Robert Stewart (Defenseman) worst NHL player in history

[seventieslord]

By the same token, I'd say we need to be equally wary of using some quote as the be all and end all. People rave about players they were associated with all the time. And I find they especially like to praise their "unsung hero" type of players. Scotty Bowman says Bob Gainey was his most valuable player...Larry Robinson says Guy Lafleur was the most valuable on those teams...I'm sure someone has called Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden the MVP of those squads at some point in time. I find too often that people just take it as gospel when a hockey legend states "this guy was the best".

These quotes could come from Jesus himself, but knowing what I know about those teams, it'll take a lot more than that before I consider Henri Richard and Bob Gainey to be as valuable as Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur were.

Exactly.

 

[Trottier]

...but knowing what I know about those teams, it'll take a lot more than that before I consider Henri Richard and Bob Gainey to be as valuable as Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur were.

That's my exact point. "Knowing what I know"....

...and having read many of your posts over the years, one trusts that your's is an educated, well-rounded opinion, whether we agree or not.

Not exclusively a recital of numbers.

***

And for the record, while I, too, would NEVER rely on any single source of "information" on which to base an opinion, generally speaking, I sure as hell put more weight the word of Scotty Bowman over a superficial numbers cruncher on HF. But that's me.

 

[tommygunn]

By the same token, I'd say we need to be equally wary of using some quote as the be all and end all. People rave about players they were associated with all the time. And I find they especially like to praise their "unsung hero" type of players. Scotty Bowman says Bob Gainey was his most valuable player...Larry Robinson says Guy Lafleur was the most valuable on those teams...I'm sure someone has called Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden the MVP of those squads at some point in time. I find too often that people just take it as gospel when a hockey legend states "this guy was the best".

These quotes could come from Jesus himself, but knowing what I know about those teams, it'll take a lot more than that before I consider Henri Richard and Bob Gainey to be as valuable as Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur were.

But, that's the thing.. Selke and Bowman knew far more about their respective teams than any one of us could ever hope to.

I'd put more credence into Selke's comments than I do someone posting stats and saying Richard is overrated. On one hand you have one of the most respected hockey people of all-time (a person who deeply knows about his team and its' players) saying one thing and on the other you have someone showing Richard's playoff totals with the accompanying text: "Richard was overrated... he scored less in the playoffs and Beliveau and the others had to pick up the slack."

 

[tommygunn]

I sure as hell put more weight the word of Scotty Bowman over a superficial numbers cruncher on HF. But that's me.

And me..

 

[MXD]

If there were a way to quantify this, I'd bet that a short-tenured goaltender is the most likely to have the "least qualified NHL'er of all time" title. In today's game, it would take 3 or 4 injuries for a team to have to reach waaaay down the ladder (ECHL or beyond) for a goaltender ... for an NHL team to need emergency ECHL skaters would require 8+ injuries / suspensions to their regulars. Barring a tragedy or some sort of mass-suspension incident, and without citing a particular instance, it seems far more likely that all your goaltenders would get hurt in a 10-14 day span (ie: before you can trade for replacements) than that all your skaters would all become unavailable.

My personal favorite is Jordan Willis, a solid minor-league goalie who played one game for my Stars back in '96 or so. I remember him being pretty decent in a 3 GA loss at Edmonton.

Okay... A bit of an Olivier Michaud case? He was decent for his 18 minutes of glory, but last time I heard of him, he shared goaltending duties in the NAHL. ... with.... you guessed it, André "Red Light" Racicot.

EDIT : Actually, Steve "The Puck Goes Inski" Buzinski has a solid claim to that title.

 

[Joe Pelletier]

I once made a tongue-in-cheek list of the worst players of all time. Nothing quantitative about it, but an interesting read if I may say so myself:

http://www.greatesthockeylegends.com/2008/10/top-ten-worst-hockey-players-of-all.html

Joe Pelletier
http://www.greatesthockeylegends.com/

 

[ck26]

Seriously folks, it is completely unfair for me to tag any of these players as the worst players of all time. They all devoted their lives to the game and they all reached the National Hockey League. They contributed to their teams in varying ways both on and off the ice, and they should be appreciated for more than their infamy ... one of my biggest pet peeves is when people, especially the experts we see on TV and radio and newspapers and now online, criticize NHL players. So many of the experts and 99.9% of the wannabe experts like myself have never made it anywhere close to NHL ice without purchasing a ticket. Who the hell [are we] to criticize these guys?

Well said.

 

[Joey Moss]

He has more than more than 125 points how can he be the worst?

 

[Zen Arcade]

Shane Endicott is the worst I've personally seen, but then, I've on been watching hockey since around 1990. Even goons like Francois Leroux could have a good game every once in a great while, Endicott was inept at pretty much everything.

 

[Palinka]

By the same token, I'd say we need to be equally wary of using some quote as the be all and end all. People rave about players they were associated with all the time. And I find they especially like to praise their "unsung hero" type of players. Scotty Bowman says Bob Gainey was his most valuable player...Larry Robinson says Guy Lafleur was the most valuable on those teams...I'm sure someone has called Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden the MVP of those squads at some point in time. I find too often that people just take it as gospel when a hockey legend states "this guy was the best".

These quotes could come from Jesus himself, but knowing what I know about those teams, it'll take a lot more than that before I consider Henri Richard and Bob Gainey to be as valuable as Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur were.

But if He posted those quotes on here, there'd be 100 people asking, "And how much hockey did He ever play anyway?"

 

[bustoff]

Terry 'the toad' Johnson was worse than Stewart if he would've played longer.

 

[doug hamilton]

Taking things back to the original post, there is some interesting material in the Hockey Compendium about the need to adjust +/- stats to insure that you are comparing apples to apples. My recollection is that it involves comparing the individual players numbers to their team's totals. Actually, I would recommend anyone who hasn't read either edition (I think there were only two editions) should pick them up.

In general I think ice hockey has been pretty late in arriving to the statistics party which makes it difficult to compare players across eras unless you do some number crunching. From what I can see the NHL didn't publish much beyond games played, goals, assists and penalty minutes until well into the 60's. Luckily (for people who like the numbers stuff) there are several people/organizations who are doing interesting work sifting through the statistics.

 

[seventieslord]

I can't recommend The Hockey Compendium enough. Both editions, 1987 and 2001. (there was a 1986 edition but the 1987 was just a revamping of it)

There will be a lot more complete stats availble in the near future, thanks to the HSP, the NHL releasing old game sheets, and a book about expansion-era goaltenders that will fill in almost all the shot/save gaps that currently exist from 1976-1982.

 

[Big Phil]

By the same token, I'd say we need to be equally wary of using some quote as the be all and end all. People rave about players they were associated with all the time. And I find they especially like to praise their "unsung hero" type of players. Scotty Bowman says Bob Gainey was his most valuable player...Larry Robinson says Guy Lafleur was the most valuable on those teams...I'm sure someone has called Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden the MVP of those squads at some point in time. I find too often that people just take it as gospel when a hockey legend states "this guy was the best".

These quotes could come from Jesus himself, but knowing what I know about those teams, it'll take a lot more than that before I consider Henri Richard and Bob Gainey to be as valuable as Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur were.

And that's the thing: they weren't. Hey nothing against Richard or Gainey, they are surefire HHOFers but Beliveau is Beliveau and Lafleur was Lafleur. You just can't quite put them on that pedestal. No doubt in my mind that Gainey was valuable to the team. I might even rank him 3rd on that Habs dynasty as far as importance to the team goes (Lafleur and Robinson beat him). Richard was key in those Cup wins too. But Jean Beliveau was clearly more valuable. It was Beliveau, like Lafleur, that teams keyed on and built their defense around. So in my mind you have to look at the whole picture. Respect what guys at the time said about them, but also realize that there are some people (Gretzky) who might at times overrate guys they played with or against.

 

[Steelhead16]

He played eight seasons in the NHL as a defenseman from 1971 to 1979 and was a NHL HISTORY worst -260 +/-

In 575 games he posted 27 goals 101 assists for 128 points

He played on some bad teams but he is far from the worst player ever. He was Captain of the 75'-76' Seals. Other than Jeff Odgers I can't think of anyone who was the Captain of their team and the worst player on the team. Let alone the worst player in the NHL. Stats mean squat.

 

[wadebelakisthebest]

wade belak

wade belak is by far the best player in nhl history to suit up a pair skates.He put up 8 goals as a forward in 477 games.he also has 22 assists and hes -35 with 1160 pim and has a whopping 2 goals in his last 235 games just as good as warm garbage.

LMAO at all of that.

 

[SealsFan]

"Stewie" was a solid, stay-at-home defenseman who was the "cop" on a team that got pushed around a lot. He would have been a respected player on any other NHL team.

I saw him score the only goal in a brutal 10-1 loss to the Islanders at the Coliseum. It was a slapper from the left point with the Seals already trailing 5-0.

When it got to be 8-1 midway through the 2nd, I was so devastated (because I loved the Seals so much and despised the Islanders so much) that I left the arena and spent the rest of the game slumped against a lamp post outside in the parking lot. I waited until the end of the game for my friends to come out and tell me the final score...

 

[Jumptheshark]

http://hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=5187

Blight could not skate backwards

Enrico Ciccione could not even skate

 

[kaiser matias]

While it may not be a worst of all-time nomination, the 1993-94 version of Daniel Berthiaume, longtime goalie for the Jets, has to warrant some consideration for a terrible performance.

He played 1 game for the Senators that year, a November 17, 1993 game against the Islanders. Well, less than 1 game. More like 1 minute, as it's recorded in most stats. But NHL.com has recently started listing goaltenders TOI down to the second, and apparantly Berthiaume played a mere 39 seconds in his final NHL appearance, replacing Craig Billington. In those few seconds in net, before being replaced again by Billington, he allowed 2 goals on 2 shots, for what is the worst numbers an NHL goaltender has posted, ever. His saver percentage, .000; his goals-against-average is usually listed as 120 (2 goals in 1 minute, as most records only record to the minute), but in reality, it is a astronomical 184.62. To put this in perspective, the Senators scored a total of 201 goals over the course of the entire season. The next highest GAA in league history is 60, shared by 2 goalies from the 1930's. The Islanders won the game, 8-1.


While these numbers are bad, it's obviously an anomoly. There was no way Berthiaume would have kept up that pace.

 

[VanIslander]

He played on some bad teams but he is far from the worst player ever. He was Captain of the 75'-76' Seals.

Stats mean squat.

Stewart wore the 'C' for three seasons in the NHL. That means he must have had non-stat qualities.

 

[Poignant Discussion*]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he spent nearly his entire career with the Seals/Barons franchise.

/Thread

Or it might be that he just happened to play on the worst team in NHL history - the expansion Washington Capitals.

On a roll today I see

As been stated before, anyone that plays multiple games in the NHL....is not the worst player ever

 

[seventieslord]

Stewart wore the 'C' for three seasons in the NHL. That means he must have had non-stat qualities.

awww, really? I must have missed this when looking for a list of available 2+ season captains heading into AA2010. Had I known, I'd have selected him already.

Among available players with 500+ games, he's got the highest career average TOI. Even after you temper that by the fact that he was likely over-relied on by bad teams, it makes him worthy of selection.

 

[VanIslander]

Well, actually Stewart co-captained California with Jim Neilson for two seasons, each wearing the 'C', so technically he only captained the team one year if you count only time by himself as captain.

 

[VM1138]

No matter how minor a role he played, I'd never consider a 2-time Cup winner on one of the best dynasties of all-time the worst NHL'er in history.

Honestly I don't consider Cup wins as a measure of the quality of a player. I know I'm in the minority with that but I've seen way too many terrible players coast to victory on Cup winning teams. I'd say many players on most teams are just along for the ride whereas 4 or 5 guys do all the heavy lifting and really earn the Cup.

 

[checkerdome]

Stewart was actually a pretty solid, physical defenseman who played on some really awful teams. He was well-regarded enough that the Blues got Blair Chapman, a good second-third line winger, from the Pens in return for him.

The worst was Paul Higgins. Had no business being in the NHL, but the Ballard-era Leafs wasted a draft pick on him and needed a goon, so they let him play 25 games despite a ton of media criticism. No goals, no assists, one shot.

I don't know----Mr. Higgins is on the Hockey Hall of Fame website---
ok, ok, so every player that ever suited up for at least one NHL game is too, but nonetheless....

Interesting that the Leafs first got a hold of him playing high school hockey in Toronto(placing him on the Marlboros team).

High school hockey players in Minnesota get drafted all the time but Paul Higgins is the first Canadian NHL player I've heard of with a high school hockey connection.