Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 11

[MXD]

Dale Hawerchuk.

...Come on. He got Dave Babych, Randy Carlyle, Frederick Olausson and still-in-prime Mario Marois, and while it's not great support, it's not half-bad, and much better than Dionne or even Peter Stastny had.

 

[MXD]

On my original list of 120, I had Pilote, Malkin, Schmidt, Dionne and Forsberg all within the 39-45 spots (with Malkin, Schmidt and Dionne at the 41, 42 and 43 spots). So, this grouping really makes sense to me. I'm willing to hear arguments supporting Brimsek and especially Seibert, as they were further down for me (especially Seibert, who was way down for me).

Well... Let's start by the beginning (I'm at work so I'll keep it short).

Take Pilote. Take Seibert. Look at what they achieved and consider their strenghts as players.

I'm not saying Seibert is better than Pilote, but I don't think you can have one in the 39-45 spots and the other "way down"... Depending what you mean by "way down", of course.

 

[The Macho King]

I'm preparing my Malkin>Forsberg arguments now.

 

[DannyGallivan]

...Come on. He got Dave Babych, Randy Carlyle, Frederick Olausson and still-in-prime Mario Marois, and while it's not great support, it's not half-bad, and much better than Dionne or even Peter Stastny had.

Really? Check the Jets defensive stats, goals against, plus-minus, etc. While Babych and Carlyle had some good seasons, Olausson was not to be confused with Adam Foote (and he was only there during Hawerchuk's final three Jet seasons). Meanwhile, Marois turned the fans' hair grey, never mind the coach's. Babych was never a "plus" player as a Jet, and Carlyle was only a "plus" player as a Jet during Hawerchuk's final season.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I'm preparing my Malkin>Forsberg arguments now.

You don't need to. I'm already convinced.

 

[DannyGallivan]

No Firsov continues to be lame.

First impressions:

There's a legit chance my top 4 this round will all be non-Canadians .

At this point, Pilote looks to easily be the best defenseman left, but I'm not sure that's enough for top 5.

Right now at least, Malkin is a shoe-in, but the only non-Canadian in my top four. Pilote is also there. I have several days to be swayed, but I can't see either of those two being knocked out of my top four.

 

[wetcoast]

Dale Hawerchuk.

I dunno Dave Babych and Randy Carlyle seem quite a bit better than Gary Bergman in Detroit and then Bob Murdoch and Gary Sargent in LA

 

[wetcoast]

Post 1955 Detroit was often a one line team driven by Howe.

1980s Savard/Chicago, Yzerman/Detroit, Hawerchuk/Winnipeg were oneline teams where the motor definitely outperformed Dionne.

Post 1955 was never really a one line team.

Even then that one line was all HHOF players as was a Dman and their goalie.

Ullman quickly became a 2nd line center as well.

80's Black Hawks were a 2 line team, starting with Lysiak then going to Troy Murray then Roenick.

Doug Wilson was also their on the back end.

Yzerman in Detroit is probably the best comp but even then the first year Yzerman gets past the first round An emerging Oates in the 2nd line center and a very dependable 31 year old Mel Bridgman is the 3rd line center.

If their was a category for players who did the most with the least over their careers, it would be led by Dionne.

As Hockey Outsider noted above

Dionne has the 12th best seven-year VsX of all-time, and the 11th best ten-year VsX all-time.

Surely he is among the top 55 players of all time?

 

[DannyGallivan]

I dunno Dave Babych and Randy Carlyle seem quite a bit better than Gary Bergman in Detroit and then Bob Murdoch and Gary Sargent in LA

Gary Bergman was an excellent, underrated defenseman. If we're looking to rank the 70's Kings and the 80's Jets, it's like ranking them as either horrible or miserable. If you want to say that Hawerchuk benefited from good defense on the Jets, you're just plain wrong. If you want to say that Dionne suffered marginally more, I can buy that.

 

[DannyGallivan]

If their was a category for players who did the most with the least over their careers, it would be led by Dionne.

As Hockey Outsider noted above

Dionne has the 12th best seven-year VsX of all-time, and the 11th best ten-year VsX all-time.

Surely he is among the top 55 players of all time?

Dionne also suffered PR-wise by being mired on the west coast, when there was no NHL hockey closer than Vancouver. No cable television. No sports networks. No internet. You read about Dionne in boxscores way more than you ever actually saw him. And when you did see the Kings, they were usually being pummeled by Montreal in the playoffs on Hockey Night in Canada.

 

[MXD]

Gary Bergman was an excellent, underrated defenseman. If we're looking to rank the 70's Kings and the 80's Jets, it's like ranking them as either horrible or miserable. If you want to say that Hawerchuk benefited from good defense on the Jets, you're just plain wrong. If you want to say that Dionne suffered marginally more, I can buy that.

My point was that Hawerchuk benefitted from okay offensive support from the D, nowhere near as awful as Dionne and Stastny.

 

[MXD]

Dionne also suffered PR-wise by being mired on the west coast, when there was no NHL hockey closer than Vancouver. No cable television. No sports networks. No internet. You read about Dionne in boxscores way more than you ever actually saw him. And when you did see the Kings, they were usually being pummeled by Montreal in the playoffs on Hockey Night in Canada.

... It might have actually been a blessing. Who knows?

 

[DannyGallivan]

My point was that Hawerchuk benefitted from okay offensive support from the D, nowhere near as awful as Dionne and Stastny.

I misunderstood the message. I thought the message was that Dionne was mired on a poorly defensive team that lost BECAUSE they couldn't keep the puck out of their net. Hawerchuk lived with the same issues during his tenure with Winnipeg. I didn't realize you meant offensive support from the defense. In that case, I withdraw my motion.

 

[wetcoast]

Really? Check the Jets defensive stats, goals against, plus-minus, etc. While Babych and Carlyle had some good seasons, Olausson was not to be confused with Adam Foote (and he was only there during Hawerchuk's final three Jet seasons). Meanwhile, Marois turned the fans' hair grey, never mind the coach's. Babych was never a "plus" player as a Jet, and Carlyle was only a "plus" player as a Jet during Hawerchuk's final season.

That's a little unfair to pull out plus minus when the Jets played in a division with the best run and gun offensive team in history perhaps in the Oilers.

Calgary had a ton of offensive depth as well in the 80's Smythe division.

 

[DannyGallivan]

That's a little unfair to pull out plus minus when the Jets played in a division with the best run and gun offensive team in history perhaps in the Oilers.

Calgary had a ton of offensive depth as well in the 80's Smythe division.

I lived watching that team in the 80's. They weren't good at keeping the puck out of their net the vast majority of the time. You can blame it on the conference if you like, but playing against the Oilers were the cards the Jets were dealt.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Dionne also suffered PR-wise by being mired on the west coast, when there was no NHL hockey closer than Vancouver. No cable television. No sports networks. No internet. You read about Dionne in boxscores way more than you ever actually saw him. And when you did see the Kings, they were usually being pummeled by Montreal in the playoffs on Hockey Night in Canada.

Canadiens never played the Kings during Dionne tenure.

Wonky history is not part of the process.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Canadiens never played the Kings during Dionne tenure.

Wonky history is not part of the process.

My mistake. I was going by memory watching them after bedtime in the playoffs, but it was against the Leafs I suppose. Thanks for pointing that out, even if you were quite the Richard about it.

And since it doesn't change the point I was making one bit, I suppose the rest of that post can stand on its own.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Dionne in the playoffs

His playoffs sucked because teams could just concentrate on his line since the Kings seemed to be only a 1 line team.

I'm sure that didn't help, but what really bothers me about Dionne's playoffs is that he saw much more of a drop in production than his linemates did.

Look at how much Dionne dominated LA Kings regular season scoring from 1977-78 - 1983-84: This is the period the Simmer-Dionne-Taylor line was together and also when Dionne had most of his best statistical years (including his only 3 years of official end-of-season All Star nods).

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

1.49 PPG for Dionne vs 1.23 for each of his linemates Simmer and Taylor.

But look what happens in the playoffs from 1978-1984:

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

Dionne's PPG in the playoffs drops like a rock to 0.86. And his linemates keep right up with him - 0.93 for Simmer and 0.77 for Taylor. In smaller sample sizes, Darryl Evans and young Larry Murphy also outscore Dionne in the playoffs.

____________________

So that's the issue with Dionne in the playoffs -

• He was a player who provided nothing but scoring.
• His scoring dropped like a rock in the playoffs.
• While he outscored his teammates by wide margins in the regular season, he actually fell below some of them in the playoffs - indicating that the problem was more specific to Dionne himself than to his teammates.

I've looked at Dionne's playoff record a lot of different ways and concluded that it is less excusable than other players like Bathgate and Thornton who have been criticized for their playoff performances.

___________________________

And it's not just the playoffs. Playing for Team Canada, where nobody really focused on Dionne, he didn't impress at all either. Whereas guys like Gilbert Perreault, who didn't put up the NHL regular season stats of Dionne, did impress.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Dionne in the playoffs




I'm sure that didn't help, but what really bothers me about Dionne's playoffs is that he saw much more of a drop in production than his linemates did.

Look at how much Dionne dominated LA Kings regular season scoring from 1977-78 - 1983-84: This is the period the Simmer-Dionne-Taylor line was together and also when Dionne had most of his best statistical years (including his only 3 years of official end-of-season All Star nods).

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

1.49 PPG for Dionne vs 1.23 for each of his linemates Simmer and Taylor.

But look what happens in the playoffs from 1978-1984:

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

Dionne's PPG in the playoffs drops like a rock to 0.86. And his linemates keep right up with him - 0.93 for Simmer and 0.77 for Taylor. In smaller sample sizes, Darryl Evans and young Larry Murphy also outscore Dionne in the playoffs.

____________________

So that's the issue with Dionne in the playoffs -

• He was a player who provided nothing but scoring.
• His scoring dropped like a rock in the playoffs.
• While he outscored his teammates by wide margins in the regular season, he actually fell below some of them in the playoffs - indicating that the problem was more specific to Dionne himself than to his teammates.

I've looked at Dionne's playoff record a lot of different ways and concluded that it is less excusable than other players like Bathgate and Thornton who have been criticized for their playoff performances.

___________________________

And it's not just the playoffs. Playing for Team Canada, where nobody really focused on Dionne, he didn't impress at all either. Whereas guys like Gilbert Perreault, who didn't put up the NHL regular season stats of Dionne, did impress.

This tells me that on a team like L.A., the game plan was to zero in on Dionne. Marcel was unable to shake the checking when playing against superior teams in the playoffs.

Can we see how Dionne did in the regular season against teams that finished ahead of LA in the standings? Did he pad his stats against the weak sisters. I know that every all-star padded his stats against the bad teams, but did Dionne do it more often?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

6'2, 198 lbs. fast-skating, shot-blocking all-around great defenseman Earl Seibert

• As a 22 year old he was 4th in Hart voting, behind a trio of 30+year-old veterans, the season after scoring in his Rangers Stanley Cup championship (11 years later he would be 4th in Hart voting again);
• The next season he began his 10-year streak as a 1st/2nd team all-star, a feat
  no other dman has ever done except for Harvey.
• Some of his contemporaries said he was a better defenseman than Eddie Shore, but less flashy for the crowds and media.
• Seibert was nine times top-5 in dman scoring; 1st in NHL dman scoring over his 5-year peak, 2nd over his 10-year peak.
• In Chicago as a 26 year old Blackhawk, he tied the team lead in playoff goals and one short of the points lead, in playing a heralded 55 minutes a game in an unexpected upset of the favored Leafs, his coach identifying Earl as the reason they had won the Stanley Cup.

Earl Seibert is like the Frank Nighbor of defensemen in terms of greatness forgotten, though not because of a defunct franchise, but the bulk of his career for a lowly Chicago franchise that acts like the Blackhawks began with Bobby Hull.

Again, Seibert's "10 year stretch as a 1st or 2nd Team All-Star" shows an amazing level of consistency at a fairly high level. But as I indicated above, it was just a single 1st Team All-Star until the quality of the league started to drop in 1941-42: Earl Seibert Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

One thing about Seibert however...

We keep saying, WITH CAUSE, that D-Men garnered a lot of Hart support during that era.
However... it seems that most of them were forwards-turned-D-Men (or Eddie Shore). And Seibert, as far as I know, never played forward.

I don't know if that's relevant or not.

Maybe being a F turned D helped in Hart voting. Anyway, here's the complete list of all defensemen who finished top 5 in Hart voting until 1945-46, the last season a defenseman other than Kelly or Harvey finished top 5 for over 20 years:

1923-24 2) Sprague Cleghorn 4) Georges Boucher
1924-25 none
1925-26 2) Sprague Cleghorn
1926-27 5) King Clancy
1927-28 3) Eddie Shore 5) Ching Johnson
1928-29 3) Eddie Shore 4) Sylvio Mantha 5) King Clancy
1929-30 2) Lionel Hitchman 4) King Clancy
1930-31 2) Eddie Shore 3) King Clancy 4) Ebbie Goodfellow?
1931-32 2) Ching Johnson 4) Red Dutton (we only have the top 4)
1932-33 1) Eddie Shore (we only have the top 3)
1933-34 2) Lionel Conacher 3) King Clancy 4) Earl Seibert
1934-35 1) Eddie Shore 3) Art Coulter
1935-36 1) Eddie Shore 5) Red Dutton
1936-37 1) Babe Siebert 2) Lionel Conacher 3) Ebbie Goodfellow
1937-38 1) Eddie Shore 3) Babe Siebert
1938-39 5) Eddie Shore
1939-40 1) Ebbie Goodfellow 3) Dit Clapper
1940-41 2) Dit Clapper
1941-42 1) Tom Anderson
1942-43 none (partial War Year)
1943-44 1) Babe Pratt 4) Earl Seibert (War Year)
1944-45 4) Flash Hollett (War Year)
1945-46 5) Jack Stewart

It really doesn't look all that great for Seibert.

__________

Edit: Compare to Cleghorn, who was runner up for the Hart in both his age 33 and age 35 seasons.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

This tells me that on a team like L.A., the game plan was to zero in on Dionne. Marcel was unable to shake the checking when playing against superior teams in the playoffs.

Can we see how Dionne did in the regular season against teams that finished ahead of LA in the standings? Did he pad his stats against the weak sisters. I know that every all-star padded his stats against the bad teams, but did Dionne do it more often?

That's why I added the last line about Team Canada to my post. Normally I don't care all that much about a lifelong NHLer's international resume, but Dionne is one of the few NHL stars whose Team Canada performance really says something about his case, IMO. It sort of confirms that he was something of a regular season wonder, doesn't it?

Anyway, I think Dionne's regular season stats are going to be too much to ignore at some point. I personally just don't think that point is quite yet.

 

[kruezer]

I love Seibert, but I have a hard time voting him ahead of Cleghorn, at least significantly ahead of Cleghorn. I'm open minded on it but Cleghorn has a better Hart record (2 number twos vs. 2 number fours) and the Hart didn't exist til Cleghorn was 33. Even if we view Cleghorn's number twos as lesser than Seibert's number fours because of the split league when he won them surely the fact Cleghorn had 13 other seasons of his more usual prime years puts him ahead right? Its not like Cleghorn had a short career, less GPs per year sure, but still a solid 15 years or so.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Dionne in the playoffs




I'm sure that didn't help, but what really bothers me about Dionne's playoffs is that he saw much more of a drop in production than his linemates did.

Look at how much Dionne dominated LA Kings regular season scoring from 1977-78 - 1983-84: This is the period the Simmer-Dionne-Taylor line was together and also when Dionne had most of his best statistical years (including his only 3 years of official end-of-season All Star nods).

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

1.49 PPG for Dionne vs 1.23 for each of his linemates Simmer and Taylor.

But look what happens in the playoffs from 1978-1984:

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

Dionne's PPG in the playoffs drops like a rock to 0.86. And his linemates keep right up with him - 0.93 for Simmer and 0.77 for Taylor. In smaller sample sizes, Darryl Evans and young Larry Murphy also outscore Dionne in the playoffs.

____________________

So that's the issue with Dionne in the playoffs -

• He was a player who provided nothing but scoring.
• His scoring dropped like a rock in the playoffs.
• While he outscored his teammates by wide margins in the regular season, he actually fell below some of them in the playoffs - indicating that the problem was more specific to Dionne himself than to his teammates.

I've looked at Dionne's playoff record a lot of different ways and concluded that it is less excusable than other players like Bathgate and Thornton who have been criticized for their playoff performances.

___________________________

And it's not just the playoffs. Playing for Team Canada, where nobody really focused on Dionne, he didn't impress at all either. Whereas guys like Gilbert Perreault, who didn't put up the NHL regular season stats of Dionne, did impress.

1982 playoffs are particulary telling. Miracle on Manchester series vs Oilers, surpassed by Darryl Evans, -2 defensively. Vancouver, 4 points in 5 games, surpassed by Hlinka and Gradin.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I love Seibert, but I have a hard time voting him ahead of Cleghorn, at least significantly ahead of Cleghorn. I'm open minded on it but Cleghorn has a better Hart record (2 number twos vs. 2 number fours) and the Hart didn't exist til Cleghorn was 33. Even if we view Cleghorn's number twos as lesser than Seibert's number fours because of the split league when he won them surely the fact Cleghorn had 13 other seasons of his more usual prime years puts him ahead right? Its not like Cleghorn had a short career, less GPs per year sure, but still a solid 15 years or so.

Yes, I should have pointed out that the Hart finishes before 1927 were in a split league. But as to your overall point, we agree. Among remaining defensmen, I have Pilote, then a small gap to Cleghorn, then another gap to "the pack." The pack for me including Seibert, Horton, Stevens, MacInnis, and Pronger.

-----

Re: Seibert specifically, I am pretty sure I know how I feel about his regular seasons. The one thing that could really make me like him more would be if he was a playoff god like Horton or Stevens.

Double edit: I'm aware Seibert was great in the 2 Cups he won.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Yes, I should have pointed out that the Hart finishes before 1927 were in a split league. But as to your overall point, we agree. Among remaining defensmen, I have Pilote, then a small gap to Cleghorn, then another gap to "the pack." The pack for me including Seibert, Horton, Stevens, MacInnis, and Pronger.

-----

Re: Seibert specifically, I am pretty sure I know how I feel about his regular seasons. The one thing that could really make me like him more would be if he was a playoff god like Horton or Stevens.

Double edit: I'm aware Seibert was great in the 2 Cups he won.

This tier of defensemen will face some injustice just based on timing of eligibility.

Could add Chara, Gadsby, Salming, so on... too.

I agree Cleghorn has the best case to be ranked over everyone in the pack and distance himself from it.I still regret not seeing a Clancy vs. Cleghorn comparison.