Is it time for another top 100 or so project?

[ted2019]

Anyone up for a top 60 Defenseman project? Been almost 10 years since the first one.

Click to read more...

 

[Professor What]

I don't know if I'd be considered eligible since I'm brand new around here, but I love the idea. Honestly, I like playing around with player rankings just for the fun of it.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I’d like to see us do different projects (like best teams) rather than a retread of things discussed to death. I think there is more to be gained from doing something uncomfortable and new than something that any of us could throw together with the expectation of having the same conversations with the same people about the same topics without much in terms of new perspectives being developed.

But I’ll be honest, I’m still burnt out from the last project, and this year being crazy just in a general sense hasn’t helped either. I’m up for doing something short though. Like a top-40 list that lasts just 8 weeks.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I don't know if I'd be considered eligible since I'm brand new around here, but I love the idea. Honestly, I like playing around with player rankings just for the fun of it.

Everyone is eligible for HOH projects!

What I’d really like to do is have a repository for top-100 lists that people can use as time capsules to see how much their opinions evolve over time.

Would any of the 32 participants of the top-100 list be opposed to having their Round 1 lists (which presumably are not up-to-date) being part of such a compilation? Plus I’d obviously be open to submissions from everyone if there are more recent versions of your lists.

Given that we’ve lost a member, I’m particularly sentimental about having more accessible record keeping of what everyone thinks about the sport.

 

[Dingo]

Instead of redoing old lists, why don’t you accept that they are awesome lists, and, as players retire, they become eligible to be argued into a position on that list?

Id love to see an HOH Hall of Excellence, honestly. (Yes Excellence, not Fame) Just like the Ring belts are wonderful to have to go to instead of political belts, a bunch of hard-digging hockey nerds would be better than the Old Boys’ Club.

Id rather never complain about Housley or Andreychuk or whoever again. Id rather just refer to your HOE (lol) maybe Greatness.... nope, not good, either. Well, anyways, what’s in a name?

 

[Professor What]

Everyone is eligible for HOH projects!

That being the case, if you guys do anything along these lines, count me in.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I'm not sure there's all that much to be gained from re-doing the position lists, other than moving the more recent players up to new positions. That's a lot of work for just a few tweaks.

IMO the effort is best spent in taking new angles, like we did with the playoffs and Europeans lists.

Either way -- yes, I think this board is at its best when it's doing this kind of work so I'd be all for whatever project people decide on.

 

[bobholly39]

I’d like to see us do different projects (like best teams) rather than a retread of things discussed to death. I think there is more to be gained from doing something uncomfortable and new than something that any of us could throw together with the expectation of having the same conversations with the same people about the same topics without much in terms of new perspectives being developed.

But I’ll be honest, I’m still burnt out from the last project, and this year being crazy just in a general sense hasn’t helped either. I’m up for doing something short though. Like a top-40 list that lasts just 8 weeks.

How does best team even work? Is it best regular season team (so Tampa 2019 and Pit 1993 might rank high despite playoff failures) or strictly playoffs too (so basically only cup champs). And how do we handle dynasties...for example do we rank all 4 Oiler cup wins, or Habs who won 4 or 5 cups in a row? And if so how do you differentiate between back to back cup champs with 99% the same team.
Teams could be interesting - I just have no idea what the process would look like, sounds very complicated to me.

Personally I'd love to do a list about peaks - but you probably have to define what peak is ahead of time.

 

[ted2019]

I’d like to see us do different projects (like best teams) rather than a retread of things discussed to death. I think there is more to be gained from doing something uncomfortable and new than something that any of us could throw together with the expectation of having the same conversations with the same people about the same topics without much in terms of new perspectives being developed.

But I’ll be honest, I’m still burnt out from the last project, and this year being crazy just in a general sense hasn’t helped either. I’m up for doing something short though. Like a top-40 list that lasts just 8 weeks.

How about the top 30 Home Ice advantages or top 30 best rosters of all time?

 

[quoipourquoi]

How does best team even work? Is it best regular season team (so Tampa 2019 and Pit 1993 might rank high despite playoff failures) or strictly playoffs too (so basically only cup champs). And how do we handle dynasties...for example do we rank all 4 Oiler cup wins, or Habs who won 4 or 5 cups in a row? And if so how do you differentiate between back to back cup champs with 99% the same team.
Teams could be interesting - I just have no idea what the process would look like, sounds very complicated to me.

Personally I'd love to do a list about peaks - but you probably have to define what peak is ahead of time.

Pretty much any topic would require a preliminary thread for ground rules. For a team-based list, I would imagine that it would be top-heavy with some of the teams who pulled the double (league champion and playoff champion) while slowly peppering in some of the non-Cup winners who lost short or close series (1930 Boston) and Stanley Cup winners who narrowly missed a President’s Trophy (2007 Anaheim).

 

[plusandminus]

I would be interested to see players ranked within birth year, especially for the years before basically all the best players of a year group started playing in the NHL.
For example; which were the best players born in 1958? To answer that, do a top-20 or top-30 or so list from that birth year.
Those lists would probably(?) include players that are seldom(?) ranked here, as well as get people to learn more about those players. We also would learn more about the standard of European players, and how the 1-20 or so best Europeans born a certain year compares to the best North Americans of that birth year.
One could start with one year and then work year by year backwards.

Example...
1. Dig up and list the best NHL players and non-NHL players born in 1965. Create a list of say 40-60 players to rank. (Not every player in the group needs to be ranked. The list is rather to show which players there are to choose from.)
2. Discuss the players.
3. Produce rankings.
4. Repeat step 2-3, working down the list of players until having ranked 20-30 or so players. (Even to rank "just" 10 players would be better than none.)
5. Go on with 1964, then 1963 and so on...
Or suggest a better way.
Maybe a week or two could be enough for each year?

Perhaps one would need more than 1-2 weeks per birth year, since some/many players might be unfamiliar to some/many participants.
Rankings does not necessarily have to be "perfect". Just going through the players will hopefully be a journey of learning.

(I started doing this myself some while ago, but found it very hard to rank the players.)

Some might suggest draft year instead of birth year. But many Europeans were never drafted, etc, so I prefer birth year.

 

[VanIslander]

The top player for each birth year.... going back to 1900.

I'd vote for that!

Birth years 1900 to 2000.

From Roy Worters to Andrei Svechnikov!

 

[bobholly39]

One way of doing peak is to rank best single seasons. We'd have to limit it to one season per player (to avoid having a mix of Gretzky/Orr take up 15 spots). Would be fascinating to see how high lesser players but with super strong peak seasons might rank. For example Fedorov is nowhere near a top 20 player all-time, but people are in love with his 1994 season, and I could see it rank very highly.

 

[Theokritos]

I agree with @quoipourquoi and @tarheelhockey that different projects and different angles are more interesting than re-doing the previous lists. The proposal by @plusandminus to rank players within years of birth would certainly force us to look at players we already know from a different perspective.

Personally, I'm still fond of the idea of going through NHL history one year the other and come up with a "Best Players of the Season" ranking for each year. One question is: Would we start with an early year and proceed like time proceeds in reality, or would we start in e.g. 2003-04 and move backwards through time?

Id love to see an HOH Hall of Excellence, honestly.

For reference, there is a thread where this has been discussed.

 

[bobholly39]

I agree with @quoipourquoi and @tarheelhockey that different projects and different angles are more interesting than re-doing the previous lists. The proposal by @plusandminus to rank players within years of birth would certainly force us to look at players we already know from a different perspective.

Personally, I'm still fond of the idea of going through NHL history one year the other and come up with a "Best Players of the Season" ranking for each year. One question is: Would we start with an early year and proceed like time proceeds in reality, or would we start in e.g. 2003-04 and move backwards through time?



For reference, there is a thread where this has been discussed.

So for "best players of the season" - are you thinking to rank up to 3-5 players for each season, or just 1 player, and playoffs also or just season? Would be pretty critical to discuss if it's regular season only or not - and get a discussion about how to handle injuries (ie Crosby was the best in 2011 - but he missed half the season).

This sounds somewhat interesting because it's different - but I feel many years might end up being quite boring and straight forward, as simply looking at hart rankings might be ~80% accurate.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I would be interested to see players ranked within birth year, especially for the years before basically all the best players of a year group started playing in the NHL.
For example; which were the best players born in 1958? To answer that, do a top-20 or top-30 or so list from that birth year.
Those lists would probably(?) include players that are seldom(?) ranked here, as well as get people to learn more about those players. We also would learn more about the standard of European players, and how the 1-20 or so best Europeans born a certain year compares to the best North Americans of that birth year.
One could start with one year and then work year by year backwards.

Example...
1. Dig up and list the best NHL players and non-NHL players born in 1965. Create a list of say 40-60 players to rank. (Not every player in the group needs to be ranked. The list is rather to show which players there are to choose from.)
2. Discuss the players.
3. Produce rankings.
4. Repeat step 2-3, working down the list of players until having ranked 20-30 or so players. (Even to rank "just" 10 players would be better than none.)
5. Go on with 1964, then 1963 and so on...
Or suggest a better way.
Maybe a week or two could be enough for each year?

Perhaps one would need more than 1-2 weeks per birth year, since some/many players might be unfamiliar to some/many participants.
Rankings does not necessarily have to be "perfect". Just going through the players will hopefully be a journey of learning.

(I started doing this myself some while ago, but found it very hard to rank the players.)

Some might suggest draft year instead of birth year. But many Europeans were never drafted, etc, so I prefer birth year.

I agree with @quoipourquoi and @tarheelhockey that different projects and different angles are more interesting than re-doing the previous lists. The proposal by @plusandminus to rank players within years of birth would certainly force us to look at players we already know from a different perspective.

Personally, I'm still fond of the idea of going through NHL history one year the other and come up with a "Best Players of the Season" ranking for each year. One question is: Would we start with an early year and proceed like time proceeds in reality, or would we start in e.g. 2003-04 and move backwards through time?



For reference, there is a thread where this has been discussed.

I think either of these would be incredible, signature projects for this forum.

That being said, just as a devil's advocate... 100 seasons x 2 weeks per season = 200 weeks = we are talking about spending 4 years on these projects.

I'd be down for it, just saying. That's a huge commitment. For the result to be high-quality, we would basically be declining to do anything else in the near future including the ATD.

 

[plusandminus]

I think one advantage of the birth year approach (and probably the season approach too?) is that each year is independent of each other. So it might be okay to not participate for a couple of weeks. One will of course miss out on that year, but will be fully ready to participate in the next year.

By the way, I recently read the best non-NHLers ranking and decided to list the players by birth year. Then I got curious about listing the best NHLers too. Europeans (including Börje Salming, Stastny brothers) to the left, North Americans to the right. And then I wanted to go through year by year to see which the other Europeans were. I only went through a few seasons.
Within parenthesis is the ranking you determined when doing the best non-NHLers project. I just put some more names there, so please just accept there might be better players missing. (The order of players is a mix of "ranking" and the order I found them when searching.)
I try to quote it so that it won't take up a lot of space.

1903: Malecek(34)
1922: Bobrov(22)
1923: Zabrodsky(21)
1924: Sologubov(26)
1931: Tumba(20), R.Stoltz, Bobnik(41)
1933: Loktev(38)
1934: L.Volkov
1935: Sura-Pelle
1936: N.Nilsson(47)
1937: V.Alexandrov, Y.Volkov
1938: Golonka(46), Mayorov(45), (Konovalenko)
1939: Davydov(33)
1940: Starshinov(25), Almetov, Romishevsky, Yurzinov
1941: Firsov(4), Ragulin(28), Sterner(36)
1942: (Dzurilla(35))
1943:
1944: Mikhailov(6), Holecek(9), Nedomansky(11), Suchy(12), Pospisil(14), J.Holik(24), Svedberg(30)
1945: Lyapkin
1946: Vikulov(40)
1947: Petrov(13), Yakushev(17), Tsygankov, Gusev
1948: Kharlamov(3), V.Shadrin, Ebermann
1949: Maltsev(7), Martinec(8), Vasiliev, Lutchenko
1950: Hlinka(27), Bubla(44), Kühnhackl(48), J.Novak
1951: Shalimov(43), Novy, Lebedev, Anisin, B.Salming, Hedberg, W.Lindström --- Dionne, Lafleur, Robinson, R.Kehoe, R.Martin, C.Ramsay, T.O'Reilly, Vickers
1952: (Tretiak(5)), Balderis(23), (Kralik(50)), A.Golikov, Pouzar
1953: Kapustin(31), F.Cernic, M.Stastny
1954: Skvortsov, Szluktov, V.Golikov, P.Richter
1955: Bilyaletdinov, Shepelev, Babinov, (Myshkin), M.Leinonen, T.Levo, M.Hagman --- M.Howe, D.Taylor, Maruk, Larouche, Paiement, Bridgman,
1956: P.Stastny, K.Nilsson, T.Gradin, J.Pettersson, Pervoukhin, K.Eloranta, (Lindmark(42)) --- Trottier, Federko, R.Larson, R.Carlyle, M.Tremblay, R.Cloutier, B.Sutter, (Liut)
1957: Drozdetsky, Gimayev, P.Wallin --- Bossy, J.Mullen, Tonelli, D.Wilson, Langway, McCourt, J.Anderson, M.Johnson, B.Beck, R.Seiling, G.Roberts
1958: Fetisov(1), Makarov(2), BÅ.Gustafsson, K.Samuelsson, J.Hrdina, Siltanen, Sinisalo --- B.Smith, Linseman, MacLean, Poulin
1959: Kasatonov(16), Mats.Näslund, Lala, Kadlec, A.Stastny, Rusnak --- Gartner, Propp, McCrimmon, Huddy, Lowe, Hartsburg, Broten, Ogrodnick, Ramage, Vaive, D.Graham
1960: Krutov(15), Larionov(18), H.Loob(37), Bykov(49), Kurri, T.Steen, Ruotsalainen, T.Jonsson, I.Liba --- R.Bourque, Ciccarelli, Goulet, Gl.Anderson, D.Hunter, Kerr, Carbonneau, P.Reinhart, D.Crossman, M.Ramsey
1961: Khomutov

I agree it might take time to rank them. But if starting by 1965 or so, and working backwards, one might reach 1940 within a year or so.

 

[quoipourquoi]

So for "best players of the season" - are you thinking to rank up to 3-5 players for each season, or just 1 player, and playoffs also or just season? Would be pretty critical to discuss if it's regular season only or not - and get a discussion about how to handle injuries (ie Crosby was the best in 2011 - but he missed half the season).

This sounds somewhat interesting because it's different - but I feel many years might end up being quite boring and straight forward, as simply looking at hart rankings might be ~80% accurate.

I would think we would have to take the totality of the season/playoffs into consideration to differentiate it from the Hart results. Plus there is more value in that type of list, because outside of THN sporadically doing a non-predictive post-playoff list in the 1990s, we don’t really have something like that (and certainly nothing as well documented as the regular season ballot results).

If a player doesn’t win a Conn Smythe but raises their stock significantly in the playoffs, there’s a pretty good chance it will be forgotten over time in favor of strict Hart balloting analysis.

 

[Professor What]

I would think we would have to take the totality of the season/playoffs into consideration to differentiate it from the Hart results. Plus there is more value in that type of list, because outside of THN sporadically doing a non-predictive post-playoff list in the 1990s, we don’t really have something like that (and certainly nothing as well documented as the regular season ballot results).

If a player doesn’t win a Conn Smythe but raises their stock significantly in the playoffs, there’s a pretty good chance it will be forgotten over time in favor of strict Hart balloting analysis.

There are some facts that I think could make a "best players of the year" list significantly different from Hart results. For one thing, defensemen get very little consideration for the Hart, and they're certainly often among the best players in the league. I mean, Erik Karlsson once led the league in assists as a defenseman and finished 9th in Hart voting. Secondly, especially in recent years, a team missing the playoffs seems to skew Hart voters away from their players to an extent. How was Connor McDavid 5th in 2018? Third, the Hart isn't supposed to be an award to the best player, but the player most valuable to his team. Therefore, any voters that actually follow the rules might not vote for the "best" players. And, fourth, sometimes, they just plain get it wrong. For example, I don't see how Iginla didn't win the Hart in 2002 or Lemiuex didn't win it in 1989. I have no problem with including the playoffs, but for guys who had stellar seasons on teams that didn't make them, there would have to be some talk on how to handle that. Would they be penalized for being a diamond among rhinestones, or would everybody have an overall body of work that was considered equal?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I think that it's best to do projects that we have a chance of completing - a 4 year long project seems like it wouldn't be that...

Ideas that I think could work:

• Best single season teams of all-time
• Best single seasons of all-time by a player
• Best coaches of all-time (though this might be too research intensive if we want results that aren't somewhat arbitrary)
• HOH Hall of Fame or Hall of Excellence (we've talked about this one the most in the past)

 

[BadgerBruce]

The birth year approach is definitely interesting.

Just for shites and giggles, I took a quick look on Quant Hockey at the 1928 born players. Just NHL regular season totals here, but Howe played 1767 season games, while the guy in 10th spot, defenceman Larry Zeidel, checks in with ... 158. He wouldn’t even qualify for a league pension under the existing rules.

1965 would be fun, no?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Scrap the coaches one...we don't have the knowledge...

 

[plusandminus]

I think that it's best to do projects that we have a chance of completing - a 4 year long project seems like it wouldn't be that...

Ideas that I think could work:

• Best single season teams of all-time
• Best single seasons of all-time by a player
• Best coaches of all-time (though this might be too research intensive if we want results that aren't somewhat arbitrary)
• HOH Hall of Fame or Hall of Excellence (we've talked about this one the most in the past)

---Best single season teams of all-time
Would it include European teams, like CSKA Moscow? (CSKA might actually be the only European team qualified? But they might have been the best team ever.)
How do you determine the 1970s MTL? Were they really as good as CSKA? And was MTL actually better than previous great NHL teams if looking only at their results against the other O6 teams?
How to evaluate last years Tampa Bay, that had a great regular season but not a good playoff?
What would we learn and gain?

---Best single seasons of all-time by a player
Doesn't this topic come upp all the time? And wouldn't it mostly just be personal preferences determining how we'd rank players? Which Gretzky season is his best? Which Mario season? Was Lafleur even the best player in the world during his peak? (Yes, I guess most North Americans here would say.)
How to treat great players on teams that didn't go far into the playoffs?
What would we learn and gain from a project like this? Wouldn't it just be very familiar players being discussed yet another time? That could as well be done in an ordinary thread?

---Best coaches of all-time (though this might be too research intensive...)
Seems very interesting, especially since coaching can greatly affect the stats and careers of individual players.
But, unforunately (as you and others say)... how would we be able to determine how good the coach or coaching actually was?

---HOH Hall of Fame or Hall of Excellence (we've talked about this one the most in the past)
As a Swede, I'm still surprised about the North American focus on HOF. Like "What does it really matter which players are 'in' or not?". What would the criteria be? Wouldn't the results be quite similar to the best/greatest player rankings? (Or would guys like Börje Salming and Sven Tumba end up much higher on this list than on the previous rankings? Tumba was like "Mr Hockey" in Sweden, and Salming is a legend here.)

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

HOH Hall of Fame or Hall of Excellence (we've talked about this one the most in the past)
As a Swede, I'm still surprised about the North American focus on HOF. Like "What does it really matter which players are 'in' or not?". What would the criteria be? Wouldn't the results be quite similar to the best/greatest player rankings? (Or would guys like Börje Salming and Sven Tumba end up much higher on this list than on the previous rankings? Tumba was like "Mr Hockey" in Sweden, and Salming is a legend here.)

Many are frustrated with the lack of a clearly defined, or seemingly arbitrary standard for making the Hall of Fame. I think it’s understandable, even though I feel unable to join in on the outrage, most of the time. I like having the Hall of Fame, celebrating the history of the game, but I guess I care more about when assholes are inducted than when so-so “greats” are, but I understand that people are ticked when Andreychuk or Lowe makes it before their favorites.

 

[plusandminus]

The birth year approach is definitely interesting.

Just for shites and giggles, I took a quick look on Quant Hockey at the 1928 born players. Just NHL regular season totals here, but Howe played 1767 season games, while the guy in 10th spot, defenceman Larry Zeidel, checks in with ... 158. He wouldn’t even qualify for a league pension under the existing rules.

1965 would be fun, no?

To me, it would be very interesting and I would likely learn a lot.

An alternative might be something similar to this...
Do the ATD (I hope I wrote it right), but use a span of birth years to choose from. And you must choose only 1 player from each birth year.
If roster size is 20, then take for example years 1945-1964. You can choose any player from any birth year except from a birth year you've already chosen a player from. (Or choose a maximum of 2 players from say 1950-59.) If there are 20 participants, you'll get up to 20 players ranked each year.
If you're using reverse draft order for every 2nd draft round, the above should work. (It wouldn't work if you focus on one year at the time. Because then all the no 1 picks would be split between two players.)
(A disadvantage compared to my previous suggestion is that players will be picked/"ranked" without discussion and voting. So the more discussion you'll have when doing your "knockout tournament"(?), the more interesting.)

I'm very interested in strength of era. Hopefully a project based on birth years would end up being a great reference in determining strength of era, or to determine how good the non-NHL Europeans were compared to the NHL players.