- ok, let me clarify. assists were legitimately (officially) recorded, they just werent issued as commonly as later on in history. i am sure that many of things were done that would count as assists today. but what makes you think it was all Riley doing those things?
- the pcha had about 0.5 assists per goal in its history, and we have used similar assist totals from the early nhl and reconstructed nha stats to conclude many people are good playmakers or otherwise. dont pretend that these numbers dont indicate that riley was very one-dimensional offensively.
- dont forget that your line's ability to generate offense is going to come from the TOTAL offensive ability of all players, not just the sum of one players' goalscoring and another's playmaking. riley could score some goals but as an overall offensive threat he was not dominant. those percentages i quoted are with pcha assists "normalized", which hurts him but they are versus the #2 scorer of a "half league" which helps him greatly. those figures are nowhere near Gracie, and that is before you consider linemates.
the one expplanation that youre not considering is that maybe riley was just a mediocre player who benefitted from playing with a hhofer and another who should be. yes he kept up with them in that one season but the larger six-season sample size i provided clearly shows he usually didnt.
- your quote says Riley once practiced at defense. forgive me for not being convinced by that one.
- a training camp quote? come on, you have to do better than that.
- i realize toughness and pims dont perfectly correlate. see mike grier. i am just saying he doesnt appear to have the same chip on his shoulder that the other sutters did. i could be wrong, but if i am, there should be info out there.
- i already showed you that mccourt's production doesnt even match stumpel's, and stumpel is mediocre. lets not get caught up in the terminology. if you dont like the "bargain basement" term, that is fine. but he's very lacking in demonstrated production. only tim young jumps to mind as a guy with less.
- ok, i guess i dont really get the point of bringing up warwick's oshl year, but ok.
- sinisalo's strength is goalscoring, and his record as a goalscorer is not remotely close to warwick's by any measure. his record as a point producer is even further away. when a post expansion player cant post the percentages that a pre-expansion guy did, that's what we call a slam dunk.
- how do you know he was better than warwick on the pp? and arent we comparing 2nd lines and not pp units? pp goals dont make a player clutch, and gwg goals are a weak indicator, at best.
- first, lets get one thing straight. Bobby Clarke says hi. that was the shutdown line, the one that got the tough assignments.
- i stand by what i said about Erixon having more *defensive* ability than your whole line. this guy had selke votes in 5 seasons. kindrachuk never did (or did he once?) saleski was a goon playing with a better player.
- your propensity to judge forwards strictly by goals is beginning to trouble me. saleski was really not much better at putting up points than erixon. yes, look at goals exclusively, and it looks worse than it was. the difference in point totals between kindrachuk and saleski tell you all you need to know. kindrachuk participated in a lot of goals that saleski didnt have a part in.
- WOW. you have a lot of information to provide, in order to legitimately claim that the "exuberant" Ruuttu is anywhere near boutette, tucker, grier, or even irvine in intangibles. until you do, that claim is dubious if not laughable. i politely declined the quote pissing match; would you like me to chamge my mind?
- you have to understand that bubnik will get limited minuted with limited players, he is not enough to rise the line above the vanilla offensive wasteland that is the mld 4th line.
- re: bubnik and golonka, that comparison is deeply flawed for two very important reasons. one, there is no good reason to just compare olympic records when they played as many games in the worlds, which were the same tournaments with the same competition. they have basically the same ppg average based on that, with golonka playing more games. which brings me to number two. competition. bubnik's international career was from 52 to 63. golonka's was from 59 to 69. that is a major difference! bubnik's career total is hugely padded by a couple of big tournaments such as 1955, when the only player present confirmed to have nhl ability was bill warwick. he played two tournaments before the soviets even sent a team! golonka was playing firsov, starshinov, loktev, alexandrov, ragulin, davydov, ivanov, and canadian amateurs that actually played in the nhl, even if they didnt star. your comparison was an offense to statistics and to golonka.
do me a favour and pay attention to all-star voting when comparing second and third pairings at least, alright?
