Brian Leetch: very underrated on hfboards?

[egelband]

That shoulder injury really changed his game too. He was a dominant do-everything offensive defenseman when he came up. Then after the injury he became a bit less puck-dominant. He became more well-rounded and probably a better player in general. But a bit less thrilling. That’s how I remember it, at least.

 

[mrhockey193195]

Yes but all of those guys I mentioned were capable of putting up 50, 60 points in the DPE.

I feel excuses get made for Stevens that wouldn't be made for anybody else because he was on Cup-winning teams.

The guy was just a black hole offensively the second half of his career. It's really as simple as that.

If he was elite defensively before that, then he just declined

Last post from me for the night since I doubt we'll change each other's minds.

Stevens didn't decline overnight, he shifted his gameplay and focus. He went from an elite defender and excellent offensive contributor to one of the greatest defenders in history who no longer got any PP time or took any risks in the offensive zone.

And even so, Calling him a black-hole offensively in his latter years might be a bit of stretch. From 1997-98 until 2003-04, Leetch scored 154 EV points in 495 games (0.31 EV PPG), Stevens scored 134 EV points in 515 games (0.26 EV PPG). That's a difference of 4 even strength points a season in Leetch's favor, hardly worthy of calling Stevens a black hole.


EDIT: I'll also note that Stevens is literally my most hated player of all time. The fact that I'm actually defending him in these posts is making my skin crawl. The fact of the matter is, he is absolutely in the same tier as Leetch and many (probably most) historians have him a half-step above (Stevens in the low 20s, Leetch in the mid 20s).

 

[Machinehead]

Last post from me for the night since I doubt we'll change each other's minds.

Stevens didn't decline overnight, he shifted his gameplay and focus. He went from an elite defender and excellent offensive contributor to one of the greatest defenders in history who no longer got any PP time or took any risks in the offensive zone.

And even so, Calling him a black-hole offensively in his latter years might be a bit of stretch. From 1997-98 until 2003-04, Leetch scored 154 EV points in 495 games (0.31 EV PPG), Stevens scored 134 EV points in 515 games (0.26 EV PPG). That's a difference of 4 even strength points a season in Leetch's favor, hardly worthy of calling Stevens a black hole.


EDIT: I'll also note that Stevens is literally my most hated player of all time. The fact that I'm actually defending him in these posts is making my skin crawl. The fact of the matter is, he is absolutely in the same tier as Leetch and many (probably most) historians have him a half-step above (Stevens in the low 20s, Leetch in the mid 20s).

If it makes your skin crawl, just acknowledge that he's Dan Girardi who belongs in prison. Makes my skin feel great!

 

[Bryce Newman]

I think 90% of other fans that talk about Leetch, never actually watched him play the game.

I recall some dumbass saying he was shit in his own zone and completely 1 dimensional.

Sometimes, I find myself wishing I can run into some of these people irl and pound my fist against their faces. Is that too much to ask for, God..?!

They often point to his career plus/minus and say "Eh he was probably not that great defensively". The fact that Leetch finished his career +25 is nothing short of a miracle considering all the awful Ranger teams he played for. Leetch was logging MASSIVE minutes in situations that required his presence on the ice, because he was literally the ONLY player on the team that knew how to play good defense!

Paul Coffey, who was HORRENDOUS defensively, finished his career +298! This is because for most of his career, he played on teams LOADED with talent. Plus/minus tells you nothing of how good a player is defensively. In fact, it can actually MISLEAD you into thinking one player is good and another bad, when the exact opposite is true.

To me PIM (Penalties in Minutes) is a much better way to use as a factor when determining how good a Defenseman was, and Leetch's PIM was extremely low career wise! I always thought Leetch was terrific defensively so it's funny when people say stuff like you said (shit in his own zone). Yeah, these people definitely never watched him play.

Leetch was always breaking plays up with stick, using his body in front to block shots and was rarely caught out of position. Plus he had the most underrated hip-check in the game! I think he's also underrated defensively because of his size. People tend to underrate smaller defensemen, and overrate the bigger guys.

 

[Bryce Newman]

And with all due respect to Ray Bourque and Lidstrom, neither ever came close to having a postseason like Leetch did. Anybody who watched all 23 postseason games that year saw Leetch dominate independently of what Messier did.

Bourque had a lot of playoff flops in Boston after a dominant regular season on contending teams.

Replace Leetch with either one of those guys and the Rangers don't win that 94 Cup. People can talk all they want about how good that team was, and they were good. But they were also aging and playing better teams deeper in the playoffs, and needed Leetch's historic performance to win it all. Bure was playing at an insane level that post season and we needed Leetch to match his dominance in the Final, which he did.

I would take prime Leetch over either of those guys any day, and I don't care if that's a minority opinion or if people think it's just me being a "homer". Because as you said, at their peak neither one could match what Leetch did at his peak. Especially Lidstrom. I've never been as enamored with him as other people here on hfboards seem to be.

49 percent of Coffey’s 37 points in the 1985 playoffs involved Gretzky.

35 percent of Leetch’s 34 points in 1994 points involved Messier

Coffey might technically have the most points ever in one playoff season for a Defenseman, but Leetch's 94 performance will always be the most dominant ever by a Defenseman. And people can try to downplay that all they like, but it remains a true fact. Leetch had 34 points and won the Conn Smythe Trophy. Coffey only had 3 more points playing on literally the greatest team ever assembled.

Not to take anything away from Paul, he was awesome to watch. But Leetch matched what he did AND played terrific defense throughout all 4 rounds, and he did it playing without the greatest player who ever lived. Leetch was just on another level that post season.

 

[Bryce Newman]

I've noticed that on the history of hockey board too. I think one thing that hurts Leetch in the minds of other fans is he doesn't have the longevity some of the other greats like Bourque or Lidstrom had. Also the last time Leetch was on a team that was actually good (save for the short stint with the 2004 Leafs) was when he was 28. It's pretty crazy to think about, the guy basically never played for a good team in his 30s. His Rangers career basically spanned the highest of highs with the Cup in 94 and the lowest of lows with the dark ages.

I mean, he lead the league in points for Defensemen in 2001 and up to that point (and even after), he was consistently good from 1989 onward. His accomplishments were also very diverse and spread out over the course of the entire decade:

1989: Calder Trophy
1992: Norris Trophy
1994: Conn Smythe Trophy
1996: World Cup Gold (Team Captain)
1997: 2nd Norris Trophy
2001: League Leader Points (Defenseman)

2nd in points per game for the decade of the 90s in the regular season, and 1st in points per game in the playoffs for the decade. (Ahead of Bourque!)

To me, that's pretty consistent. It's more that he played on bad teams but how does that hurt him when speaking of Leetch's longevity? It's not like he personally just fell off a cliff. He was surrounded by garbage teams literally from 1998 until the end of his career, save for a brief Toronto stint. But I guess that was your point, right? That the bad teams hurt people's memory of him? I just want it to be clear that Leetch himself didn't just fall off a cliff. In fact Leaf fans still talk about how good he was for their team in 2004, and that was at the end of his career!

 

[LetsGoRangers2021]

Leetch was a guy that, everytime he carried the puck, there was a chance for a goal.

 

[Bryce Newman]

Leetch was a guy that, everytime he carried the puck, there was a chance for a goal.

 

[Bryce Newman]

EDIT: I'll also note that Stevens is literally my most hated player of all time. The fact that I'm actually defending him in these posts is making my skin crawl. The fact of the matter is, he is absolutely in the same tier as Leetch and many (probably most) historians have him a half-step above (Stevens in the low 20s, Leetch in the mid 20s).

From a pure talent perspective, Stevens is not in the same category as Leetch. Would you honestly take a prime Stevens over a prime Leetch? I think it would be ludicrous to say "yes" to that. I don't know how "historians" rate players but I can tell you personally I would take Leetch on my team any day over Stevens and twice on Sunday.

I'll even take it a step further and say there's no other Defenseman PERIOD I would take over Leetch in his prime, with the possible exception of Orr. And that includes Bourque, Lidstrom or whatever other name anyone wants to throw out there. The only edge Stevens had over Leetch was his unique ability to hit players when their heads were down.

If Leetch played on even semi-decent teams the last 8 years of his career, this wouldn't even be a debate, really. That's the primary reason Leetch is ranked lower than he deserves to be, in my opinion.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

He is actually underrated on HFBoards.

It’s the long-standing hockey tradition of “defensemen known for offense are literally Satan”.

The irony of this post is he was underrated defensively, too. Maybe not a shut-down, keep your head up when he’s on ice guy, but good positionally, good at using he’s lower body strength to win battles along the boards against bigger players. Certainly not a defensive reliability.

I’m not old enough to have seen Orr’s heyday, but you may never find a better stretch of play by a defenseman than Leetch in the 93-94 playoffs.

 

[True Blue 96]

In today’s NHL that is two slashing penalties in a matter of 1-2 seconds lol. This guy was getting hacked left and right every time he had the puck. Imagine him in his prime with the rules today. Leetch is criminally underrated because he was loyal to fault. As said before by other posters, if he would’ve left his stats and career most likely would’ve been much higher/longer. However don’t think he ever cared about that. He wanted to be a Ranger for life and it crushed him when he was traded. As far as how the rankings go he will always be knocked down a notch because of the dark ages. This guy a treat to watch day in and day out. His style of play would’ve been successful in any era of hockey including today.

 

[mrhockey193195]

If it makes your skin crawl, just acknowledge that he's Dan Girardi who belongs in prison. Makes my skin feel great!

But Girardi is one of my favorite players ever!

I can’t win...

 

[Kodiak]

I've been away from these boards for God knows how long, and when I come back, I have to go right back into my role as resident Leetch fanboy, so here goes...

Leetch is criminally underrated by most hockey fans. He is viewed as a one-dimensional offensive Dman that was weak in his own zone. And he is viewed as a player that could not get it done without Messier.

Let's make a comparison to our current players. Let's look at the attributes that make us marvel at Adam Fox right now: how he distributes the puck, how he uses his vision to break up plays defensively, his ability to create time and space with the puck where none seemingly exists, his ability to hold the offensive blueline against all odds, then bump those attributes up a level. Then add in the dynamic offensive ability of DeAngelo, bump that up several levels, and you are starting to see the type of player Leetch was.

Leetch was able to take control of a game in a way that I have not seen from another Dman since. Even his contemporaries who are viewed more favorably, like Bourque and Chelios, did not have this ability. When you look at those mid-90s teams, which had players like Messier and Gretzky (past their primes, but still with some greatness left), the gameplan of every opposing coach in the playoffs was centered around stopping Brian Leetch.

So what happened? He did have some struggles post-97. The team as a whole went into the dark ages, and he was playing upwards of 30 minutes a night on terrible teams. For reasons I will never understand, +/- was viewed as a useful stat in this time period. He did still have something left in the tank though. In 2000-01, he led all Dmen in points while playing great D. He should have finished at least 2nd in Norris voting, but finished 5th because no one was paying attention to Leetch and the Rangers anymore. With some better teams and better coaches, he would have had some more high-level seasons later in his career.

 

[Edge]

Imagine what Fox is going, with even more offensive talent and roughly double the production.

That was prime Brian Leetch.

 

[McRanger]

Imagine what Fox is going, with even more offensive talent and roughly double the production.

That was prime Brian Leetch.

I'm not sure if Leetch was more talented than Fox (in term of handling the puck or vision or shooting etc) but he was significantly faster and even more importantly able to use his talent at crazy high speeds.

Aside from Coffey, Leetch was the probably the most crazy mobile D since Orr.

I’m not old enough to have seen Orr’s heyday, but you may never find a better stretch of play by a defenseman than Leetch in the 93-94 playoffs.

2nd most points by a D in the playoffs and 6th in PPG. And of course there was the defense.

"Shades of Orr" was how people put it who watched them both. Hard to argue with that.

 

[Bryce Newman]

I've been away from these boards for God knows how long, and when I come back, I have to go right back into my role as resident Leetch fanboy, so here goes...

Leetch is criminally underrated by most hockey fans. He is viewed as a one-dimensional offensive Dman that was weak in his own zone. And he is viewed as a player that could not get it done without Messier.

Let's make a comparison to our current players. Let's look at the attributes that make us marvel at Adam Fox right now: how he distributes the puck, how he uses his vision to break up plays defensively, his ability to create time and space with the puck where none seemingly exists, his ability to hold the offensive blueline against all odds, then bump those attributes up a level. Then add in the dynamic offensive ability of DeAngelo, bump that up several levels, and you are starting to see the type of player Leetch was.

Leetch was able to take control of a game in a way that I have not seen from another Dman since. Even his contemporaries who are viewed more favorably, like Bourque and Chelios, did not have this ability. When you look at those mid-90s teams, which had players like Messier and Gretzky (past their primes, but still with some greatness left), the gameplan of every opposing coach in the playoffs was centered around stopping Brian Leetch.

So what happened? He did have some struggles post-97. The team as a whole went into the dark ages, and he was playing upwards of 30 minutes a night on terrible teams. For reasons I will never understand, +/- was viewed as a useful stat in this time period. He did still have something left in the tank though. In 2000-01, he led all Dmen in points while playing great D. He should have finished at least 2nd in Norris voting, but finished 5th because no one was paying attention to Leetch and the Rangers anymore. With some better teams and better coaches, he would have had some more high-level seasons later in his career.

How the heck do you lead the league in points for a Dman and finish 5th in Norris voting? He was fantastic that year and should've won it. Absolutely agree that Leetch could take control of a game like no other. Bourque may have had the more consistent career but the teams he played on were a big factor in that, and as someone here alluded to he had his share of playoff flops in Boston.

Leetch got it done for his team, and in a big way. And for a good stretch in the 90s he was "the man" as far as Defensemen went, not Bourque. My personal opinion is that from 92 to 01, Leetch was the pre-eminent Defenseman of the NHL. I guess I just get annoyed when people nowadays try to rewrite that fact from history. What a shame the dark ages had to occur. Rangers wasted a good chunk of Leetch's brilliant career.

 

[NickyFotiu]

Last post from me for the night since I doubt we'll change each other's minds.

Stevens didn't decline overnight, he shifted his gameplay and focus. He went from an elite defender and excellent offensive contributor to one of the greatest defenders in history who no longer got any PP time or took any risks in the offensive zone.

And even so, Calling him a black-hole offensively in his latter years might be a bit of stretch. From 1997-98 until 2003-04, Leetch scored 154 EV points in 495 games (0.31 EV PPG), Stevens scored 134 EV points in 515 games (0.26 EV PPG). That's a difference of 4 even strength points a season in Leetch's favor, hardly worthy of calling Stevens a black hole.


EDIT: I'll also note that Stevens is literally my most hated player of all time. The fact that I'm actually defending him in these posts is making my skin crawl. The fact of the matter is, he is absolutely in the same tier as Leetch and many (probably most) historians have him a half-step above (Stevens in the low 20s, Leetch in the mid 20s).

Stevens and Leetch are both underrated by some young posters. Both should fall in the top 9-20 defense of all time range. Both were dominant #1 Dmen in their prime. Neither were as good as Ray Bourque but Ray Bourque was as good as anyone. Injuries and bad teams hurt Leetch but when healthy he was great offensively and defensively. Also an underrated hip checker.

 

[cwede]

i wouldn't waste a second breath on the correcting or influencing opinions of posters at HFB.
Why care?
Most posters bring their own biases, influenced by what they happen to have seen or heard or read.
People who post here do not reflect the hockey industry, or even the full population of hockey fans.
The merely reflect the subset of folks who are motivated to engage online re hockey topics, dominated by those who like to express strong opinions.
A weird corner of the universe, and basically irrelevant in the wider world

 

[Backstreets Back]

As others mentioned, a lot of people hold the opinion that scoring dman = bad defensively. You've seen it more recently with Karlsson. In Ottawa he was decent/above average defensively, nothing great at all but people legitimately thought he was awful. Leetch was much better defensively than him and peaked higher from an offensive standpoint.

Most were also too young to see him play although that can be said for nearly all pre lockout players considering the average poster age.

And lastly, because he played for the Rangers. People simply don't like New York and they don't like this team. Our players will always be held to much higher standards than somebody who plays in the middle of nowhere. You can see it now with Fox. "O he's good but he's no Makar, Werenski, Sergachev, etc." LOL

 

[Barnaby]

He is actually underrated on HFBoards.

It’s the long-standing hockey tradition of “defensemen known for offense are literally Satan”.

unless they are super young and get futures points... OD 27 or older are trash

 

[Bryce Newman]

As others mentioned, a lot of people hold the opinion that scoring dman = bad defensively. You've seen it more recently with Karlsson. In Ottawa he was decent/above average defensively, nothing great at all but people legitimately thought he was awful. Leetch was much better defensively than him and peaked higher from an offensive standpoint.

Most were also too young to see him play although that can be said for nearly all pre lockout players considering the average poster age.

And lastly, because he played for the Rangers. People simply don't like New York and they don't like this team. Our players will always be held to much higher standards than somebody who plays in the middle of nowhere. You can see it now with Fox. "O he's good but he's no Makar, Werenski, Sergachev, etc." LOL

Good point about the anti-NY bias. I really do think that plays a big part in it.

i wouldn't waste a second breath on the correcting or influencing opinions of posters at HFB.
Why care?
Most posters bring their own biases, influenced by what they happen to have seen or heard or read.
People who post here do not reflect the hockey industry, or even the full population of hockey fans.
The merely reflect the subset of folks who are motivated to engage online re hockey topics, dominated by those who like to express strong opinions.
A weird corner of the universe, and basically irrelevant in the wider world

It's funny you say that, because most "historians" on hfboards rate Chelios higher than Leetch for some reason. Yet I've seen other platforms on the web where the majority of people posting say Leetch was better. It seems as if, for whatever reason, hfboards has their "favorites" and then they have players in the category of "Lets dump on this guy". Leetch seems to fall into the latter category, for whatever reason.

 

[blue425]

Leetch was a defenseman who could not only put up point, but was in fact not a liability in his own end.

Those defenseman my friends you can count on no more than two hands.

 

[Machinehead]

Imagine what Fox is going, with even more offensive talent and roughly double the production.

That was prime Brian Leetch.

I said this a couple of weeks ago. Fox with 50 powerplay points.

 

[Vitto79]

Pretty sure most view him as the best rangers D of all time

 

[Bryce Newman]

Leetch was a defenseman who could not only put up point, but was in fact not a liability in his own end.

Those defenseman my friends you can count on no more than two hands.

I think Leetch is easily a Top 10 Defenseman of all-time. The only way he wouldn't be on there is often times when people compile "lists" of the best players in NHL history, they feel compelled to put a bunch of players from the prehistoric age there in the interest of "fairness" which bumps great players like Leetch down much further than they should be. Then the people who make these "lists" can say "See how knowledgeable I am? I included a few guys from the 1930s on there!". And by the time they get to Leetch he's at number 20 or whatever lol.