The 'Competition' Argument

[Hardyvan123]

I agree.

Do people really consider Niedermayer a first ballot lock for the Hall?

I think he will be as he has a "reputation" for being a winner at every level and that is the sort of thing HHOF people really value IMO.

I think highly of him as some on this board think that he is overrated, he is somewhere in the top 20-30 dmen of all time IMO, maybe a bit higher.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Well since you didn't ask.
having watched both Bourque and Lidstrom play their entire careers I'll take Lidstrom by a slight edge.

Shore played in an NHL that was smaller in terms of # of teams and was unstable and also his size advantage back then when their were some really small guys probably made him seem better than he really was. I have to admit hat I have a hard time judging players that I have not seem before and reporting back then was little more than cheer leading.

There are also up to 7 HHOF on some of his Boston teams which only won the Cup 2 times so was it just another case of a star Boston Dman not being able to take his team to victory or were some of the exploits of players back then exaggerated? I think it was the latter.

Harvey is another tough one as I never saw him play and that Montreal team was so dominant in a 6 team league that it can become hard to grade individual guys from that era, especially Dmen as they played a less offensive role than later Dmen.
Lidstroms ability to play at such a high level for such a long period of time puts him in my top 3 , his NHL career and international career have been outstanding.

Just to be clear, this was intended as a joke, right?

 

[Hardyvan123]

Just to be clear, this was intended as a joke, right?

No it was not, the NHL was unstable for much of Shore's career.
also the forward pass had just be introduced thus changing the game slightly (joke intended) and he was a giant among smaller guys.

All of that contributed to his greatness. He no doubt was a dominant player in his time but the quality of the NHL and competition wasn't really that good.

One final point, at certain points in his career Shore played on Bruin teams with upwards of 6 or 7 HHOF guys and yet his teams only won 2 Cups.

Maybe it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the Bruins are often stated as having 3 of the top 5 Dmen of all time but all 3 are shorter in Cups than one would expect them to be, just bad luck or something else?

You have Shore, Orr and Bourque (who had to leave Boston to win his cup) and they have a grand total of 4 Stanley Cups. I understand that teams win cups not just individual players but 2 of these guys played in much smaller leagues and had tons of talent ie. HHOF around them as well, it just seems like there should be more Cups here.

I understand that he won the league MVP 4 times but the voters back then had different criteria and voting patterns than let's say in Bobby Orr's time who didn't win a Hart in 74-75 despite leading the league in scoring.

 

[shazariahl]

No it was not, the NHL was unstable for much of Shore's career.
also the forward pass had just be introduced thus changing the game slightly (joke intended) and he was a giant among smaller guys.

All of that contributed to his greatness. He no doubt was a dominant player in his time but the quality of the NHL and competition wasn't really that good.

One final point, at certain points in his career Shore played on Bruin teams with upwards of 6 or 7 HHOF guys and yet his teams only won 2 Cups.

Maybe it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the Bruins are often stated as having 3 of the top 5 Dmen of all time but all 3 are shorter in Cups than one would expect them to be, just bad luck or something else?

You have Shore, Orr and Bourque (who had to leave Boston to win his cup) and they have a grand total of 4 Stanley Cups. I understand that teams win cups not just individual players but 2 of these guys played in much smaller leagues and had tons of talent ie. HHOF around them as well, it just seems like there should be more Cups here.

I understand that he won the league MVP 4 times but the voters back then had different criteria and voting patterns than let's say in Bobby Orr's time who didn't win a Hart in 74-75 despite leading the league in scoring.

While I am not agreeing with your rankings, I do think you have a point about the lack of cups, especially for players in a 6 or 12 team league. Guys like Richard and Beliveau were great players on dominant teams, and won a lot of cups in a 6 team league. Fine, maybe they'd have won less with more teams. But you have a point about some of these Boston teams being filled with HHOF players themselves and just not being able to win championships. That hurts their case a little IMO, but not enough to rank Lidstrom above any of the 3 you mention. However, at least I understand where you're coming from a little better.

I usually don't like championships as an arguement as they are a team achievement. But with teams that good, with that many HHOFers on them, you may have a point in that they should have won more than they did.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Bruins and the Stanley Cup

No it was not, the NHL was unstable for much of Shore's career.
also the forward pass had just be introduced thus changing the game slightly (joke intended) and he was a giant among smaller guys.

All of that contributed to his greatness. He no doubt was a dominant player in his time but the quality of the NHL and competition wasn't really that good.

One final point, at certain points in his career Shore played on Bruin teams with upwards of 6 or 7 HHOF guys and yet his teams only won 2 Cups.

Maybe it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the Bruins are often stated as having 3 of the top 5 Dmen of all time but all 3 are shorter in Cups than one would expect them to be, just bad luck or something else?

You have Shore, Orr and Bourque (who had to leave Boston to win his cup) and they have a grand total of 4 Stanley Cups. I understand that teams win cups not just individual players but 2 of these guys played in much smaller leagues and had tons of talent ie. HHOF around them as well, it just seems like there should be more Cups here.

I understand that he won the league MVP 4 times but the voters back then had different criteria and voting patterns than let's say in Bobby Orr's time who didn't win a Hart in 74-75 despite leading the league in scoring.

Eddie Shore had one major flaw - he lacked discipline. Look at his PIM regular season vs playoffs:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/s/shoreed01.html

Combined with the fact that during the 1930's the playoff format often saw the first place teams in each division face each otherand below average coaching, Shore's Bruins did not do well in terms of winning Stanley Cups.

The Bruins from the Bobby Orr era onwards have had rather weak coaching overall. Blake / Bowman / Shero owned the ragtag collection of Bruin coaches they faced in the playoffs from 1967-1979 while Ray Bourque's era featured more or less an "Old Boys" string of former Bruins with little coaching experience before Harry Sinden gave them the job.

That the Bruins underachieved is not surprising.

 

[Mantha Poodoo]

I tend to think the average competition level is roughly the same, excepting events that creates large disturbances in the Force (such as the whole early 90s euro invasion). I then usually make the argument that the more talented a player is, the weaker he makes the competition appear (rather than the argument that he looks better than he is because of weak competition).

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

No it was not, the NHL was unstable for much of Shore's career.
also the forward pass had just be introduced thus changing the game slightly (joke intended) and he was a giant among smaller guys.

All of that contributed to his greatness. He no doubt was a dominant player in his time but the quality of the NHL and competition wasn't really that good.

One final point, at certain points in his career Shore played on Bruin teams with upwards of 6 or 7 HHOF guys and yet his teams only won 2 Cups.

Maybe it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the Bruins are often stated as having 3 of the top 5 Dmen of all time but all 3 are shorter in Cups than one would expect them to be, just bad luck or something else?

You have Shore, Orr and Bourque (who had to leave Boston to win his cup) and they have a grand total of 4 Stanley Cups. I understand that teams win cups not just individual players but 2 of these guys played in much smaller leagues and had tons of talent ie. HHOF around them as well, it just seems like there should be more Cups here.

I understand that he won the league MVP 4 times but the voters back then had different criteria and voting patterns than let's say in Bobby Orr's time who didn't win a Hart in 74-75 despite leading the league in scoring.

This seems to indicate a player gets better when he plays on a better team. If Bourque played with a team that won 3 Cups with him, he would have been that much better a player?

 

[Kyle McMahon]

No it was not, the NHL was unstable for much of Shore's career.
also the forward pass had just be introduced thus changing the game slightly (joke intended) and he was a giant among smaller guys.

All of that contributed to his greatness. He no doubt was a dominant player in his time but the quality of the NHL and competition wasn't really that good.

One final point, at certain points in his career Shore played on Bruin teams with upwards of 6 or 7 HHOF guys and yet his teams only won 2 Cups.

Maybe it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the Bruins are often stated as having 3 of the top 5 Dmen of all time but all 3 are shorter in Cups than one would expect them to be, just bad luck or something else?

You have Shore, Orr and Bourque (who had to leave Boston to win his cup) and they have a grand total of 4 Stanley Cups. I understand that teams win cups not just individual players but 2 of these guys played in much smaller leagues and had tons of talent ie. HHOF around them as well, it just seems like there should be more Cups here.

I understand that he won the league MVP 4 times but the voters back then had different criteria and voting patterns than let's say in Bobby Orr's time who didn't win a Hart in 74-75 despite leading the league in scoring.

My comment was specifically in relation to your assertion that Shore dominated his competitors based on his supposed great size. Eddie is listed at 5'11, 190 pounds. Towards the bigger end of the scale in that era, but hardly the biggest nor anything out of the ordinary. This would be like saying a 6'3, 220 pound defenseman is able to dominate the NHL today based on size. Simply ridiculous.

Shore's lack of Cups is a valid criticism, considering he played a key role in blowing at least one thanks to his violent temper. Basically what C1958 pointed out.

 

[Hardyvan123]

My comment was specifically in relation to your assertion that Shore dominated his competitors based on his supposed great size. Eddie is listed at 5'11, 190 pounds. Towards the bigger end of the scale in that era, but hardly the biggest nor anything out of the ordinary. This would be like saying a 6'3, 220 pound defenseman is able to dominate the NHL today based on size. Simply ridiculous.

Shore's lack of Cups is a valid criticism, considering he played a key role in blowing at least one thanks to his violent temper. Basically what C1958 pointed out.

Let me elaborate a bit more as I was having a nightcap when I wrote the piece. It was not just Shore's size, as there were bigger players, although the league average was much smaller than in later time periods, but the violent way he played hockey back then.

A modern comparison is Chris Pronger's value defensively in the clutch and grab era versus his value in the NHL since the cap era started.

 

[Scott1980]

Competition gives things a reference in who are you facing, how good are THEY compared to today. You're only as good as the players/teams you face, we hear.

Russell / Chamberlain

Palmer / Nickalaus

Ali / Frazier

Tilden / Johnston

DiMaggio / Williams

I think it strengthens someone to have a rival, rather than just be alone sometimes. When we think of Howe, we always think of Richard. When we think of Broda, we think of Durham.