Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Preliminary Discussion Thread (Revenge of Michael Myers)

[steve141]

Check out the thread on his list. He is being practically laughed out of the building. The list is puzzling, to say the list ("62. Trottier 63. Toews" is all you need to know) but nobody is prepared to take it at face value and concede that maybe the winningest coach in history knows something we don't.

For one, he is clearly not concerned with awards and achievements. He doesn't care who won what. Only how good the player was on ice.

While there are some obvious faults with Bowman's list I do find it very valuable. He is obviously not a guy who has spent years obsessively comparing the historical merit of different players like we do here.

On the other hand he has direct knowledge of many of the players. For example he has made it clear several times that he believes that Serge Savard was better than Larry Robinson. He is probably in a better position to judge that than anyone else.

I probably have Savard higher than most on my top 120 list, and Bowman's high praise of him has certainly influenced how I view him.

 

[VanIslander]

Then again, Bowman left Montreal because he was going to be passed over for a senior management position he coveted because people in the organization disliked his autocratic style. (Similarly, more than once newspaper reporters have mentioned Team Canada panning Scotty because of unease at his controlling style. His own Habs players are said to have hated him every day except the day they hoist the cup.)

So, given that, I suspect it's possible that Savard might have been more of a 'yes' man than Robinson. Certainly Larry is an opinionated self-assured coach in recent decades. Perhaps Robinson and Bowman might have disagreed at times about how the defenseman should play in certain situations.

My point is: homerism or personal bias (above and beyond his professional bias he also has for defensive responsibilities) might be at play. And the order might not be as important to him personally as just making sure the right 100 are included.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I don’t know that we’ve escalated to talks of anyone having a pattern attached to one team, although 31/32 of us probably could have added more goaltenders...


Also a spider fell on me while I was driving on the highway. I have not been able to recover the body. So in case he re-emerges and I die on this four-hour drive, Johnny Engine is in charge.

A house centipede fell on me from the ceiling as I was lying on the couch the other day.Yeah, those disgusting, long and incredibly fast things.I killed it on the spot fortunately.You rarely get two opportunities with these suckers.

Update 2 hours later: I think making this post has put me under a spell.I just killed 5 of those things in the last 2 hours.It's rare to see so many of them.

 

[VanIslander]

I don’t know that we’ve escalated to talks of anyone having a pattern attached to one team,...

This makes me wonder: How many Montreal Canadiens are on one's list?

I have 19.

(up to 23 if include guys who starred there but more elsewhere, eg., Siebert's Hart years as a Hab)

 

[BenchBrawl]

This makes me wonder: How many Montreal Canadiens are on one's list?

I have 19.

Who is a Montreal Canadiens? Is Sprague Cleghorn a Montreal Canadiens?

I think I have about 17 real MTL players (including Roy but excluding Cleghorn, Mahovlich and the likes), but I counted quickly.

By "consensus" probably only one of those would be controversial as an inclusion.

 

[VanIslander]

Who is a Montreal Canadiens? Is Sprague Cleghorn a Montreal Canadiens.

During his three-year captaincy of the Habs he won the Stanley Cup and was runner-up for the Hart. History books often talk about him as a Hab and show him wearing the jersey. So I'd list him as such. He had significant but lesser impact in other NHL cities and yeah is as much a NHA Wanderer as anything (but don't tell Habs fans that).

 

[bobholly39]

Looks like I have 22 Montreal Canadiens at first glance

 

[BenchBrawl]

I

During his three-year captaincy of the Habs he won the Stanley Cup and was runner-up for the Hart. History books often talk about him as a Hab and show him wearing the jersey. So I'd list him as such. He had significant but lesser impact in other NHL cities and yeah is as much a NHA Wanderer as anything (but don't tell Habs fans that).

I tend to identify Cleghorn with the Wanderers or Senators, but yeah he's also a Hab.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Using as the criterion that you're classified with the team with which you built the plurality of your résumé. I have:
19: Montréal Canadians
12: Chicago BlackHawks*
10: Detroit Red Wings
9: Toronto Maple Leafs
8: Boston Bruins
8: CSKA Moscow

* are my dozen BlackHawks a homer call? Taking into account that I never seriously considered Toews, made a cut with Hossa (who might not count as a BlackHawk, even if I'd included him) I don't think so. Here are the BlackHawks on my list, in alphabetical order. I don't think there's a homer-pick among them--
Belfour/M. Bentley/Chelios/T. Esposito/C. Gardiner/G. Hall/Bo. Hull/Kane/Keith/Mikita/Pilote/Seibert.

It's easy for one to forget about Seibert as a Chicago athlete. To reach for a baseball analogy, I'd compare him to Ted Lyons. If you ask random Chicago fans about great pitchers (or great defensemen) in Chicago sports history, they're pretty much guaranteed not to mention either of these two obvious Hall-of-Famers. Two strong, powerful guys that built massive careers while often laboring for woefully uncompetitive teams.

 

[MXD]

* are my dozen BlackHawks a homer call? Taking into account that I never seriously considered Toews, made a cut with Hossa (who might not count as a BlackHawk, even if I'd included him) I don't think so. Here are the BlackHawks on my list, in alphabetical order. I don't think there's a homer-pick among them--
Belfour/M. Bentley/Chelios/T. Esposito/C. Gardiner/G. Hall/Bo. Hull/Kane/Keith/Mikita/Pilote/Seibert.

I have those exact same guys and none of them came close to NOT make my list. I guess you could've ranked Doug Bentley too. Don't worry.

Come to think of it, I'm probably a bigger Hawks homer than a Habs homer. I could plausibly be the "highest" participant on as much as 4 of these guys, and that excludes Bobby Hull. ... Of course, three of these are netminders.

 

[MXD]

Who is a Montreal Canadiens? Is Sprague Cleghorn a Montreal Canadiens?

I think I have about 17 real MTL players (including Roy but excluding Cleghorn, Mahovlich and the likes), but I counted quickly.

By "consensus" probably only one of those would be controversial as an inclusion.

I have 21, counting Cleghorn but not Malone, and the two most controversial would be Savard/Lapointe I guess.

 

[streitz]

Check out the thread on his list. He is being practically laughed out of the building. The list is puzzling, to say the list ("62. Trottier 63. Toews" is all you need to know) but nobody is prepared to take it at face value and concede that maybe the winningest coach in history knows something we don't.

For one, he is clearly not concerned with awards and achievements. He doesn't care who won what. Only how good the player was on ice.

Link? That's strange because Trottier seemed to me like the prototypical Bowman player. Hit hard, great on defense while still having great offense.

 

[ted2019]

I have

Looks like I have 22 Montreal Canadiens at first glance

Also.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Using as the criterion that you're classified with the team with which you built the plurality of your résumé. I have:
19: Montréal Canadians
12: Chicago BlackHawks*
10: Detroit Red Wings
9: Toronto Maple Leafs
8: Boston Bruins
8: CSKA Moscow

* are my dozen BlackHawks a homer call? Taking into account that I never seriously considered Toews, made a cut with Hossa (who might not count as a BlackHawk, even if I'd included him) I don't think so. Here are the BlackHawks on my list, in alphabetical order. I don't think there's a homer-pick among them--
Belfour/M. Bentley/Chelios/T. Esposito/C. Gardiner/G. Hall/Bo. Hull/Kane/Keith/Mikita/Pilote/Seibert.

It's easy for one to forget about Seibert as a Chicago athlete. To reach for a baseball analogy, I'd compare him to Ted Lyons. If you ask random Chicago fans about great pitchers (or great defensemen) in Chicago sports history, they're pretty much guaranteed not to mention either of these two obvious Hall-of-Famers. Two strong, powerful guys that built massive careers while often laboring for woefully uncompetitive teams.

I have all of those except Kane, who isn't an indefensible inclusion.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I think the cutoff number for any list is going to produce some head-scratching results for franchise distribution, no matter where you put that number. Most lists of any number will be heavy on Habs, but a top-5 list could conceivably have no Habs at all (I have Beliveau in my top 5, there's a list for this project that has both Beliveau and Harvey, but if you went Gretzky-Orr-Howe-Lemieux and one of Hull or Hasek I wouldn't bat an eye). Most top-100s and top-120s would contain a roughly even number of Leafs and Red Wings, but a top 50 would include at least 8 long-time Red Wings, and 2 or 3 Leafs, or possibly none at all if you don't count Kelly and Sawchuk.

120 seems like a good number to maximize the number of Blackhawks you include.

 

[VanIslander]

I think the cutoff number for any list is going to produce some head-scratching results for franchise distribution,...

I believe my list only has 5 Rags (edit: 7).

The only Ranger from 1944-88 is Bathgate.

EDIT: and (for over a third of his career) Gadsby and for early in his career Brad Park.

 

[blogofmike]

I believe my list only has 5 Rags.

The only Ranger from 1944-88 is Bathgate.

Brad Park?

 

[VanIslander]

Dang. I keep thinking of him as a Bruin (my earliest memories of him are from 1977) and Gadsby as a Red Wing.

Will edit. Number of Rangers now a less shocking 7.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I believe my list only has 5 Rags (edit: 7).

The only Ranger from 1944-88 is Bathgate.

EDIT: and (for over a third of his career) Gadsby and for early in his career Brad Park.

Excellent example, quibbles aside.
I would bet that a top-400 list would include a roughly even number of Rangers and Blackhawks, but here, Chicago has twice as many (on a hypothetical average list, I don't claim to know how this is going to shake out).

 

[Canadiens1958]

Then again, Bowman left Montreal because he was going to be passed over for a senior management position he coveted because people in the organization disliked his autocratic style. (Similarly, more than once newspaper reporters have mentioned Team Canada panning Scotty because of unease at his controlling style. His own Habs players are said to have hated him every day except the day they hoist the cup.)

So, given that, I suspect it's possible that Savard might have been more of a 'yes' man than Robinson. Certainly Larry is an opinionated self-assured coach in recent decades. Perhaps Robinson and Bowman might have disagreed at times about how the defenseman should play in certain situations.

My point is: homerism or personal bias (above and beyond his professional bias he also has for defensive responsibilities) might be at play. And the order might not be as important to him personally as just making sure the right 100 are included.

Savard and Bowman went back to early junior days.

 

[sr edler]

During his three-year captaincy of the Habs he won the Stanley Cup and was runner-up for the Hart. History books often talk about him as a Hab and show him wearing the jersey. So I'd list him as such. He had significant but lesser impact in other NHL cities and yeah is as much a NHA Wanderer as anything (but don't tell Habs fans that).

Cleghorn is a Montreal Westmount player to me (if we're talking characteristics). A notoriously dirty team in the intermediate ranks of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League (CAHL), also including brother Odie (of course) and stay at home defenseman Cooper Smeaton. This trio later went onto play in the amateur New York league where their over-the-top violent play made three players on the St. Nicholas team (Souther, Putnam, Chew) quit the game. Sprague played center forward in New York, by the way.

 

[ImporterExporter]

A house centipede fell on me from the ceiling as I was lying on the couch the other day.Yeah, those disgusting, long and incredibly fast things.I killed it on the spot fortunately.You rarely get two opportunities with these suckers.

Update 2 hours later: I think making this post has put me under a spell.I just killed 5 of those things in the last 2 hours.It's rare to see so many of them.

Yeah, this:

 

[ted2019]

I have all of those except Kane, who isn't an indefensible inclusion.

Kane never sniffed my list either.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

My God, aren't we touchy? When another poster said his list was dictated to him by God, did you take him seriously too? Geez, what else offended you today?

I honestly, sincerely, without a shadow of a doubt, believe that Pavel Datsyuk is one of the Top 60 players that ever played the game.

First you exalt Him, then you mock Him?

Believe me, He knows His hockey.

 

[ted2019]

Did anyone have Mark Howe at # 80 or higher?