- Jan 11, 2006
- 13,290
- 6,346
Great article. Best I’ve read in a while.Longest post in hf history?
Great article. Best I’ve read in a while.Longest post in hf history?
Except he totally should.No matter what part you look at, Anderson should not be a HOF’er.
Anderson is, to me, very much a borderline Hall of Famer, much like Joe Nieuwendyk. Just based on their regular-season stats' careers (neither of which was shabby -- they were both frequent NHL All Stars), they're probably not in, but close. (Anderson, by the way, was the first Oiler not named Gretzky to score 100 points in a season. Up to 1986, he was out-performing Mark Messier.) But when you look at their contributions to Cup champions and international-hockey champions, they're pushing to the "in" side, which is why they landed there. Anderson was a playoff-stud who always got better when the games got bigger -- the opposite of Keith Tkachuk or Joe Thornton. He was also consistently good: from 1980-81 through 1989-90 he was no "role player" (lol!), he was one of the elite scorers/wingers in the world (the one exception being his poor 1988-89 season).
Except he totally should.
4th in all-time Playoff Scoring.
5th in all-time playoff goals
5th most all-time Playoff Game Winning Goals
Anyone who watched the Oilers dynasty knows how instrumental Anderson was in winning all of those cups.
Anderson was the reason we beat the Bruins in the Finals in 88.
And even without Gretzky, Anderson was an absolute force when they won the cup in 1990.
You can only count out Anderson if you don't think Playoffs count for anything.
I truly admire and respect the guys/gals who make these long posts. Just like the Bure person.
Anderson was a Mullen, Ciccarelli level scorer who happened to play in the most favorable circumstances possible. Put him on literally any other team and you're talking about a guy who's only occasionally remembered when talking about that era. Trumpeting him as the 4th best playoff scorer of all time looks great until you realize that 1-4 are his own teammates. Making him the 4th best playoff scorer on his own team.
Inducting guys like Anderson is how you get Joe Nieuwendyk in the HOF. And Nieuwendyk opens the door for even more mediocrity. Eventually we are going to end up with Claude Lemieux and this sequence of logic is the reason why.
Gotta have Steve Shutt on the list:Glenn Anderson
Dave Andreychuk
Leo Boivin
Guy Carbonneau
Dick Duff
Clark Gillies
Phil Housley
Bob Pulford
Joe Nieuwendyk
Harry Watson
You kind of have to separate this out by era, because some of the very early (1800s - 1910s) inductees were chosen for being "early stars" who built the game rather than for how they stacked up against later players. Even some of the early/mid 20th century players, they were picked against a much smaller field of choices and so naturally the weaker ones in that field are going to compare poorly.
Arbitrarily cutting it off at guys who played the bulk of their careers after 1950, here are the worst players inducted IMO:
Glenn Anderson
Dave Andreychuk
Leo Boivin
Guy Carbonneau
Dick Duff
Clark Gillies
Phil Housley
Bob Pulford
Joe Nieuwendyk
Harry Watson
Almost all of these have in common that they were role players/second-tier scorers/"character guys" on good teams, thereby getting a lot of press and making a lot of golfing buddies around the league.
Bure and Federov were markedly better than Mogilny.May have already been said - Bure and Federov are in, Mogilny has to be in.
Even Dino and Shanny are in.
Not a good look for the HHoF.
Bure and Federov were markedly better than Mogilny.
Dino? Eh, you have a point there. Shanahan does have 3 post-season All-Stars, although he shouldn't be in either so that's fine.
We need to start knocking people out of the Hall.
Umm only 3 humans have managed to put up more points playing D in the NHL than Housley did. 3
Lol so far from the ‘worst players’ list its crazy
Funny enough, all three played at the exact same time as Housley. That’s what happens when scoring is way higher than any other period in history.
The difference between those guys and Housley is they actually played defense, while he ran around as a 4th forward. Even Paul Coffey was a better defender, and that’s saying something. Those other 3 guys won multiple Norris trophies, while Housley was a finalist all of 1 time. They played meaningful roles in Cup runs and gold medals and President’s Trophies. Housley was bad in the playoffs and scored a lot of meaningless points.
If Paul Coffey was his generation’s Erik Karlsson, the best comparison for Housley would be Keith Yandle. Look at a post-lockout scoring list and he looks impressive. Actually watch him play, and try to think of his most memorable moments, and the HOF conversation goes sideways really quickly.
Yes only a couple guys won the Norris big whoop, it’s not really something people can ’win’ the best Dman doesn’t always win the award. Not saying he should have won one, but back in the day people were probably voting without even seeing everyone play.
Fact is the HHOF is a record keeping building, it isn’t to give trophy winners more props its to keep an official record of who has done what and when your a top 5 producer at your position in history it would be fairly crappy record keeping to leave that guy out.
And no Yandle and his 550 points isn’t even close to 1200+
The Norris voters were absolutely not voting without seeing everyone play. You realize it’s not a fan ballot, right? Even the west coast journalists were seeing Housley play a minimum of 3 full games a year. Division rivals more like 8.
And that’s not counting playoff games (which is probably a good thing for Housley).
Then he can rightfully enjoy a prominent place in the media guide and the US Hockey Hall of Fame, where he is relevant. Compared to other HOCKEY Hall of Famers, he’s an extremely weak pick. Arguably the weakest defenseman to make it since about 1950.
Yandle occupies a similar scoring rank in his generation (only 7 points shy of an identical 4th place) with a similarly empty resume in every other aspect. Boosting Housley for his point total without acknowledging the difference in scoring rates in the 1980s and early 1990s is a bad-faith argument, like saying Mogilny > Ovechkin because Ovie never scored 73 goals.
Yes I know who votes, but without the tv coverage and internet of today it’s tough to watch everyone. And yep 3 games you can easily decide who is the best on that sample size right?
On top of that I’m not sure every team played each other 3 times a year
Fact only 2 Americans have more points
Fact only 3 dmen have more points.
That’s a big deal. And one hell of an accomplishment.
Oh and your ridiculous ovechkin point...what? Who did I say he is better than, nice made up point on a made up argument what are you even talking about?
Competing against those other couple guys who are known to be among the best of all time does not mean you don’t deserve what you earn.
You do understand they need more than six guys in an entire building dedicated to the history of hockey right?
His name has been written on a NHL scoresheet how many times?
Oh so anyone not as good or coffey and Bourque need not apply cool.
He earned his spot, deal with it
3 full games is more than most people see of any non-conference opponent with the current schedule.
And 1990 was not 1950. There were national broadcasts and highlight shows covering only 21 teams. Realistically a full time hockey journalist was seeing more of Housley in 1990 Buffalo than he would have seen Yandle in 2010 Arizona.
They did.
Continuing to push raw stats as if the scoring rate hasn’t changed since 1985 isn’t fooling anybody.
Name a worse defenseman in the HOF since 1960.