Well done. You have just demonstrated how close they actually were offensively at even strength. Balon peaked a little higher as a goalscorer, but Nevin had a longer peak and was a somewhat better playmaker (though he wasn't that great a playmaker, himself). I don't think Nevin's production in his "lesser years" makes much difference here. You don't draft Bob Nevin for the time he spent in Los Angeles, but that is exactly what a large part of your earlier analysis (and my frustration) depended upon (three of Nevin's seven scoring finishes above your magical 47 point barrier were in LA, and were not significant scoring numbers for the time).
The "magical" 47-point barrier was established by the 3rd-best point total of Balon's career, with the better two coming post-expansion, just like Nevin's, including a 72-point season in his late 30s, which IS significant.
The only way that they are "close" offensively at even strength, is if you completely cut off all but their three best years. this completely fails to penalize Balon for the fact that he was, for lack of a better term, useless offensively aside from a few years. By not penalizing him, you're penalizing Nevin for playing much longer and still scoring more per game and much more overall. Longevity, durability and consistency in a career translates to the same in an ATD season. But yeah, I get it - why would you penalize your own player?
You draft a player for his whole career, and what you get is going to be a spattering of what they did during their career. You might want to believe, for the purposes of this comparison, that only their three best seasons mean anything. The only person who would look at it that way, is the GM who owns Dave Balon. I don't think we need to include the lowest of the lows, but if one guy had seven good seasons and another three, it should matter little that the three that he did have, were comparable to the other guy's three best. he's not close. I could give you plenty of examples of this.
I find your movement towards career numbers as an important criteria when evaluating ATD players in general quite...troubling. Most of the time you sound like you're making hall of fame arguments. Are we really drafting these players for what they did in their 10th best seasons? I understand that consistency is important and do not believe that only a player's absolute peak should be considered when making evaluations, but I am still mostly interested in peak - its quality, consistency and duration - not the seasons on either end of it. You seem to have been slowly moving away from this method - toward favoring players who were less valuable at their peaks, but rather very good for a long time. I recall your pimping of Syd Howe and Dean Prentice in past drafts, and now we have John Bucyk and Bob Nevin.
Right - this, after I just stated that I have
never used career numbers to prove anyone is better than anyone else. Nice one.
You say you're most interested in peak - that much is clear. You say that consistency is important too, but your slanted views on these two players indicates otherwise. No, we don't "draft players for what they did in their 10th-best seasons" - but those 10th-best seasons did happen, and when it comes time to compare Bob Nevin and Dave Balon, it is absolutely relevant to mention that in Nevin's 10th-best season he was 43rd in scoring, and that in Balon's he was 94th.
I never cited career totals in this discussion - though they are relevant, as the players were born within a year of eachother. I could have started with those, but the natural response to that would be, "well, Nevin played forever, so how is that fair?" - I went straight to career averages. Like seriously, if you won't accept that it is impressive to average more per game (both pre- and post-expansion) despite playing in a lot more games, can you say you're objective about these two players?
Honestly, it sounds like you want to use "career numbers" (which I agree are usually crap) as a strawman for consistency and longevity (which are never crap), not to mention just being better on a per-game basis. If a player had a dozen good years, we should always appreciate that he did.
I dunno, seventies...I value consistency, as well, but at what point do we hit diminishing returns? At what point does consistency turn from setting a floor against bad play to setting a ceiling against great play? I think we have some fundamental philosophical differences here, and while you may think I hard sell some players, I find your assumption of correctness as to the standards we all should use in evaluating players at times rather arrogant.
Hey, it's not like I don't back it up. Anyone's methodology should be scrutinized and anyone whose methodology is being scrutinzed should demonstrate its worth.
You do hard sell players - a lot. I mostly stayed quiet on Tom Barrasso/Ed Belfour as a courtesy to you.
The only reason I may appear arrogant at this moment, is because literally EVERY method that any experienced ATD GM would use to judge offensive value in the ATD, points to Nevin being a better overall producer than Balon. I just don't see that you have a leg to stand on there. I can afford to be arrogant on that one.
Comparing Nevin and Balon defensively is hard because they played different defensive roles. There is a general point here that needs to be made about special teams roles in the O6 and expansion eras - something maybe a lot of posters here don't know. Roles were actually much more commonly split in this era. It was quite normal for a player to have responsibilities at even strength that did not carry over into his special teams roles. This era was, in many ways, actually more specialized than modern day hockey, I think in large part because it was commonplace for teams to have as many checking forwards and defensive defensemen as they could possibly want (due to the small number of teams in the league, there were always plenty of this type of player available in the minors), and the best defensive forwards were often spared penalty killing duties for this reason. This started to change in the mid-70's.
Henri Richard and Norm Ullman are probably the best examples of this phenomenon. Both were great two-way players at even strength, and both were barely used as penalty-killers during their primes because it was considered a waste to wear out such great players with penalty killing duties when plugger_x and plugger_y could go in and skate themselves to death for a couple of minutes on the PK and do nearly as good a job as the star, who would then be there to take the first faceoff at even strength. It's unfortunate that we don't have special teams icetime numbers from most of the O6 era because they would shock a lot of people. Stars were simply not often used as penalty killers.
I'm aware of this, but you're right that many people may not think about. Gordie Howe seems to be the only star forward that killed a lot of penalties regularly.
Still, penalty killing is an important component of a player's defensive responsibility - probably about half.
Why is this important to us? Well, because the Bulldog Line falls into this same category for the period in which Balon and Nevin played together in New York. The Rangers coach at the time stacked the Bulldog Line with his best two-way players at even strength, and filled his penalty kill mostly with pluggers. I believe the leading Rangers forward in PK minutes during the relevant period is actually Glen Sather (yeah...the player, who I don't think anyone is going to draft). Now, Bob Nevin was no plugger, but he was getting very light checking duty at even-strength, which is probably why his coach considered it acceptable to use Nevin on the PK.
This all fits into another general problem I have with your use of statistics lately - that being your use of PK icetime as a standard for judging a player's defensive value. This is a reasonable enough standard for modern players, but you seem to apply it equally to the late O6 and expansion eras, and it is simply not appropriate in that context. Nevin's heavy PK icetime was actually something of a stigma in his New York days. Now, I'm not really sure why Nevin wasn't the right wing on the Bulldog Line. He was definitely a better even strength two-way player than the actual right wing of the line, though that guy was an excellent checker.
It was probably just a case of not "loading up" on one line. I think doing so generally gives you diminishing returns compared to putting two of your best on one line, and the other one somewhere else - both offensively and defensively.
As for the use of PK stats, you are misrepresenting my position here. I said myself, that I agree penalty killing is just one component of a player's defensive responsibility, and sometime within the past two weeks I pointed out to LF or BW that I thought he was overusing PK TOI as a proxy for defensive ability. I even said in this very conversation, "penalty killing isn't the sole indicator of defensive ability, but it is a big one." - I stand by that.
At any rate, though, PK icetime for players in this period is a terrible indicator of actual defensive value (I have seen you calling a somewhat fringe player of this time one of the greatest defensive forwards in history because of his inordinate PK icetime) and cannot be taken at anything close to modern face value.
Yes, I was most likely mistaken about that player.
Balon was used as a top even-strength checker everywhere he played in his career. In Montreal, he was the left wing of the Henri Richard line and in New York on the Bulldog Line. I can't say for sure what his role was in Minnesota, but at any rate, Balon's even-strength offense was compiled in a primarily checking role. The same is not true of Bob Nevin at least in New York and for the expansion teams; I can't say how he was used in Toronto. The point here should be obvious. Nevin has more value than Balon as a penalty killer (because he was actually used in that role), but Balon had much greater defensive responsibilities at even strength, which must be taken into account when we compare their production.
Back to offense for a sec - your last statement can easily be turned around on you - considering Henri Richard is no slouch himself, and was possibly the best ES producer of his time, Balon's Montreal numbers look even more mediocre than they are on the surface.
And really, you
have to be referring only to 1964 and 1965, because there's no way someone plays with Henri all year and scores 29 points - as he did in 93 games in 1966 and 1967- right? So he spent two years as a "top checker" in Montreal, and then a couple in New York, and in that specific circumstance he proved to be a very good even strength producer, Aside from that, he has a season as a mediocre scorer (though close to the team lead) on a bad expansion team, and then a bunch of years as basically a depth player.
So no, I am not sold that he really had more defensive responsibility at even strength when full careers are considered. Nevin was on LA when the scouting report wrote that he was
"always assigned to the opposition's most dangerous scorer". They obviously aren't just referring to penalty killing there. That's in addition to all the other glowing praise they threw in, and his longtime coach dubbing him the league's best two-way player. If Balon was a better two-way player in New York, that coach could have said that he was the best two-way player in the league, no? But he singled out Nevin. If Balon was that good defensively, it's likely that it would have been focused on a lot more in those books as well.
You are likely underrating Nevin's time in New York, and you are definitely underestimating his defensive resume from before and after.
