Top-40 Stanley Cup Playoff Performers of All-Time - Preliminary Discussion Thread

quoipourquoi

Goaltender
Jan 26, 2009
10,123
4,126
Hockeytown, MI
  1. Eligibility
    • Players will be judged only on their performance during Stanley Cup playoff games, Stanley Cup challenge games, and playoff games with the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, National Hockey Association, National Hockey League, and Western/Western Canada Hockey League that had a direct path to a champion vs. champion Stanley Cup series
    • Currently active players are eligible, but will be judged only on what they have already accomplished
  2. Preliminary Discussion Thread
    • Anyone may participate in this thread, even if he or she does not intend to take part in the voting round
    • Posters are encouraged to share information about players in this thread and to take information shared into account when constructing their own lists
    • For instance, did you know Roy McGiffin was in the fruit business during the off-season? Not that I am implying that he should be ranked on the viability of his Californian fruit
    • Brief comparisons between players are permitted, but detailed cases and debates should be saved for the voting round
    • Please do not rank players outright in the preliminary thread
  3. Voting
    • Round 1
      • All participants submit a list of 60 players ranked in order, with all positions included
      • All eras are to be considered. Expansion has led to a greater number of playoff rounds and opportunities, but it would be wrong to ignore the accomplishments of those who predated the four-round era
      • To make it easier to aggregate the submitted lists, please list players using their most commonly used name; e.g. Tim Thomas, not Timothy Thomas Jr.; Justin Williams, not Justinus Septum Williams
      • Lists may be submitted via PM to quoipourquoi
      • Deadline for list submission is February 28
      • Players will be assigned a point value on each list based on ranking. A 1st-place vote is equal to 60 points. A 2nd-place vote is equal to 59 points. A 60th-place vote is equal to 1 point.
      • An aggregate list will be compiled ranking them in order of the most total points
      • Participants must submit a list in Round 1 to be eligible to vote in Round 2
    • Round 2
      • The top-10 ranked players from the aggregate list will be posted in a thread
      • Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias
      • Player merits and rankings will be open for discussion and debate for a period of five days. Administrators may extend the discussion period if it remains active
      • Final voting will occur for two via PM. A 1st-Place vote is equal to 10 points. A 2nd-Place vote is equal to 9 points. A 10th-Place vote is equal to 1 point
      • The top-5 players will be added to the final list, unless people start booing because of a clear break in voting after the top-4 players, at which point we might agree to hold someone back for the next round because I easily succumb to peer pressure and will go along with whatever you want
      • The process repeats for 8 courses until we have a list of 40 players
      • Failure to retain an acceptable level of discussion may lead to an abbreviated list of no fewer than 25 players
  4. Quality Assurance
    • Lists will be subject to an evaluation process
    • This is not meant to deter participation; we merely want to ensure that voters are considering all eras of hockey's history
    • The complete voting record of every participant will be released at the end of the project
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
Fair enough.

I think this is the first time I'll give myself some strict guidelines for my Round 1 list. Will ideally have 30 forwards, 20 d-men and 10 goalies -- which might be an issue, since I can already name 9 goalies as "locks" for my round 1 list. I'll also try to represent the eras equally.


The only thing I really won't care about is the team. Can't see myself have less than 10 Habs (including partial ones) on my Round 1 list.
 

bobholly39

Registered User
Mar 10, 2013
22,078
14,588
Fair enough.

I think this is the first time I'll give myself some strict guidelines for my Round 1 list. Will ideally have 30 forwards, 20 d-men and 10 goalies -- which might be an issue, since I can already name 9 goalies as "locks" for my round 1 list. I'll also try to represent the eras equally.


The only thing I really won't care about is the team. Can't see myself have less than 10 Habs (including partial ones) on my Round 1 list.

Does Dominik Hasek show up anywhere? Either in your top 9 goalie "locks", or in your consideration for 10? Or not at all?
 

billcook

Registered User
Apr 17, 2012
1,829
59
Taylor (FW)
Kelly (D)

34 FW
15 D
11 G

18 Habs (including partial ones). I may have gone overboard :laugh:


One great two-way forward I'm probably biased for (he is definitely top-60) and one D I would not have ranked that high w/o recent 'vsx playoffs' thread.

Does Dominik Hasek show up anywhere? Either in your top 9 goalie "locks", or in your consideration for 10? Or not at all?
He is on the cusp. Depending on criteria it wouldn't be wrong if he either made it or not.
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
Does Dominik Hasek show up anywhere? Either in your top 9 goalie "locks", or in your consideration for 10? Or not at all?

Not in my 9 locks for sure. He's also hurt by the fact that there's already quite a few contemporaries (goalies and skaters) who are making it.

Hasek is probably good enough for my shortlist (of about 120 players all-in-all) but he might be missing it due to the fact that I already have a decent grasp on his career. On the other hand, there's a lot to like in his work from Buffalo.

The tl;dr is that Hasek might fall due to a numbers game : I intend to represent eras very equally, because it's an all-time list, and the concerns that we have about overrepresenting older players do no really apply here (it's not "best players", it's "who did best in Stanley Cup Playoffs").
 

Ishdul

Registered User
Jan 20, 2007
3,989
144
So is there going to be the same focus on equal representation between eras that we saw in the other projects? I partly ask for both the older players (while realizing that things like the Challenge Cup are still mentioned) and for the more recent players (who I feel may be underrepresented, or who might be represented in odd ways).

Given that there's less of an established list to go off of, how are you doing acceptance/rejection of the Round 1 lists? I feel like we're going to get widely divergent Round 1 lists to a much larger extent, since we've seen best defense lists and best goalie lists and they've been debated here quite frequently with a lot of comparisons, and in some ways should have mimicked the best players list that we see often enough. I don't think there's really the same equivalent to having Gretzky listed 7th for Centres or Orr 8th for Defensemen in terms of odd ball rejectable rankings; there's going to be less of a big 4 that you see in best players list, or best 7 in goalies, and should be a bit of a free-for-all, which I mean in a positive way because it is fairly new territory we're covering.
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
So is there going to be the same focus on equal representation between eras that we saw in the other projects? I partly ask for both the older players (while realizing that things like the Challenge Cup are still mentioned) and for the more recent players (who I feel may be underrepresented, or who might be represented in odd ways).

Given that there's less of an established list to go off of, how are you doing acceptance/rejection of the Round 1 lists? I feel like we're going to get widely divergent Round 1 lists to a much larger extent, since we've seen best defense lists and best goalie lists and they've been debated here quite frequently with a lot of comparisons, and in some ways should have mimicked the best players list that we see often enough. I don't think there's really the same equivalent to having Gretzky listed 7th for Centres or Orr 8th for Defensemen in terms of odd ball rejectable rankings; there's going to be less of a big 4 that you see in best players list, or best 7 in goalies, and should be a bit of a free-for-all, which I mean in a positive way because it is fairly new territory we're covering.

I know I intend to focus more on equal representation than I usually do, due to the difficulties in assessing some eras (namely, prior-to-best-of-7 will be hell, and that's before even considering the mostly absurdly low scoring totals).

From my perspective : if I feel there's a Top-100 (general, not only playoffs, and broadly speaking) player missing, but for whom the playoffs are just about the sole reason why that player is even considered a Top-100 player, then questions should be asked.

In other words, and to get this out of the way : A list missing Turk Broda would have me scratching my head, because Broda :
- Is seen as a Top-100 player of all-time.
- Probably solely because of playoffs, because there's otherwise nothing in his regular season that suggest he's a Top-200 player.

That might be a bit hyperbolic, but I like the reasoning. Now, what exactly is an appropriate ranking for Broda, I don't know, and that's mostly a hot take.

Notice that I'm not admin or anything -- just trying to come up with something.
 

Ishdul

Registered User
Jan 20, 2007
3,989
144
One other question; with the other projects I think there was more of an additive component, in that you couldn't undo your good seasons with bad ones. I mean you didn't hold say Chelios' last few years against him when he was deep into his 40's and hanging on by a thread, Brodeur on the Blues, Lafleur on Quebec in 91 etc. and even bad seasons in the middle of a guy's career didn't actively hurt a player's consideration as far as I could tell. I would say it still makes sense to go that route, but I feel like when people talk about "how clutch" a player is, it can be as much about bringing up bad results as good ones in a way you wouldn't have seen for the other rankings, and this is especially true of goalies. Take Mike Vernon for example, who experienced the extreme highs and lows of playoff success, which include some runs like 1990 where he had a deflating run when Calgary was one of the 3 best teams in hockey and a pretty miserable 93 playoffs that ruined a decent Calgary team's chances of doing anything. How is that counted? Is it worse than if he hadn't played in the playoffs at all? Is Vernon's case for this project better if we only count the good seasons? And how far can we go with that mentality if so?
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
Am I crazy for considering Patrick Roy a lock for the top slot?

IMO, it's crazy to think that he's the ONLY candidate who could go there. It's a bit less clear-cut than, say, Bobby Orr or Gordie Howe in their respective positions.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
One other question; with the other projects I think there was more of an additive component, in that you couldn't undo your good seasons with bad ones. I mean you didn't hold say Chelios' last few years against him when he was deep into his 40's and hanging on by a thread, Brodeur on the Blues, Lafleur on Quebec in 91 etc. and even bad seasons in the middle of a guy's career didn't actively hurt a player's consideration as far as I could tell. I would say it still makes sense to go that route, but I feel like when people talk about "how clutch" a player is, it can be as much about bringing up bad results as good ones in a way you wouldn't have seen for the other rankings, and this is especially true of goalies. Take Mike Vernon for example, who experienced the extreme highs and lows of playoff success, which include some runs like 1990 where he had a deflating run when Calgary was one of the 3 best teams in hockey and a pretty miserable 93 playoffs that ruined a decent Calgary team's chances of doing anything. How is that counted? Is it worse than if he hadn't played in the playoffs at all? Is Vernon's case for this project better if we only count the good seasons? And how far can we go with that mentality if so?

I find it hard to answer this question when it focuses on a player like Vernon, who wouldn't be near my list either way. Who's a player you could use that would help it to make more sense to me?
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
One other question; with the other projects I think there was more of an additive component, in that you couldn't undo your good seasons with bad ones. I mean you didn't hold say Chelios' last few years against him when he was deep into his 40's and hanging on by a thread, Brodeur on the Blues, Lafleur on Quebec in 91 etc. and even bad seasons in the middle of a guy's career didn't actively hurt a player's consideration as far as I could tell. I would say it still makes sense to go that route, but I feel like when people talk about "how clutch" a player is, it can be as much about bringing up bad results as good ones in a way you wouldn't have seen for the other rankings, and this is especially true of goalies. Take Mike Vernon for example, who experienced the extreme highs and lows of playoff success, which include some runs like 1990 where he had a deflating run when Calgary was one of the 3 best teams in hockey and a pretty miserable 93 playoffs that ruined a decent Calgary team's chances of doing anything. How is that counted? Is it worse than if he hadn't played in the playoffs at all? Is Vernon's case for this project better if we only count the good seasons? And how far can we go with that mentality if so?

That would probably be a personnal balancing act.

To take a very irrelevant example, I wouldn't bother with Saku Koivu' 13-14 performance, because many players were retired at 39 years old. If Koivu had otherwise a playoff resume that made him a relevant addition in my personnal Top-60, that season wouldn't forbid me from doing so.
 

bobholly39

Registered User
Mar 10, 2013
22,078
14,588
Am I crazy for considering Patrick Roy a lock for the top slot?

Yes.

Look no further than Wayne Gretzky.

Not saying Gretzky should be #1 for sure, or that he's even the only one who can challenge Roy, but I think just between Roy and Gretzky alone a deeper analysis has to be done to see who comes out on top, because at first glance they both are excellent and close. Hence, I think calling Roy a "lock" is early.
 

quoipourquoi

Goaltender
Jan 26, 2009
10,123
4,126
Hockeytown, MI
I find it hard to answer this question when it focuses on a player like Vernon, who wouldn't be near my list either way. Who's a player you could use that would help it to make more sense to me?

Since he's been brought up, how about Dominik Hasek? Do 1997 and 2006 play a role in off-setting 1998 and 1999? Perhaps less damaging in his absence than his anomalous 1995, but perhaps more damaging to the perception of him as a playoff player than even that poor on-ice performance.

I don't know that unwillingness to play is necessarily disqualifying, especially when he was very, very, very good in 1998 and 1999 and basically in general.
 

Ishdul

Registered User
Jan 20, 2007
3,989
144
I find it hard to answer this question when it focuses on a player like Vernon, who wouldn't be near my list either way. Who's a player you could use that would help it to make more sense to me?
Not quite as extreme as Vernon but maybe someone like Brodeur? Had numerous long, great runs but with a few showings like 99, 04 and 08 where he basically sunk a good team's chances with a bad showing (and those were all in his good years). Maybe even 2001 when he got thoroughly outplayed by Roy in the finals in what was a winnable series.

If you took all of Brodeur's good runs and left out all of the bad ones, isn't his postseason career like Dryden's except still significantly longer? While my current expectation (which of course might be wrong) is that Dryden will be comfortably ahead.
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
Not quite as extreme as Vernon but maybe someone like Brodeur? Had numerous long, great runs but with a few showings like 99, 04 and 08 where he basically sunk a good team's chances with a bad showing (and those were all in his good years). Maybe even 2001 when he got thoroughly outplayed by Roy in the finals in what was a winnable series.

If you took all of Brodeur's good runs and left out all of the bad ones, isn't his postseason career like Dryden's except still significantly longer? While my current expectation (which of course might be wrong) is that Dryden will be comfortably ahead.

...That would be a personnal balancing act, I think. I don't see how there would be only one valid way to assess this.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
Since he's been brought up, how about Dominik Hasek? Do 1997 and 2006 play a role in off-setting 1998 and 1999? Perhaps less damaging in his absence than his anomalous 1995, but perhaps more damaging to the perception of him as a playoff player than even that poor on-ice performance.

I don't know that unwillingness to play is necessarily disqualifying, especially when he was very, very, very good in 1998 and 1999 and basically in general.

Not quite as extreme as Vernon but maybe someone like Brodeur? Had numerous long, great runs but with a few showings like 99, 04 and 08 where he basically sunk a good team's chances with a bad showing (and those were all in his good years). Maybe even 2001 when he got thoroughly outplayed by Roy in the finals in what was a winnable series.

If you took all of Brodeur's good runs and left out all of the bad ones, isn't his postseason career like Dryden's except still significantly longer? While my current expectation (which of course might be wrong) is that Dryden will be comfortably ahead.

I get it. Tough to answer on the spot. I look forward to discussing it in the project.
 

bobholly39

Registered User
Mar 10, 2013
22,078
14,588
so I want to participate very much so.

I feel as though if I had to come up with a top 60 list on my own though it would look pretty bad. I don't have as much knowledge historically of older eras as others do.

Is anyone going to some of the names on their lists, or at least a large gathering of names I can take into consideration when creating my own list? Because if I have to come up with it on my own i don't think i'm going to get very far.
 

bigbuffalo313

Registered User
Apr 28, 2012
4,135
57
New York
This is going to be tougher than past lists I've done. I also think this will be the only time I will gather a list of players before ranking them. Normally I just put players in order and re-rank when I disagree. This one is going to be tougher
 

kmad

riot survivor
Jun 16, 2003
34,133
60
Vancouver
I'll be looking forward to how vastly different everyone's lists will be.

There's already a presumed general consensus for full-careers that guides everyone's rankings, but this will be wide open. There is no real anchoring possible.
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
so I want to participate very much so.

I feel as though if I had to come up with a top 60 list on my own though it would look pretty bad. I don't have as much knowledge historically of older eras as others do.

Is anyone going to some of the names on their lists, or at least a large gathering of names I can take into consideration when creating my own list? Because if I have to come up with it on my own i don't think i'm going to get very far.

That is part of the reason why I'm giving up some insights on my process here and there.

I'm going with a shortlist that will comprise roughly 120 players, processing the players chronologically, by DOB. I'm now at 1965-born players. That's the Yzerman, Roy, Lemieux X2, Hasek and al. year.

Excluding those 5 players, I have 92 players in so far (with no one older than Babe Dye making it -- I'll do that part later on). That means I'll probably be slightly above 120 when all is said and done and will have to do a first trim. I don't expect any player born after 1989 (that is, Drew Doughty DOB) to make it to my shortlist. No saying Doughty makes it, but I can't see anyone younger than him make it.

You'll realize you'll run out of room, fast. Like, right now, I'm wondering if putting Grant Fuhr on the shortlist was a mistake.
 

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