Batis
Registered User
I'm just going to come out and say that I think it's impossible to rank PK'ers 1 to whatever, and it is more appropriate to rank them in tiers. Can we really conclusively say that one era's PK'ers were better than any other's? They all had the same job - stop their respective era's top offensive players from scoring on the PP. Who are we to say any one specific group was better than any other?
Dillon, Toppazzini, Nevin, Marshall, Westfall, Ramsay, Gainey, Ward, etc. would all likely occupy that first tier. Ace Bailey might even make it there. Maybe you give an edge to the Westfalls, Ramsays, etc. because they are more known commodities, but I'm not even sure that's really fair. Then you need to go further back and start talking about the Crawfords, Phillips, Westwicks, etc., and I'm probably missing a lot of obvious ones. And how about the international greats? Makarov, Krutov and Martinec would all likely end up in that top tier, or at the very worst, in the next tier below.
Jiří Holík definitely belongs in the top group of international PK greats as well no matter if they belong in the top tier or the next tier below. In fact I would say that Holík is the greatest Czechoslovakian penalty killer and also has a strong case for being the greatest penalty killer from the Eastern Bloc. In that categorie I would say that Makarov is his main competition for the top spot. Here below are Holiks shorthanded ice time finishes from the available tournaments.
WHC 1967: 1st
WOG 1968: -
WHC 1969: 2nd
WHC 1970: 1st
WHC 1972: 1st
Post Summit Series 1972: 5th
WOG 1976: 1st
Canada Cup 1976*: 1st
WHC 1977: 5th
It is also worth noticing that his 2nd place finish at the 1969 WHC was a performance every bit as strong or perhaps even stronger than many of his 1st place finishes since Holík and 1st placed Ševčík (along with Suchý) completely carried the Czechoslovakian penalty kill during that tournament and both of them had far more than twice as much shorthanded ice time as the 3rd placed forward Jaroslav Holík. Considering that Jiří Holík did so well both during the 1967-1972 and 1976-1977 time frames it seems reasonable to assume that he also did well in 1973-1975. It seems likely that he did reasonably well in 1964-1966 as well. Add all of this together and it is likely that Holíks longevity as a top notch penalty killer surpassed that of any Soviet PK great. Even without speculating about the 1964-1966 time frame the time frame during which Holík was one of very greatest Czechoslovakian penalty killers compares very well to that of any of the Soviet greats as evident by his first 1st place finish coming in 1967 and his last in 1976.
Now I personally don't think that Holík peaked quite as high as Makarov and Krutov did in the mid-late 80's (unless he had such a peak in 1973-1975) but that his combination of a still very high peak and incredible longevity as a top notch penalty killer gives him a strong case for being the greatest penalty killer from the Eastern Bloc. The main argument against Holík could perhaps be that it is possible that the competition among Czechoslovakian penalty killing forwards was on a somewhat lower level than among Soviet forwards. Even if this would be true Holík still definitely belongs very near the top of the greatest penalty killers from the Eastern Bloc.
In case anyone is interested in how Martinec did here you have his shorthanded ice time finishes.
WHC 1970: -
WHC 1972: 3rd
Post Summit Series 1972: 3rd
WOG 1976: 2nd
Canada Cup 1976*: Tied for 2nd
WHC 1977: 1st
WHC 1978: 1st
WHC 1979: 3rd
WOG 1980: - (Got injured before the first shorthanded shift in the available game)
WHC 1981: Tied for 4th
One thing worth noting is that from the majority of these tournaments we only have 1 or 2 available games which means that it is far from certain that the shorthanded ice time numbers perfectly mirrors what happened the whole tournament. This was a problem in the Soviet study as well but far less so than in the Czechoslovakian study since there are far less available games with Czechoslovakia. One example of this problem is that I personally believe that Martinec likely led the 1979 WHC in shorthanded ice time over the whole tournament but since he was in the box during 1 of the 4 boxplays in the available game he ended up 3rd in shorthanded ice time just 5 seconds behind the leaders. So I personally make mental adjustments between the shorthanded ice time finishes and the eye-test when I rank the players.
It is clear that Martinec was a outstanding penalty killer as evident by him being top 3 in shorthanded ice time during every available tournament between 1972 and 1979. That is some truly great consistency right there. With that said I don't think that he quite measures up to the Holík/Makarov level of penalty killing even if he definitely belongs near the top.
* Since the video quality from first part of the USSR-CSSR game at the 1976 Canada Cup makes it impossible to estimate the ice times I have only included the shifts from the second half of that game. From that tournament we also fortunately have 3 full games against Canada.
It would be really interesting to do a top PK'ers project. In fact I think I'd like to do that if enough people are interested.
I am definitely interested in joining such a project even if I have much to learn about the top penalty killers of the NHL especially pre WW-2. But I guess skimming through ATD-bios can teach me much about the subject.
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