Consistency In Playmaking

[amnesiac*]

Malkin and Crosby will be joining this duscussion come 2015 or so.

 

[Trottier]

How do you figure?

I wasn't referring to the lists, which are superbly assembled, I meant in the discussions that ensured.

 

[seventieslord]

It raises an interesting question - we put a lot of weight on what a player does during individual seasons which penalizes players who were unable to stay healthy for a full season. Now obviously a player who can't stay healthy isn't as valuable as a player who can but at the same time using a season as the measure of success biases the analysis towards players who were healthy for complete seasons but were good for a short period of time compared to players who consistently missed parts of seasons but were better for a longer period of time.

I think a perfect example is that of Gilbert Perreault versus Eric Lindros. Perreault has five seasons where he was a top-10 scorer but outside of those five seasons he wasn't a consistently elite scorer. Compare that to Lindros who only has three top-10 finishes in points but was top-10 in PPG eight times. Perreault was elite for about 400 games over 5 seasons, Lindros was elite over about 500 games (including a lockout shortened season) but because Lindros was injured almost each and every season he's taken down a notch or two even though he probably played at a high level for more games than Perreault did because his value isn't really shown in an analysis that uses 'quality seasons' as a metric.

Good point.

I'm going to try something... not sure how it will turn out. For Lindros' sake, I hope good.

Let's "scrunch" in all of his games in his career together into 82 (and 48) game segments, and compact them into the seasons in which those games would have been played. This gives him the benefit of a "what if?" analysis while still acknowledging that he has zero value in games in which he does not play.

93: 57-47-104
94: 55-72-127
95: 31-48-79
96: 51-73-124
97: 41-56-97
98: 46-56-102
99: 41-43-84
00: 22-35-57
01: 23-37-60

Goals rankings in the top-20: 7, 4, 3, 5, 11, 5, 6.
Assists rankings in the top-20: 5, 1, 7, 12 ,7.

In my goalscoring study, he'd show as 0-4-6-7-7.
In the playmaking study, he'd show as 1-2-4-5-5.

A flawed and elementary study for a number of reasons. Still, it demonstrates that using the games in which he did play, he didn't put together that many dominant 82-game segments. I think a player who played longer, didn't peak nearly as high, but put together more great seasons and helped more teams win more hockey games, should get more credit than him.

 

[overpass]

Good point. Andy may certainly have got a lot of power play assists. His linemates Popein & Prebtice weren't big scorers. Andy would have played the point on the power play with the "Eel" prowling the slot. Andy was an exceptional player to put up those numbers with the limited support he got.

Playing the point on the power play certainly allowed Bathgate to get a lot of his assists. I have the power play numbers for seasons that the Hockey Summary Project has compiled, including three of Bathgate's prime years from 1961-62 to 1963-64. He led the league in power play assists in each year, and over those 3 years had 13 goals and 55 assists on the power play.

Other star forwards were more goal oriented on the PP. Over this same time period on the power play, the top 5 scorers were:

Gordie Howe: 33 goals, 47 assists, 80 points
Stan Mikita: 31 goals, 48 assists, 79 points
Andy Bathgate: 13 goals, 55 assists, 68 points
Bobby Hull: 29 goals, 36 assists, 65 points
Jean Beliveau: 28 goals, 36 assists, 64 points

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Dude,

These studies are wicked. Nice work.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Doug Harvey

Playing the point on the power play certainly allowed Bathgate to get a lot of his assists. I have the power play numbers for seasons that the Hockey Summary Project has compiled, including three of Bathgate's prime years from 1961-62 to 1963-64. He led the league in power play assists in each year, and over those 3 years had 13 goals and 55 assists on the power play.

Other star forwards were more goal oriented on the PP. Over this same time period on the power play, the top 5 scorers were:

Gordie Howe: 33 goals, 47 assists, 80 points
Stan Mikita: 31 goals, 48 assists, 79 points
Andy Bathgate: 13 goals, 55 assists, 68 points
Bobby Hull: 29 goals, 36 assists, 65 points
Jean Beliveau: 28 goals, 36 assists, 64 points

1961-62 coincides with the arrival of Doug Harvey with the NY Rangers.

 

[nik jr]

Playing the point on the power play certainly allowed Bathgate to get a lot of his assists. I have the power play numbers for seasons that the Hockey Summary Project has compiled, including three of Bathgate's prime years from 1961-62 to 1963-64. He led the league in power play assists in each year, and over those 3 years had 13 goals and 55 assists on the power play.

Other star forwards were more goal oriented on the PP. Over this same time period on the power play, the top 5 scorers were:

Gordie Howe: 33 goals, 47 assists, 80 points
Stan Mikita: 31 goals, 48 assists, 79 points
Andy Bathgate: 13 goals, 55 assists, 68 points
Bobby Hull: 29 goals, 36 assists, 65 points
Jean Beliveau: 28 goals, 36 assists, 64 points

great work

many of us will be very interested to see the final results.

 

[Dark Shadows]

1961-62 coincides with the arrival of Doug Harvey with the NY Rangers.

Bathgate had a few better years before Harvey

 

[Canadiens1958]

Rangers With Doug Harvey

Bathgate had a few better years before Harvey

Only one. Bathgate's two other 80+ point years were 1961-62 and 1962-63 with Doug Harvey while Dean Prentice had his second best season in 1961-62 and Earl Ingarfield had a career year in 1961-82 with Doug Harvey.

 

[Dark Shadows]

Only one. Bathgate's two other 80+ point years were 1961-62 and 1962-63 with Doug Harvey while Dean Prentice had his second best season in 1961-62 and Earl Ingarfield had a career year in 1961-82 with Doug Harvey.

Having over 80 points is not the issue. he had several great seasons before Harvey arrived.

4th in points(77) in 56-57 with Creighton as his center.
78 points(3rd overall) in 65 games(On pace for 84) in 57-58
and of course, his Hart winning career high 40 goals and 88 points in 58-59.

His other 2 80 point years might have been with Harvey, but he was on pace to match 84 points in 57-58, and scoring was gradually going up leaguewide around that time.

54-55 1059/210 5.04
55-56 1064/210 5.07
56-57 1130/210 5.38
57-58 1175/210 5.59
58-59 1217/210 5.79
59-60 1238/210 5.89
60-61 1261/210 6.00
61-62 1264/210 6.02
62-63 1249/210 5.94

 

[nik jr]

harvey only played 14 games in '64, so bathgate and harvey played together for 2 seasons.

before harvey, bathgate's assists look the same.

rank in assists
'56: 2
'57: 3
'58: 2
'59: 2
'60: 2
'61: 4
'62: 1
'63: 4
'64: 1

bathgate also won the hart when harvey was still playing for the habs.

 

[pitseleh]

A flawed and elementary study for a number of reasons. Still, it demonstrates that using the games in which he did play, he didn't put together that many dominant 82-game segments. I think a player who played longer, didn't peak nearly as high, but put together more great seasons and helped more teams win more hockey games, should get more credit than him.

The other thing to consider is that since those seasons in both goals and assists overlap he'd have a nice stretch of top points finishes to go with them. He was very rarely ever elite in either goals or assists per game but his points per game numbers were top-5 five times and top-10 eight times. He probably goes in the ballpark of 2-4-6-6-6 for points. Still not quite elite but better than a guy like Sergei Fedorov (who built his resume in other places) and at least comparable if you weigh the difference between peak and longevity to someone like Perreault (0-4-6-7-7 vs. 0-0-4-5-6 in goals, 1-2-4-5-5 vs. 0-3-5-8-9 in assists).

Anyway, I'm not trying to argue that Lindros belongs in the top-100 but I do think the raw numbers short change how good he actually was.

 

[seventieslord]

The other thing to consider is that since those seasons in both goals and assists overlap he'd have a nice stretch of top points finishes to go with them. He was very rarely ever elite in either goals or assists per game but his points per game numbers were top-5 five times and top-10 eight times. He probably goes in the ballpark of 2-4-6-6-6 for points. Still not quite elite but better than a guy like Sergei Fedorov (who built his resume in other places) and at least comparable if you weigh the difference between peak and longevity to someone like Perreault (0-4-6-7-7 vs. 0-0-4-5-6 in goals, 1-2-4-5-5 vs. 0-3-5-8-9 in assists).

Anyway, I'm not trying to argue that Lindros belongs in the top-100 but I do think the raw numbers short change how good he actually was.

Good observation. I noticed this too when looking at some players. If you're really offensively balanced, looking solely at goals or assists can tend to shortchange you. IIRC, Larmer didn't do too well in either category but had 90+ points a few times. This season, if a player was 20th in goals and 20th in assists he'd have 83 points, good for 12th in the league.

I have been thinking about doing another thread for this type of thing - consistency in point production. The pro is that it would better recognize players like Lindros and Larmer who did both well (or in Lindros' case, a lot better than "well"). The cons are that aside from players like this, it will just cause a lot of reduncancy. Also, before 1930 the points charts were biased towards players with more goals since assists were recorded very scantily.

I actually think Lindros is better than Perreault. Perreault is overrated thanks to his flash and dash. Once you break it down, there is not enough substance left for him to be a top-100 player, IMO. They are comparable, though - Lindros is a guy who I had between 100 and 120, and Perreault, IIRC, just missed my top-120 this time around.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

-Oatman indeed does very well on this list. By the loose HHOF standards of the era, I think he should be in there. He did great on the goalscoring lists, too. I like Rusty Crawford a lot but I fail to see what makes him better, and he's in the hall.

From what I can gather, Crawford was one of the best defensive forwards of the era, up there with Nighbor, Walker and Berlinquette. That would be the difference maker.

 

[seventieslord]

I know you like Crawford - so do I. I had him in MLD9 - no way he should be in the MLD. You took him in ATD10 a lot closer to where he belongs.

I think Crawford can easily make a claim on being the 3rd-best defensive forward of his time, behind Nighbor and Walker.

But what these numbers tell me is that Oatman is slightly better in the playmaking department and much better at scoring goals than Crawford. Defensively, I don't think he is bad and the fact that he was used at rover and defense for a while tell me he was probably above average defensively.

I like Oatman better. I don't think the defensive gap can overcome the offensive gap. Maybe that's just me. The fact that one is in the hall and the other isn't, tells us that Crawford may indeed have been more highly regarded by his contemporaries. But then, maybe not. The HHOF criteria of the pre-consolidation era are harder to understand sometimes, than the criteria used today.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

I like Oatman better. I don't think the defensive gap can overcome the offensive gap. Maybe that's just me. The fact that one is in the hall and the other isn't, tells us that Crawford may indeed have been more highly regarded by his contemporaries. But then, maybe not. The HHOF criteria of the pre-consolidation era are harder to understand sometimes, than the criteria used today.

Absolutly agree. There are quite a few players from the era whom I can't comprehend why they aren't in the hall when others are.