Conn Smythe Winners - Tiers (1980-Present)

[sr edler]

It's also a matter of how reliant the Ducks were on defense, compared to the Canes. In 2003, Anaheim scored 2.14 goals per game in the playoffs (and allowed 1.90). In 2006, Carolina scored 2.92 goals per game (and allowed 2.40). Ward was able to benefit from a pretty good offense, while Giguere didn't, and he only had a tiny margin for error.

Yeah, but all teams scored less in 2003 than they did 2006. I remember vividly how Minny in 03 more or less built their whole game plan on Gaborik's speed and hoping he would light the lamp enough to squeeze by teams by 2-1 or 1-0 or 3-2 type of scores. Tail end of the DPE as it was. When he dried up against Anaheim they couldn't muster squeezing more ketchup out of the bottle.

 

[c9777666]

One other thing about 2003 Giguere that should be pointed out- they didn't have a big margin for error.

Not just the roster, but they won a LOT of close games. Only 2 of Anaheim's 12 playoff wins in the West were decided by more than 1 goal (Games 2 and 3 against Minnesota, and one of those was a 2-0 game with 2 shorthanded goals. Giguere's only real easy win was by a 4-0 margin).

All of their wins vs. Detroit/Dallas were 1-goal games. 4 of them were in OT.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

You're not giving Brad Richards nearly enough love. He had one of the most clutch postseasons of all time. NHL record 7 game winning goals in the postseason. To put that in perspective, the NHL record for an entire regular season is 16, he managed nearly half that in 23 playoff games. Your argument that a couple of the GWG weren't important because they were early in the game is pretty silly, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 Finals game is as important as it gets.

During the 2003-04 season, the Lightning were 31-0-2 when Richards scored a goal, 9-0 in the postseason. It was just one of those magic years when everything fell into place for him.

And talk about clutch, with the Lightning facing elimination in Game 6 of the finals, he scores the only two goals in regulation for the Lightning, bringing it to overtime before Marty St. Louis wins it (assisted by Richards of course).

Give Richards some credit, he might not have been able to sustain it his whole career, but for this one year everything he touched was gold.

 

[Boxscore]

Great post Hockey Outsider, the only one that I would seriously disagree with is Hextall in 1987.

After that series, Gretzky said that Hextall was the "best goalie he ever faced" and Hextall was a main reason the Flyers took the high-powered Oil machine to 7 games (without Tim Kerr mind you!!)

In the summer I was working on a project with Mark Howe, Brian Propp and Doug Crossman and they were telling me how after Game 7, Gretzky asked Bobby Clarke if he could come into the Flyers locker room and talk to the players. Gretzky came in and told the Flyers to keep their heads up high because they never quit... to the point where the Oilers feared they were going to lose the series.

Brian Propp said that he was talking to Paul Coffey at the Canada Cup and he was saying the Oilers were scared to death of Hextall because when he was in a zone he could lock the game down.

As an aside, Mark Howe said what Gretzky did could have been the classiest thing he's ever seen an athlete do. He also went on to say that when Gretzky was at his dad's (Gordie's) Memorial Service, he was the last one there and helped the Howe boys clean up and put the chairs on the top of the tables, etc. He said Gretzky is just all-around class.

 

[daver]

This doesn't change the tier but if Crosby did not meet expectations offensively in 2016 he should have exceeded expectations defensively and expectations for offense could have been muted a bit given the HBK line was given the team's offensive role at ES almost exclusively. He was the centrepiece for a team designed to roll three lines and play a puck possession game. Like the 2014 Olympics, he played this role very well and stepped up in key games and moments especially in the last two rounds.

As for his plus/minus being relevant, he was -3 in Game 1 of the Caps series and in no way was responsible for any of those goals.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

You're not giving Brad Richards nearly enough love. He had one of the most clutch postseasons of all time. NHL record 7 game winning goals in the postseason. To put that in perspective, the NHL record for an entire regular season is 16, he managed nearly half that in 23 playoff games. Your argument that a couple of the GWG weren't important because they were early in the game is pretty silly, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 Finals game is as important as it gets.

During the 2003-04 season, the Lightning were 31-0-2 when Richards scored a goal, 9-0 in the postseason. It was just one of those magic years when everything fell into place for him.

And talk about clutch, with the Lightning facing elimination in Game 6 of the finals, he scores the only two goals in regulation for the Lightning, bringing it to overtime before Marty St. Louis wins it (assisted by Richards of course).

Give Richards some credit, he might not have been able to sustain it his whole career, but for this one year everything he touched was gold.

I had Richards at the high end of the 3rd tier (along with Yzerman). Definitely a reasonable argument could be made that he's in the lower end of the 2nd tier.

The only part I disagree with (which I talked about in the initial post) is that the GWG statistic isn't always meaningful.

Two of his game winners (April 12th vs Islanders and May 31st vs Flames) were scored in the first five minutes of the first period, and Khabibulin had a shutout. Is the first goal important? Of course, but that's not really what I think about when talking about game-winners (usually you think of an overtime goal, something late in the third period, etc). Or May 18th vs Flyers is another example - he scores to make it 3-0 in the second period, the Flyers mount of comeback that falls short, and that goal (which nobody would have considered clutch at the time) retroactively becomes the game winner.

That's not to say he didn't score important goals (two OT winners, game 6 in the finals as you mentioned - as did in my first post) - just that the argument that he has the all-time record for game-winners doesn't accurately represent what happened on the ice.

In contrast, in 1999 when Nieuwendyk had six game winners, that stat really did show that he scored big goals consistently. (Richards was much better than him overall, though).

One argument in is favour - Richards seemed to be the obvious choice for the Smythe (maybe there were arguments for Khabibulin, St. Louis, or even Iginla, but they'd be fairly weak). Maybe he does belong at the bottom of the 2nd tier after all.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Yeah, but all teams scored less in 2003 than they did 2006. I remember vividly how Minny in 03 more or less built their whole game plan on Gaborik's speed and hoping he would light the lamp enough to squeeze by teams by 2-1 or 1-0 or 3-2 type of scores. Tail end of the DPE as it was. When he dried up against Anaheim they couldn't muster squeezing more ketchup out of the bottle.

That's what I remember as well re Minnesota's game plan. Gaborik had 9 goals and 17 points in 14 games against Colorado and Vancouver, then nothing in the sweep against the Ducks - but he certainly had his chances.

You're right about scoring being a lot higher in 2006 (so my argument wasn't a good one). But I think the point is still true - Anaheim's offense, relative to the other playoff teams, was much weaker than Carolina's. So even though both goalies played behind weak defenses (relative to other SC Finalists), at least Ward had strong offense to support him.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I just can't get behind the idea that Giguere's 2003 was better than Malkin's 2009 or Sakic's 1996 when Giguere was so mediocre in the finals.

But maybe it's recall bias - as a Devils' fan the finals are what I remember most.

 

[MXD]

Giguere's GSAA (Worth what it's worth, but nice illustrative value here) is about 2.5 times better than Ward's in 2006 (while scoring as a whole was lower!) and Carolina's offense was the 3rd in the NHL for 2006.

Ward was absolutely great against Montreal, whose offense was 20th in the NHL that season. But he was basically league average in rounds 2, 3 or 4. In other words, Ward played like a legit starter, no more no less, against teams actual playoff teams (and was godly against a team whose offence AND defence was below league-median). Playing against mediocre teams is a benefit of having a great RS -- but that was round 1, and the Hurricanes won 4 rounds.

 

[MXD]

I just can't get behind the idea that Giguere's 2003 was better than Malkin's 2009 or Sakic's 1996 when Giguere was so mediocre in the finals.

But maybe it's recall bias - as a Devils' fan the finals are what I remember most.

Well, had he been worse in rounds 1 to 3, you would have absolutely no memories of him, because there's no way the Ducks would've made it to the Stanley Cup.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Well, had he been worse in rounds 1 to 3, you would have absolutely no memories of him, because there's no way the Ducks would've made it to the Stanley Cup.

Oh yes I know his first 3 rounds were among the best anyone had ever (though I do think he had a real easy time vs Minnesota).

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Giguere's GSAA (Worth what it's worth, but nice illustrative value here) is about 2.5 times better than Ward's in 2006 (while scoring as a whole was lower!) and Carolina's offense was the 3rd in the NHL for 2006.

Ward was absolutely great against Montreal, whose offense was 20th in the NHL that season. But he was basically league average in rounds 2, 3 or 4. In other words, Ward played like a legit starter, no more no less, against teams actual playoff teams (and was godly against a team whose offence AND defence was below league-median). Playing against mediocre teams is a benefit of having a great RS -- but that was round 1, and the Hurricanes won 4 rounds.

Oh yes. There have been some other Conn Smythes I disagreed with, but Ward was the only one that legit shocked me when it was announced.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

How do people feel about Ryan O'Reilly's Conn Smythe?

My first impression is he'd be solidly in Tier 3 (meaning that he was a fairly typical Conn Smythe winner - solid and deserving, but not an all-time great performance).

The positives are he led the playoffs in scoring (tied), he decisively led the SCF in scoring (9 points - nobody else had more than 6 on either team), and was also great in the decisive game 6 of the WCF.

The negatives are, objectively, 23 points in 26 games isn't overly impressive. He was on the ice for a fair number of ES goals against. And although he was certainly a solid choice, personally I would have given the award to Alex Pietrangelo (I think a case can be made for Jordan Binnington too, but he was to inconsistent for my liking).

 

[Cursed Lemon]

If you place a high value on performance in the finals, it's a tier 3. Otherwise it's a 4.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Strong tier 4, weak tier 3...

 

[VanIslander]

There is no way his performance was on the same tier as Messier in 1984 (i was 15 when Mess awed.us).

So, he must be on tier 4 or lower.
(Or else the young dominant Moose is unjustly listed on the 3rd tier.)

 

[Hockey Outsider]

To play devil's advocate for O'Reilly (a player I'm pretty indifferent to) - you'd have to go back to 1988 to find a player who scored more goals than him in the Stanley Cup finals (though several have tied him). The only players who scored more points in the Stanley Cup finals in a winning cause over the past three decades are Lemieux (1991) and Leetch (1994) - though again, several other players have tied his mark (MacInnis in 1989, Sakic in 2001, and Richards in 2004 - good company obviously).

I wasn't overly impressed by O'Reilly defensively these playoffs (not that he was bad, just not as good as I was expecting) - but maybe his status as a Selke finalist gave him a boost among the voters.

The issue I had with Messier is, even though it was an objectively great performance, I don't think he deserved it over Gretzky. I'm trying to balance how good a player was (objective level of play), with how much they deserved it relative to other players (relative level of play). Messier would rank very high on the first list and, thanks to Gretzky, pretty low on the second one.

 

[JackSlater]

I'd probably lean the low end of three with O'Reilly. Leading scorer, good defence, and his offence (at least in terms of goals scoring) was heavily weighted toward the more significant games. The negative is that you can imagine him losing the trophy pretty easily to other players who weren't exactly spectacular. Certainly not out of place in four, though after a quick look I'd put it at the top of level four.

 

[Nick Hansen]

Seems Conn Smythe winners, generally, get less and less impressive as the years go by.

 

[MXD]

I'd say Tier 3, thanks to Finals.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Seems Conn Smythe winners, generally, get less and less impressive as the years go by.

Going all the way take so much more of a concerted team effort than performing well every other game. In a league of more parity, it figures that sheer individual dominance will less likely be what’s tipping the scale on games, not to mention entire series.

Thus, I don’t think Crosby’s Smythes were unimpressive in the context of today’s NHL (although in 2017 there was one rare example of recent individual playoff dominance - his team was eliminated in the ECF game 7, though) and I also don’t mind Justin Williams winning his in the context of what you pretty much could call his embodiment of what made that Kings team so special as a unit. When I think back to last spring, I recall players like Marcus Johansson and Carl Gunnarsson playing out of their minds.

I think the Conn Smythe quite naturally may end up decided by basically a coin flip and it’s kind of a good thing - it says something about a cup run.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Tier 3

• Williams (2014). I realize the writers sometimes try to pick a secondary player who stands out, but this wasn't a good selection. Williams wasn't even the Kings' best forward, as Anze Kopitar was clearly a bigger catalyst to the team, and entrusted with more ice time in all three situations. Kopitar (narrowly) outscored Williams, was better defensively at even-strength, and a significant contributor to the penalty kill. The argument in favour of Williams is clutch scoring, and I don't deny that; but Kopitar also played well at key moments (both scored 5 points during their three game seven victories; both had two points on overtime goals).

Nitpicking this, I always felt Drew Doughty should have won the Conn Smythe in 2014 handily. A strong Tier 3 performance.

 

[Gurglesons]

Seems Conn Smythe winners, generally, get less and less impressive as the years go by.

Almost like the eras don’t allow for us to judge them in the way the original poster has..

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Seems Conn Smythe winners, generally, get less and less impressive as the years go by.

I talked about this in the 2nd post (I considered whether I'm being biased against modern players).

The average bracket score in the 1990's and 2000's are virtually identical. The scores were higher in the 1980's, but it's easily explained by two peak Gretzky runs (remove those and the 1980's are, once again, almost exactly in line with the 1990's and 2000's).

Have I underrated players in the 2010's? Perhaps - but I genuinely think that there have been a number of disappointing selections in the past decade (Willians in 2014 and Crosby in 2016 stand out as being particularly weak choices). Was I being too hard on Toews or Kane?

 

[quoipourquoi]

Have I underrated players in the 2010's? Perhaps - but I genuinely think that there have been a number of disappointing selections in the past decade (Willians in 2014 and Crosby in 2016 stand out as being particularly weak choices). Was I being too hard on Toews or Kane?

No, I don’t think so. We’re looking at a stretch where 7 of the 10 Conn Smythe winners were forwards and only one of them led the playoffs in scoring (O’Reilly). Toews’ run felt like it was trending to be really good (26 points in 16 games in the West), but a goalless minus-5 Final in a winning series is just not great. It felt like a gimme putt for MVP going into the Finals, only Toews somehow went from the green into a water hazard.

And Kane had better playoffs in 2010 and 2015, I felt. I don’t know if the voters hit the panic button, because Rask was a minute away from locking it up.