I don't think that was his main point at all, and being .3 of a % off of Leetch in % of production at even strength is a wash for me, as far as style of dman. Now, like I said, Leetch produced at a slightly higher level, overall. Looking at the adjusted numbers, in a typical big year, Leetch cracks 80 points, Lidstrom cracks 70... they each do it a handful of times. MacIniss has the big outlier at 92 points, and after that, I'm not even sure his top 5 years would even be as good as Lidstrom's. Either way, it's very close, and Rhiessan's numbers show that MacIniss got a higher % of his numbers on the PP. Bourque, adjusted, is actually really similar to Lidstrom. Incredibly long careers where they can pop up with close to a point-per-game really anytime in their 20 years. Neither have one or two massive outlying seasons... probably too busy playing defense, both of them. Unless you are looking at raw numbers, I can't see a gap big enough in their points production to warrant that Lids was 'better defensively, but with a smaller margin" as the offensive margin is very small to begin with. I would have a hard time trusting my own abilities to read 20 years of defensive play, and split a hair down to that fine of a detail in order to pick a winner, if I believed that one was better, but by less than their offensive difference. I believe that was Rhiessan's real point, to make sure that Bourque is seen as better.
Personally, I don't have a distinction between Bourque and Lidstrom, in fact, they are eerily similar in several ways. Both are above Leetch and Mac by a good bit, more than I had previously thought, having thought that their offensive numbers were much better than Lidstrom's. Coffey is another animal altogether, and it really just comes down to what you like in a dman. He is inarguably the best offensively of this, and nearly any group. He is also inarguably the worst defensively.
Looking at these 5, and their numbers, I would have to rank them, offensively, like this:
Coffey
Leetch
Bourque
MacIniss
Lidstrom
but the thing is, if i had to rate them out of 100, it would go something like:
Coffey - 100
Leetch - 90
Bourque - 83
MacIniss - 81
Lidstrom - 80
He's really not far off, when era is taken into account, and definitely not enough to be put in a lower-level of offensive defensemen... aside from Coffey, but then I think they all are lower than him, in their own, A-level group. Coffey is A+.