Shore and Harvey's Influence on Defensemen
- Thread starter GMR
- Start date
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
I don't believe Shore was the first puck rusher...Harry Cameron and some others probably get that mantle...but Shore might have been the first Burns/Byfuglien type...just a train...physical, puck rusher...
Harvey was the first that I have seen that so uniquely Drew forecheckers to him and then threaded these perfect passes to a circling forward or back against the grain through the middle. It was 40 years ahead of its time. The only guy in the next couple generations that I saw do it as consistently well was Slava Fetisov. Harvey just slowed the game down to his pace and then sped it up against you...there was no option for him to go D-to-D like you see today. Not only was that not a mechanism at the time, but some of his partners were fringe or sub-NHL caliber. You'll no doubt recall when Lidstrom was paired with Andreas Lilja...well, Al Langlois grew up wishing he was Lilja...and never made it.
Harvey was the last guy back and had no one on the same layer as him and still made a great first pass. He doesn't get as many assists as you'd think because of how assists were kept and how the Montreal offense ticked after the breakout pass. But make no mistake, he started the rush and he did it like no other for a long time...it took a while to replicate...
Harvey was the first that I have seen that so uniquely Drew forecheckers to him and then threaded these perfect passes to a circling forward or back against the grain through the middle. It was 40 years ahead of its time. The only guy in the next couple generations that I saw do it as consistently well was Slava Fetisov. Harvey just slowed the game down to his pace and then sped it up against you...there was no option for him to go D-to-D like you see today. Not only was that not a mechanism at the time, but some of his partners were fringe or sub-NHL caliber. You'll no doubt recall when Lidstrom was paired with Andreas Lilja...well, Al Langlois grew up wishing he was Lilja...and never made it.
Harvey was the last guy back and had no one on the same layer as him and still made a great first pass. He doesn't get as many assists as you'd think because of how assists were kept and how the Montreal offense ticked after the breakout pass. But make no mistake, he started the rush and he did it like no other for a long time...it took a while to replicate...
JackSlater
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2010
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From what I've seen and read of Harvey, he may not be the first to do various things but he refined his game to the point where he became pretty much the archetype of what a defenceman should be. Rock solid defensively, then well rounded in offence and able to start off the attack with a pass or carry and transitioning into a threat in the offensive zone.
I may be wrong but I view Shore more as a stylistic outlier, at least in hockey history.
I may be wrong but I view Shore more as a stylistic outlier, at least in hockey history.
Canadiens1958
Registered User
Excellent post MF.
Harvey was the first to figure out the options offered by the center Red Line introduced for the 1943-44 season. Also its limitations - Red Line offside and exploit the strengths and weaknesses that resulted.
Shore never played in during the Red Line era. Forward passing was liberalized about 1/3 of the way into his career.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I’m not aware of anything Shore did stylistically that was unique at the time. He did it all at a higher level than anyone else, that was his signature.
One way to look at it is that King Clancy played pretty much the same style of game, and Clancy came into the league 2 years earlier.
Shore’s influence on the game has been more cultural than tactical... more of a Richard than a Gretzky.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
I'm not sure that I read/see Clancy and Shore playing a similar style actually...Clancy seemed like a worker, better small-area footwork, a better stop and start player, less crushing physical hits, more naggy stuff...less big swooping rushes, more stickhandling...but maybe that's just my impression.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I didn’t mean to imply they were mirror images... just that from the standpoint of a defenseman’s role on offense, they were at the same phase of evolution. Shore didn’t do anything (that I’m aware of) which would have made Clancy stop and think “wow, I never thought to do that”, or vice versa.
And likewise with the other star defensemen of the day. They were all playing within more-or-less the same boundaries, with individual distinctions being more about skill level and their appetite for risk.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
It just occurred to me that some of the rhetoric @GMR is talking about may be related to rule changes during the 1920s and 1930s designed to discourage defensemen from hanging around near their own net rather than following the play. Shore was certainly one of the big household names during a period when the game was changing to involve more players in rushing the length of the ice.
I suppose it's only a small leap to say he was a "pioneer" of a more fluid style of game, in the sense that he was one of the cohort that had to adjust to the changes. And from there it's only a small leap to get the impression that he was an innovator or revolutionary force. But that's too many small leaps. The truth is more along the lines of, he successfully adjusted to changes in style throughout his long career.
I suppose it's only a small leap to say he was a "pioneer" of a more fluid style of game, in the sense that he was one of the cohort that had to adjust to the changes. And from there it's only a small leap to get the impression that he was an innovator or revolutionary force. But that's too many small leaps. The truth is more along the lines of, he successfully adjusted to changes in style throughout his long career.
GMR
Registered User
Didn't Sprague Cleghorn score a lot of goals in the 1910's, before these rule changes ever happened? I guess I'm confused as to what Shore did that expanded offensively upon what Cleghorn did a decade before? Did Cleghorn score his goals off the rush instead of remaining in the offensive zone longer like Shore did?
GMR
Registered User
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Thats kind of what I was getting at before. Defensemen have always rushed the puck to some extent, going back to the very earliest days. That style became more prominent in the 1910s with more high-skill players playing defense (Cleghorn, Cameron, etc) but I’m not aware of any particular thing that they did differently than their predecessors... except for what was dictated by rule changes. Yes, somebody was undoubtedly the first defenseman to utilize forward passing from his own zone — but that’s because the rules deliberately opened it up, not because one guy suddenly had the genius to start doing it.
The game changed A LOT during Shore’s career. Rule changes, like the addition of forward passing and the ban on forwards hanging back in the defensive zone, changed the dynamics in all three zones. Shore certainly was part of a generation of defensemen who had to grasp those changes and adjust to the new opportunities they opened up offensively. In that sense he was a “pioneer”, but so were many of his peers, collectively. It wasn’t Shore driving changes in the game... it was the game driving changes in Shore.
The item about him hanging in the offensive zone is the only specific thing I’ve seen attributed to him. Do we know for sure that this was something he did as an innovation, and not a global change in which he was simply the most striking example?
Big Phil
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- Nov 2, 2003
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Harvey - along with Red Kelly - made the rush more popular. It is true that when Orr came along he took it up to an even bigger level and better standard but they were really the ones who made it the weapon that it is. Watch old footage of Harvey and you can see a lot of modern tactics in his game. Basically he is like Bourque with that commanding style. You automatically notice that he is THE guy on the ice controlling things. I don't think Shore controlled the pace of the game quite like Harvey.
The Panther
Registered User
I thought Jean Béliveau, in his excellent book, had several interesting things to say about Harvey, with whom he played with for eight or nine seasons, including all of Doug's Norris winning years (except his last, in New York):
- "The best defenceman of his day, and to my mind the best in NHL history"
- Jean points out that Harvey was an all-around athlete, who played professional football in the Continental Football League, semipro baseball with various Quebec teams, and in "every" pickup game of basketball at the YMCA when he had time
- "Harvey was also the best NHL defenceman who ever lived"
- Jean says Harvey was the finest natural athlete to play hockey, with incredible stamina. If other D-men were injured, or if the game was getting too "frisky" for his liking, Harvey would slow down the pace of the game.
- Harvey was excellent at outlet passes to forwards, but he would only pass to forwards in full stride. He told his teammates he wouldn't pass to them if they were standing still, on the boards, waiting.
- "The best defenceman of his day, and to my mind the best in NHL history"
- Jean points out that Harvey was an all-around athlete, who played professional football in the Continental Football League, semipro baseball with various Quebec teams, and in "every" pickup game of basketball at the YMCA when he had time
- "Harvey was also the best NHL defenceman who ever lived"
- Jean says Harvey was the finest natural athlete to play hockey, with incredible stamina. If other D-men were injured, or if the game was getting too "frisky" for his liking, Harvey would slow down the pace of the game.
- Harvey was excellent at outlet passes to forwards, but he would only pass to forwards in full stride. He told his teammates he wouldn't pass to them if they were standing still, on the boards, waiting.
