Has anyone else read Ken Dryden's recent book about Scotty Bowman?
Just to add some context to Bowman's ratings, he was watching all Montreal home games since 1947, when he joined a Montreal Canadiens sponsored junior team and got standing room tickets to every game. He also watched all their practices starting in the early 1950s. So his ratings of Morenz and Shore must be based on what he heard from others, but the rest would be based on his personal viewing.
The book included Bowman's picks for the top 8 teams of all time. Those teams were the 1951-52 Detroit Red Wings, the 1955-56 Montreal Canadiens, the 1962-63 Toronto Maple Leafs, the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens, the 1981-82 New York Islanders, the 1984-85 Edmonton Oilers, the 2001-02 Detroit Red Wings, and the 2014-15 Chicago Blackhawks. I get the feeling he is more comfortable discussing great teams than just the individual great players...or at least when discussing players he also thinks about their context on the teams.
I suspect that when Bowman rated players in 2012, he thinks about how they would fit on an all-time great team like the teams listed above.
Here are direct quotes from Bowman in the Dryden/Bowman book about some of the players he listed in his top 100 Canadians in 2012. I've included Bowman's ranking of the player from 2012 for reference.
One thing I noticed is that Bowman often comments on how strong the player was. He seems to value physical strength a lot. Maybe especially for the Original Six players, when everyone played man on man and individual battles counted for a lot.
Unfortunately Bowman didn't comment much on the individual players of the 1976-77 Canadiens, so we don't get any insight into why he rated Serge Savard over Larry Robinson, for example. I think the fact that Dryden was a member of the team made discussing the individual players a little awkward...Dryden notes at one point that discussing this team with Scotty was hard for him because of his personal connection.
And he's very complimentary of all the top players, so you don't really get a sense for why he rated Richard over Lemieux and Gretzky, for example.
Gordie Howe (rated 2nd in 2012)
It's why Howe was so good at that time. With man-to-man coverage -- first against his winger, then against the defenceman--he was so strong. He was really a big, big guy. He'd challenge them, and he was faster than those guys when he needed to be. He could get an edge. Then he was too much for them. He'd just power his way by.
He had a terrific shot. Like Bossy. Like Lafleur. Like Leach. They had those perfect shots in the corner. Now we don't see many angled shots going in. If they do go in, we say 'Oh, the goalie should have had it.' It was the same with the Rocket. He was so strong. He'd challenge you. With the Rocket, it was his backhand.
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Howe and Lindsay fit perfectly together. They understood each other. They used to have those plays, especially at the Olympia. One of them would shoot the puck in and it would rebound off the boards in front of the net, and the other would race in after it. They scored a lot of goals that way.
They were really tough guys. They were really aggressive. Ultra competitive. And they weren't just guys who put up points, they were so good both ways. They were feared by other teams. If they'd had their way, they'd play against anybody. But they didn't have to because the Wings developed that Skov line.
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Howe was the dominant player. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. There's just no argument over who was the best player in the league at that time. It was Howe, for sure. And that season he really took off. He won the scoring title; he and Lindsay went 1-2, but Howe beat him by 17 points. He scored more than 20 per cent of the Wings goals.
If you were going to make a model for a player, he was it. He was strong. Very strong. Just a natural. He knew how to play. He had a terrific shot. He didn't need many chances to score. He was a good two-way player too. And he was mean, he really was. He did things to players...He was tough as nails. And he didn't have many fights. No one would dare fight him.
Maurice Richard (rated 3rd in 2012)
He practiced hard. He didn't joke around. He wanted to score goals. He wanted to score so much, even in practice. He never fooled around.
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He was so strong on his skates. Guys would just be leaning on him, but he was still driving to the net. He was a tough player. Gordie Howe was bigger, and he was tough too, but the Rocket was really tough. He was so competitive. He was fearless. He was explosive. He got fouled a lot and he had this vicious temper. I would say I've never seen a player so determined.
Mario Lemieux (rated 4th in 2012)
He was very calm and mild mannered. He never got emotional. He wasn't interested in the limelight, and wasn't a guy who was always knocking on your door as the coach and wanting you to do this, or that. He just wanted to do whatever you wanted him to do. But you had to fit players in to play with him. He needed a lot of ice time. Some nights he played over 30 minutes, and for a forward that's a lot.
I always thought two things made him different. His reach--he had this wingspan, he was pretty much impossible for one guy to stop. And also around the net. At the side of the net, or in behind, he was so unpredictable as to what he might do. He'd bank pucks off the goalie's pads. Do wrap-arounds. Players didn't do that back then.
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I don't think he could ever put everything into the game he wanted to.
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He also had an inner fire about him. The year I took over from Bob Johnson we played Washington in the first round of the playoffs and they had a good team. They had some terrific defencemen, and we got down three games to one, but we came back and won Games 5 and 6. The seventh game was in Washington and Mario controlled the entire game. We shut them down completely, a team that could really score, and we just played a completely different style, because Mario wanted to win so badly. I'd never seen him play defensive hockey before--play without the puck. But guys like that have so much talent, they can apply themselves and play defensive hockey if they want to. And he did.
Back to back years, they couldn't stop him. Don't forget, he had health issues that never went away. You were always just waiting for him to make a big play, to score big goals.
Wayne Gretzky (rated 5th in 2012)
He did so many things differently. He was unpredictable. He was a scoring machine. He had such vision on the ice. He had so much hockey sense. That's an underrated quality. He was brainy, and his quickness was underestimated. Maybe he didn't skate all over the ice and everywhere, but I don't remember him hanging around. He was always a busy guy.
He could pass the puck as well as anybody who's ever passed it. Backhand, forehand, over the stick, through guys. He'd get the goalie and the other five guys looking at his teammates, then at him. In that position, you have to commit and go after him, but you can't fully commit. Then he can make a forehand pass, or if you chase him--and teams would always say 'Chase him onto his backhand'--well, he can make a backhand pass too.
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I don't know why we didn't play more guys 'up high' like Gretzky did. But you have to have a special player. Buffalo did that with Mogilny. And Vancouver with Bure. I remember in Montreal, talking with Tarasov before the New Year's Eve game with the Russians. He had watched us practise, and he mentioned Lafleur, and also Savard, Robinson, and Lapointe, and he said 'You have players who are calm, who don't get flustered and who can really pass the puck. Why don't you have Lafleur break out of your zone [without the puck] past the point man? Now you'd have both defencemen looking at each other, each having to make sure that one of them covers Lafleur. Now you've got a four on four in your own end, and if Lafleur is like a lot of our offensive players in his own zone, he's not a defensive player. So he's not going to make good defensive decisions anyway.' (Dryden mentions Kharlamov had played up high for the Soviets against Canada). Cournoyer used to do that a little for us.
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Nobody will ever score goals again like this guy. Over a six year period: 92, 71, 87, 73, 52, 62 -- 437 goals. Nobody's ever going to come close to that. I don't think anybody could think the game, and think ahead of the game, the way he could. Players would try to cover him, but then he'd be gone.
He played a tremendous amount of shinny on his backyard rink as a young kid. When you're playing shinny, you're not thinking defence.
Jean Beliveau (rated 9th in 2012)
He was a superb positional player. People underestimated that in him. He was always in the right position. In his own end, he'd stand kind of in the middle, and because of the reach, and the length of his stick, he covered so much. Geoffrion didn't play defence much, but he didn't have to.
Dave Keon (rated 12th in 2012)
Keon was such an exceptional skater. He was very nimble. He could just fly on his skates. He was always on the puck, always on top of you, never giving you a moment to breathe. He wasn't physical, because he wasn't big, but he was always there, darting in and out, and his hockey IQ was so high. He always knew what to do and when to do it.
Henri Richard (rated 13th in 2012)
(This is all Dryden writing below, there are no direct quotes from Scotty. I include this because while Dryden played with the older Henri, he hadn't seen the young Henri play, and his conversations with Scotty must have contributed to these paragraphs. Also keep in mind these comments may be specifically about Henri in 1955-56, when he was only 20.)
Henri was small, about five foot seven and 160 pounds, but he could skate. He was fast, and he could turn, and turn, and turn again, and in possession of the puck, with his short arms and short stick, he rarely exposed the puck beyond the protective shelter of his body. He was tireless too. At the time, other players changed every two minutes; Henri stayed on the ice for three minutes or more. And because teams matched lines, the opposing centre had to either stay on for three minutes or more with him and play at Henri's speed, or get off the ice and throw all the team's other lines into disarray. By halfway through a shift, if not earlier, it was 'Advantage, Henri.'
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Henri was a puck carrier. He wanted the puck all the time. Henri could be a defensive liability at times because in carrying the puck he might be checked and lose it, but because he generally had the puck so much, the other team didn't have it--and if they didn't have it, they couldn't score. The usual distributor on a line is the centre, but on this line it was the left winger, Dickie Moore.
Mark Messier (rated 14th in 2012)
He had a big mean streak in him. He played on the edge. No other player I can recall had as many suspensions as he did. He and the Rocket were very similar. When the Rocket was out of control, nothing could stop him.
He was an exceptional skater, and in super condition in an era when not many were. He had defensive instincts--he had to if you played with Glenn Anderson. Anderson was a little like Cournoyer. He could fly, he didn't handle the puck that well but if you could get him the puck in flight he could really cause you problems, and Messier was really good at finding him. Anderson had a knack around the net and he didn't need much of an opening. A lot of guys just don't finish, but what I remember about Anderson is he could finish. He'd come from that off wing and put his leg out, and with his speed and strength, you couldn't stop him. He and Messier played so well together. They were tough guys and they played tough. And they were both mean.
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Messier dominated players when teams tried to play him one against one. If a player challenged him, if he made it all about him and Messier, that's when Messier was at his best.
Frank Mahovlich (rated 18th in 2012)
(About the Leafs) Maybe only Mahovlich played a one-way, offensive game.
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I don't think (Imlach) ever really embraced Mahovlich, because Frank was a big, strong player but he wasn't physical, and he wasn't airtight defensively.
Terry Sawchuk (rated 19th in 2012)
I talked to Ted Lindsay about him. He said 'There's never been a goalie in his prime like Sawchuk. He had all the mechanics. He had his glove. He was just so focused.'
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Sawchuk is still rated by people as the best of those three (ed. Sawchuk, Hall, Plante). I think the fact that Sawchuk had a checkered career after winning those Cups in '52, '54, and '55 took away a lot from his reputation. He got some kind of malaise, or disease--I don't think they ever found out what it was. He lost a lot of weight. He was in Boston then, and when he went to Detroit they were on the decline, then he was in Toronto. But after he left Detroit the first time I don't think he was ever the same goalie.
Yet in the early 1950s "Nobody was close to him."
Denis Potvin (rated 21st in 2012)
What I remember about the Islanders more than anything was Potvin. He was their key. He was an exceptional defenceman, a really strong physical guy. And he could play a lot. He was as close as anyone I ever saw to Doug Harvey. Their passing was right on the mark. And he was mean like Harvey. If you tried to hit either of them, you were going to pay a price. Potvin was maybe a little more fiery. Doug was fiery too, but he didn't show it as much. And for a guy who could play both ways, Potvin was a real offensive threat. He had a good shot. He probably didn't get as much attention as he should have, because when he started Orr was still in his prime.
Dickie Moore (rated 24th in 2012)
It was his perseverance. He battled. That's what he did, more than anybody, he battled. He was fiery. He was chippy--oh, he was chippy. When he came to the NHL, they said he's not going to last playing this kind of hockey. And he got into some scraps early. He wasn't really a great fighter, but he would persevere. He was one of those guys one of the most I've ever seen who just couldn't stand losing. Who just couldn't stand not doing well.
He was also pretty good at making plays. If you're going to play with the Rocket, you're going to try to set him up. Dickie liked to be fancy at times. He'd come in on a guy and be stickhandling like crazy, except his stick wasn't even touching the puck. His stick was passing over the top of it, just to rattle the guy a bit. He used that a lot in junior. He didn't use it so much in the NHL. But he had a lot of creativity to his game. That's why he won the scoring title in 58 and 59. Dickie was some player. He played fearless.
Bernard Geoffrion (rated 28th in 2012)
I remember the first guy who could really shoot was Geoffrion. Most players didn't slap the puck then. He started that.
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He could score from the blue line. He had that good a shot.
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He wasn't a speedster as much as a strong skater. He kind of ran on his skates, he had short strides, but he was very strong--and boy, what a shot he had. When he walked in on the right wing he could shoot that puck with the best guys I've ever seen.
He was fearless too. Nobody could intimidate him.
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He had a swagger about him. He was a flashy dresser. He was a really flashy guy. Like a bon vivant. But a nice guy. A good guy. And popular--he was always talking to the media. He was always into ventures too. Always opening up a restaurant or something. He had a lot of energy. He was up and down, though. He wasn't always up. You had to pump him up.
Gilbert Perreault (rated 37th in 2012)
He was the best player on the team by quite a bit. I don't know if he realized that, or if he was of the type of temperament to notice. There aren't a lot of players who can make plays and also score goals, but he could pretty well do anything. You were always hoping 'Is he going to realize tonight that he can take over the game?' And you always had the feeling he could. He was easy to coach too. He practised pretty well, he was never involved in any controversy, he wasn't a rebel at all. He had none of that in him. Yet he was ultra-competitive in his own way.
You could play him with whomever you wanted. You could ask him to do certain things, and he'd try. Not many superstars were like that. As a teammate, you couldn't find anyone better. He never had a negative part in him. But he had no leadership at all. None. He didn't want that responsibility. He didn't want to be 'the guy'
Red Kelly (rated 42nd in 2012)
From 1950 to 1956, he never scored less than 15 goals in a season. Three times he finished in the top 15 in scoring. "No other defenceman in the league was even close," Scotty says.
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On a winning team, you're not spending a lot of time in your own end, where Kelly was weaker. You're on the attack, where he was at his best. Then the Wings got weaker.
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He seemed to fit in perfectly with Mahovlich. They were two good-sized guys, and Kelly was a very strong skater.
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(Goldham) played with Kelly, and there was no defenceman in the league who was close to playing like Kelly. He was up the ice all the time. He was a forward-playing defence. He got 16 goals as a defenceman that year. That was unheard of in those days.
Jonathan Toews (rated 63rd in 2012)
If the (Hawks) team had one indispensable player, "It would be Toews. He was solid all the way through. He was consistent. He was ultra-competitive. He's got that work ethic. He's very conscientious. He plays as hard without the puck as he does with it. He'll chase guys down. He'll forecheck. He's very good at faceoffs. He's physically strong. Others might be better in certain areas, but not overall, not when you look at everything. And he judges his game by every standard, not just his points. He's not the biggest offensive threat, but in crunch time he can make the big individual play. And if you're his teammate, it's hard to slack off when you have a guy who does everything at such a high level. He prides himself in who he is, in the reputation he has, and he lives up to that reputation.
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Toews took his captain's job pretty seriously. He doesn't shy away from it. The other players lean on him, and as a coach, you run a lot of stuff through him.
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Toews is like Beliveau--tall, strong, good on offence and defence, good on faceoffs. He isn't the scorer Beliveau was, he doesn't have quite the same force to his game.
Paul Coffey (rated 68th in 2012)
Of all the defencemen I've seen, nobody else except Coffey could skate stride for stride with Orr. He had a beautiful glide. He skated effortlessly, and I don't think he ever got tired. And for him, it was all offence. He didn't play much attention to defence. He didn't sense danger.
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And, of course, Coffey was a terrific offensive player. In some games he was so good. But he was high-risk, there's no other way to say it, and he was never going to shut things down defensively.
