psycat
Registered User
- Oct 25, 2016
- 3,245
- 1,152
The only one of these points that's legit is the number of Norris trophies. The rest are team-accomplishments or things contextualized by strength of team (i.e., "captaining team to a Cup").
But let's see:
Number of 1st/2nd team All Stars = Bourque (19 to 12)
Calder trophy = Bourque
Times leading team in scoring = Bourque
Career plus/minus = Bourque
It's not taking anything away from Lidstrom to simply point out that for his entire career, he was playing on deep, often 'All Star' teams. By contrast, Bourque led a team to the Finals where the top scorers (besides him) were past-prime Ken Linseman and Steve Kasper.
Was Bourque caught out of position more often than Lidstrom? Yes, because he had to play both the leading offense and the leading defence positions on his team. Yet, he still ends up with a better plus/minus.
They're very close, but I'd take Bourque.
But still everybody rank Crosby ahead of Ovechkin because of team accomplishments. And alot of people seems to give those early Habs players all credit in the world for their team accomplishments on mega stacked teams in a small league.