are talking about: NHA/PCHA and beyond. (This feels like the HHOF's attitude toward no-Stanley Cup European hockey history.)

Seriously, is this really trying to talk about pre-"split league" all-stars? I doubt it.

My apologies. Looking back at your first post, it still looks to me like you came in here, read to fast, and assumed we were doing all-star teams for the split league era as a whole, not for each individual season in that era (which we are), and then suggested we do the same for the era before that. I was only clarifying that, not trying to downplay the merits of going that far (any more than I already had).

I think there's a lot less useful information before 1910, but I also think this is still worthwhile. I'd take it down to two teams per year, though. What would be best is if we worked backwards starting in 1930. At first, there's lots of good info available, but then the further back we go, the less information there is, so we slowly get used to the increased difficulty of research as the project goes on.

I'm personally less interested in that era but I'll still help in any way I can. The main reason I wanted to do this is because we simply have no easy standard way to compare the split league generation of defensemen beyond who made the PCHA all-star teams, and in the east it's a total guessing game, that is, hopefully until you compile all the information in one place and compare them season by season, when I expect a clearer picture will emerge.

But let's start at 1930 (for the first five years we have NHL hart voting and the unofficial GM-voted all-star teams so it's not like this is that difficult to start with!) and move back from there.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Griffis? 1907 perhaps. The rest? Don't think so. Check the summaries in The Trail.

Well his only really ATD relevant seasons were when he played in Kenora so I don't know what to make of it.

When I get a chance this weekend I have access to archives that span almost the entire PCHA to the start of the WCHL so I should be able to get a year by year database of game by game summaries from contemporary newspapers, so hopefully we can make use of that.

 

[seventieslord]

Well his only really ATD relevant seasons were when he played in Kenora so I don't know what to make of it.

When I get a chance this weekend I have access to archives that span almost the entire PCHA to the start of the WCHL so I should be able to get a year by year database of game by game summaries from contemporary newspapers, so hopefully we can make use of that.

Iain Fyffe has all the information on this already, so don't do any work on determining who played what positions when. There's just no point. I'm just waiting for him to share his sheet with me and I'll be able to give the final answer.

Anyway, as it applies to Griffis, I was just suggesting to check the playoff summaries in 1903, 1905 and 1907. There should be 9 that include him and they should all list positions.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Iain Fyffe has all the information on this already, so don't do any work on determining who played what positions when. There's just no point. I'm just waiting for him to share his sheet with me and I'll be able to give the final answer.

Anyway, as it applies to Griffis, I was just suggesting to check the playoff summaries in 1903, 1905 and 1907. There should be 9 that include him and they should all list positions.

I wasn't planning on looking for that right away, if you want to start with 1930 that'll give me time to grab all the scans for PCHA games.

 

[seventieslord]

I wasn't planning on looking for that right away, if you want to start with 1930 that'll give me time to grab all the scans for PCHA games.

OK. One thread per season? Or just start here?

 

[ResilientBeast]

OK. One thread per season? Or just start here?

I think we should make a list of people who will participate in each vote just to keep it consistent. Thoughts?

 

[jarek]

I think we should make a list of people who will participate in each vote just to keep it consistent. Thoughts?

Unfortunately I cannot contribute much without spending an exorbitant amount of time manually checking google news archives but I'd be happy to chip in what I can and lend another voice come voting time.

 

[seventieslord]

I think we should make a list of people who will participate in each vote just to keep it consistent. Thoughts?

Yes. I'll write something up for you to put in the OP.

 

[seventieslord]

How does this look?

The ATD Retro All-Star Teams Project

The purpose of this project is to determine, to the best of our abilities and using all available information, three teams of unofficial All-Stars for the period beginning just before official NHL teams were named (1930), and continuing back in time through the split league era and beyond, as interest permits.

For every season starting with 1929-30, evidence will be provided in this thread for everyone's digestion and consideration. After a short period of discussion where we attempt to reach a consensus, votes are submitted publicly, via a post in this thread.

Participating members:

1. seventieslord
2. ResilientBeast
3. dreakmur
4. VanIslander
5. jarek
6. BenchBrawl
7. rmartin65
8. chaosrevolver
9.
10.

All-Stars voted on:

1930:

1st Team:

2nd Team:

3rd Team:

 

[seventieslord]

Does anyone have recorded the unofficial ASTs voted on by the GMs in the 1927-1930 range? I found this post by TDMM where he lists the entire 1928 team (making our job very easy for that year) but I am pretty sure there are at least a couple full or partial years out there.

 

[jarek]

Pre-1910 would be.. fun.

Leagues

AHAC (1886–1898)
MHA (1892–1909)
WPHL (1896–1910)
CAHL (1898–1905)
FAHL (1904–1909)
IPHL (1904–1907)
ECAHA (1906–1909)
TPHL (1906–1911)
OPHL (1908–1911)
CHA (1909–1910)
NHA (1909–1917)
PCHA (1912–1924)
NHL (1917–present)
WCHL (1921–1926)

Which year had the most leagues in play? 1909 had MHA, WPHL, FAHL, ECAHA, TPHL, OPHL, CHA/NHA.

It isn't until 1911 when the leagues start to finally dwindle. 1911 saw the TPHL, OPHL, NHA, and the following year it's just the NHA and PCHA until 1921.

 

[Theokritos]

The ATD Retro All-Star Teams Project

Is there a good reason to not have this on HOH instead?

 

[jarek]

Is there a good reason to not have this on HOH instead?

It should be on HOH IMO. I was thinking this last night actually.

 

[chaosrevolver]

I am interested.

 

[seventieslord]

Is there a good reason to not have this on HOH instead?

The fact that there's a project starting there right now, and I'm impatient to get moving on this.

 

[Theokritos]

The fact that there's a project starting there right now, and I'm impatient to get moving on this.

So the idea is to run this parallel to the ATD?

 

[seventieslord]

So the idea is to run this parallel to the ATD?

ATDs and HOH projects run concurrently all the time. To my knowledge there haven't been any HOH projects that ran at the same time. That was my thinking, anyway.

 

[ResilientBeast]

And honestly this project is pretty much only relevant to us...

 

[Johnny Engine]

TBH, HOH has more to lose by running this concurrently with the playoff performers project, than the ATD has to lose in participation.

(which is why I'm not signing up for this at least until I finish my premilinary list for that project)

 

[seventieslord]

TBH, HOH has more to lose by running this concurrently with the playoff performers project, than the ATD has to lose in participation.

True.

We can have it wherever we're told to have it though. I don't mind if the HOH board feels this is in their jurisdiction. Just as long as we can start it now either way.

 

[seventieslord]

Another good question - what to do with rovers? We treat them like centers in the ATD and in the HOH projects, and I think that's the right thing to do. But in this project, we take center - already the most crowded forward position - and add rovers to it, then we've really cluttered it. We'd have centers and rovers missing the team that would have been 1st teamers had they played LW or RW.

On the other hand, if we decide to just have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd team rover for the 1910-1922 seasons, being that there's no rover in the east, in all PCHA seasons except 1916 and 1917, every rover would be guaranteed an all-star team spot. I don't like that either, despite the fact that they were typically excellent players.

So... what do you think we do? The only thing I can think of that's even close to a solution, is to name three full teams and then "on the side" name a 1st and 2nd team rover.

Alternate "solution" - name rovers on the all-star teams, BUT the 3rd rover spot is reserved for either a rover or a center, whoever merits it more.

Last "solution" - make two spots on every AST that are "C/R" - whichever two centers or rovers most merit the spots, get them.

Fourth solution - last one for real this time. Just name three forwards on each team, including rovers, regardless of position. There was so much switching around that we are never going to have it 100% correct anyway. This era was disproportionately strong at C and Rover anyway, as opposed to wing. These are the drafted players from this year who played mostly in the pre-NHL-ASTs era, listed by predominant position:

best Centers and Rovers: Lalonde, T.Smith, Foyston, Nighbor, MacKay, Morris, Keats, Malone, Frederickson, Taylor, Boucher, H.Smith, Morenz
best right wingers: Pitre, Oatman, Broadbent, Walker, Dye,
best left wingers: Crawford, Roberts, Harris, Noble, Denneny, Hay, Joliat

I see upsides and downsides to each solution.

I'd like everyone's thoughts on this, or even other ideas. What idea of my four is the best, and what other solution can you provide?