How good was Scott Niedermayer ?

[vadim sharifijanov]

See, that goal right there, plus the one against Sweden in the 1996 World Cup, that was the Niedermayer we could have had if they let him or if he let himself. Look at that skating.

i guess i never thought he was a guy who had it in him to do that more than a few times a year. which yeah is still awesome, there’s a reason he was my favourite defenceman in the early 2000s even though at times he was the third most important dman on his own team.

but brian leetch or erik karlsson he was not, imo.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

Doughty would be today's comparable, no? Best dman in the league at his peak but consistently a top-5 2-way, minute munching d-man with elite offensive instincts and can lead a team to a cup

A "consistent top 5" D who came top 5 in Norris voting 4x in 18 seasons?

 

[Didalee Hed]

See, that goal right there, plus the one against Sweden in the 1996 World Cup, that was the Niedermayer we could have had if they let him or if he let himself. Look at that skating.

The nhl is littered with super skaters who didn’t have much else. Any limitations on Neidermayer were him not having enough of the other stuff. Amazing player though. I just don’t subscribe to the narrative he was held back from being more.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

I disagree. He was as much a factor in winning the Cup in NJ and especially ANA where he won the CS.

Keith has been irrelevant for a few years now too and hes only 36, whereas Nieds played great ALL his career. Not even close. Peak you can argue.

1x top 10 in Norris voting in his first 12 seasons (2/3s of his career) so not sure how you're coming to this conclusion.

 

[trentmccleary]

1993: 38th in ESP, 41st in PPP, 37th overall
1994: 14th in ESP, 47th in PPP, 24th overall
1995: 44th in ESP, 31st in PPP, 38th overall
1996: 62nd in ESP, 31st in PPP, 35h overall
1997: 45th in ESP, 17th in PPP, 25th overall
1998: 2nd in ESP, 6th in PPP, 2nd overall
1999: 4th in ESP, 14th in PPP, 12th overall
2000: 7th in ESP, 54th in PPP, 21st overall
2001: 12th in ESP, 51st in PPP, 25th overall
2002: 9th in ESP, 49th in PPP, 29th overall
2003: 4th in ESP, 45th in PPP, 20th overall

Thank you for doing the research.
This is the tough thing to take when people attempt to apply his peak backwards over his whole career.

Above are the first 11 years of his career.
His average scoring rank among D-men was 24th overall (24.4).
He was always behind Stevens, Daneyko and sometimes others for PK time.
He was behind Stevens and later Rafalski offensively on the Devils for all but a handful of seasons in the middle.
After 11 years, people weren't expecting anything more out of him and he wasn't considered anywhere near the best defensemen in the league.
That was the first 2/3's of his career. Not a small part part, an overwhelming majority of it.

I don't even know what to really compare this to. It's almost like some alternate reality where Shane Doan became an All Star for 3 1/2 seasons very late in his career and then everybody starts telling you that he was Mark Messier for his whole career.

 

[vikash1987]

Couple points:

* When deciding an appropriate comp set for Niedermayer (past or present), bear in mind that he did so much more than just put up points. That's a very narrow view of measuring the value of a defenseman, in my opinion. One of my earliest memories of him was in '99, when he was tasked with matching up against Jagr (i.e. the best player in the world), literally for the entire time he was on the ice. Its was Niedermayer, not Stevens, who was tasked with shadowing him during many games, and he also delivered some momentum-swinging hits on him. Niedermayer was an underrated hitter, be it open-ice or in the corner boards.

* (Along the same lines) ideally we'd be looking at a bunch of other insightful stats such as turnovers, breaking up rushes/entries, zone time, etc., though I don't know how available that data is or how far back that data goes. That would allow for a much better appreciation of what he did as a complete defenseman, and how he compared to Leetch, Desjardins, et al.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I don't even know what to really compare this to. It's almost like some alternate reality where Shane Doan became an All Star for 3 1/2 seasons very late in his career and then everybody starts telling you that he was Mark Messier for his whole career.

if i may, how about this scenario?

florida doesn't do the pick swap with columbus and takes bouwmeester #1.

instead of taking lehtonen second, atlanta trades the pick for a win now goalie. yeah, that's insane, but don waddell is insane (see: coburn for zhitnik, buttload of picks for tkachuk). let's say after signing cujo instead of promoting legace, who was a highly regarded backup and considered starter worthy, legace asks for a trade. detroit drafts nash #2.

so nash is never ever the main guy. but he steps onto a stacked veteran detroit team that harnesses his size, skill, defensive intelligence, and he settles into a decade of being a rich man's marty lapointe. in the first year, shanahan teaches him big man tricks, robitaille teaches him how to be in loose pucks, hull teaches him how to see the offensive zone, larionov teaches him stuff, yzerman teaches him stuff, chelios takes him under his wing and fat lazy rick nash is never born.

in year two, zetterberg passes him because, come on. nash is the #3 LW option behind shanny and zetts but gets second unit PP time. he doesn't win the rocket, but 25 goals isn't out of the question.

in year six, he has a spike year where he scores 40 goals and averages a point/game. not so different from nash's actual year six, where he was a 4th team all-star. let's even say that because it's detroit and because this nash is a difference-maker defensively, he gets an intangibles push that parise got that year and makes the 2nd all-star team over him. but otherwise, it's 25-30 goals, 55-70 points every year for him. he makes team canadas, like the real rick nash, and every time people say man with this guy's talent he could actually be the guy in this format, also like the real rick nash, but like the real rick nash he never is.

but he wins a couple of cups and is a key secondary contributor, behind lidstrom, zetterberg, datsyuk, and a few other guys. (let's suspend our disbelief for a second and pretend that babcock wouldn't have bag skated nash so hard he'd make him puke, then make him eat the puke.)

then in year eleven, which for nash would be 2014, zetterberg and datsyuk are out of the lineup as often as they're in it, lidstrom is gone, and nash takes the reins and takes detroit to an improbable third cup on his two-way excellence, babcock doing backcock things, his foot soldiers playing out of their minds, and jimmy howard getting really really hot.

then he puts up a 2018 taylor hall season. then he puts up two more at close to that level. then, at age 33 he walks away, just like rick nash in real life. only this rick nash, in addition to having all the gold medals, also has three cups, maybe a conn smythe, and nothing left to accomplish.

 

[Staniowski]

his career rankings in points for a defenceman—

1993: 38th in ESP, 41st in PPP, 37th overall
1994: 14th in ESP, 47th in PPP, 24th overall
1995: 44th in ESP, 31st in PPP, 38th overall
1996: 62nd in ESP, 31st in PPP, 35h overall
1997: 45th in ESP, 17th in PPP, 25th overall
1998: 2nd in ESP, 6th in PPP, 2nd overall
1999: 4th in ESP, 14th in PPP, 12th overall
2000: 7th in ESP, 54th in PPP, 21st overal
2001: 12th in ESP, 51st in PPP, 25th overall (in 57 games, on pace for 2nd in ESP, 11th in total points)
2002: 9th in ESP, 49th in PPP, 29th overall
2003: 4th in ESP, 45th in PPP, 20th overall
2004: 3rd in ESP, 9th in PPP, 2nd overall
2006: 9th in ESP, 7th in PPP, 6th overall
2007: 2nd in ESP, 6th in PPP, 1st overall
2008: 145th in ESP, 32nd in PPP, 58th overall (in 48 games, on pace for 12th in PPP, 14th in total points)
2009: 22nd in ESP, 4th in PPP, 3rd overall
2010: 43rd in ESP, 5th in PPP, 11th overall


i think what we glean here is that in his prime, he was always a very good ES point producing defenceman. other than the year he missed the first two months in a contract dispute, he was always in the top ten in ES points between 1998 and 2007. that's a decade-long offensive prime. but what fluctuates (wildly) is his PP production. basically, the years he was top ten in PP scoring in his prime, he was a post-season all-star.

and then, like a lot of older guys, he started to rely on PP scoring after he came back from his mini-retirement.

my question, because honestly i don't remember, is what do we know about his '98 season? what accounts for that offensive spike? and was he really a deserving top 5 norris guy that year, or was it just based on looking at scoring stats?

because i could see it clear as day that the niedermayer i watched in the early 2000s was not the same player that flipped a switch in the 2003 playoffs and was a top three defenceman in the league from then until he retired the first time.

The '97-'98 season -- well, the best thing to do is to watch some of the games, from that season and from previous seasons.

But this is his 24-year-old season, a time when most defensemen are starting to reach their best. What Niedermayer did that season was expected of him. Certainly nobody was surprised.

Niedermayer and Lemaire famously butted heads for several years over Niedermayer's style. I think he said that they finally just figured it out.

Niedermayer also credited Doug Gilmour, the Devils's best scorer that season.

 

[Michael Farkas]

One of my earliest memories of him was in '99, when he was tasked with matching up against Jagr (i.e. the best player in the world), literally for the entire time he was on the ice. Its was Niedermayer, not Stevens, who was tasked with shadowing him during many games,

Meh, I mean, kind of but not really...

First of all, Jagr wasn't healthy enough to play in any games in that series...but he ended up playing games 1, 6, 7...he had five points (on 8 total Penguins goals). That was on one leg. Niedermayer had a career playoff worst minus-5 rating, it was also the worst on the team. He also took 18 PIMs (2nd most of his career, he took 26 in the "no touching!" playoffs of 2007 when he won the Cup...this was a first round exit). So Niedermayer did virtually nothing to stop the powerhouse line with German Titov and Jan Hrdina.

Luckily for Niedermayer's case, he wasn't really matched against Jagr through and through. Stevens (with Kevin Dean, sometimes Ken Daneyko) did a lot of heavy work. When they were really trying to hold the game tight, they'd put Stevens and Niedermayer together and together they blew the late lead in game 6 and the overtime.

Niedermayer (with Brad Bombardir) faced the Straka (sometimes Titov)-Lang-Kovalev unit probably more often (on a per minute basis) than Jagr and his band of misfits.

Early Niedermayer wasn't too much to write home about defensively I don't think...he even played for forward at times in '94 and '95 I think...

 

[Staniowski]

Thank you for doing the research.
This is the tough thing to take when people attempt to apply his peak backwards over his whole career.

Above are the first 11 years of his career.
His average scoring rank among D-men was 24th overall (24.4).
He was always behind Stevens, Daneyko and sometimes others for PK time.
He was behind Stevens and later Rafalski offensively on the Devils for all but a handful of seasons in the middle.
After 11 years, people weren't expecting anything more out of him and he wasn't considered anywhere near the best defensemen in the league.
That was the first 2/3's of his career. Not a small part part, an overwhelming majority of it.

I don't even know what to really compare this to. It's almost like some alternate reality where Shane Doan became an All Star for 3 1/2 seasons very late in his career and then everybody starts telling you that he was Mark Messier for his whole career.

It's not really about trying to apply his peak backwards over his whole career. Rather, it's about trying to understand his whole career.

It's fine to criticize Niedermayer...at any point in his career.

But, his situation on the Devils, Lemaire, his lack of PP time, etc., these things did affect his goals and assists. He definitely would've gotten more points on most other teams. On Team Canada in the '96 World Cup, he was their 2nd highest scoring D. But in '01 on the Devils, he was 77th among NHL defensemen in PP icetime, miles behind MacInnis, Leetch, etc. In '02, he was 83rd in PP icetime.

For offensive defensemen, the single most important factor for Norris Trophy votes is PP points.

 

[vikash1987]

Meh, I mean, kind of but not really...

First of all, Jagr wasn't healthy enough to play in any games in that series...but he ended up playing games 1, 6, 7...he had five points (on 8 total Penguins goals). That was on one leg. Niedermayer had a career playoff worst minus-5 rating, it was also the worst on the team. He also took 18 PIMs (2nd most of his career, he took 26 in the "no touching!" playoffs of 2007 when he won the Cup...this was a first round exit). So Niedermayer did virtually nothing to stop the powerhouse line with German Titov and Jan Hrdina.

Luckily for Niedermayer's case, he wasn't really matched against Jagr through and through. Stevens (with Kevin Dean, sometimes Ken Daneyko) did a lot of heavy work. When they were really trying to hold the game tight, they'd put Stevens and Niedermayer together and together they blew the late lead in game 6 and the overtime.

Niedermayer (with Brad Bombardir) faced the Straka (sometimes Titov)-Lang-Kovalev unit probably more often (on a per minute basis) than Jagr and his band of misfits.

Early Niedermayer wasn't too much to write home about defensively I don't think...he even played for forward at times in '94 and '95 I think...

I was thinking late regular season / early playoffs in '99....had to look this up to verify that I wasn't making this up or misremembering....

Daily News (NY) from March '99): "The biggest assist, though, belongs to Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer, who put on a brilliant performance as a shadow on Penguins superstar Jaromir Jagr. Niedermayer took Jagr almost completely out of the game and still found time to pick up two assists of his own."

The Record (NJ) from March '99: "So was Niedermayer, who was the best player in the arena again as he topped 30 minutes in ice time for the second straight game. He and Bombardir limited Jagr to three shots on goal and one assist."

The Province (Vancouver) from April '99, Game 1 (pictured): "Niedermayer made one of the best plays with 2:07 left, helping to preserve a 2-1 lead. Jagr was driving down the left side when Niedermayer stepped in and hit him from behind just as the big guy was getting ready to shoot. That was enough to throw Jagr off balance and his shot went right into Martin Brodeur's pads."



Niedermayer was a +6 in his 4 games (4 wins) against Jagr during the regular season, and was regularly logging top minutes. (I forgot he was paired with Bombardir, as I thought it was actually Odelein.) That playoff was pretty disappointing, as it marked yet another playoff failure for him and the team, but in a way it helped pave the way for the successful years that immediately followed.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

one thing i remember about pre-peak niedermayer was he scored a lot of game winning goals. i remember one year (and i just looked it up, it's 2002) he scored four OT game winners in the regular season. he had two the year after. and for all the negativity about his '07 conn smythe run, he did score the OT winner to eliminate the canucks in the second round, and added another OT goal against detroit.



monster hit by rob on young jannik hansen.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

one thing i remember about pre-peak niedermayer was he scored a lot of game winning goals. i remember one year (and i just looked it up, it's 2002) he scored four OT game winners in the regular season. he had two the year after. and for all the negativity about his '07 conn smythe run, he did score the OT winner to eliminate the canucks in the second round, and added another OT goal against detroit.



monster hit by rob on young jannik hansen.

Niedermayer's biggest problem in his early years (which were actually the majority of his career) was lack of focus. And not surprisingly, he was more focused in more important moments, so I do think he somewhat deserves his rep as a big game player.

Re: 1997-98, I doubt you'd find a single Devils fan who thought Niedermayer was a better defenseman than Scott Stevens at the time, so his 2nd Team All-Star nod was indeed largely a typical stats-pick. But as a typical stats pick, it wasn't a bad one. He did look like he was finally breaking out, only to regress the following season. His stats were somewhat helped by playing with Gilmour and Andreychuk on the PP. Also by playing big minutes (+ to Niedermayer) against lesser competition (- to Niedermayer), with Stevens anchoring the top pairing. But it was quite clearly the best he had played up until that point.

He was good, not great defensively, as the anchor of the 2nd pairing at even strength and the 2nd PK.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The '97-'98 season -- well, the best thing to do is to watch some of the games, from that season and from previous seasons.

But this is his 24-year-old season, a time when most defensemen are starting to reach their best. What Niedermayer did that season was expected of him. Certainly nobody was surprised.

Niedermayer and Lemaire famously butted heads for several years over Niedermayer's style. I think he said that they finally just figured it out.

Niedermayer also credited Doug Gilmour, the Devils's best scorer that season.

Yes, as I said earlier, Niedermayer really did look like he was starting to break out in 1997-98, which made his regression the following few years look all the more disappointing. I remember that circa 2001, the homer media that followed the Devils was talking about Rafalski, not Niedermayer, as a potential future Norris contender.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

This is really not accurate.

However good you think Niedermayer was '04 to '07, he was just about of the same quality from '00 to '03, and prior to this too. He just wasn't playing on the PP for the 4 seasons starting in '99-'00. His even-strength play was roughly the same. If he was playing on NJ's power play, or if he were playing for any other team in the NHL, his point totals in the earlier period would have been just as high, or higher, than in the later period.

Your points that Niedermayer's even strength offense was quite good before his "breakout" are taken.

However, at even strength, Niedermayer improved defensively quite a bit starting around 2003. By his time in Anaheim, he was receiving a significant number of votes in player's polls for "best defensive defenseman" in the NHL, something he wasn't even close to during most of his time in NJ. Not that he was bad defensively, he was good, but not great. Again, I don't think his focus was consistently there.

 

[FerrisRox]

Best skating defenseman of all time

I would put Coffey ahead of him in that regard.

 

[FerrisRox]

I read it carefully and I know what you wrote. He hasn't approached any of them for any period of time.

You don't think Scott Niedermayer, at any point in his career, even approached the level of Brian Leetch?

That's a straight up crazy thing to say.

 

[FerrisRox]

There is no way the Rangers win the Cup in 1994 if a prime Niedermayer is on there instead of the eventual Conn Smythe winning Leetch.

You are offering up your opinion here as if it's a fact.

 

[mrhockey193195]

You don't think Scott Niedermayer, at any point in his career, even approached the level of Brian Leetch?

That's a straight up crazy thing to say.

It depends on what we mean by that sentence. I don't think peak Niedermayer ever reached the level that Leetch did in 92 and the 94 playoffs (and in fairness, very few defensemen - probably no more than 25 - in the history of the game ever did). I also think Leetch had a slightly better and slightly longer prime. But certainly Niedermayer at his peak (04 - 07) was comparable to Leetch outside of Leetch's absolute best years, and better than Leetch after 97...but that's comparing apples and oranges.

Peak vs. Peak, Leetch was decently better (and I feel that's a fairly uncontroversial take).
Prime vs. Prime, Leetch wins in my mind as well.

 

[FerrisRox]

It depends on what we mean by that sentence. I don't think peak Niedermayer ever reached the level that Leetch did in 92 and the 94 playoffs (and in fairness, very few defensemen - probably no more than 25 - in the history of the game ever did). I also think Leetch had a slightly better and slightly longer prime. But certainly Niedermayer at his peak (04 - 07) was comparable to Leetch outside of Leetch's absolute best years, and better than Leetch after 97...but that's comparing apples and oranges.

Peak vs. Peak, Leetch was decently better (and I feel that's a fairly uncontroversial take).
Prime vs. Prime, Leetch wins in my mind as well.

He said he hadn't even approached Leetch. That's ridiculous.

 

[mrhockey193195]

He said he hadn't even approached Leetch. That's ridiculous.

Again, that sentence on its own is meaningless. Never approached peak Leetch? I think the language is strong, but the sentiment is correct (in my view). Never approached Leetch in the seasons they overlapped? True for most of the 90s outside of 98, and untrue in the early 00s. Never approached Leetch in terms of historical significance and accomplishments? Untrue (even though I have Leetch a good ~15 to 20 places higher on my all-time list).

 

[FerrisRox]

Again, that sentence on its own is meaningless. Never approached peak Leetch? I think the language is strong, but the sentiment is correct (in my view). Never approached Leetch in the seasons they overlapped? True for most of the 90s outside of 98, and untrue in the early 00s. Never approached Leetch in terms of historical significance and accomplishments? Untrue (even though I have Leetch a good ~15 to 20 places higher on my all-time list).

If you think Niedermayer at his very best was nowhere close to Brian Leetch, I couldn't disagree more.

 

[mrhockey193195]

If you think Niedermayer at his very best was nowhere close to Brian Leetch, I couldn't disagree more.

I don't believe Niedermayer at his best was close to Leetch at his best (94 playoffs being the easiest period to point to) - the same way I think Duncan Keith, Zdeno Chara, Rob Blake, and a bunch of other HOF/future HOF defenseman never reached that level. I do believe Niedermayer in his prime was similar to Leetch in his prime (albeit Leetch's was slightly better in my mind), but Leetch's prime was at least 50% longer.

 

[Big Phil]

You are offering up your opinion here as if it's a fact.

Well let's just look at the facts. You've got Leetch who racked up 34 points that spring, an unheard of number by a defenseman. In fact, only Paul Coffey has ever had more in a postseason than Leetch. The Rangers had as tight of a series vs. the Devils as possible, stretching it to Game 7 overtime. Then the Canucks take them to 7 games. Against the Devils he had 6 points and the Canucks 11 points. He wins the Conn Smythe and if anything solidified it then it would be the Cup final.

He was as impactful that spring as anyone not named Orr has been during a playoff run in my opinion. I don't know how Niedermayer replaces this sort of performance. He never showed that he was capable of it. Niedermayer is a nice HHOFer, I'll give him that, but this whole thing that he was this elite defenseman his entire career is hogwash. His career is not any better than Rob Blake's.

Thank you for doing the research.
This is the tough thing to take when people attempt to apply his peak backwards over his whole career.

Above are the first 11 years of his career.
His average scoring rank among D-men was 24th overall (24.4).
He was always behind Stevens, Daneyko and sometimes others for PK time.
He was behind Stevens and later Rafalski offensively on the Devils for all but a handful of seasons in the middle.
After 11 years, people weren't expecting anything more out of him and he wasn't considered anywhere near the best defensemen in the league.
That was the first 2/3's of his career. Not a small part part, an overwhelming majority of it.

I don't even know what to really compare this to. It's almost like some alternate reality where Shane Doan became an All Star for 3 1/2 seasons very late in his career and then everybody starts telling you that he was Mark Messier for his whole career.

Let's say Wade Redden had a great 4 or so years at the end of his career where he really broke out. It would be like that. Because I saw both of their careers. Redden and Niedermayer both were that defenseman that you figured was going to bust out eventually even though they were considered "good" they weren't elite. Niedermayer did make the 2002 Olympics and 1996 World Cup. Redden was a bit of a surprise that he wasn't there in 2002 over Brewer but you knew he'd be there next time around. Their careers were very similar. In 2003 Niedermayer had that good postseason while Redden struggled. The Devils beat the Sens in that memorable 7 game series and after that Niedermayer took off and Redden stayed the same for a couple more seasons before falling off a cliff and closing out his career in the minor leagues.

If Redden had 4-5 good years at the end we would all forget that he was good, but never great until that moment. Many would just as well assume he was always that great.

The nhl is littered with super skaters who didn’t have much else. Any limitations on Neidermayer were him not having enough of the other stuff. Amazing player though. I just don’t subscribe to the narrative he was held back from being more.

I thought he could have had the seasons he had in 2004 and onwards throughout much of his 20s. Why he didn't I don't know.

 

[vikash1987]

I thought he could have had the seasons he had in 2004 and onwards throughout much of his 20s. Why he didn't I don't know.

I didn't know this was such a mystery to folks.

Well, in all fairness, it confused Niedermayer himself for the longest while. He was often not sure what he could vs. what he couldn't do under Lemaire's system. But remember all the criticism around the emphasis on sitting back and nursing 1-goal leads?

One thing that's often overlooked is that, under the old delayed offsides rule of the early/mid '90s, Niedermayer (as the puck carrier) would easily have been scolded for hanging on too long or trying to make a play, rather than dump it in. This is why all this needs to be contextualized.