Nick Lidstrom's place in history

[Nalyd Psycho]

I don't like speaking too much on Shore, it's so tough with him (especially when looking at the rules he played under) but Harvey controlled the game like no one else other than Orr himself.

I agree that Shore is tough to look at in these contexts. On the one hand, I'm not convinced that Harvery is better than Shore, but on the other hand, I can see the argument for Lidstrom over Shore.

My point is that it may be hasty to credit Harvey as an innovator just because he is the first that people remember.

 

[MojoJojo]

I would do

1.Orr
2.Harvey
3.Lidstrom
4.Bourque
5.Shore

That said, another major award, ie a Con Smyth or a Norris and I would put him at #2. Not as dominant in his prime as Bourque, but his longevity has been unreal. With the competitiveness and size of todays NHL its very, very difficult for anyone to rise above the pack consistently like he has. Much harder than it was before expansion.

 

[Rhiessan71]

Not as dominant in his prime as Bourque, but his longevity has been unreal.

Bourque...22 seasons, 19 All-star seasons
Lidstrom...in his 20th season, 13 All-star seasons

If Lidstrom's longevity has been unreal, Bourque's longevity was out of this world.

The only way IMO Lidstrom gets ranked higher than Bourque is through pure trophy counting and giving an extraordinarily heavy amount of weight to to 3 Cups, a Gold Medal and a Conn Smythe.
And if 3 Cups, a Gold medal and a Conn Smythe have that much weight, then Niedermayer should be ranked a HELL of a lot higher than he is.

The Smythe deserves some extra weight, that shouldn't be an issue but the 3 Cups and the Gold medal are TEAM accomplishments and their weight should be limited just like it is when discussing Nieds.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The increase, in both numbers and quality of US players in 96 is quite high as well, it's not just about the Russians.

I don't think we can make a direct numerical formula or anything but it really indicates the differences in even a 10 year period.

Of course -- it would need to be done across the board. The Russians were just a sample.

The purpose is to account for the very large number of non-Canadian players who were not, in fact, competing in the league on a day-to-day basis. Europeans who came over and proved inadequate for the NHL, or who simply went back home after a handful of games, weren't increasing the talent pool... if anything they had a disruptive effect compared to their Canadian counterparts of prior generations.

I'm not downplaying the effect of the Jagrs and Bondras and Chelioses, but we need to be careful how we account for them statistically. First step is making sure the demographic numbers are accurate.

 

[Redwingsfan84]

NHL.com has nick the king on pace to win another Norris this year.

I hope he does so Rhiessan can cry himself into his Bourque themed pillow case uttering, "Raymond, Raymond."

 

[fireworks]

NHL.com has nick the king on pace to win another Norris this year.

I hope he does so Rhiessan can cry himself into his Bourque themed pillow case uttering, "Raymond, Raymond."

I would like to say "no way" Lidstrom wins the Norris Trophy this year. But, I have been surprised before. I really think Weber or Karlsson will win. Either way Ray Bourque is the 2nd best defenseman to ever play the game of hockey....behind #4 Bobby Orr!

 

[Rhiessan71]

NHL.com has nick the king on pace to win another Norris this year.

I hope he does so Rhiessan can cry himself into his Bourque themed pillow case uttering, "Raymond, Raymond."

Hey, I wish him all the luck but it's Karlsson's to lose at this point.
Not only is he playing solid defense but he's currently 6th in league scoring and with 18 points in his last 8 games, it certainly doesn't look like he's slowing down heh.
A d-man hasn't finished in the top 10 since Coffey in the shortened '95 season and hasn't been done in a full season since Leetch in 91/92!
Coincidentally, they each won the Norris in those seasons

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

I personally don't even see Lidstrom as a Norris nominee this year. Karlsson, Weber and Chara are IMO the front runners.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

I would do

1.Orr
2.Harvey
3.Lidstrom
4.Bourque
5.Shore

That said, another major award, ie a Con Smyth or a Norris and I would put him at #2. Not as dominant in his prime as Bourque, but his longevity has been unreal. With the competitiveness and size of todays NHL its very, very difficult for anyone to rise above the pack consistently like he has. Much harder than it was before expansion.

You do realize Bourque had better longevity...

 

[lazerbullet]

You really underestimate the players today.... They are not that bad.... not even close. But im quite sure in future you will appreciate the 00s and 10s hockey as well..

That's the general problem on this History Board. We have no dominant dman, no goalie, even the best forwards are only slightly better than a large pack that follows. Somehow players are just worse it seems. Hockey seems the only field of human activity where people are regressing with each decade.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

That's the general problem on this History Board. We have no dominant dman, no goalie, even the best forwards are only slightly better than a large pack that follows. Somehow players are just worse it seems. Hockey seems the only field of human activity where people are regressing with each decade.

If you think that's how people think here then you really are missing the point of every discussion held here.

1) One of the basic premises of looking at history of hockey is to look at it as a level playing field. Think of it like this, if Isaac Newton was teleported from his time to now, he would lack a high schooler's grasp of physics. But, if Isaac Newton was born 30-40 years ago, he would likely be the greatest physicist in the world today. That's how we try to look at players. To look past how changes in rules, equipment, training etc have effected the game and look at what the players themself brought to the game and to compare that.

2) No one would ever deny that the average NHLer today is better than most other eras. (The exception being the 1960's where-in the talent pool was WAY too deep to be a 6 team league.) But how much time here is spent comparing David Bolland to Bruce McGregor? None. The discussions always tend towards elite players. And then there are oscillations in which eras are better, which eras produce more elite players at different positions. Such as how the high end talent pool of goalies in the 1980's was weaker than in the 1950's, but by the mid-90's it returned if not eclipsed that high watermark. And it's hard not to notice how in the past 10 years emerging defencemen have tended towards a high point and then dipped quickly after. Duncan Keith was great in his Norris year, but he hasn't been as good since. Mike Green was looking like an all-time great PPQB, injuries derailed him. Dion Phaneuf was the next great defenceman, but he bought into his own hype and stopped improving. Drew Doughty was starting to look like a young Ray Bourque, got paid, now he's looking more like a peak James Patrick. And it's not like parity in talent is minimizing their acclaim. They actually are just spiking in impact for a season or two.

 

[lazerbullet]

If you think that's how people think here then you really are missing the point of every discussion held here.

No I'm not missing the point. I do understand how you compare players and I think it's fair. But sometimes it's way skewed to one side. You try to hard to make it fair.

 

[norrisnick]

I personally don't even see Lidstrom as a Norris nominee this year. Karlsson, Weber and Chara are IMO the front runners.

3rd is wide open, and IMO Chara isn't that close to being included...

 

[tarheelhockey]

And it's not like parity in talent is minimizing their acclaim. They actually are just spiking in impact for a season or two.

I don't see why this is so hard to understand. Imagine if Doughty or Phaneuf, instead of regressing, had improved on their Norris-candidate seasons.

Looking at the field of defensemen younger than Chara, the only one who seems to bring a consistent Norris-quality game every season is Shea Weber. It's really not normal to only have one standout in a generation.

 

[lazerbullet]

I don't see why this is so hard to understand. Imagine if Doughty or Phaneuf, instead of regressing, had improved on their Norris-candidate seasons.

Looking at the field of defensemen younger than Chara, the only one who seems to bring a consistent Norris-quality game every season is Shea Weber. It's really not normal to only have one standout in a generation.

The fact that nobody can't be constantly great for several years doesn't mean that competition is easy at any given year. The fact that Scott Niedermayer had a short prime didn't make it easier for Lidstrom to beat him during that prime. We can't say that Crosby's competition (Ovechkin) was easier in 2008 and 2009, because Ovechkin slowed down later on.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The fact that nobody can't be constantly great for several years doesn't mean that competition is easy at any given year. The fact that Scott Niedermayer had a short prime didn't make it easier for Lidstrom to beat him during that prime. We can't say that Crosby's competition (Ovechkin) was easier in 2008 and 2009, because Ovechkin slowed down later on.

It does, however, make a large difference when it comes time to vote for awards and certainly when it comes time to analyze legacies.

Saying "X was the clear-cut best defenseman in the league for 10 years" carries a different value when no other defenseman was able to string together more than 2 good seasons. Anyone who is consistently good becomes dominant over the group by default.

Current thread title on the main board: "No clear Norris winner? Give it to Lidstrom"

 

[Epsilon]

It does, however, make a large difference when it comes time to vote for awards and certainly when it comes time to analyze legacies.

Saying "X was the clear-cut best defenseman in the league for 10 years" carries a different value when no other defenseman was able to string together more than 2 good seasons. Anyone who is consistently good becomes dominant over the group by default.

Current thread title on the main board: "No clear Norris winner? Give it to Lidstrom"

Well, there's your problem. Not to mention that thread-starter has been making a ton of awful posts on all kinds of subjects.

As far as this year's Norris trophy goes, it seems pretty clear to me that Erik Karlsson is going to win, it's just going to take a little bit of time for everyone to come around on that (but it will happen by the end of the season). There's still at least some possibility that Weber wins it instead, and I'm almost positive those two will be the 1st team all-stars.

Third place/2nd team all-star slots are pretty much a crap shoot at this point, some combination of Lidstrom, Chara, Keith, Suter, Edler, and possibly a couple of others will be in the mix for them. No one in that group to me has done enough to stand out and warrant having their name in the conversation with Karlsson and Weber. Chara got a lot of hype earlier in the year when Boston was on a tear, but he's had a pretty meh season all things considered (although still good). Same with Lidstrom whose been playing good but not great all year and has never really found any sort of extra gear.

 

[toob]

I actually dont think ive seen this board not have a Lidstrom thread with several hundred posts on the first page.

Couple of things.

First of all Newton would most likely easily have a much better understanding of a lot classical mechanics (and other areas like optics) than almost all physics undergraduates at the least. You are giving today's kids way too much credit most of us just memorize the formulas and then **** up big time when the question is more than a simple algebraic usage of them. Kids today struggle majorly with Kleppner and Kolenkow; Newton would make that book his *****. Also for Einstein you can definitely point to "personality" as a major factor in why the guy has such a place as the quintessential genius in the imagination of popular culture and you can definitely say that later scientists may have surpassed him and his contemporaries. As Feyerabend says: "The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth..." So i guess we can draw analogy to some of the positions on this board that hockey players today have better skillsets drilled into them but less creativity and hockey sense than players from the past.

Secondly why does everything have to be a relative ranking? Instead of fretting over what the talent pool was at this time and how to quantify some kind of competition level on a yearly basis and other questions that are almost impossible to answer with any degree of satisfactory precision maybe just go with who you think is better on just watching them play if you have watched enough of whoever is in question and dont try to convince the other side to change their opinion after so much effort has already been spent?

NHL.com has nick the king on pace to win another Norris this year.

I hope he does so Rhiessan can cry himself into his Bourque themed pillow case uttering, "Raymond, Raymond."

I have noticed that a lot of ppl so convinced about Bourque's or whoever elses superiority over Lidstrom still worry a lot about Lidstrom winning more Norrises. Who cares if he wins again? If he hasnt been playing at a level that was better than you think Bourque was would it make a difference how many trophies he had (except maybe in longevity)? The obsession with trophies here is sometimes scary...

Current thread title on the main board: "No clear Norris winner? Give it to Lidstrom"

The guy who originally made that thread (it got merged with another one) intended that title in a disapproving way of the NHL.com article in question i think.

 

[Epsilon]

One other thing about the NHL.com article: a lot of people will give it too much credence because it's on the NHL's official site, and assume it constitutes some quasi-official league opinion or something, but a lot of the guys they get to write those articles are basically just glorified fans.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

No I'm not missing the point. I do understand how you compare players and I think it's fair. But sometimes it's way skewed to one side. You try to hard to make it fair.

That's only relative to people who come here with the witness bias.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Role Players

Wouldn't it be more fair to compare the guys playing more minutes rather than the role players?

In 96 and 11 there were around 300 Canadian born players who played in more than 40 games in the NHL in those seasons so to focus on the 300-399 players is either foolish or misleading.

Role players. And who do the role players replace when they come on the ice? More talented players, so the the role players impact TOI and quality of competition when they happen to stumble onto the ice when the elite players are out there.

O6 stars rarely had to face the role players as the bottom 2-3 roster spots were filled by players who could play multiple positions without bringing the physical suide to the game.

Conversely today the stars, especially defensemen get to face the role players since rolling three d-pairings agains four lines, it becomes somewhat inevitable that the Lidstrom, Chara, Karlsson, Weber level dmen play against the fourth line.

So the offensive qualities of the role players are a consideration.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Of course -- it would need to be done across the board. The Russians were just a sample.

The purpose is to account for the very large number of non-Canadian players who were not, in fact, competing in the league on a day-to-day basis. Europeans who came over and proved inadequate for the NHL, or who simply went back home after a handful of games, weren't increasing the talent pool... if anything they had a disruptive effect compared to their Canadian counterparts of prior generations.

I'm not downplaying the effect of the Jagrs and Bondras and Chelioses, but we need to be careful how we account for them statistically. First step is making sure the demographic numbers are accurate.

You are right and that's why i used 40 games played in those seasons as a threshold and provided the links so people could see the players (listed in points) and make evaluations on their own.

The difference from 85 to 96 is quite substantial IMO.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I personally don't even see Lidstrom as a Norris nominee this year. Karlsson, Weber and Chara are IMO the front runners.

I don't think that Lidstrom will be a nominee either this year with the time he is missing but I wonder how much Kronwall can emerge (1-5-6 plus 3 in last 2 games albeit against 2 weak teams but do the voters really look that deeply) and have a Karlsson like run down the stretch.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Role players. And who do the role players replace when they come on the ice? More talented players, so the the role players impact TOI and quality of competition when they happen to stumble onto the ice when the elite players are out there.

O6 stars rarely had to face the role players as the bottom 2-3 roster spots were filled by players who could play multiple positions without bringing the physical suide to the game.

Conversely today the stars, especially defensemen get to face the role players since rolling three d-pairings agains four lines, it becomes somewhat inevitable that the Lidstrom, Chara, Karlsson, Weber level dmen play against the fourth line.

So the offensive qualities of the role players are a consideration.

Simply not true, i happen to ahve teh NYR 48 team up since I was using it to look at another thread and here is the list of the stars of that playoff team

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/NYR/1948.html

Your argument might hold more weight in the mid 60's than in 48 but the same would apply to 2010 and 1996 as well.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I don't think that Lidstrom will be a nominee either this year with the time he is missing but I wonder how much Kronwall can emerge (1-5-6 plus 3 in last 2 games albeit against 2 weak teams but do the voters really look that deeply) and have a Karlsson like run down the stretch.

Not likely that Kronwall is capable (offensively) of making a Karlsson like run.