Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 10

[Canadiens1958]

No t.v., no social media, just a beat reporter who traveled with the team.

Most teams had at least three beat reporters. Montreal and Toronto had an entourage totaling well over 10.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Charlie Conacher vs Bernie Geoffrion.

Both had impressive seven season strings or peaks.

Charlie Conacher

Charlie Conacher Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

Conacher lead the NHL in scoring twice, five times in goals inc three seasons where he was on a 50 goal pace.

Playoff production was impacted by the 1930s formats

Bernie Geoffrion

Bernie Geoffrion Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

Twice won the Art Ross, led in goals 50 - once,1961. Note, 1955 Art Ross was the lowest point total in a 70 game O6 schedule. Otherwise injury prone.

Led dynasty Canadiens in playoff scoring 1956-60.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Nine of the candidates are listed here. The two who aren't are Tretiak (never played in the NHL) and Pilote (as far as I can tell, never got a single Hart vote). Apps' record looks excellent but, as I wrote last week, there's no way he would have been a finalist five times based on modern standards (he missed too much time during three of those seasons).

Hart standards in the 40s didn't just help Apps - Schmidt was 5th in Hart voting in 1949-50, without even finishing top 20 in NHL scoring (at least 3 teammates outscored Schmidt, as well). No way he gets that many Hart votes with that low a scoring finish in the modern game, no matter how great defensively he was.

I realize I'm picking at the low-hanging fruit here, and the rest of Schmidt's high Hart finishes corresponded to his better offensive seasons.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Hart standards in the 40s didn't just help Apps - Schmidt was 5th in Hart voting in 1949-50, without even finishing top 20 in NHL scoring (at least 3 teammates outscored Schmidt, as well). No way he gets that many Hart votes with that low a scoring finish in the modern game, no matter how great defensively he was.

I realize I'm picking at the low-hanging fruit here, and the rest of Schmidt's high Hart finishes corresponded to his better offensive seasons.

Milt Schmidt, 1950-52 Hart finishes are worth a look.

1950

1949-50 NHL Awards Voting | Hockey-Reference.com

1951 - Winner

1950-51 NHL Awards Voting | Hockey-Reference.com

1952

1951-52 NHL Awards Voting | Hockey-Reference.com

Seems that scoring was not highly regarded.

 

[overpass]

Yes, Schmidt's up-and-down scoring record makes it difficult to know exactly how much credit to give him for the missed war years, though obviously he should get some.

Compared to Apps, at least, who was a consistent top 5 scorer when healthy every season before the war and for a couple of seasons after it. Much easier to project what Apps would have done during the missing years than someone who was more up-and-down like Schmidt, IMO.

The one thing I can say in Schmidt's favor is he might have seen limited PP time in some of the pre-WW2 years due to playing on the same team as Bill Cowley, but I have not actually seen any real data to that effect, like we have with Henri Richard. Anyone know how the Bruins ran their PP when both Schmidt and Cowley were on the team? @overpass ?

I’m not willing to draw any conclusions from the nhl.com scoring stats. As @kruezer said, I have doubts about the accuracy of the Boston situational stats. Boston consistently had far fewer PPG recorded than other teams, especially at home, through the late 1940s.

I’ve seen a quote about Schmidt from about 1950 that marvelled at his ability to play big minutes, including the point of the power play and killing penalties. This was after Max Bentley pioneered the modern point man role so while it’s information about Schmidt’s role in his late career as a Hart trophy contender, I don’t think it tells us anything about Schmidt in the Cowley era. I’ve never come across anything about the structure of Boston’s power play in the 1940s.

 

[quoipourquoi]

And despite @quoipourquoi 's assertion otherwise, I think 2001's Cup *should* be held against him to an extent, because the fact that the Avs could keep rolling was largely due to the fact that they had to get used to playing without Forsberg.

I don’t know how the takeaway for the 2001 Western Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals could be anything other than the Avalanche escaped with an 8-4 record because they had .939 goaltending while getting massively outshot.

Obviously the next season, they tanked offensively without Forsberg, and Sakic dropped off by 39 points or so.

 

[quoipourquoi]

... Also, 708 RS games is REALLY not a lot of games, considering the era he played in. To give you an idea, he was recently passed by... Jamie Benn. Steven Stamkos. John Tavares. LUKE SCHENN. He'll soon by passed by Erik Karlsson and Matt Duchene. Tyler Seguin will pass him next season. To Forsberg's credit, he DOES add some 150+ playoffs games too, but still, that's an awfully small amount of games.

It's probably very obvious that, on a PPG basis, Forsberg would already be in.

Forsberg also seems to be the "youngest" player to get some very, very misplaced nostalgia cred.

He left 160+ NHL games on the table in 1992-93 and 1993-94 just to retain his Olympic eligibility, so it’s a different circumstance than these other players who grew up in the NHL/Olympic era (plus the 1994 lockout which shaved off another ~40 GP). He was pegged as Sweden’s best player ever as early as 1991-92 by The Hockey News, and he didn’t completely waste 1992-93 and 1993-94 considering he was MVP both years. And obviously his gamble paid off since Sweden famously won the Gold Medal on his goal.

I don’t think defining him by 708 GP is telling the full story. He was one of the healthiest Centers from 1995-1999, so he could have collected GP in his pre-prime years if the NHL was submitting Olympians.

 

[MXD]

He left 160+ NHL games on the table in 1992-93 and 1993-94 just to retain his Olympic eligibility....

And?

 

[wetcoast]

I know I've been a bad boy for citing an un-nominated player. Maybe I can atone by referencing some players already advanced...

I'm not sure we have the full measure of the historical significance of Charlie Conacher's two-year Peak. [1933-34 & 1934-35.] Hell, I'm not sure I have the full measure of it. I'm sure someone here can fact-check my findings, but: per my view of the VsX measure for offensive output, Conacher's two most productive seasons are the highest-scoring pair by a Winger, ever, with the following exceptions- Gordie Howe, Jaromir Jágr, Guy Lafleur. [Jágr's output comes with the 6'4" qualifier named Mario Lemieux, and Lafleur's output involved his playing a higher ratio of games than Conacher. Conacher missed seven games in that two year span, roughly equivalent to 11 in two Lafleur-length seasons.] So, (considering Peak), that's who he's behind. Who's he ahead of, by that measure? Bobby Hull. Maurice Richard. Alexander Ovechkin. Mike Bossy...

There are 3 points to be made here

1) what you say above is true but the seasons before and after are pretty weak so it makes it less impressive somewhat

2)Assists weren't handed out in an even manner in the period compared to dome of the players mentioned above, especially the more goal oriented players.

3) The time period isn't the best or the most competitive time frame for elite forwards in the 30's

Even the guy considered the best player of the time period, Morenz, doesn't have the statistical numbers to really back up his legendary status as Exporter/Importer stated in an earlier thread.

I have a couple of thoughts on why Morenz perhaps might be remember as being better than he really was but I'll save that for another time.

 

[wetcoast]

And?

It's pretty clear what was after the first comma in the original statement.

For a guy who was asking upthread about a player who only played in Europe, it's kind of ironic to see this "and" statement about Forsberg staying in Sweden to get the Olympic gold for Sweden.

Sure Forsberg only played in 702 regular season games in the NHL but he played in well over 1000 games at a very high level in elite mode.

His elite level of play over such a long period of time is among only a few players all time and it was longer than some already on this list.

His level of play and the length of that time period puts him in good light with this rounds candidates.

 

[MXD]

It's pretty clear what was after the first comma in the original statement.

For a guy who was asking upthread about a player who only played in Europe, it's kind of ironic to see this "and" statement about Forsberg staying in Sweden to get the Olympic gold for Sweden.

Sure Forsberg only played in 702 regular season games in the NHL but he played in well over 1000 games at a very high level in elite mode.

His elite level of play over such a long period of time is among only a few players all time and it was longer than some already on this list.

His level of play and the length of that time period puts him in good light with this rounds candidates.

... I don't care about your personnal attacks, Hardy.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

The problem with this is, of course, Geoffrion had about three or four teammates that were better than any of Forsberg's competition (and take Jagr out of this, considering this was during his Washington Caps stint).

Forsberg's competition included several players already on the list, same as Geoffrion. Lidstrom, Sakic, Brodeur all playing at a high level, but my recollection is that from approximately 2002-2005, Forsberg was considered the best. When he actually managed to escape the trainer's room, of course.

I bring this up because it's probably the one thing that could make me consider Forsberg a top 5 candidate in this round. Geoffrion just didn't have that reputation, at least not that I've ever come across.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Yes, Schmidt's up-and-down scoring record makes it difficult to know exactly how much credit to give him for the missed war years, though obviously he should get some.

Compared to Apps, at least, who was a consistent top 5 scorer when healthy every season before the war and for a couple of seasons after it. Much easier to project what Apps would have done during the missing years than someone who was more up-and-down like Schmidt, IMO.

The one thing I can say in Schmidt's favor is he might have seen limited PP time in some of the pre-WW2 years due to playing on the same team as Bill Cowley, but I have not actually seen any real data to that effect, like we have with Henri Richard. Anyone know how the Bruins ran their PP when both Schmidt and Cowley were on the team? @overpass ?

I'll see if I can find anything useful from Trail of the Stanley Cup as it pertains to Schmidt's role on the pre-war Bruins.

One thing in Geoffrion's favor - he scored at a consistently high per-game rate in the regular season, even as he regularly missed games. And in the playoffs, when games mattered, he continued to score at a high rate, but no longer missed games. And really, he played for the stacked 50s Canadiens; who cared if he regularly missed 15-20 games a season in the regular season? They still made the playoffs.

I've seen the above argument made for players like Mario Lemieux and Peter Forsberg (who, unlike Geoffrion, did miss playoff games, but at a lower rate than they missed regular season games).

The counterargument would be that a superstar contemporary of Geoffrion's like Andy Bathgate sure didn't have the luxury of missing 15-20 games in the regular season, knowing his team would make the playoffs regardless.

Glad you mentioned the counter-argument, because that's probably what I would have responded with. Reliability issues are what they are. I can't give Geoffrion a pass that wouldn't be afforded to a player in a less ideal situation.

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[quoipourquoi]

And?

The point being that Peter Forsberg wasn’t not a hockey player until January 1995 at 21-years-old; he just wasn’t an NHL hockey player.

So Luke Schenn, a player who started at 18-years-old for the Toronto Maple Leafs at a time when NHL players were eligible for the upcoming 2010 Olympics, didn’t have the same type of decision that Peter Forsberg had... which I suppose was to either record 160+ additional NHL games to keep a bigger gap over Schenn and Karlsson and whoever else or win back-to-back MVP trophies and an Olympic Gold Medal over in Europe.

Given that Forsberg rattled of 1.5 points-per-game in the 2nd half of his rookie NHL season, I doubt he would have embarrassed himself if he started at the same age as Luke Schenn who was on Regular Season Game #231 at the same age Forsberg was in his NHL debut.

It’s something of an easily accountable head start that has nothing to do with injuries or not playing hockey. Again, Peter Forsberg was playing hockey in that same age range Luke Schenn was playing 231 games of NHL hockey. MVP hockey, in fact. Super famous you can’t possibly not have heard about it Team Sweden hockey.

 

[Canadiens1958]

The point being that Peter Forsberg wasn’t not a hockey player until January 1995 at 21-years-old; he just wasn’t an NHL hockey player.

So Luke Schenn, a player who started at 18-years-old for the Toronto Maple Leafs at a time when NHL players were eligible for the upcoming 2010 Olympics, didn’t have the same type of decision that Peter Forsberg had... which I suppose was to either record 160+ additional NHL games to keep a bigger gap over Schenn and Karlsson and whoever else or win back-to-back MVP trophies and an Olympic Gold Medal over in Europe.

Given that Forsberg rattled of 1.5 points-per-game in the 2nd half of his rookie NHL season, I doubt he would have embarrassed himself if he started at the same age as Luke Schenn who was on Regular Season Game #231 at the same age Forsberg was in his NHL debut.

It’s something of an easily accountable head start that has nothing to do with injuries or not playing hockey. Again, Peter Forsberg was playing hockey in that same age range Luke Schenn was playing 231 games of NHL hockey. MVP hockey, in fact. Super famous you can’t possibly not have heard about it Team Sweden hockey.

Sum total, the Senior totals for Edgar Laprade, Bill Durnan. The AHL totals for Johnny Bower should be considered as well.

This "nobility" of chasing a Gold Medal, came with sufficient compensation that an NHL contract was not a factor.

 

[Theokritos]

... I don't care about your personnal attacks, Hardy.

Just for the record, the following isn't a personal attack:

For a guy who was asking upthread about a player who only played in Europe, it's kind of ironic to see this "and" statement about Forsberg staying in Sweden to get the Olympic gold for Sweden.

Saying "it's kind of ironic for a guy who..." and then adding some factual statement observation about an earlier statement you've made is fair game (as long as the factual statement isn't grossly inaccurate).

 

[MXD]

Forsberg's competition included several players already on the list, same as Geoffrion. Lidstrom, Sakic, Brodeur all playing at a high level, but my recollection is that from approximately 2002-2005, Forsberg was considered the best. When he actually managed to escape the trainer's room, of course.

I bring this up because it's probably the one thing that could make me consider Forsberg a top 5 candidate in this round. Geoffrion just didn't have that reputation, at least not that I've ever come across.

...None of them being any better, in the general sense and at that point, than Beliveau, Richard and Harvey.

 

[MXD]

The point being that Peter Forsberg wasn’t not a hockey player until January 1995 at 21-years-old; he just wasn’t an NHL hockey player.

So Luke Schenn, a player who started at 18-years-old for the Toronto Maple Leafs at a time when NHL players were eligible for the upcoming 2010 Olympics, didn’t have the same type of decision that Peter Forsberg had... which I suppose was to either record 160+ additional NHL games to keep a bigger gap over Schenn and Karlsson and whoever else or win back-to-back MVP trophies and an Olympic Gold Medal over in Europe.

Given that Forsberg rattled of 1.5 points-per-game in the 2nd half of his rookie NHL season, I doubt he would have embarrassed himself if he started at the same age as Luke Schenn who was on Regular Season Game #231 at the same age Forsberg was in his NHL debut.

It’s something of an easily accountable head start that has nothing to do with injuries or not playing hockey. Again, Peter Forsberg was playing hockey in that same age range Luke Schenn was playing 231 games of NHL hockey. MVP hockey, in fact. Super famous you can’t possibly not have heard about it Team Sweden hockey.

I'm giving Peter Forsberg full credit for his 1994 Olympics heroics and full credit for his SHL seasons.

I just don't care a lot about either of these things.

 

[MXD]

Saying "it's kind of ironic for a guy who..." and then adding some factual statement about an earlier statement you've made is fair game (as long as the factual statement isn't grossly inaccurate).

- That was the only point of the post I was quoting.
- You're free to staunchly defend non-participants, but considering I can barely type at this point and have to voice-rec everything, I'll probably just hop on Sunday to vote instead.

 

[The Macho King]

I'm giving Peter Forsberg full credit for his 1994 Olympics heroics and full credit for his SHL seasons.

I just don't care a lot about either of these things.

Yeah - I care a lot more about that for players who *couldn't* play in the NHL at the time (especially Soviet players, generally Eastern Bloc players in general). When you're allowed to play in the NHL and don't? A feather weighs more in my estimation.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Wow. If a player is allowed to play in the NHL and does not certain participants punish them. What arrogance.

Players first responsibility is to himself and his family, their well being and financial security. Especially the depression /WWII era. Giving-up a salary AND a paid hockey contract with job security - Seth Martin.

Soviets players benefit package surpassed the typical NHL contract relative to era.

Sven Tumba turned down a stepping stone NHL contract in 1957 because he would be losing significant coin.

 

[Theokritos]

- You're free to staunchly defend non-participants

I'll defend anyone who expresses himself within the site rules and a reasonably arguably scope of the discussion.

For example, if someone is wrongfully accused of a "personal attack", I would do a poor job as a moderator if I didn't defend that someone - participant or not.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Just for the record, the following isn't a personal attack:



Saying "it's kind of ironic for a guy who..." and then adding some factual statement about an earlier statement you've made is fair game (as long as the factual statement isn't grossly inaccurate).

Coining oxymorons is not appropriate.

Simple factual statements cannot be inaccurate in any fashion.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

...None of them being any better, in the general sense and at that point, than Beliveau, Richard and Harvey.

No, but do we really think Geoffrion would have been considered superior to Sakic and Lidstrom in the early 00's? I certainly don't.

 

[The Macho King]

Wow. If a player is allowed to play in the NHL and does not certain participants punish them. What arrogance.

Players first responsibility is to himself and his family, their well being and financial security. Especially the depression /WWII era. Giving-up a salary AND a paid hockey contract with job security - Seth Martin.

Soviets players benefit package surpassed the typical NHL contract relative to era.

Sven Tumba turned down a stepping stone NHL contract in 1957 because he would be losing significant coin.

I feel like this is being taken out of context.

First - I'm on the record saying for players like Schmidt and Apps, I don't "penalize" them for not playing during the War years. Similar for players in eras where you got paid basically a middle class salary. But at the same time, I can only rank hockey players by what they did as hockey players.

This is in reference to Forsberg, who @quoipourquoi wants to credit for his time outside of the NHL when he was eligible to play in the NHL. His "what ifs" and "might have beens" already stretch to absurdity in my estimation due to his extensive injury history. I can't stomach doing the same because he decided to not play in the NHL for the first two/three seasons of his eligibility.