Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 12

MXD

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Oct 27, 2005
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Is Kennedy significantly better than guys like Fedorov, Gilmour and Keon? They all have two-way play and good playoff records in common and weren't otherwordly offensively (compared to some of the best players ever).

Quite a bit. There are "good playoff records" and "good playoff records". Kennedy's the latter.
 
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TheDevilMadeMe

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Kennedy's numbers are significantly better than Keon's at least, both regular season and playoffs.

Both played for very defense-first teams.

Edit: I guess the best case for Kennedy is that in a lot of ways, he was Messier before Messier was.

(Different styles though, namely Kennedy's slow skating).
 
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ChiTownPhilly

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Conacher in Toronto- With/Without

If there's somebody in our project who has a chance of being amenable to such an analysis, it's Charlie Conacher. For his first seven seasons in Toronto, he missed over 10% of his team's games. The number of games, in toto, is roughly 70% of a full season. Whether this rises to the level that we may consider it to be statistically significant for the purposes of analysis is something I'll leave to each Panelist's own judgement.

Toronto's Team Standings points percentage with Conacher in the lineup [1929-30 to 1935-36]: .582
Toronto's Team Standings points percentage without Conacher in the lineup [same period]: .515
Goal differential per game with Conacher: .497 goals to the good, (i.e.: c. half-a-goal a game advantage).
Goal differential per game without Conacher: .147 goals to the good (i.e. c. one-seventh of a goal per game on the plus-side).

All right- that's the part of our window into Conacher when he's playing most of the games. How about those next two seasons- you know, the ones where he's missing most of the games? No doubt he's not doing as much damage on the scoresheet- but what's his influence (as best as we can tell) on the team??

1936-37:
Toronto's record with Conacher: 7W 5L 3T
Toronto's record without Conacher: 15W 16L 2T
Independent of his modest scoring line, something went on there that makes it not entirely out-of-dish to suggest that Toronto would be a sub-500 team were it not for Conacher's 15 games played. I'm guessing he was contributing somewhere, somehow.

1937-38:
Toronto's record with Conacher: 10W 4L 5T
Toronto's record without Conacher: 14W 11L 4T.
Again, it appears that the evidence points to the conclusion that upper-body-injury-plagued shell of what used to be superstar-version Conacher is still measurably better than no Conacher at all.

Toronto+Conacher=Division favorites, Prince of Wales trophy candidates, and a team that's a handful for anyone in The Playoffs.

Toronto-Conacher=Sort of ordinary...
 
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ChiTownPhilly

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Kind of reminds me of the quip that the difference between Picasso and a garden-type-variety painter is a few drops of paint here-and-there. No doubt, there isn't a massive difference between the the two metaphorical canvases...

Toronto with Conacher full-time is a team that would have more robustly challenged Boston for the best Regular-Season record in that Baker's-Half-Dozen year span. The evidence suggests that Toronto without Conacher would have been middle-of-the-pack'ers. 'Twas an interesting time- immediate post-depression-era Hockey. C.f.: the end of the O-6 era, there was a fixed underclass- Ottawa (St Louis) and the New York Americans. They were collectively so bad, a team that sat at a .515 mark would have been about league median. [Quick-check: a hypothetical team with a single-season mark of .515, added to the enumerated 63 team-seasons played in that span would sit at a placing of 33rd out of 64.]

In truth, I was not surprised in the least to find the results I gathered in those first seven years. What did surprise me, pleasantly, was the results I noted for those final two years. I've seen the position virtually articulated that Conacher must have been somehow an incomplete player- and the inference was that if he wasn't scoring goals, what good could he do for a team?! All along, I suspected that this impression was based on airy freaking nothing. [I suppose that lack of Hart-support-- a matter I addressed in the Vote 11 thread, might have provided some spurious succor to that notion.] I'm not going to say that the lie has been put to that assertion- 15 games one season and 19 games the next isn't a particularly broad sample to use to make definitive conclusions... but I'd say it raises reasonably serious questions about the idea that Conacher couldn't contribute unless he was adding numbers to the scoreboard.
 
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ChiTownPhilly

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A .582 Points Percentage, extrapolated to a 48 game season, would be (to the nearest whole number) 56 standings points. A team registering that total in a 48 game paradigm would figure to be between 7 and 8 games over .500 (depending on the distribution of losses & ties).

A team with a .515 points percentage would be (to the nearest whole number) 1 game over .500- maybe (but less likely) two. That's roughly 49 standings points (in a 48 game season). So- the .582 figure is about 6 additional games over .500 a season- but another way to look at it is to account for the delta-

Take 3 losses- transmute them into WINS-- then take 1 loss and transmute it into a tie- and you have one way to change 49 standings points to 56 standings points.

Again, I remand this information to The Panel for their own verdict on the significance of this difference.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
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A .582 Points Percentage, extrapolated to a 48 game season, would be (to the nearest whole number) 56 standings points. A team registering that total in a 48 game paradigm would figure to be between 7 and 8 games over .500 (depending on the distribution of losses & ties).

A team with a .515 points percentage would be (to the nearest whole number) 1 game over .500- maybe (but less likely) two. That's roughly 49 standings points (in a 48 game season). So- the .582 figure is about 6 additional games over .500 a season- but another way to look at it is to account for the delta-

Take 3 losses- transmute them into WINS-- then take 1 loss and transmute it into a tie- and you have one way to change 49 standings points to 56 standings points.

Again, I remand this information to The Panel for their own verdict on the significance of this difference.

In October, you referred to some of us as "Nighbor Cultists" despite his proven effect on winning games: .657 with, .341 without - over a 12-year sample size.
 

ChiTownPhilly

Not Too Soft
Feb 23, 2010
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In October, you referred to some of us as "Nighbor Cultists" despite his proven effect on winning games: .657 with, .341 without - over a 12-year sample size.
Panel placed Nighbor at 20- I slotted him at 23 on my Prelim List and my revised Composite List- so maybe I've received my acolytic baptism into the ways of the Ri'Deauvine Principle.
The Who said:
♫ Listening to you- I get- the music...
From you- I get- the story!♪
[Maybe we can resume talking about the nominees, now...]





 

TheDevilMadeMe

Registered User
Aug 28, 2006
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Just because I have the info handy, here are the Norris records of Horton and Pronger:

Tim Horton

53-54: 4th
54-55: 6th
60-61: 6th
61-62: 5th
62-63: 3rd
63-64: 2nd
64-65: 4th
65-66: 9th
66-67: 4th
67-68: 3rd
68-69: 2nd
70-71: 12th
72-73: 9th

Chris Pronger

97-98: 3rd
98-99: 4th
99-00: 1st
01-02: 5th
03-04: 3rd
05-06: 7th
06-07: 3rd
07-08: 8th
09-10: 5th

And here is Earl Seibert's Norris equivalence record based on my method of tallying early All-Star votes: All-Star voting records for defensemen (1930-31 to 1967-68)

Earl Seibert
31-32: 7th
32-33: 10th
33-34: 4th
34-35: 2nd
35-36: 4th
36-37: 3rd
37-38: 4th
38-39: 4th
39-40: 4th
40-41: 3rd
41-42: 1st
42-43: 2nd (partial war year)
43-44: 2nd (war year)
44-45: 7th

Just by eyeballing who left for the war, I'd estimate that Seibert's 1st Team nod in 1942-43 is probably a 2nd Team in a normal year, and his 1st Team nod in 1943-44 may or may not even be a 2nd Team! Remember finishing 1st or 2nd in voting = 1st Team, finishing 3rd or 4th in voting = 2nd Team.

Overall records:
Horton: 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 12
Pronger: 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8
Seibert: 1, 2, 2', 2*, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7*, 10
' partial war year
* war year

Pronger clearly has the best season (weak Hart winner or not, neither Horton or Seibert was ever close to winning the Hart. Seibert barely beat a fairly weak field in 1941-42 for most All-Star votes; Horton never won the Norris). But Pronger also has significantly fewer seasons of high Norris finishes.
 
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BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
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Just because I have the info handy, here are the Norris records of Horton and Pronger:

Tim Horton

53-54: 4th
54-55: 6th
60-61: 6th
61-62: 5th
62-63: 3rd
63-64: 2nd
64-65: 4th
65-66: 9th
66-67: 4th
67-68: 3rd
68-69: 2nd
70-71: 12th
72-73: 9th

Chris Pronger

97-98: 3rd
98-99: 4th
99-00: 1st
01-02: 5th
03-04: 3rd
05-06: 7th
06-07: 3rd
07-08: 8th
09-10: 5th

And here is Earl Seibert's Norris equivalence record based on my method of tallying early All-Star votes: All-Star voting records for defensemen (1930-31 to 1967-68)

Earl Seibert
31-32: 7th
32-33: 10th
33-34: 4th
34-35: 2nd
35-36: 4th
36-37: 3rd
37-38: 4th
38-39: 4th
39-40: 4th
40-41: 3rd
41-42: 1st
42-43: 2nd (partial war year)
43-44: 2nd (war year)
44-45: 7th

Just by eyeballing who left for the war, I'd estimate that Seibert's 1st Team nod in 1942-43 is probably a 2nd Team in a normal year, and his 1st Team nod in 1943-44 may or may not even be a 2nd Team! Remember finishing 1st or 2nd in voting = 1st Team, finishing 3rd or 4th in voting = 2nd Team.

Overall records:
Horton: 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 12
Pronger: 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8
Seibert: 1, 2, 2', 2*, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7*, 10
' partial war year
* war year

Pronger clearly has the best season (weak Hart winner or not, neither Horton or Seibert was ever close to winning the Hart. Seibert barely beat a fairly weak field in 1941-42 for most All-Star votes; Horton never won the Norris). But Pronger also has significantly fewer seasons of high Norris finishes.

How would you rank them in the playoffs?

My gut tells me Pronger is the best, Horton next, then Seibert, but they all seem close and they were all very good.

Cleghorn seems more or less in the same ballpark too.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
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It sure looks like Seibert's all-star record is the best among those three, fairly easily, and even if you completely remove the war years and partial war year.

Someone convince me Horton and Pronger should be ahead - with something other than "they played more recently", please.
 

TheDevilMadeMe

Registered User
Aug 28, 2006
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How would you rank them in the playoffs?

My gut tells me Pronger is the best, Horton next, then Seibert, but they all seem close and they were all very good.

Cleghorn seems more or less in the same ballpark too.

When the Leafs won the Cup in 1962 for the first time in over a decade, Horton (as a defenseman) led them in playoff scoring. The first of their 4 Cup dynasty. But he was mostly known as the only defenseman in the NHL who wasnt totally physically outmatched by Gordie Howe, this being a major reason Toronto generally had Detroit's number in the playoffs in the 1960s.

So my first impression is that Horton was the lynchpin of a dynasty, a little bit above Pronger and Seibert in the playoffs.

------

To put it another way, I see Horton as the same as Scott Stevens in the playoffs, which is just a little better than Pronger (or Seibert).
 

TheDevilMadeMe

Registered User
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It sure looks like Seibert's all-star record is the best among those three, fairly easily, and even if you completely remove the war years and partial war year.

Someone convince me Horton and Pronger should be ahead - with something other than "they played more recently", please.

When you look at their full records, you see that most of Seibert's 2nd Team All Star finishes were actually 4th places in overall voting. And if you look at the voting, a lot of them were closer to 5th than 3rd...

So overall, his regular season awards record looks to be just marginally better than Horton's. And isn't Horton's playoff record even better than Seibert's?
 

BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
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When the Leafs won the Cup in 1962 for the first time in over a decade, Horton (as a defenseman) led them in playoff scoring. The first of their 4 Cup dynasty. But he was mostly known as the only defenseman in the NHL who wasnt totally physically outmatched by Gordie Howe, this being a major reason Toronto generally had Detroit's number in the playoffs in the 1960s.

So my first impression is that Horton was the lynchpin of a dynasty, a little bit above Pronger and Seibert in the playoffs.

------

To put it another way, I see Horton as the same as Scott Stevens in the playoffs, which is just a little better than Pronger (or Seibert).

Makes sense.My rational for putting Pronger first was that he was one of the very few players I've seen whose presence alone turned a team into a serious contender almost overnight.Stevens and Horton did more, but they had their stable situation inside which they actualized their potential.If you imagine Horton or Stevens moving around the league like Pronger post-lock-out, would they have a similar playoff impact on each of their new teams? It's a tough question.

OTOH, loyalty and staying at one place so the franchise can build around you is a positive.

In a way, from 2005-2006 to 2009-2010, I feel like Pronger was the most valuable player in the league if you wanted a Stanley Cup.For me, that means he was the best player in the world.Doesn't mean he's the one who did the most though.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
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And isn't Horton's playoff record even better than Seibert's?

I don't know... I mean, probably? But it's really hard to get a sense for how just about any 1930s-40s defenseman performed in the playoffs.

And his regular season voting record is only marginally better than Horton's if we remove the war years entirely, which we really shouldn't do. (if we do, and we eliminate identicals, we have 1-4-4 vs. 2-5-6 in their best 9 seasons, which are actually 9 of seibert's best 11).
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
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Makes sense.My rational for putting Pronger first was that he was one of the very few players I've seen whose presence alone turned a team into a serious contender almost overnight.Stevens and Horton did more, but they had their stable situation inside which they actualized their potential.If you imagine Horton or Stevens moving around the league like Pronger post-lock-out, would they have a similar playoff impact on each of their new teams? It's a tough question.

OTOH, loyalty and staying at one place so the franchise can build around you is a positive.

In a way, from 2005-2006 to 2009-2010, I feel like Pronger was the most valuable player in the league if you wanted a Stanley Cup.For me, that means he was the best player in the world.Doesn't mean he's the one who did the most though.

How do we feel about Pronger as a playoff performer? It's two completely different stories, right? Before the lockout he was a major disappointment. After it, for five seasons, he was a stud. Does that erase all the past failure? five years isn't that short a time. Do we average it all out? Is it just the way it's portioned out that makes it hard to gauge? What if we imagine 2006, 2007 and 2010 happened in his 4th, 8th and 12th seasons instead of 12th, 13th and 16th? When it's more evenly spread out, does he look like a frequent choker, or a guy who occasionally had monster runs? or both?
 

BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
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How do we feel about Pronger as a playoff performer? It's two completely different stories, right? Before the lockout he was a major disappointment. After it, for five seasons, he was a stud. Does that erase all the past failure? five years isn't that short a time. Do we average it all out? Is it just the way it's portioned out that makes it hard to gauge? What if we imagine 2006, 2007 and 2010 happened in his 4th, 8th and 12th seasons instead of 12th, 13th and 16th? When it's more evenly spread out, does he look like a frequent choker, or a guy who occasionally had monster runs? or both?

I never average out for things like that.I give him zero credit for what he did in the playoffs pre-lockout; all those years are missed opportunities, wasted time where he could have collected playoff value but didn't.But I don't use it to take away from what he did when he did bring value.

Or you could see it like he learned by experience and became a force.

I was serious when I said Pronger was probably the best player in the world between 05-06 and 09-10, because he would be my 1st overall pick if I had to compete in that period.That's something I think he has over Horton and Seibert, and a lot of other ranked defensemen too.Basically, his status between 05-06 and 09-10 was probably the highest by a defenseman since Bourque and Potvin.By status I mean something like "Lemieux was the best player in the world even in 1995" or "Sidney Crosby was the best player in the world between 2010 and 2012".It's not what he did, it's what he was.But he did a lot too.

FTR, I don't know whether I'll rank Pronger over Horton or Seibert, but I wanted to bring this point on the table anyway.His peak was not just his Hart season, it was the ridiculous value he brought to a team - apparently almost any team - post lock-out if they wanted to go deep in the playoffs.

Who else had that aura in our lifetime for a few years stretch? Lemieux.Gretzky.Messier (maybe?).Roy.Probably Bourque late-80s early 90s.Who else? I don't think Crosby ever had it to that extent.

As for the scenario where it would be more evenly spread out, I argued some years back that consecutiveness of prime years has value.What if Guy Lafleur had his prime and bad years all over the place between 1972 and 1991? He wouldn't look as good, not as safe. If Pronger was on and off, not sure that "aura" thing would be true for any stretch, though he would still give you a monster run in any window.He would look very inconsistent.I don't think you can be seen as a choker if you have monster runs of the type Pronger had, even if you do choke sometimes, even if it's in-between the monster runs.But you cannot be seen as the league MVP in some window neither.You'd be seen as an expensive coin flip basically.
 
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quoipourquoi

Goaltender
Jan 26, 2009
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In a way, from 2005-2006 to 2009-2010, I feel like Pronger was the most valuable player in the league if you wanted a Stanley Cup.For me, that means he was the best player in the world.

Seconded.

I talked about his 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2008-09 upthread, but even look at his 2007-08:

41 ESGA in 71 games to Lidstrom’s 44 ESGA in 76 games. Pronger is a -1 to Lidstrom’s +40 because the Ducks ranked 28th in GF while the Red Wings ranked 3rd.

Is he really just the 8th best defenseman in the world in 2008?

2009-10 is more of the same with 50 ESGA in 82 games against Lidstrom’s 57 and Norris winner Duncan Keith’s 81.
 

BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
30,844
13,628
Seconded.

I talked about his 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2008-09 upthread, but even look at his 2007-08:

41 ESGA in 71 games to Lidstrom’s 44 ESGA in 76 games. Pronger is a -1 to Lidstrom’s +40 because the Ducks ranked 28th in GF while the Red Wings ranked 3rd.

Is he really just the 8th best defenseman in the world in 2008?

2009-10 is more of the same with 50 ESGA in 82 games against Lidstrom’s 57 and Norris winner Duncan Keith’s 81.

Right.

It's not like Pronger wasn't doing his part as a strong #1 defenseman trying to help his teams make the playoffs on top of his monster runs.

I must admit I'm going by instinct too, maybe even prioritarily so.I'm an intuitive person.When I picture myself having skin in the game in that window, who do I pick? Any position, any player, between 05-06 and 09-10.My 1st overall is Pronger, hence for me he's the best in the world.He doesn't have the Harts, Norrises or Rosses, but when the chips are down he's my #1.

Actually the more I think about it the more I'm inclined to bump him up my list now.
 

quoipourquoi

Goaltender
Jan 26, 2009
10,123
4,126
Hockeytown, MI
Right.

It's not like Pronger wasn't doing his part as a strong #1 defenseman trying to help his teams make the playoffs on top of his monster runs.

I must admit I'm going by instinct too, maybe even prioritarily so.I'm an intuitive person.When I picture myself having skin in the game in that window, who do I pick? Any position, any player, between 05-06 and 09-10.My 1st overall is Pronger, hence for me he's the best in the world.He doesn't have the Harts, Norrises or Rosses, but when the chips are down he's my #1.

Actually the more I think about it the more I'm inclined to bump him up my list now.

At the very least, I hope we have given people who are looking at his 2005-06 through 2009-10 Norris rankings of 3, 5, 7, 8, and NR reason to consider that those are not fair measurements of his actual performance and in fact largely narrative-based (which ironically has been the same criticism of his Hart season).

ESGA/GP once more:

ProngerLidstromNorris Winner
2005-060.660.74
2006-070.470.60
2007-080.570.58
2008-090.780.670.76
2009-100.610.700.99
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
 

ChiTownPhilly

Not Too Soft
Feb 23, 2010
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AnyWorld/I'mWelcomeTo
Toughest call for me this Round is- the shit-heel toll* for Sprague Cleghorn. Has he already "paid-at-the-office" by being nominated so late- or is there still a "balance due?" I certainly can see the case either way.

He was just all-around, unapologetically violent. Capable of flare-up violence. Capable of premeditated planning violence. He's the one guy we'll talk about, this entire project, for whom there was serious talk about expelling him from the sport on this account. Our judgements should be informed by the backgrounds of the times of the players- sure... but I'm still left wondering if he could have remained in any league that gave two turds about player-safety.

*true-keyboard-story: I nearly typoed "shit-heel tool" by mistake. Makes me wonder if there are such things as Freudian slips of the keyboard...
 

ted2019

History of Hockey
Oct 3, 2008
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When the Leafs won the Cup in 1962 for the first time in over a decade, Horton (as a defenseman) led them in playoff scoring. The first of their 4 Cup dynasty. But he was mostly known as the only defenseman in the NHL who wasnt totally physically outmatched by Gordie Howe, this being a major reason Toronto generally had Detroit's number in the playoffs in the 1960s.

So my first impression is that Horton was the lynchpin of a dynasty, a little bit above Pronger and Seibert in the playoffs.

------

To put it another way, I see Horton as the same as Scott Stevens in the playoffs, which is just a little better than Pronger (or Seibert).

Pronger also had the ability to come in and make a team an instant cup contender ( Edmonton, Anaheim, Philly). Could you say the same about Horton or Seibert?
 

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