Makarov vs. Beliveau

[wetcoast]

Are you seriously making the argument that the Soviet league was basically on par with the NHL in the 1980s when you say "Canada?"

Seriously once again I was talking about the National teams as my response was to international play that you brought up as a small sample but you seem really focused on the makeup of the Soviet league.

Even focusing on the Soviet elague we have already established hiow dominant Makarov was on that "super" team.

I'm saying we have a pretty good idea of what an all-time great looks like at 31 years old, and what Makarov did at that age is not up to par. The fish out of water/different culture/different sport/past his prime angle are excuses.

Really?

You never addressed how Jean actually looked at 31,32 and 33 perhaps if you look at post expansion superstars you might be a bit surprised at your assertion here as there are plenty of superstars that aren't as elite as Gretzky and Lemieux were.

And as a counterpoint I already showed in 70-71 that 6 of the top 10 scorers were over the age of 30, quite different than the NHL Makarov came to.

The fact that those Canadiens dynasties at least overlapped the Red Wings and Maple Leafs dynasties shows some level of competitiveness that is non existent in the Soviet league.

Everyone can and has agreed that the Soviet league structure is different than the 50s and 60s NHL and this seems to be the hill you want to stand on.
It's about as useful as saying that Makarov blows Jean away internationally.

So you're comparing Beliveau almost a decade older than Makarov as similar levels of decline? For the record, 31-34 isn't that old, and wasn't in 1990 either. Patrick Kane is 31 today. Sidney Crosby is 32 and Alexander Ovechkin is 34 for frame of reference to what a superstar should look like in their early 30s.

Yes in 90-91, 31 was old for a top line forward in the NHL, just look here.

1990-91 NHL Skater Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

then look 3 years later

1993-94 NHL Skater Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Aside from the 92-93 dip (compared to the bump the rest of the league got in different situations and usage) that's 3 elite years for his age group bar none.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Is the better team comparison better aimed for the WWII Canadiens instead of the 1960's Canadiens? Most of the league's players of note played on the Habs in the War years...we don't give Durnan full marks, and I just recently had to try to drag Richard down in our last top 100...

I had Richard and Makarov relatively close to each other on my initial ranking...

I think we're starting to come around on the weakness of the War years and that they extend past 1945...I'd say the next step is actually trying to gauge this Soviet League...

Maurice Richard at 20th was by far the worst ranking for him.

You did make a valiant effort.

 

[plusandminus]

Considering how highly some here ranked Mark Messier on the all-time top lists, perhaps some here think Messier might have been 3rd best forward of the 1980s behind Gretzky and Mario?

(I know Messier had some good seasons in the early 1990s too, including the somewhat lucky Stanley Cup win.)

 

[tarheelhockey]

Considering how highly some here ranked Mark Messier on the all-time top lists, perhaps some here think Messier might have been 3rd best forward of the 1980s behind Gretzky and Mario?

(I know Messier had some good seasons in the early 1990s too, including the somewhat lucky Stanley Cup win.)

I don't think Messier is a serious contender for that title any earlier than 1990.

If anything, he's a good illustration of the anti-Makarov -- a guy who would have led a lot of teams, except he played for a dynasty and got buried as a result.

 

[Stephen]

Seriously once again I was talking about the National teams as my response was to international play that you brought up as a small sample but you seem really focused on the makeup of the Soviet league.

Even focusing on the Soviet elague we have already established hiow dominant Makarov was on that "super" team.

Really?

Why would we not be focused on the quality of the Soviet league when the premise of a Makarov/Beliveau equivalency is based on Soviet scoring titles and MVPs?

You're going to build a case based on CSKA Moscow putting the boot to NHL powerhouses like the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques as the definitive proof?

You never addressed how Jean actually looked at 31,32 and 33 perhaps if you look at post expansion superstars you might be a bit surprised at your assertion here as there are plenty of superstars that aren't as elite as Gretzky and Lemieux were.

And as a counterpoint I already showed in 70-71 that 6 of the top 10 scorers were over the age of 30, quite different than the NHL Makarov came to.

Again, why are you trying to conflate Beliveau's 1970-71 season with his career at 31, 32, and 33? Beliveau was born in 1931 and that time frame coincided with the 1962 to 1965 seasons. In 1963-64, Beliveau was 32, came in 3rd in league scoring behind a 24 year old Stan Mikita and 25 year old Bobby Hull. Not making excuses as to why he wasn't outscoring teammates like Joe Nieuwendyk, Doug Gilmour and Theoren Fleury.

Everyone can and has agreed that the Soviet league structure is different than the 50s and 60s NHL and this seems to be the hill you want to stand on.
It's about as useful as saying that Makarov blows Jean away internationally.

There are certainly massive differences between those two leagues, which has been agreed upon over and over. But doesn't stop posters from backdooring the idea that there's some equivalency there in this debate and many others where the proof that 80s Soviet stars are equivalent/superior to other players in other leagues.

Yes in 90-91, 31 was old for a top line forward in the NHL, just look here.

1990-91 NHL Skater Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

then look 3 years later

1993-94 NHL Skater Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Aside from the 92-93 dip (compared to the bump the rest of the league got in different situations and usage) that's 3 elite years for his age group bar none.

We can all agree that Makarov's declining seasons in his 30s represents a player who was on the downside of his career and if he had played in the NHL in the 80s we'd have a fuller picture of a dominant forward with strengths and weaknesses exposed over 80 games, playoff runs, etc.

In terms of declining in his 30s in the early to mid 90s, I think of guys like Denis Savard, Doug Gilmour and Dale Hawerchuk hitting similar downward trends around that similar early 30s range, so hardly atypical of Makarov to not be a 100+ point player at that stage of his career. But I also see all-time greats from that aging gracefully, staying extremely productive as well, avoiding that "rate of decay" too. Part of the reason I have a hard time projecting him back to his heyday as a Beliveau level player.

 

[Theokritos]

Why would we not be focused on the quality of the Soviet league when the premise of a Makarov/Beliveau equivalency is based on Soviet scoring titles and MVPs?

The premise is based on Makarov being the best player forward of a team that was roughly on par with the best the NHL could offer, minus Gretzky and Lemieux.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The premise is based on Makarov being the best player of a team that was roughly on par with the best the NHL could offer, minus Gretzky and Lemieux.

And again, it's far from given that Makarov was the best PLAYER on his team. Best forward, sure (though as I said earlier, Krutov was at least close for 2 years).

Although relevant to the comparison, for part of his prime, Beliveau also had a defenseman who provided clear competition for best player on his team.

 

[Theokritos]

And again, it's far from given that Makarov was the best PLAYER on his team. Best forward, sure (though as I said earlier, Krutov was at least close for 2 years).

I meant best forward, my bad.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Why would we not be focused on the quality of the Soviet league when the premise of a Makarov/Beliveau equivalency is based on Soviet scoring titles and MVPs?

You're going to build a case based on CSKA Moscow putting the boot to NHL powerhouses like the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques as the definitive proof?

IMO basing it on scoring titles was an effective conversation starter, but not a great foundation for the argument. The core of this argument is really more around Makarov's standing among all players during that time period.

His Soviet scoring titles can only get us as far as "uncontested best Soviet forward from 1982-88, maybe better than Krutov up to 1990". Because they're uncontested, there's really no need to dig very deeply into the level of competition -- it suffices to say that he was clearly above Larionov, Balderis, and arguably Krutov. Beyond that, the critical evidence is in his performances against Canada and NHL teams.

Is it fair to say Makarov was clearly the best non-Gretzky, non-Lemieux forward in his performances against Canada and the NHL? That's the question I'm interested in here. If he was clearly the next-best forward, then he was by extension clearly the #3 forward in the world during that time period. Elevating or diminishing our opinions on the Soviet league won't change that.

 

[Sentinel]

If you deleted the boring, every day NHL resumes of most players and relied on a limited sampling of international tournaments, exhibition games you'd also have some interesting interpretations of what a player could be.

Because that's the closest thing we have to a head-to-head comparison.

We also saw a 30-31 year old Sergei Makarov in comparison to a 30-31 year old Jean Beliveau, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, and it's not a strong claim to an all-time great ranking.

A 30-31 y.o. Makarov was also clearly better than a 30-31 y.o. Lafleur and Bossy (that's not hard though). Beliveau is a grade above Lafleur but below Lemieux and Gretzky. Makarov fits nicely with Beliveau if you go by this age thing.

I would say the NHL Original Six era had at least 3 competitive franchises out of 6 at any given point during Beliveau's era and the early expansion era had a very strong cast of superstars who were not Montreal Canadiens, so no I wouldn't sign off on "same same" with whatever 80s hockey in the USSR looked like.

Nobody says "same same." We say "similar." When half of your league is not competitive at all, that's not that far off from the Soviet league. Not every game was a cakewalk for CSKA, you know.

The main argument here is: if it was so easy to lead the Soviet league in points, why didn't ANYBODY EXCEPT MAKAROV did it for the whole decade? Geddit?

Why are you drawing an equivalency between Sergei Makarov's 31-34 year old seasons and Jean Beliveau's 39 year old season? That's a very strange cherry pick especially when you consider Beliveau was scoring 90 points in 68 games 1960-61 as a 30 year old, highlighting that Makarov's fish out of water/past his prime is a flimsy excuse for an underwhelming NHL career.

That's not a flimsy excuse. You must really be biased against him not to understand his situation. You can be the greatest singer-songwriter in the world, but when you are being asked to write a song in an unfamiliar language with just the help of Google Translate, you will struggle.

 

[Sentinel]

I'm actually really interested in your logic here, because you seem to be implying that playing in an extremely unbalanced league is automatically disqualifying for some reason, and that a player can be seen as better than another simply because his competitive circumstances were more difficult, without even looking at their actual performances.

Let's say, as a historical hypothetical, the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens combined rosters in 1950 and Howe, Lindsay, Richard, Beliveau, Harvey, Kelly, Sawchuk, Plante and company proceeded to destroy the NHL for the rest of the decade, creating a league situation that approximates what CSKA Moscow was dealing with in the 1980s.

Do you think that would inherently make all of them worse players than they actually were in real life? That we wouldn't think Sawchuk's 1AST/Vezinas or Harvey's Norrises or Howe's Art Rosses were meaningful at all just because they won them a bit easier than they would have anyway? Do you think the relative scoring rank of the players within that team would provide us with zero information as to how good they were? Do you think it would be easy to hold down a 1st line spot over a consistent period of time if the roster was that stacked? Do you think the strongest competition for the scoring title would be coming from within that team or from the rest of the league? Do you think that observers would automatically think the same guy was the team's best player every single season?

Having one unbeatable team is definitely a different competitive environment than, say, the 1950s NHL with two dominant teams, or the overlapping dynasty period of the '70s/'80s, or the late '90s/early '00s with four dominant teams, or the parity of the 2010s. We do have to keep those factors in mind when evaluating players, but I don't see why any league situation would on its own make a player better or worse in a historical context. It seems to me that you should be rating every player based on how they performed relative to their team and league situation.

An even better scenario. Let's remove Howe for argument's sake. 50s Wings and Habs combine, and Beliveau wins every scoring title for the next decade. Will his ranking be higher or lower than his real life ranking? Cuz that's Makarov for you.

 

[Michael Farkas]

In this scenario, we still have very little concept of league quality on the Makarov side, right? Now we're just stacking fan fiction on regular fiction...?

 

[plusandminus]

In this scenario, we still have very little concept of league quality on the Makarov side, right? Now we're just stacking fan fiction on regular fiction...?

Have you watched the best-on-best tournament games he participated in, for example against Canada in 1987? Great games to watch.
I ask, because you seem to see hockey well from a coach's perspective, and it would be interesting to hear you analyze these games and Makarov in particular. It was very educating for me to correspond with you in the "Defensive responsibilites of forwards" thread.

 

[Thenameless]

I will only focus on this part, because it's the easiest to debunk. How do you think Team Slovenia (AKA "Kopitar + 19 unknowns) would do against Team Canada, especially lead by Gretzky and Lemieux? Because Team USSR (AKA "Red Machine") did pretty good against Team Canada. Ditto for club series.

This comparison is off by a few parsecs.

I hear what you're saying, but you need to a little bit careful about the bolded part. Team USSR is more cohesive as a team because more of their players play together throughout the year. If you did the same with Team Canada, there would still be a gap there.

When Canada has had time to prepare on equal terms for a best-on-best tournament, they have almost always been the favourite going in. The only time I thought another team was truly better was when USA beat Canada in 1996.

 

[Sentinel]

I hear what you're saying, but you need to a little bit careful about the bolded part. Team USSR is more cohesive as a team because more of their players play together throughout the year. If you did the same with Team Canada, there would still be a gap there.

When Canada has had time to prepare on equal terms for a best-on-best tournament, they have almost always been the favourite going in. The only time I thought another team was truly better was when USA beat Canada in 1996.

1. In 1979 Team Canada had three practically intact club lines from Canadiens, Flyers, and Islanders. And the myth that Team USSR trained together year round has already been debunked numerous times.

2. In the club series (that Soviets mostly won), it's the NHL teams that trained together year round. Soviet teams are often (rightfully) accused of being "reinforced," but the other side of that coin is that many players did not play with their regular linemates.

3. "Did pretty good" is as inocuous and indisputable of a description as anyone can muster.

4. On the subject of "Soviet cohension": Team Slovenia could practice together year round. I doubt they would even win one period against Team Canada. You actually need GREAT PLAYERS to keep up. The Soviets had them.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Have you watched the best-on-best tournament games he participated in, for example against Canada in 1987? Great games to watch.
I ask, because you seem to see hockey well from a coach's perspective, and it would be interesting to hear you analyze these games and Makarov in particular. It was very educating for me to correspond with you in the "Defensive responsibilites of forwards" thread.

I have. But not in this context. This requires a different lens.

 

[Overrated]

On the flipside, the touring Soviet clubs were focused on playing the NHL. Point in case: When the Calgary Flames and Washington Capitals toured the Soviet Union in September 1989, they combined for a 6-2 record against Soviet clubs. Not the outcome you would expect if you take the Soviet results in North America at face value and then add home ice and rink size.

Didn't want to BUMP this but the NHL toured the USSR again in 1990 and didn't do as well as in 1989.

SKA Leningrad/Torpedo Yaroslavl - Montreal Canadiens 3:5 (they mixed these two lesser teams together)
Spartak Moscow - Minnesota North Stars 8:5
Dynamo Riga - Montreal Canadiens 2:4
Soviet Wings - Minnesota North Stars 3:2
Dynamo Moscow - Montreal Canadiens 4:1
Khimik Voskresensk - Minnesota North Stars 2:3
CSKA Moscow - Montreal Canadiens 3:2
Sokol Kiev - Minnesota North Stars 5:0

Also note that 12 Russians were already in the NHL by then and that the Soviet league's talent wasn't as deep as the NHL so that number is somewhat significant.

 

[Albatros]

Some of those 1990 games were rather intense affairs, marred with fighting and reckless hits.