Rank the following Dmen:
- Thread starter RabbinsDuck
- Start date
WingsFan95
Registered User
Niedermayer and Leetch are for me in another group, Scott has one of the best careers, along with Lidstrom in recent memory, while Leetch was a beast and arguably the last great offensive defenseman from an era.
After that it's Stevens with room behind him.
Then MacInnis, Pronger and Chara after that with Pronger on top.
After that it's Stevens with room behind him.
Then MacInnis, Pronger and Chara after that with Pronger on top.
Fire Sweeney
Registered User
Chara is simply one of the 2-3 best shutdown defensemen to ever play. I value defensive play much higher than offensive stats.
Reds4Life
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2007
- 3,896
- 223
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
lol
He's not even top 30.
Are you kidding? Of course he's top 30. Right now he's staking out a position somewhere near Langway and Howe and has the hardware to prove it.
I don't agree that he's over Macinnis, but valuing defense far over offense is an honest answer and I can respect that point of view.
Epsilon
#basta
He's not even among the top 5 post-Orr. Robinson, Potvin, Chelios, Stevens, and Lidstrom (chronological order) all beat Chara decisively, and there are other arguable ones as well.
drownedsailors
Registered User
The guy put Pronger last on his list, I don't know why people are taking him seriously.
Hawkey Town 18
Registered User
He's not even in the top 2-3 shutdown defenseman of the last 30 years, let alone all time.
Bourque, Lidstrom, Chelios, Stevens, Langway just off the top of my head are all better defensively than Chara.
How can you say Chara is not one of the top 2-3 shutdown d-men? He might not have the overall ability of those guys but guess what, those guys also aren't 6'9, 250. He is simply one of a kind in the history of hockey. There is just no way as a forward to gameplan against him because his size, reach and strength makes it almost impossible to get by him. I bet if you asked NHL forwards what d-man they dread playing against the most, a great number would say Chara.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Does Howe really belong in this statement? I mean, he was good defensively, even great, but not really an all-time shutdown guy. His sublime skating and offensive skills were his strengths.
For that matter, Langway probably wasn't a good example, either. In the minds of some, he's the best shutdown defenseman of all-time, and his ability to win a norris and be a hart runner-up despite providing little offense should serve as evidence that he's top-5 at worst.
IMO, strictly as a shutdown player, Chara's significantly behind Langway and significantly ahead of Howe.
Hawkey Town 18
Registered User
Hawkey Town 18
Registered User
You are seriously underestimating how good the players I mentioned were at shutting people down. So much so that teams would formulate gameplans to try to completely avoid their side of the ice when attacking.
As for Chara, he is for sure a great defensive player, but he does have a weakness in his skating and at times gets beaten to the outside by speedy wingers.
BillyShoe1721
Terriers
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I guess simultaneously holding the past two Art Ross winners to two goals combined during a 7-game Finals series didn't do as much to enhance Chara's reputation as it should have.
imo, norris and AS voting have not accurately reflected pronger's level of play. imo, should have finished higher several times, and not only b/c of injuries.
i would probably also put them in that order.
sedins also only scored 2g vs nashville. after bolland returned, sedins only scored 2g. other than series vs SJ, in which thornton checked kesler, sedins had a bad playoffs. h sedin had most of his points vs SJ.
imo, thomas was certainly more important than chara, and seidenberg was nearly as important. seidenberg was very impressive. i have never seen him play better (which is partially b/c of chara).
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Hawkey Town 18
Registered User
It has done a lot, but when you're talking in an all-time sense there's a lot more to look at than a single playoff series, we are talking entire careers. The competition is incredibly good...Saying he is behind guys like Lidstrom, Chelios, Stevens, etc. is far from an insult
Reds4Life
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2007
- 3,896
- 223
He's not. Chara is great against big, strong forwards. He has problems when he plays against speedy players. I think he's not top30 defensive defenseman ever, at all.
Iain Fyffe
Hockey fact-checker
Epsilon
#basta
That had a lot more to do with Tim Thomas than Chara. The Sedins (and other Vancouver players) got plenty of chances to score but Thomas stopped just about everything.
I wasn't all that impressed with Chara in the finals. He was getting beat frequently and made a lot of turnovers - Seidenberg actually seemed like the steadier presence on that pairing.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I'm calling your bluff on that one. Name 30.
Having followed them both closely for several years (ie watched >80% of their games, regular season and playoffs) I will say, you can't very easily chalk up Chara's performance to Thomas or vice versa. Thomas has been absolutely brilliant, but he's enabled by Chara and the rest of the Bruins defense. Likewise, Chara has been incredible in his shutdown roles largely because he knows Thomas will stop the shot upwards of 95% of the time, so Chara can focus on controlling the passing lanes and rebounds.
Those two players are tied together very closely, but their results kinda speak for themselves. Most other great defensive-defensemen have had this same argument around them (ie, Stevens-Brodeur, Chelios-Roy/Belfour) but at the end of the day their legacy is results-driven.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I'm just going on reputation with that one, TBH. I've heard that he was a great shutdown guy. Maybe someone else should go in that sentence.
I actually think he's a great comparable. Chara's not exactly an offensive wizard either -- obviously he puts up better numbers than Langway, but I don't think he's ever even been in the top-10 among defensive scorers. To the extent that he contributes, it's mostly out of sheer size due to his slapshot and ability to screen the goalie.
Also, don't overlook that Chara has pulled down some Hart votes in his own right. One year he was 8th, which is no small feat for a defensive defenseman in this day and age.
I think Chara and Langway have something in common which is very important for this conversation: neither of them could be a great shutdown guy by virtue of puck possession. Guys like Bourque and Stevens were excellent 1-on-1 defenders, but they also benefitted from a high level of offensive skill that forced their opponents to respect them at both ends. Chara and Langway were both straight-up defenders who didn't threaten anybody with their ability to score.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
strictly defensively:
Harvey Pulford
Jack Marshall
Eddie Gerard
Eddie Shore
Ching Johnson
Lionel Conacher
Hap Day
Sylvio Mantha
Art Coulter
Earl Seibert
Jack Stewart
Butch Bouchard
Doug Harvey
Bill Quackenbush
Jim Thomson
Fern Flaman
Jacques Laperriere
Al Arbour
Tim Horton
Bobby Orr
Rod Seiling
Denis Potvin
Larry Robinson
Serge Savard
Bill White
Dave Burrows
Bill Hajt
Ray Bourque
Rod Langway
Mike Ramsey
Ken Morrow
Chris Chelios
Scott Stevens
Nicklas Lidstrom
Adam Foote
Oleg Tverdovsky
Mattias Norstrom
Derian Hatcher
Chris Pronger
these are ranked mostly chronologically, but if I were to attempt to place them in defensive order I think I could place Chara somewhere in the mix in the bottom-10 - but the list is 39 names long. plus a name I threw in to see if anyone would notice
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
The first name I saw on that list was Tverdovsky. Even having read the rest of it, I'm still not even sure how to respond. Tverdovsky? Seriously?
edit: And now I see the white text
edit 2: Having had some time to chew on it, it strikes me that 50% or more of that list is pre-expansion. It's really tough to make any kind of relevant comparison between defensive players from that era, unless they were totally dominant like Eddie Shore or Doug Harvey. Once we get down to guys like Fern Flaman, the only thing we have to go on is old players saying "He was the hardest hitter I ever saw", compared to modern players saying the same thing about Chara.
The post-expansion list is pretty good, though I would again question whether Chara is really a lesser defensive-defenseman than guys like Chelios and Stevens, or whether he is a lesser two-way player. Those guys were as likely to score as to break up a pass, which made them a different type of threat on the ice. Clearly a team is going to play differently against Ray Bourque, knowing he would turn the puck right up ice if you made a bad pass against him -- whereas Chara is more likely to sweep it into the corner and then lay you out with a check across the nameplate.
I think the best comparables on that list are guys like Hatcher and Foote, and IMO based on watching them Chara is much more of a game-changer on defense than either of those guys.
edit: And now I see the white text
edit 2: Having had some time to chew on it, it strikes me that 50% or more of that list is pre-expansion. It's really tough to make any kind of relevant comparison between defensive players from that era, unless they were totally dominant like Eddie Shore or Doug Harvey. Once we get down to guys like Fern Flaman, the only thing we have to go on is old players saying "He was the hardest hitter I ever saw", compared to modern players saying the same thing about Chara.
The post-expansion list is pretty good, though I would again question whether Chara is really a lesser defensive-defenseman than guys like Chelios and Stevens, or whether he is a lesser two-way player. Those guys were as likely to score as to break up a pass, which made them a different type of threat on the ice. Clearly a team is going to play differently against Ray Bourque, knowing he would turn the puck right up ice if you made a bad pass against him -- whereas Chara is more likely to sweep it into the corner and then lay you out with a check across the nameplate.
I think the best comparables on that list are guys like Hatcher and Foote, and IMO based on watching them Chara is much more of a game-changer on defense than either of those guys.
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Hawkey Town 18
Registered User
The first name I saw on that list was Tverdovsky. Even having read the rest of it, I'm still not even sure how to respond. Tverdovsky? Seriously?
edit: And now I see the white text
edit 2: Having had some time to chew on it, it strikes me that 50% or more of that list is pre-expansion. It's really tough to make any kind of relevant comparison between defensive players from that era, unless they were totally dominant like Eddie Shore or Doug Harvey. Once we get down to guys like Fern Flaman, the only thing we have to go on is old players saying "He was the hardest hitter I ever saw", compared to modern players saying the same thing about Chara.
The post-expansion list is pretty good, though I would again question whether Chara is really a lesser defensive-defenseman than guys like Chelios and Stevens, or whether he is a lesser two-way player. Those guys were as likely to score as to break up a pass, which made them a different type of threat on the ice. Clearly a team is going to play differently against Ray Bourque, knowing he would turn the puck right up ice if you made a bad pass against him -- whereas Chara is more likely to sweep it into the corner and then lay you out with a check across the nameplate.
I think the best comparables on that list are guys like Hatcher and Foote, and IMO based on watching them Chara is much more of a game-changer on defense than either of those guys.
He is quite a bit behind those two, especially Chelios, who IMO is easily Top 10 all-time defensively. Stevens has to be discounted a bit for only being elite defensively in the second half of his career, but is still way ahead of Chara. Chara's playoff this year has nothing on some of Steven's
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