The Greatest Ever... (Leaf, Ranger, Predator, Senator, Hab, Soviet, etc)

[57special]

Imagine if the Avs(Nordique)kept Sundin.

 

[BenchBrawl]

1. Do MOST Habs fans look at Beliveau more fondly than Richard. Certainly many do, but most?

2. Richard is a playoff warrior not a gentlemanly player. This is the franchise that captains Lalonde and Cleghorn built. Only twice (a mere 2 times) has a Hab ever won the Lady Byng (compared to 52 times for the other 5 of the O6 franchises). Claude Lemieux is appreciated. So, let's nix talk of Montreal fans appreciating gentlemanly play more than fierce win-at-all-costs nasty competitiveness.

No. Richard is more of a deep cultural figure than Beliveau -- more of a ''image d'Épinal'' in the collective subconscious.

 

[decma]

I am surprised that the crowd that places so much emphasis on AS voting hasn't made a case for Goulet over Stastny for Que.

While Stastny's Hart record is a little better, the AS comparison is:
Goulet: 1_1_1_2_2_3_9_10
Stastny: 3_3_3_4_5_6

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I am surprised that the crowd that places so much emphasis on AS voting hasn't made a case for Goulet over Stastny for Que.

While Stastny's Hart record is a little better, the AS comparison is:
Goulet: 1_1_1_2_2_3_9_10
Stastny: 3_3_3_4_5_6

It's due to quality of competition. Comparing all-stars at different positions (usually) isn't advisable.

Goulet was on the first or second team five times. The other top two players those years were - Messier 2x, Robitaille 2x, Naslund 2x, Anderson, Tikkanen, Ogrodnick and Secord.

Stastny was in the top five in voting five times (three times in the top three). The top two players those five years were - Gretzky 5x, Lemieux 2x, Trottier 2x, Savard.

Stastny's all-star competition was far tougher (with seven of those ten spots being taken up by two of the top three forwards of all-time). Savard (clearly the weakest player who got a top-two vote during those five years) was probably the 3rd best out of the seven that Goulet was competing against.

 

[decma]

It's due to quality of competition. Comparing all-stars at different positions (usually) isn't advisable.

I agree completely.

 

[FerrisRox]

It might be an unpopular opinion, but I've started to think that Mats Sundin is the greatest Maple Leaf ever. There are a few guys (Broda? Gilmour?) who peaked higher, but no one I see had 13 great seasons in a row for the blue & white.

An Original Six franchise where their greatest player of all time never even played in a Stanley Cup final? That seems ridiculous.

Teeder Kennedy captained them for eight years and actually led the team to success and won five Stanley Cups. He's also the last Maple Leaf to win the Hart Trophy.

I don't see any credible argument that Mats Sundin, who won absolutely nothing, is somehow a better Maple Leaf.

 

[The Panther]

An Original Six franchise where their greatest player of all time never even played in a Stanley Cup final? That seems ridiculous.

Teeder Kennedy captained them for eight years and actually led the team to success and won five Stanley Cups. He's also the last Maple Leaf to win the Hart Trophy.

I don't see any credible argument that Mats Sundin, who won absolutely nothing, is somehow a better Maple Leaf.

Okay. Well, there are reasonable cases to be made for maybe five or six past Maple Leafs. Kennedy is certainly one of them, although I don't personally think his three 2nd-team All Stars and that slightly dubious 1955 Hart trophy wipes the floor with Sundin (who has two 2nd-team All Stars himself from a much deeper era). That said, Kennedy's playoff stats from the late-40s Leafs' mini-dynasty look quite awesome, and his Hart voting results are strong.

I personally don't put a lot of weight into the Cup-counting comparison, particularly when we're talking about players from the 40s/50s as compared to the more recent eras when winning even a single Cup was much more statistically unlikely. There aren't exactly a lot of Maple Leafs in the past 52 years who've been seen within a hundred miles of the Cup.

Finally, I apologize for my ridiculous opinion.

 

[Thenameless]

Am I the only person on this forum who thinks Richard was the best Montreal player ever? I feel like Beliveau has him beaten comfortably for most posters here. I have no issue with that, just feel like I'm in the minority. I wonder if 20 or 30 years ago, that would still be the case among voters.

Rocket Richard is the man in Montreal. Who got the longest, loudest ovation when they closed the Forum? And I have an avatar of Lafleur.