5th Greatest all time

LeBlondeDemon10

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And Guy Lafleur.
I don't know if he was low on Lafleur. The impression I got was that he saw Lafleur for who he was,an offensively gifted player that offered little else. C1958 valued checking, fundamentals and geometry while he seemed to be low on attributes like artistry and improvisation. After all he had 99 at 7th.
 

BenchBrawl

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Jul 26, 2010
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I don't know if he was low on Lafleur. The impression I got was that he saw Lafleur for who he was,an offensively gifted player that offered little else. C1958 valued checking, fundamentals and geometry while he seemed to be low on attributes like artistry and improvisation. After all he had 99 at 7th.

My point was that it's not true that C1958 was uncriticizing of Montreal players.

I don't see what the big deal is with having Gretzky at 7th. I know it made a huge splash but I don't see anything wrong with it from a poster who valued a complete game and the maturation of a player. C1958 defended all his positions and honestly, he persuaded me more often than not or at least brought something to my attention that I hadn't thought about.
 
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Dennis Bonvie

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My point was that it's not true that C1958 was uncriticizing of Montreal players.

I don't see what the big deal is with having Gretzky at 7th. I know it made a huge splash but I don't see anything wrong with it from a poster who valued a complete game and the maturation of a player. C1958 defended all his positions and honestly, he persuaded me more often than not or at least brought something to my attention that I hadn't thought about.

He had Patrick Roy at 24th.

Roy's lowest ranking.
 
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overpass

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I think the biggest issue I have with Harvey is when you look at Montreal's 49-50 through 53-54 seasons, basically Harvey's first full 5 seasons, his age-25 through 29 years, that also represent Maurice Richard's age 28 through 32 seasons. The point I'm trying to make is that you have 5 consecutive years of prime Harvey+M. Richard, two players who at the very worst are top 20 of all time, in what really is a weak era for hockey beyond Detroit, and Montreal's yearly goal differentials for those 5 years were +22, -11, +31, +7, and +54. Over that period, Montreal was -1 vs Boston, -40 vs Detroit, -4 vs Toronto, +83 vs Chicago, and +65 vs New York.

That +54 season corresponds to Beliveau's first partial season, and the next time Montreal had a goal differential lower than +31 was the 64-65 season. If you look at Montreal's yearly goal differential against each team in Beliveau's 8 year peak from 54-55 through 61-62, an even differential against Detroit in 54-55 and Chicago in 60-61, as well as a -3 against Boston in 56-57 are the only blemishes in their positive goal differentials over the entire period. Perhaps even more impressive, of those 37 positive goal differentials, only 8 were in single digits. Now part of that was all the talent in Montreal beyond Beliveau - your Plantes, Geoffrions, Moores, Olmsteads, H. Richards - but the supercharging of the offense that Beliveau provided is the biggest factor.

That's why for me Beliveau has a legitimate argument for #5 all-time, and Harvey and M. Richard get pushed down my list. I still lean Bourque for 5th though, just because of what he did as a #1D for so many years.

You make an interesting point, but your time period doesn't really include 5 years of prime Harvey. Harvey wasn't a postseason all-star until 1951-52, at age 27. In 1949-50 and 1950-51, before Harvey broke out, the Habs were +11, and in 1951-52 through 1953-54 they were +92.

I would also say that while you can say the first half of the 50s was a weak era outside of Detroit, there was still a lot of talent packed into 6 teams, and it was probably harder for 1 or 2 star players to really drive team success in that era compared to post-expansion. 2 top 20 players weren't necessarily enough to be the best team if there wasn't enough depth.

Finally, I know you mention the talent behind Beliveau, but it was really huge for their offence that Moore and Geoffrion joined the team at the same time as him. The 3 best junior players in Canada, all born in 1931, and all #1 pick or better talents. Imagine the Pens drafting Jonathan Toews instead of Jordan Staal to put with Crosby and Malkin -- and imagine one or two of them slide over to wing with no loss in their offensive performance -- and you have an idea of the impact. We all give Sidney Crosby a lot of credit for taking the Pens from the basement to the Cup, but I think we all realize that Malkin, Staal, and others had a lot to do with it. Just like the Habs may not have won 5 Cups in a row with a dominant offence if Beliveau had Dick Gamble and Paul Meger on his wings instead of Bernie Geoffrion and Dickie Moore.

Edit: To take the Pens comparison a little further, criticizing Richard and Harvey for the lack of team success in the early 50s could be compared to criticizing Jagr and Lemieux for not taking the Penguins further in the mid to late 90s. Depth matters.
 
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Staniowski

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I think the biggest issue I have with Harvey is when you look at Montreal's 49-50 through 53-54 seasons, basically Harvey's first full 5 seasons, his age-25 through 29 years, that also represent Maurice Richard's age 28 through 32 seasons. The point I'm trying to make is that you have 5 consecutive years of prime Harvey+M. Richard, two players who at the very worst are top 20 of all time, in what really is a weak era for hockey beyond Detroit, and Montreal's yearly goal differentials for those 5 years were +22, -11, +31, +7, and +54. Over that period, Montreal was -1 vs Boston, -40 vs Detroit, -4 vs Toronto, +83 vs Chicago, and +65 vs New York.

That +54 season corresponds to Beliveau's first partial season, and the next time Montreal had a goal differential lower than +31 was the 64-65 season. If you look at Montreal's yearly goal differential against each team in Beliveau's 8 year peak from 54-55 through 61-62, an even differential against Detroit in 54-55 and Chicago in 60-61, as well as a -3 against Boston in 56-57 are the only blemishes in their positive goal differentials over the entire period. Perhaps even more impressive, of those 37 positive goal differentials, only 8 were in single digits. Now part of that was all the talent in Montreal beyond Beliveau - your Plantes, Geoffrions, Moores, Olmsteads, H. Richards - but the supercharging of the offense that Beliveau provided is the biggest factor.

That's why for me Beliveau has a legitimate argument for #5 all-time, and Harvey and M. Richard get pushed down my list. I still lean Bourque for 5th though, just because of what he did as a #1D for so many years.
There's a very big difference, though, between the Habs of the first half of the '50s and the Habs of the 2nd half of the '50s.

They were generally the NHL's 2nd best team in the first half, and they had substantially more talent - and players at their best - in the 2nd half.
 

plusandminus

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I think it's so sad that this thread with an interesting topic goes so off-topic. Why can't we have separate threads about the validity of save percentage, the usage of cocain, and Gordie Howe's family's economical situation? All those three subjects seem interesting enough to validate separate threads, and I personally find the save percentage discussion interesting.

I was about to comment upon a great post by @CzechYourMath, and another post about the candidates for 5th place, but they have already sort of drowned among the other 700+ posts here.

(If this post of mine is off-topic or invalid, just delete my post. No offense meant and no break of rules intended.)
 

tinyzombies

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Overlooked in these posts were the raves about Harvey's coaching abilities when he went to NY. That, along with his presence on the ice, would account for the drop in GA, which also speaks to his hockey sense.
 

tinyzombies

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Then feel free to jump in weekly when somone on "your side" of the debate posts comparisons like they did with Crosby/Beliveau earlier in this thread.



It is less likely that a smaller talent pool would produce the best defender of all-time for really obvious reasons but it doesn't mean it's impossible. The point is EVERYONE here must compare said player with his own peers because those are the only guys he was on the ice with. So if the talent pool is really smaller than it is even more likely that overall there will be less great players pushing the limits, which will reflect in these peer to peer comparisons one must take part in as a starting point for every era. We get into questions like how much did they dominate their peers so we must scrutinize their peers they dominated. Were Fetisov's peers and main top competition at the top in the RSL top quality? Probably not when compared with todays NHL. Were Harvey's? I'd say it's a similar answer.



I think Lidstrom has more of an argument for top 5 and top 10 than Harvey. I already explained why I brought up Lidstrom/Harvey and it's because it's probably the best example of what I'm talking about with these cross era comparisions that are clearly favouring the o6 guys when they shouldn't be.



# 1 is just about peoples perception and labelling it as such. In reality Harvey was the best of his era, Orr the best of his, followed by Bourque and then Lidstrom. The problem for you is that the NHL clearly got better, deeper, bigger, and more diverse over time so these feats and eras aren't all equal and only Orr dominated his peers in a different stratosphere than the other three.

# 2 Kelly pretty consistently outscored Harvey early on and all 4 generations of top defeseman listed above at least drove their teams offense in a similar way, too. Obviously, again, Orr brought it to a diferent level but they all surpassed Harvey in offensive production. Harvey had arguably the best centre, goalie, group of wingers, a Norris guy playing behind him, and the best coach. There was a lot more to the 5 Cups than just one guy and the O6 had what, 2 or 3 teams a season who could seriously challenge? Again, it's more like Fetisov's RSL teams than what the NHL is now.

The game got faster and the players bigger and better, etc., but so did Lidstrom's teammates.
 

wetcoast

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Standing around probably.

But seriously, the elder Richard was a legend before Harvey ever showed up, and the younger Richard and Beliveau were long after he was gone.

Geoffrion definitely has some right place, right time vibe to him. Moore had an injury-plagued career and is one of the more enigmatic players to evaluate IMO. But these two are accordingly held in lesser esteem than those other names.

Yet Moore somehow found his way onto the top 100 list at 68 for basically 5 relevant full seasons and some good playoffs on a dynasty.

Had he played for the NYR or Black Hawks he wouldn't have even been in the conversation.

Even Geoffrion at 53 seems way too generous really.

But this is all the product of having a dominant team in a 6 team league and SC counting at the end IMO.
 

Dennis Bonvie

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Yet Moore somehow found his way onto the top 100 list at 68 for basically 5 relevant full seasons and some good playoffs on a dynasty.

Had he played for the NYR or Black Hawks he wouldn't have even been in the conversation.

Even Geoffrion at 53 seems way too generous really.

But this is all the product of having a dominant team in a 6 team league and SC counting at the end IMO.

There are only 15 multiple Art Ross winners.

Moore is one of them.
 
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wetcoast

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There are only 15 multiple Art Ross winners.

Moore is one of them.


Sure but he was 8th and 5th in Hart voting those years.

I wasn't alive so the weight of only 5 relevant seasons and those Hart results, man McDavid probably passed him in 2018 or 2019 forsure.
 
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Nathaniel

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Hard to put Beliveau over Crosby when sid has matched him and in a much deeper league. Take out Europeans and Crosby has 4 art ross trophies and that’s with his injuries
 
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wetcoast

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The subject was biased in favor of the 1950's Canadiens.

Gretzky 6th and Mario 5th. Lack of defensive play did not sit well with him.

Even then Gretzky at 6th all time is such a wacky choice no matter the reasoning.

I can't even think of anything in hockey terms as wacky as perhaps the fellow that mentioned Dave Keon being better than Crosby upthread.
 

ChiTownPhilly

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For more on the fifteen HoH Panelists who lifted Bobby Hull, post-discussion:
User, of course, is User-name.
Aggy List Rank=placement of Bobby Hull on initial submitted list of 120.
Inference Rank Vote 2=Presumed overall rank, after discussion-period & Round 2/Vote 2.
At the Primary Expense of...=the player, formerly ranked ahead of Bobby Hull, who was shuffled back the most, after the thread-conversation period was over. [In most cases, it's just one modest spot. Still, it counts.]


UserAggy List RankInference Rank Vote 2At the Primary Expense of...
@bobholly39 128Dominik Hašek
@ResilientBeast 127Maurice Richard
@seventieslord 1110Eddie Shore
@TheDevilMadeMe 108Howie Morenz
@BenchBrawl 107Doug Harvey
@Sentinel 98Maurice Richard
Canadiens1958†87Maurice Richard
@kruezer 86Jean Béliveau
@Johnny Engine 76Doug Harvey
@Batis76Dominik Hašek
@Hockey Outsider 76Maurice Richard
@The Macho Man 75Maurice Richard
@ted2019 65Doug Harvey
(fka) Art of Sedinery65Jean Béliveau
@Kyle McMahon 65Doug Harvey
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
This is a big element in the "how" of Bobby Hull's ascent to Number 5, overall. It makes no attempt to address the "why" of the matter. That would be best explained by The Panelists... but I have some speculation(s)- which might be a topic for a later post.
 
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Dennis Bonvie

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Sure but he was 8th and 5th in Hart voting those years.

I wasn't alive so the weight of only 5 relevant seasons and those Hart results, man McDavid probably passed him in 2018 or 2019 forsure.

Hart voting wasn't the same as it is today, as I'm sure you know.

For the record. I had McDavid ranked 84th, Moore 94th.
 

Dennis Bonvie

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Even then Gretzky at 6th all time is such a wacky choice no matter the reasoning.

I can't even think of anything in hockey terms as wacky as perhaps the fellow that mentioned Dave Keon being better than Crosby upthread.

Much like the Hart voting being different in the original 06 era, Keon was a more valuable players than the simple numbers would indicate.

That said, having him as a better player than Crosby is rather ridiculous.
 

wetcoast

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Hart voting wasn't the same as it is today, as I'm sure you know.

For the record. I had McDavid ranked 84th, Moore 94th.

True enough about the hart voting but he was still behind 2 team mates and 3 NYR players in 58.

In 59 he was still behind one of his team mates in Jean Beliveau.

His multiple Art Ross trophies in only 5 relevant seasons don't give him that much of a bump, nor should they.

Many players behind him on the list are really much more deserving.

I also know that you are a peak guy so McDavid, even at that time, makes sense.
 

Kyle McMahon

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Then feel free to jump in weekly when somone on "your side" of the debate posts comparisons like they did with Crosby/Beliveau earlier in this thread.

The first mention I saw of a Beliveau/Crosby debate was somebody suggesting Crosby's awards profile was superior to Beliveau's. I offered a rebuttal to that claim. Not sure what you're trying to get at here.

It is less likely that a smaller talent pool would produce the best defender of all-time for really obvious reasons but it doesn't mean it's impossible. The point is EVERYONE here must compare said player with his own peers because those are the only guys he was on the ice with. So if the talent pool is really smaller than it is even more likely that overall there will be less great players pushing the limits, which will reflect in these peer to peer comparisons one must take part in as a starting point for every era. We get into questions like how much did they dominate their peers so we must scrutinize their peers they dominated. Were Fetisov's peers and main top competition at the top in the RSL top quality? Probably not when compared with todays NHL. Were Harvey's? I'd say it's a similar answer.

It would seem Fetisov's peers in the 80s Soviet league were indeed top quality, as backed up by their international results against all the other stars in the world. Unless you think his NHL career is an indicator that the Soviet stars weren't all they were cracked up to be and just dominated a weak league. I don't think that's the case, but it wouldn't be a unique opinion.


I think Lidstrom has more of an argument for top 5 and top 10 than Harvey. I already explained why I brought up Lidstrom/Harvey and it's because it's probably the best example of what I'm talking about with these cross era comparisions that are clearly favouring the o6 guys when they shouldn't be.

Has Harvey really had any steadfast support as the #5 all time player in this thread? If he has, I missed it (possible with 30 pages). If you think Lidstrom has a claim, it probably would have made more sense to argue that he was better than Beliveau, Crosby, or Hasek, who seem to be more popular choices.

# 1 is just about peoples perception and labelling it as such. In reality Harvey was the best of his era, Orr the best of his, followed by Bourque and then Lidstrom. The problem for you is that the NHL clearly got better, deeper, bigger, and more diverse over time so these feats and eras aren't all equal and only Orr dominated his peers in a different stratosphere than the other three.

Well it certainly got bigger and more diverse. What constitutes better and deeper will vary from person to person.

# 2 Kelly pretty consistently outscored Harvey early on and all 4 generations of top defeseman listed above at least drove their teams offense in a similar way, too. Obviously, again, Orr brought it to a diferent level but they all surpassed Harvey in offensive production. Harvey had arguably the best centre, goalie, group of wingers, a Norris guy playing behind him, and the best coach. There was a lot more to the 5 Cups than just one guy and the O6 had what, 2 or 3 teams a season who could seriously challenge? Again, it's more like Fetisov's RSL teams than what the NHL is now.

Never claimed Harvey was the best offensive defenseman, just that he did it very well and in a different manner than a puck rusher. And like many great players of any era, he had a lot of help around him. Whether the 1950s NHL more closely resembles the 2020 NHL or the 1980s Soviet league is a question I don't have an answer for. All 3 entities were vastly different.
 

Kyle McMahon

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May 10, 2006
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Yet Moore somehow found his way onto the top 100 list at 68 for basically 5 relevant full seasons and some good playoffs on a dynasty.

Had he played for the NYR or Black Hawks he wouldn't have even been in the conversation.

Even Geoffrion at 53 seems way too generous really.

But this is all the product of having a dominant team in a 6 team league and SC counting at the end IMO.

If you want a clearer idea of how Moore and Geoffrion ended up where they did on the list you reference, I'd recommend the associated discussion threads. It's not like it's some cloak and dagger mystery.
 
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