Putting A Lid On Lidstrom's Legacy

[Neutrinos]

Recently I've been seeing Lidstrom's name included in some Top 20 and even some Top 10 lists, but why?

He had incredible longevity and consistency, no doubt, but he didn't peak as the best defenceman of his generation. IMO, Pronger was clearly more dominant when the 2 were at their best

But apart from that, Lidstrom was never once a finalist for the Hart trophy. Yes, it's subjective and voters often get things wrong, plus defencemen are rarely finalists, but a Top 10 - 20 player of all-time should've been nominated at least once, right? Lidstrom never was

For comparison sake, Bourque was a 2x runner up for the Hart and only lost to Messier in '90 by the slimmest of margins


So, yeah, if you rank players based on their resume, then sure, Lidstrom might actually crack the Top 10

But he was never considered the best player in the world, so based on actual on-ice performance, I just don't see an argument for it


If not for injuries to Pronger, for example, both he and Lidstrom could very well be sitting on 4 Norris trophies each

Pronger's prime:
47 points in 51 games in '01 (10th in voting)
4 points in 5 games in '03
59 points in 66 games in '07 (3rd in voting)


None of this is to say that Lidstrom wasn't a heck of a player, I just think he's been overrated in recent years given his Norris wins


I'd probably build around Scott Stevens instead of Lidstrom and if I could get 1564 relatively healthy games out of Pronger, I'm taking that over Lidstrom as well

Click to read more...

 

[jiboy]

He was just so good and stupidly steady. Was not really spectacular wich might have cost him awards but you win with a guy like that. If I had to build a team theres probably not more then 20 players Id pick before him.

 

[Epsilon]

Pronger scored 4 points in 5 games in 2003? Say no more, that was clearly a Norris trophy waiting to happen!

 

[Doctor No]

4 points in 5 games in '03

Take a big step back and ask yourself whether you believe that your claim is true, or just that you want it to be true.

Because when you're using the quoted as evidence, it suggests that you think that we're all stupid.

 

[JackSlater]

I find that Lidstrom is somewhat less overrated now than he was shortly after his retirement, when people sometimes seriously claimed (for example) that he went years between mistakes. I wouldn't give him serious consideration for top ten, but top 20 is a possibility. What a person values in a player is very significant when it comes to Lidstrom.

 

[Laineux]

I take 15 years of steady Norris-caliber play every time over a couple of years of shiny peak.

 

[K Fleur]

Argue peak all you want but...

Lidstrom won seven Norris trophies during his 20 year career. Did any other defenseman even win 3 during that same time frame?

 

[Sentinel]

Top 15, but Top 3 on defense.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

I'd certainly rather take 1564 relatively healthy games from Pronger over Lidstrom

But isn't this a bit like saying "I'd certainly rather take Lidstrom over Pronger if I could get a 6'6", 220 pound version of Lidstrom"?

A *huge* part of Lidstrom's value was the fact that he never got hurt, that he was one of the most ludicrously dependable players around and played 20 years while only missing 1-2 games a season. He managed to be incredibly effective on defense without ever getting worn down by injury. That's not purely dumb luck, that's a real talent.

I was a huge fan of Chris Pronger and agree that he was probably even more dominant at his peak than Lidstrom was, but Pronger's playing style pretty much made injuries inevitable. I don't think we can just ignore that.

 

[tarheelhockey]

IMO, Lidstrom is one of the easiest players to rank because he is so so so close to Bourque. Very few players are so closely comparable to another.

So basically, decide where you want to put Bourque and then put Lidstrom 1 spot behind that, and you’re done.

 

[CamPopplestone]

Top 5 D if I'm picking an all time myself. He's just dependable, smart, and the kind of player you win with. He isn't overly flashy, but he also was never a player who made things all about himself. Such a team player.

 

[MadLuke]

Argue peak all you want but...

Lidstrom won seven Norris trophies during his 20 year career. Did any other defenseman even win 3 during that same time frame?

Between 91-2 to 2011-2012, no.

Leetch X2
Chelios X2

Was not easy to win many during that Bourque, Coffey, Leetch, MacInnis, Chelios, etc... era

I also agree that durability was a huge part of Lidstrom value, specially when you consider is team success during is time and the different candidate for the cups group that all had Lidstrom has one of the piece among is career, there is not much wasted prime year or not peaking high enough to not win.

Lidstrom giving some many minute to an franchise (and letting them having so many minute of a second pair defenceman that would have played first pair minute instead and so on until the bottom) is a big part of Lidstrom career value.

During Lidsrom career, only Sakic has more than Lidstrom 183 playoff points.

 

[Panthera]

Because, as you said, his resume is insanely impressive. While you can argue its merits a bit, a lot of people are understandably hesitant to discredit his Norris trophy record too much, because that really opens the door to undermining basically every aspect of history we take for granted. For example, was Eddie Shore actually all that good? All we have to go on is that people said he was when he played, but if that can be wrong about Lidstrom, how can we be sure it's accurate for literally anyone else we judge based off of what award voters thought and columnists wrote? It's easier to do it with Lidstrom because his career is within living memory for a lot of people, but at the end of the day ranking him too low is hard to do without essentially criticizing the entire idea of there being any legitimacy to historical rankings and comparisons.

 

[Iapyi]

lidstrom was an exceptional player but he is definitely over hyped.

a part of it is the anti-canadian brigade trying to promote someone other then a canadian.

 

[psycat]

Bourque and Pronger are canadians, Lidström is not. There goes your thesis.

 

[Iapyi]

Bourque and Pronger are canadians, Lidström is not. There goes your thesis.

if you're referring to my post all i can do is LOL, think about it. what does bourque and pronger being canadian have anything to do with lidstrom getting over hyped because he's not?

LOL.

 

[psycat]

if you're referring to my post all i can do is LOL, think about it. what does bourque and pronger being canadian have anything to do with lidstrom getting over hyped because he's not?

LOL.

I didnt refer to your post.

 

[Iapyi]

I didnt refer to your post.

good because if you did your post would have been out and out dumb.

btw- who's 'thesis' are you referring to, i'd like to read it.

 

[Neutrinos]

Pronger scored 4 points in 5 games in 2003? Say no more, that was clearly a Norris trophy waiting to happen!

Take a big step back and ask yourself whether you believe that your claim is true, or just that you want it to be true.

Because when you're using the quoted as evidence, it suggests that you think that we're all stupid.

Just a heads up, I'm not a fan of this sarcastic/snarky style of response, so if it continues, I won't be responding to anymore of your comments


I didn't say Pronger would've won the award, I thought I was very clear: at full health it's perfectly reasonable to think Pronger could've poached 3 of Lidstroms' Norris wins

At 25 years old Pronger was good enough to win the Hart, Norris and lead the NHL in +/- (which was the 2nd time he lead the league in +/- in a 3 year span)

Are we going to pretend that a healthy Chris Pronger wouldn't have challenged Lidstrom for the Norris during those seasons I listed?

 

[The Panther]

It's fair enough to say that someone -- say, Pronger -- if given Lidstrom's position on Lidstrom's team with Lidstrom's coach with Lidstrom's teammates with Lidstrom's conditioning and health, etc., might have been able to match Lidstrom's achievements. I mean, it's conceivable. It's one of those things -- if you put, say, Pronger vs. Lidstrom in a one-on-one skills competition, maybe Pronger wins 80% of the time. I dunno. But at the end of the day, I don't evaluate anybody based on a "what-if" scenario. I trust only what each player made of his circumstances, in his time, in his situation.

It's pretty hard to argue with 7 Norris trophies. Now, did Lidstrom really deserve all those Norris-es? Maybe, maybe not. But I didn't watch all his games. I'm not particularly a Detroit fan. Nor did I watch Eddie Shore or Bobby Orr, at all. But they got a whack of Norris trophies and universal legendary status. If Orr had played his whole career for the California Golden Seals, would we remember him the same way today? I simply don't care.

The "what-if" scenarios go out the window when we're looking at 7 Norris trophies.

Everyone should bow down to Lidstrom.

 

[tarheelhockey]

It's pretty hard to argue with 7 Norris trophies. Now, did Lidstrom really deserve all those Norris-es? Maybe, maybe not. But I didn't watch all his games. I'm not particularly a Detroit fan. Nor did I watch Eddie Shore or Bobby Orr, at all. But they got a whack of Norris trophies and universal legendary status. If Orr had played his whole career for the California Golden Seals, would we remember him the same way today? I simply don't care.

The "what-if" scenarios go out the window when we're looking at 7 Norris trophies.

Everyone should bow down to Lidstrom.

So basically we just ignore context and go for a straight-up trophy count?

I can’t get on board with that.

 

[The Panther]

So basically we just ignore context and go for a straight-up trophy count?

I can’t get on board with that.

I'm simply saying that trophy-counting, in extreme examples (like, 7 Norrises), should be enough to convince anyone that a player was exceptionally great.

You can contextualize it all you want, but 7 Norrises is 7 Norrises.

Obviously trophy-counting is not the be-all and end-all --- 3 trophies doesn't necessarily make you better than someone with 1 or 2.

But 7 Norrises is ridiculous.

 

[GMR]

The OP would rather build around Scott Stevens than Lidstrom? Stevens was a one-dimensional player the last 10 years of his career. I'd hope you have some good players around him at that stage of his career if you're going to "build around him".

 

[Neutrinos]

It's fair enough to say that someone -- say, Pronger -- if given Lidstrom's position on Lidstrom's team with Lidstrom's coach with Lidstrom's teammates with Lidstrom's conditioning and health, etc., might have been able to match Lidstrom's achievements. I mean, it's conceivable. It's one of those things -- if you put, say, Pronger vs. Lidstrom in a one-on-one skills competition, maybe Pronger wins 80% of the time. I dunno. But at the end of the day, I don't evaluate anybody based on a "what-if" scenario. I trust only what each player made of his circumstances, in his time, in his situation.

It's pretty hard to argue with 7 Norris trophies. Now, did Lidstrom really deserve all those Norris-es? Maybe, maybe not. But I didn't watch all his games. I'm not particularly a Detroit fan. Nor did I watch Eddie Shore or Bobby Orr, at all. But they got a whack of Norris trophies and universal legendary status. If Orr had played his whole career for the California Golden Seals, would we remember him the same way today? I simply don't care.

The "what-if" scenarios go out the window when we're looking at 7 Norris trophies.

Everyone should bow down to Lidstrom.

I almost brought up something earlier along the same lines. If Lidstrom had spent his entire career with Arizona or Buffalo, is he a 7 time Norris winner?

Because of the team success each achieved as well as their consistency, I wonder if voters used players like Brodeur and Lidstrom as the benchmark and just vote for them by default if another player doesn't have a definitively better season. Like in boxing, you have to beat the champion decisively if you want to win a decision


Having said that, I'm not evaluating Lidstrom or Pronger on the "what if" scenario. I saw them both at their best, and I think Pronger was more dominant, so I have him ranked higher. The "what if" doesn't factor into it for me

 

[K Fleur]

Who cares what Lidstrom would have done if he spent his career with Arizona?

This thread premise was/is a brilliant exercise of mental gymnastics.