ted2019
History of Hockey
Anyone up for a top 60 Defenseman project? Been almost 10 years since the first one.
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!
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.
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.
Id love to see an HOH Hall of Excellence, honestly.
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 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.
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
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.
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)
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.)
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?