quoipourquoi
Goaltender
Jack Darragh is on my list. Not saying he's a better hockey player than Nighbor, but I find his goal-scoring - both in terms of numbers and timing - to be extremely impressive. Am I wrong?
Jack Darragh is on my list. Not saying he's a better hockey player than Nighbor, but I find his goal-scoring - both in terms of numbers and timing - to be extremely impressive. Am I wrong?
Each to his own and all, but...
I'm quite likely to have Doug Gilmour in my Top-60. Going from there, I'm wondering how far Sidney Crosby can be from Doug Gilmour. Gilmour had more Connie Smythe-like runs for 3 rounds+ than Crosby, and definitely has a longevity advantage, but Crosby isn't trailing badly anymore in that regard... And Crosby is definitely a better player than Gilmour.
And now, is Crosby even the best "active" playoff player?
Each to his own and all, but...
I'm quite likely to have Doug Gilmour in my Top-60. Going from there, I'm wondering how far Sidney Crosby can be from Doug Gilmour. Gilmour had more Connie Smythe-like runs for 3 rounds+ than Crosby, and definitely has a longevity advantage, but Crosby isn't trailing badly anymore in that regard... And Crosby is definitely a better player than Gilmour.
And now, is Crosby even the best "active" playoff player?
I'd love to participate in this poll, but I remain woefully ignorant about the pre-war era, so I do not feel qualified.
Don't let it scare you off. We'll probably see a wide-range of names in people's Round 1 lists.
Points of discussion:
1. Which players that never won the Cup were the best playoff performers?
2. Which players that didn't play for perennial powers (or didn't play there long) were the best playoff performers?
3. Are there any players worth considering who had many good showings but without an obviously defining run?
Because that makes for interesting discussions :
1 - On my 126 names shortlist, only Norm Ullman, Pat Stapleton, John Vanbiesbrouck and Daniel Brière never won the Cup. None of them look like strong candidates, with the strongest being... eh, Stapleton because he played D. Some others won cups as spare parts/out of their primes, though, like Cooney Weiland and Fleming MacKell. There might not be enough room for MacKell when all is said and done (I can say he's definitely the best playoff performer amongst 1929-born skaters... key word being skater) but he might just be the player with the biggest discrepancy between RS resume and PO resume.
Another possibility might be Brad Park. He was the 5th highest playoff scorer of the 1970s, and by far the highest scoring defenseman of that decade. He was one point away from tying for the lead in scoring in 1978. I doubt he makes the top sixty, but I`d imagine he`d be in the top 120 (this is coming from someone who isn`t putting together his own list though).
Points of discussion:
1. Which players that never won the Cup were the best playoff performers?
2. Which players that didn't play for perennial powers (or didn't play there long) were the best playoff performers?
3. Are there any players worth considering who had many good showings but without an obviously defining run?
Jack Darragh is on my list. Not saying he's a better hockey player than Nighbor, but I find his goal-scoring - both in terms of numbers and timing - to be extremely impressive. Am I wrong?
Points of discussion:
1. Which players that never won the Cup were the best playoff performers?
2. Which players that didn't play for perennial powers (or didn't play there long) were the best playoff performers?
3. Are there any players worth considering who had many good showings but without an obviously defining run?
But you have to have won it at some point IMO.
That's the thing. To me, Gilmour stands head and shoulders above Crosby in playoffs, despite the latter's Smythe (which was probably the weakest Smythe ever). This is where eyetest crushes stats. Gilmour was on the level that Crosby never sniffed. Same goes for Fedorov, Claude Lemieux, and many others.
I'd love to participate in this poll, but I remain woefully ignorant about the pre-war era, so I do not feel qualified.
Especially when it comes to the playoffs, and most especially with players on championship teams or teams that often made deep runs, I would tend to almost dismiss point-totals. Really, who cares?
I mean, of course top scorers are still expected to be top scorers in the playoffs and in most cases they are (cases where they far exceed or disappoint expectations should, of course, be taken into consideration). I'm not really bothered to know how many PPG runs Denis Savard has, for example -- it's not really important. What's important is: How much did the individual player contribute to the team's success each playoff round? There is such a thing as team play, after all. Sometimes a team's strategy is to direct checking attention away from a certain player and onto another; sometimes a team's strategy for 3 games or for 5 games is to shut-down the opposition.
I dunno, it's tough to put much faith in statistics in this context, I think. Still interesting, though...
I currently have only Norm Ullman, as a non Cup-winner, on my shortlist. Unlikely he'll make my top 60. My thinking, if you haven't won a Cup how do you make this list? Now, many players will make my top-60 based on performances when they didn't win, Gilmour being a prime example. But you have to have won it at some point IMO.
I feel the same up to a certain time period. I think you should have been expected to win the cup with a lesser number of teams. I'd stretch this even up to about the mid 90's, when there were essentially 21 teams, not including expansion teams. And no salary cap.
Brian Propp becomes interesting here. He basically retired right before your cutoff date.
Made the SCFinals 5 times, which is more than any non Oiler or Isle during that time. His teams just ran into better teams come the time of the Finals.
I don't have any strict cutoff. I loosely used the mid 90's, but I could've used any date around that time or even before. What I wanted to get at was the degree to which I would have expected a top playoff performer or top player to have won a cup in the past would be greatly, greatly higher than it is now.