Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Preliminary Discussion Thread (With a Vengeance)

[VanIslander]

... I'm expecting that there is a core of posters who may have half of their top 30 from the pre-original six days.

I bet no one will have half from the first half of Stanley Cup history, heck no one even half from the first half of post-consolidation NHL history!

But expect more than a token one or two pre-O6 era hockey greats in the top 30.

If there aren't at least 6-to-8 pre-O6ers in your top 50 or so ranked players, then you've probably got a blindspot.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I bet no one will have half from the first half of Stanley Cup history, heck no one even half from the first half of post-consolidation NHL history!

But expect more than a token one or two pre-O6 era hockey greats in the top 30.

If there aren't at least 6-8 pre-O6ers in your top 50 or so ranked players, then you've probably got a blindspot.

I have 20 out of my 120, and six out of my top 50 (11 of my top 60).

 

[Captain Bowie]

Speaking of Cyclone Taylor, how high are people going on him?

Being a proud BCer I have a weird pride regarding Cyclone Taylor. Even though he was born in Ontario himself, he has become a legend of early era hockey out west. We have hockey equipment shops named after him across Metro Vancouver which was started by the Taylor family. But want to check my bias here. I have him inside the top 30.

 

[MXD]

Speaking of Cyclone Taylor, how high are people going on him?

Being a proud BCer I have a weird pride regarding Cyclone Taylor. Even though he was born in Ontario himself, he has become a legend of early era hockey out west. We have hockey equipment shops named after him across Metro Vancouver which was started by the Taylor family. But want to check my bias here. I have him inside the top 30.

Feels high to me : I have Frank Nighbor close to 30 (I can't remember the exact spot) and I'm VERY confident with Nighbor being the better player here.

I still can't figure out why the street leading to the Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa is named the Cyclone Taylor Blvd instead of the Frank Nighbor Blvd.
(Then again, I didn't know who Nighbor was 12 years ago). There's a Frank Nighbor way, it's just not around the CTC.

Mind you, I've had bigger eye rolls than Taylor @ 30.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I have Taylor in the Trottier/Yzerman range, below Nighbor/Sakic/Clarke.

I'm sure not everyone will have the comparables seperated like I do.

Taylor's a guy with immense peak value, as well as some good value as an innovator. But his peak wasn't all that long.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Give or take how we define players on the border:

	C	W	D	G
Pre-O6	10	4	5	9
O6	6	9	5	5
Expansion	5	5	5	5
Post-WHA	5	4	5	4
DPE	4	4	3	3
Lockout	4	4	4	2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Taylor about 1/3rd of the way through.

 

[VanIslander]

I always think of Cyclone Taylor with respect to Newsy Lalonde: both easily top 40.

(Please don't rank a Chris Chelios or Brad Park ahead of them. The ATDs are about team building and the pick order there reflects the need for a bona fide number one dman at the detriment of centers and multipositional players, e.g., rover/center).

 

[MXD]

... And I thought 23 netminders were a lot.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Speaking of Cyclone Taylor, how high are people going on him?

Being a proud BCer I have a weird pride regarding Cyclone Taylor. Even though he was born in Ontario himself, he has become a legend of early era hockey out west. We have hockey equipment shops named after him across Metro Vancouver which was started by the Taylor family. But want to check my bias here. I have him inside the top 30.

Number 39.

 

[Captain Bowie]

I have Taylor in the Trottier/Yzerman range, below Nighbor/Sakic/Clarke.

I'm sure not everyone will have the comparables seperated like I do.

Taylor's a guy with immense peak value, as well as some good value as an innovator. But his peak wasn't all that long.

Cool, sounds like if I flopped Nighbor and Taylor I would be right in line with you guys. Nighbor currently half way between Trottier and Yzerman. Taylor one spot ahead of Clarke, and just a few ahead of Sakic (who is one spot ahead of Trottier).

Will have to re-eval.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

My thoughts on Nighbor/Lalonde/Taylor in brief form:

1) Nighbor and Lalonde were both NHA/NHL players primarily, and everything we have suggests Nighbor was flat out better.
2) Taylor was as worshipped in the west as Nighbor was in the east. He MAY have been as good as Nighbor, but it's not fully possible to tell. His status as easily the biggest superstar in the history of the PCHA combined with his status as an innovator - some of the at-the-time innovative PCHA rules that were later adopted by the NHL were influenced by allowing the flashy playmaker Taylor to show off his talents - have me ranking Taylor over Lalonde.
3) A big reason for Nighbor over Taylor is playoffs. Taylor wasn't bad, but Nighbor was the man.
4) I'm confident that Nighbor > Lalonde. For reasons above, I tend to slot Taylor in between them, but I'm not as confident with where to rank him.

 

[MXD]

Cool, sounds like if I flopped Nighbor and Taylor I would be right in line with you guys. Nighbor currently half way between Trottier and Yzerman. Taylor one spot ahead of Clarke, and just a few ahead of Sakic (who is one spot ahead of Trottier).

Will have to re-eval.

To be honest, there's nothing "wrong" with having Taylor ahead of Nighbor. I don't agree with that position, but it's certainly arguable and not like you ranked, I don't know, Chris Nilan ahead of Guy Lafleur.

See, I'm disagreeing with TDMM on Lalonde vs. Taylor (I'm having them the other way around).

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

My thoughts on Nighbor/Lalonde/Taylor in brief form:

1) Nighbor and Lalonde were both NHA/NHL players primarily, and everything we have suggests Nighbor was flat out better.
2) Taylor was as worshipped in the west as Nighbor was in the east. He MAY have been as good as Nighbor, but it's not fully possible to tell. His status as easily the biggest superstar in the history of the PCHA combined with his status as an innovator - some of the at-the-time innovative PCHA rules that were later adopted by the NHL were influenced by allowing the flashy playmaker Taylor to show off his talents - have me ranking Taylor over Lalonde.
3) A big reason for Nighbor over Taylor is playoffs. Taylor wasn't bad, but Nighbor was the man.
4) I'm confident that Nighbor > Lalonde. For reasons above, I tend to slot Taylor in between them, but I'm not as confident with where to rank him.

Newsy Lalonde was 30 years old when the NHL started. Nighbor was 25. But Lalonde was clearly the better offensive player in the next 5 seasons. Certainly Nighbor was better defensively. But he must have been a truly beloved player to win the first Hart Trophy
while coming in 4th on his own team in scoring.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Newsy Lalonde was 30 years old when the NHL started. Nighbor was 25. But Lalonde was clearly the better offensive player in the next 5 seasons. Certainly Nighbor was better defensively. But he must have been a truly beloved player to win the first Hart Trophy
while coming in 4th on his own team in scoring.

Lalonde was a better goal scorer, Nighbor a better playmaker. But assists were inconsistently recorded back then, so playmakers look worse when you add goals and assists together to come up with "points."

All that said, I do think Lalonde was a little better strictly offensively.

 

[Nick Hansen]

What about goaltender Larocque? What an odd career. Not sure who you would compare him to...

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Lalonde was a better goal scorer, Nighbor a better playmaker. But assists were inconsistently recorded back then, so playmakers look worse when you add goals and assists together to come up with "points."

All that said, I do think Lalonde was a little better strictly offensively.

Was there forward passing back then? Could have hurt the old assist totals.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Newsy Lalonde was 30 years old when the NHL started. Nighbor was 25. But Lalonde was clearly the better offensive player in the next 5 seasons. Certainly Nighbor was better defensively. But he must have been a truly beloved player to win the first Hart Trophy
while coming in 4th on his own team in scoring.

It's funny you mention that Hart Trophy. Seeing that he still won it while being well past his prime is what prompted me to dig into him quite a number of years ago now. Simply, there is no other all-time great who became lost to history to the extent that Nighbor did. Ottawa losing their franchise possibly being the primary reason.

Right now I have Nighbor>Taylor>Lalonde. With enough space between them that I doubt this will change between now and the submission deadline. Pretty evenly spaced within my top 30.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Was there forward passing back then? Could have hurt the old assist totals.

"Fun" history of NHL rule changes: National Hockey League (NHL) Major Rule Changes

Basically, the forward passing rules changed a bunch of time during the careers of these players.

 

[ted2019]

Have 2 spots left for 8 candidates and all except one played before 1950. Also, has anyone thought of Didier Pitre?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

It's funny you mention that Hart Trophy. Seeing that he still won it while being well past his prime is what prompted me to dig into him quite a number of years ago now. Simply, there is no other all-time great who became lost to history to the extent that Nighbor did. Ottawa losing their franchise possibly being the primary reason.

Right now I have Nighbor>Taylor>Lalonde. With enough space between them that I doubt this will change between now and the submission deadline. Pretty evenly spaced within my top 30.

Does it seem like a Teeder Kennedy type Hart Trophy award to you?

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Have 2 spots left for 8 candidates and all except one played before 1950.

You could try what I tried on my final pass- which was: survey how your selections populate the chronological periods- and see if you look a little light in any one particular time-span. I was surprised by how light I was on players from the 1960s- so much so that I made room for three more by trimming from other places.

Six pre-06 players in my top 40 (subject to revision).

Additional opinions based on review of the decades: best Winger of the '00s: Jarome Iginla... not particularly close*. Best Defenseman of the 1980s: Slava Fetisov- also pretty comfortably (imo). Player whose résumé was hurt most by the 04-05 lockout-- Martin St Louis, I think.

*for the purpose of classification, I consider Ovechkin a 2010s entry.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Does it seem like a Teeder Kennedy type Hart Trophy award to you?

No, there's really no reason to suspect it was any sort of "lifetime achievement award". Nighbor was in the running for the Hart again a couple seasons later. Trail of the Stanley Cup simply mentions that "Nighbor beat out Cleghorn by one voting point".

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Cool, sounds like if I flopped Nighbor and Taylor I would be right in line with you guys. Nighbor currently half way between Trottier and Yzerman. Taylor one spot ahead of Clarke, and just a few ahead of Sakic (who is one spot ahead of Trottier).

Will have to re-eval.

Please don't feel like Taylor over Nighbor is somehow indefensible. I don't think it's anything like completely settled orthodoxy.

Much of our thought, I'm sure, had to do with HOW we value players- and I'm finding that I have differing standards for different positions. In a nutshell:

Goaltenders: PEAK, Prime, Career. A high-peak goalie gives you a chance at a good old Cup-theft or two. Think Gardiner. Think Parent. Hašek almost got there.

Forwards: Peak, Prime, career. A certain set of Superstar Forwards can go into "take-over-game" mode (in spite of being on the ice less than half the time) and affect opposition game plans to the point where rival coaches have to answer the question "what do we do about this guy?"- before they can address any other matters.

Defensemen: CAREER, Prime, peak. A upper-division Hall-of-Fame Defenseman is someone I would expect to provide more than a decade of outstanding service at highest-level competitive hockey. If a Defenseman's performance dips sharply inside of a decade, then he's probably on a lower tier than those who don't have that sort of decline. [Exception made for Bobby Orr, of course- but I won't apologize for having him in fourth place among the Big-4.]

Your valuations will likely differ. But at least I've laid out the reasoning behind mine...

 

[ted2019]

Finally settled with my top 120. Just need to check things over before submitting it.

 

[VanIslander]

Deadline for list submission is October 14th

I'll be tweaking my list for another week or so.

It's a fun process!