Maurice "Rocket" Richard: Born 100 Years Ago, August 4, 1921.
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Staniowski
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Staniowski
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HF007
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- Sep 9, 2008
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Staniowski
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Here's a 30-year-old Maurice Richard in some clips from the 1951 all-star game...
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I know it’s not a popular take and statistically it doesn’t make sense, but I still have Maurice Richard behind the Big Four.
JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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My grandmother once danced with Maurice Richard, thereby giving her bragging rights among all the other French Canadians she knew for the rest of her life.
The Panther
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Jean Béliveau:
-- "What made [Richard] unique was the way he channeled his incredible, virtually unstoppable will to win into an explosive charge from the opposition's blue line all the way to their net."
-- "[Richard] had been forced to spend his entire career battling extremely tough and hardened players. His fights were almost as spectacular as his goals. He went the distance with Detroit's 'Terrible' Ted Lindsay in a string of memorable brawls, pummeled Boston strongman Fernie Flaman, and KO'd the Rangers' Bob 'Killer' Dill at Madison Square Garden."
-- "[He] had the temperament of a live grenade when aroused."
He played on one of the most stacked teams ever yet didn't even get to a positive career PPG. Statistically it doesn't make sense to put him into the top50.
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I think you are underestimated how hard it is to have a positive PPG. But to be fair, one could also argue that getting a positive PPG is perhaps very easy. What it comes down to is not having a clue what you mean by a "positive" PPG.
Sarcasm aside, presuming you mean over a PPG, being #2 in PPG and points during his playing career while being the clear best goalscorer in the RS and the playoffs throws a bunch of cold water on your arbitrary metric.
NHL Stats
BTW, the Habs were the clear #2 team for most of Richard's prime.
Yeah that is what I meant lol. Funny post dude.
Richard played since 42-43 until 59-60 and the Habs won the league 8 times and won the cup 8 times. In the same time frame Detroit won the cup 5 times and the league 9 times. Yeah they were somewhat similar in ranking.
It's not that getting over a PPG is that much easier now. If you look up scoring in the past decade 2010s NHL Scoring Leaders only a handful players got over a PPG despite the fact the talent pool has grown at least a dozen times since those days.
Maurice was a good player in a weak era. The only thing he really has going for him are his Stanley Cups but since there were just 6 teams and the cups went to the top3 for the entirety of his career it just doesn't impress me as let's say Patrick Kane's cups.
The Panther
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81 playoff goals in his first 121 playoff games (55 goals per 82 games), in what was generally a very low-scoring era, speaks for itself.
In regular season, he was 1st or 2nd in NHL goals eight times, and twice was a 1st-team All Star over a top-4-all-time player at his peak.
In regular season, he was 1st or 2nd in NHL goals eight times, and twice was a 1st-team All Star over a top-4-all-time player at his peak.
It is impressive. I also think goals matter a lot more than assists which also matter a lot more than secondary and rebounded assists. He seemed to have been a prolific goal scorer similar to Mike Bossy or Bure or Ovechkin. He might have played in a low scoring era but he also played in a weak era with an extremely shallow talent pool. Not sure why should I put him above the guys mentioned. Well I'd put him over Bure because Bure lacked team accomplishments but that's about it.
The Panther
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I can't get on board with the whole "blame the guy for when he was born" argument. Besides, how was it a weak era (stable, no expansion) with a shallow talent pool? Where else were the great players in the 40s/50s?
I don't blame anyone for being born in the "wrong" time. Chamberlain played in a weak era and put up impossible numbers. Don Bradman played in a weak era and put up impossible numbers. Bobby Orr played in a weak era and put up impossible numbers. Maurice Richard played in a weak era and put up good numbers. That is the difference.
The Panther
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I had already answered those before. By shallow talent pool I meant the amount of players that played the sport competitively. Guys who played in the 1940s were all born 20-30 years prior back during the days of WW1. Sports period weren't taken seriously. That is why it was common for many athletes to excel in several sports at once. The competition wasn't the same a century ago as it is now. That is why you sometimes had people who put up numbers that would now be impossible. The first guy in hockey who did that was Orr who at his peak was the best offensive and defensive player at the same time.
I am not underrating the players of old. Look up the top200. They put 15 guys born in the 19th century into the mix despite the fact only their hockey ability was to be judged and not anything else. That is an extreme amount of overrating. In reality there should be exactly 0 players born in the 19th century in the top200.
I mean doesn't my logic make sense? Since there have been a lot more people playing competitive hockey in the last couple of decades than a century ago should not the top list be full of players born in the last let's say 50-60 years and not full of players whose parents remembered Abraham Lincoln? Of course by the time Richard started his NHL career the game became a lot more competitive so he should be somewhere on the list. I still don't see any reason why should he be put above Crosby or Ovechkin though. Yeah he won many Stanley Cups that's true but back then it was the same three teams winning it for the entirety of his career.
It's too bad we can never know how different players would do in different eras because then we wouldn't have to continually hear this rather unimaginative take on ranking the GOATs.
Dennis Bonvie
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Excellent main board take.
You really need to know something about hockey history to post here.
You should also not clearly have an agenda of pushing your favourite player. Soooo irritating.
Dennis Bonvie
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What do you base that on?
Babe Ruth was earning more money than the president in the 1920s.
Louis/Schmeling fight in 1938 may have been the biggest event of the century.
Richard himself was the spark for the Montreal riots of 1955.
Dennis Bonvie
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Dennis Bonvie
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Its all in the timing, kid.
Seriously, things are flying right over my head all the time lately.
TheDevilMadeMe
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Repost of my "Maurice Richard in the playoffs" post:
Maurice Richard's playoff goal scoring
We all know that The Rocket's legend is based on his ability to score goals in the playoffs, so I thought I would examine just how much better than everyone else he was.
I think it's fair to consider only players who peaked before expansion, since playoff scoring was generally low during this period and the playoffs were only 2 rounds long.
I realize it might seem a bit hypocritical to consider only goal scoring, after my rants about how we need to consider a player's overall offense via points. To an extent, that might be true. But I'm also bit of a hockey traditionalist in how I view this. And there is a reason that the Hart Trophy basically tracks the Art Ross, while the Conn Smythe conversation is just as likely to follow the goals race as the points race - there is just something to be said for being able to finish things off in the playoffs, when the games are tighter and the pressure is higher.
Total career playoffs goals among pre-expansion players
1. Maurice Richard 82
2. Jean Beliveau 79
3. Gordie Howe 68
4. Bobby Hull 62
5. Stan Mikita 59
All these players played a number of seasons after expansion, except for Richard.
Top career playoffs GPG among pre-expansion players
1. Maurice Richard 0.617
2. Bobby Hull 0.521
3. Gordie Drillon 0.520 (only 7 seasons)
4. Jean Beliveau 0.488
5. Bernard Geoffrion 0.439
6. Gordie Howe 0.433 (includes a ton of post-prime seasons)
Maurice scored 16.6% more goals per game in the playoffs than Bobby Hull
Put it in context
To properly consider their goals per game averages, let's knock off the Rocket's 1944 and 1945 playoffs when he obliterated competition hurt by World War 2 to the tune of 18 goals in 15 games across both seasons. But to be fair, we should also knock off his 1959 and 1960 seasons (1 goal in 12 games), when he was injured and past his prime, and openly said that he would have retired if he didn't enjoy playing with his younger brother so much (and was used in a more defensive role FYI).
We are left with 63 goals in 103 career playoff games or 0.612 goals per game over a period of 13 seasons (including 11 playoff years).
In other words, in the playoffs, the Rocket averaged 4.3 goals per 7 game series over a sample size of 103 games over 13 years that took him through the lowest scoring period in NHL history (early 1950s) after the advent of the Red Line. Truly extraordinary!
Compare to Bobby Hull's 60 goals in 110 playoff games over 11 seasons after the age of 22 and before he left for the WHA - 0.545 goals per game.
Maurice Richard's scored 11% more goals per playoff game over 13 seasons (11 playoffs) than Bobby Hull did over his 11 season prime NHL playoff career (10 playoffs). If anything, these numbers are favorable for Bobby Hull, since he didn't play in the super low-scoring early 1950s.
Gordie Howe is a harder comparison because he played for so long, but his playoff peak appears to be the 16 season stretch between 1949 and 1965 (15 playoffs). In this time frame, Howe has 60 goals in 123 games - 0.488 goals per game. Note that I picked such a long stretch because the first and last year of the stretch actually bring the average up. Howe's average is dragged down by several seasons in the early 1960s.
Maurice Richard scored 20% more goals over his best 13 year (non-WW2) stretch than Howe did over his best 16 year stretch. Howe obviously had more assists and overall points, so it isn't a complete comparison of their offensive value, however, especially since Howe was arguably a better playmaker than goal scorer.
In conclusion
We've all heard statements that the Rocket was "the best ever from the blueline in" or "a highly specialized weapon." There has been a lot of emphasis over the past few years on what Maurice isn't an all-time great at - he's "middling" defensively, an unimpressive playmaker, and while he took more abuse than perhaps any other star player ever and never backed down, he wasn't one to really initiate body checking. But I think we've been forgetting just what the upside is - just how special the specialized weapon was.
Random fact: Richard's record 6 playoff overtime goals wasn't broken until 2006, despite the fact that teams only needed to win 2 playoff rounds to win the Cup in Richard's era.
Maurice Richard's playoff goal scoring
We all know that The Rocket's legend is based on his ability to score goals in the playoffs, so I thought I would examine just how much better than everyone else he was.
I think it's fair to consider only players who peaked before expansion, since playoff scoring was generally low during this period and the playoffs were only 2 rounds long.
I realize it might seem a bit hypocritical to consider only goal scoring, after my rants about how we need to consider a player's overall offense via points. To an extent, that might be true. But I'm also bit of a hockey traditionalist in how I view this. And there is a reason that the Hart Trophy basically tracks the Art Ross, while the Conn Smythe conversation is just as likely to follow the goals race as the points race - there is just something to be said for being able to finish things off in the playoffs, when the games are tighter and the pressure is higher.
Total career playoffs goals among pre-expansion players
1. Maurice Richard 82
2. Jean Beliveau 79
3. Gordie Howe 68
4. Bobby Hull 62
5. Stan Mikita 59
All these players played a number of seasons after expansion, except for Richard.
Top career playoffs GPG among pre-expansion players
1. Maurice Richard 0.617
2. Bobby Hull 0.521
3. Gordie Drillon 0.520 (only 7 seasons)
4. Jean Beliveau 0.488
5. Bernard Geoffrion 0.439
6. Gordie Howe 0.433 (includes a ton of post-prime seasons)
Maurice scored 16.6% more goals per game in the playoffs than Bobby Hull
Put it in context
To properly consider their goals per game averages, let's knock off the Rocket's 1944 and 1945 playoffs when he obliterated competition hurt by World War 2 to the tune of 18 goals in 15 games across both seasons. But to be fair, we should also knock off his 1959 and 1960 seasons (1 goal in 12 games), when he was injured and past his prime, and openly said that he would have retired if he didn't enjoy playing with his younger brother so much (and was used in a more defensive role FYI).
We are left with 63 goals in 103 career playoff games or 0.612 goals per game over a period of 13 seasons (including 11 playoff years).
In other words, in the playoffs, the Rocket averaged 4.3 goals per 7 game series over a sample size of 103 games over 13 years that took him through the lowest scoring period in NHL history (early 1950s) after the advent of the Red Line. Truly extraordinary!
Compare to Bobby Hull's 60 goals in 110 playoff games over 11 seasons after the age of 22 and before he left for the WHA - 0.545 goals per game.
Maurice Richard's scored 11% more goals per playoff game over 13 seasons (11 playoffs) than Bobby Hull did over his 11 season prime NHL playoff career (10 playoffs). If anything, these numbers are favorable for Bobby Hull, since he didn't play in the super low-scoring early 1950s.
Gordie Howe is a harder comparison because he played for so long, but his playoff peak appears to be the 16 season stretch between 1949 and 1965 (15 playoffs). In this time frame, Howe has 60 goals in 123 games - 0.488 goals per game. Note that I picked such a long stretch because the first and last year of the stretch actually bring the average up. Howe's average is dragged down by several seasons in the early 1960s.
Maurice Richard scored 20% more goals over his best 13 year (non-WW2) stretch than Howe did over his best 16 year stretch. Howe obviously had more assists and overall points, so it isn't a complete comparison of their offensive value, however, especially since Howe was arguably a better playmaker than goal scorer.
In conclusion
We've all heard statements that the Rocket was "the best ever from the blueline in" or "a highly specialized weapon." There has been a lot of emphasis over the past few years on what Maurice isn't an all-time great at - he's "middling" defensively, an unimpressive playmaker, and while he took more abuse than perhaps any other star player ever and never backed down, he wasn't one to really initiate body checking. But I think we've been forgetting just what the upside is - just how special the specialized weapon was.
Random fact: Richard's record 6 playoff overtime goals wasn't broken until 2006, despite the fact that teams only needed to win 2 playoff rounds to win the Cup in Richard's era.
