Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 13

[Czech Your Math]

Selanne vs. Canadians:

Points: 1,2,3,3,5,5
Goals: 1,1,1,1,2
Assists: 2,4,5

Bathgate

Points: 1,2,3,3,3,4,4,5
Goals: 3,4,5
Assists: 1,1,2,2,2,2,3,4,4

Selanne only played 21 playoff games in his prime ('93-'00) and had 20 points. It's cases like this, small sample sizes on bad teams, where I'd rely more on international play to affirm that he was a producer in his prime, and he was. This uncertainty and his weak playoff plus-minus data would be a handicap against most elite forwards, but not against someone like Bathgate.

Seems pretty even overall, aside from Selanne having the much longer career.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Going back and watching MacInnis, which I've been doing a lot of this week, I'm actually much more impressed by late-career MacInnis than late 80's MacInnis...the Calgary version wasn't nearly as in control as he was in St. Louis I feel like...he matured well as a player, his puck poise, his skill level, his skating, his defensive acumen, they all seemed to improve well into his 30's to my eye, which is pretty rare...

At the end of the day, I probably overrated him on my round 1 list...I'm not sure how I feel about him versus Stevens at this point...

I also think older MacInnis was a much better all-round player than late 80s MacInnis.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Selanne vs. Canadians:

Points: 1,2,3,3,5,5
Goals: 1,1,1,1,2
Assists: 2,4,5

Bathgate

Points: 1,2,3,3,3,4,4,5
Goals: 3,4,5
Assists: 1,1,2,2,2,2,3,4,4

Selanne only played 21 playoff games in his prime ('93-'00) and had 20 points. It's cases like this, small sample sizes on bad teams, where I'd rely more on international play to affirm that he was a producer in his prime, and he was. This uncertainty and his weak playoff plus-minus data would be a handicap against most elite forwards, but not against someone like Bathgate.

Seems pretty even overall, aside from Selanne having the much longer career.

Ok, vs Canadian players only:

Selanne: 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5
Bathgate: 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5

Remove all equal finishes and you get:

Selanne: 5
Bathgate: 3, 4, 4

So even in this comparison that is as generous to Selanne as you can be, Bathgate still comes out ahead.

Not to mention Selanne played with better offensive players relative to the competition - notably Housley in Winnipeg and Kariya in Anaheim. Bathgate was a lone star at a time when teams like Montreal and Detroit stacked their top units

 

[quoipourquoi]

Bathgate was a lone star at a time when teams like Montreal and Detroit stacked their top units

Is being the lone star on one of only 6 teams necessarily detrimental to points races and awards voting? Particularly when comparing him to a player whose best received season (1997-98; somehow still a +12 on a struggling team) came during Kariya’s absence?

Consider how Finland’s lack of star power offered Selanne similar opportunities to retain a leading role in offensive situations such as the 2014 Olympics.

 

[wetcoast]

So basically, the only thing relevant to Vezina (when comparing apples to apples) is Vezina beating Benedict 5-2, since they played in the same league at the same time.

How would one ever draw that conclusion from what Overpass pointed out below?

Perhaps the sarcasm emoji was missing?

There was no television (I'm not sure about games or highlights on the radio but even then it would be extremely filtered and not comparative) and travel between different leagues would have been actually done by how many of the voters?

It's an extremely good point.

Regular broadcasting of Montreal Canadian games didn't begin until 1939

Our History

Regarding the Macleans rankings, we should probably consider how much these hockey experts had actually seen every player play. I don’t mean to question their hockey knowledge, but the only way to see players play back then was in person. Leagues were regional rather than national and teams played fewer games. Statistics were not kept and published as consistently. While I expect many of these selectors did get to see most or even all the great players, it might only have been a handful of games for some of them.

Keeping this in mind, you would expect to see a wide variety of opinions about the best players. Which is, in fact, what we see in the article. Even Frank Nighbor was not picked for many teams. The consensus reached about greats like Morenz and Shore may only have been possible when all the top talent was gathered in a single league.

 

[wetcoast]

Outside of those two seasons though, Calgary's track record in the playoffs was atrocious. They were ousted as favorites in the first round in 87, 90, 91, 93, and 94. Swept in the second round, as favorites, in 1988. Some hard questions have to be asked of the key players. We didn't let Ovechkin off the hook for Washington stubbing their toe repeatedly up until last year. New Jersey of the late 90's followed a similar trend after their 1995 Cup win, but then righted the ship and won two more Cups. If somebody is waffling between Stevens and MacInnis, this is one of those details that might tip the balance.

Calgary in the 80's were alot like the Atlanta Braves slightly before and after 2000ish, great regular season teams but playoffs underwhelming.

I guess the most recent NHL example of those 80's Calgary teams would be San Jose.

 

[wetcoast]

Selanne vs. Canadians:

Points: 1,2,3,3,5,5
Goals: 1,1,1,1,2
Assists: 2,4,5

Bathgate

Points: 1,2,3,3,3,4,4,5
Goals: 3,4,5
Assists: 1,1,2,2,2,2,3,4,4

Selanne only played 21 playoff games in his prime ('93-'00) and had 20 points. It's cases like this, small sample sizes on bad teams, where I'd rely more on international play to affirm that he was a producer in his prime, and he was. This uncertainty and his weak playoff plus-minus data would be a handicap against most elite forwards, but not against someone like Bathgate.

Seems pretty even overall, aside from Selanne having the much longer career.

I guess a lot of where one might rank the 2 players would come from a voters focus on a goal scoring winger, compared to a playmaking one.

Selanne also has that one really weird and weak year in Colorado but many voters have looked past outlier poor seasons for other players.

Playoffs, Bathgate is probably ahead a little bit but this is offset but Selanne and his best on best tournament scoring right?

The last part in bold is what would separate them for me.

It wasn't like Selanne was hanging around either, post lockout he has 7 seasons ( a couple shortened due to injury for sure) where is a very good to excellent NHL winger still.

In a 30 team league he is still 24th in points and 16th in goals despite being 119th in GP over that time period.

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[wetcoast]

Is being the lone star on one of only 6 teams necessarily detrimental to points races and awards voting? Particularly when comparing him to a player whose best received season (1997-98; somehow still a +12 on a struggling team) came during Kariya’s absence?

Consider how Finland’s lack of star power offered Selanne similar opportunities to retain a leading role in offensive situations such as the 2014 Olympics.

Somehow I think that Bill Gadsby is going to come up for voting way before Phil Housley or Paul Kariya.

Kariya was probably a better talent (than Gadsby) to be sure but injuries....

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Bathgate wasn't really a "playmaking winger," at least not as much as his stats make him look. He racked up PP assists while playing the point on the PP, but at even strength, his goals/assists ratio was more typical of a superstar winger.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Calgary in the 80's were alot like the Atlanta Braves slightly before and after 2000ish, great regular season teams but playoffs underwhelming.

I guess the most recent NHL example of those 80's Calgary teams would be San Jose.

And as it relates to our purposes, Calgary kept losing those post-1989 first round series because they couldn't keep the puck out of their net. They maintained a GAA of over 4.00 in the 26 playoff games MacInnis played with them in the 90s, despite being a pretty good defensive team in the regular season (always comfortably in the top half in goals against rank). Incidentally, St. Louis suffered a similar fate in 1995, MacInnis' first season there, surrendering 27 goals in a first round loss to the Canucks after finishing tied for 3rd overall in the NHL.

While being mindful that one player should never receive too much credit, good or bad, for his team's results, this is a troublesome six-year pattern smack in the middle of MacInnis' career. The numbers seem to jive with Mike Farkas' analysis that MacInnis wasn't the same caliber of defensive player in Calgary that he was during his late St. Louis career. MacInnis was a 5-time all star and four times a Norris finalist with the Flames, which looks really good on paper.

But part of me is really wondering how much of that is based purely on attractive point totals. The plus/minus numbers look good as well, but players on great teams in this era often racked up huge plus totals just by virtue of being on the ice for lots of superfluous goals for. Teammates Jamie Macoun, Brad McCrimmon, Frank Musil also have hugely positive +/- numbers in spite of being purely defensive players during the same time period. MacInnis was a legitimately strong defensive player during the last few years of his career when he grabbed two more AS-1's and a Norris, but I think there's a chance that this reputation is being projected backwards to the rest of his career. The Calgary and early St. Louis days just feel a little too Kris Letang-ish for my liking, to reference somebody current.

All that said, some may feel MacInnis was strong enough offensively that simply being okay in his own end was good enough to perpetually consider him a top 5-ish defenseman in the league throughout his career. MacInnis was better than a point-per-game producer for nearly a decade, which is fantastic even in a high scoring era.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I also think older MacInnis was a much better all-round player than late 80s MacInnis.

And as it relates to our purposes, Calgary kept losing those post-1989 first round series because they couldn't keep the puck out of their net. They maintained a GAA of over 4.00 in the 26 playoff games MacInnis played with them in the 90s, despite being a pretty good defensive team in the regular season (always comfortably in the top half in goals against rank). Incidentally, St. Louis suffered a similar fate in 1995, MacInnis' first season there, surrendering 27 goals in a first round loss to the Canucks after finishing tied for 3rd overall in the NHL.

While being mindful that one player should never receive too much credit, good or bad, for his team's results, this is a troublesome six-year pattern smack in the middle of MacInnis' career. The numbers seem to jive with Mike Farkas' analysis that MacInnis wasn't the same caliber of defensive player in Calgary that he was during his late St. Louis career. MacInnis was a 5-time all star and four times a Norris finalist with the Flames, which looks really good on paper.

But part of me is really wondering how much of that is based purely on attractive point totals. The plus/minus numbers look good as well, but players on great teams in this era often racked up huge plus totals just by virtue of being on the ice for lots of superfluous goals for. Teammates Jamie Macoun, Brad McCrimmon, Frank Musil also have hugely positive +/- numbers in spite of being purely defensive players during the same time period. MacInnis was a legitimately strong defensive player during the last few years of his career when he grabbed two more AS-1's and a Norris, but I think there's a chance that this reputation is being projected backwards to the rest of his career. The Calgary and early St. Louis days just feel a little too Kris Letang-ish for my liking, to reference somebody current.

All that said, some may feel MacInnis was strong enough offensively that simply being okay in his own end was good enough to perpetually consider him a top 5-ish defenseman in the league throughout his career. MacInnis was better than a point-per-game producer for nearly a decade, which is fantastic even in a high scoring era.

i think, though, there is a distinction between 86 macinnis, 89 to 91 smythe/1AST level macinnis, and 99/03 norris macinnis.

86 macinnis was a pp specialist. but like 94 stevens, would we say there was a period between young and mature macinnis where he did everything at an extremely high level?

i don’t think 89 to 91 macinnis was as good defensively as 99 to 03 macinnis, but my memories are he was a very good player both ways and significantly more dynamic offensively than when he was old (obviously). an elite player overal, i’d say, but that’s on the back of being generationally good on the PP, on top of being very good defensively and elite offensively at ES.

if, for instance, you asked me who i’d want in my own end, macinnis or leetch, i don’t hesitate for a second to choose macinnis.

 

[wetcoast]

While I agree that MacInnis does have that bit of a black hole in the playoffs there are some reasons for this as well.

I'll point out that I have been pretty consistent in pointing out problems with certain players here being inconsistent in the playoffs, Henri Richard, Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur being some examples.


In 88-89 Al wins the Conn Smythe and rightly so he had a 7 point led over Mullen in the playoffs and the goalies who had the 2nd best GA in the regular season played even better in the playoffs.

They had a .891 save % and 2.78 GAA in the regular season.

In the playoffs it was better with .904 and 2.31 GAA

Sadly the goalie situation, particularly Mike Vernon really faltered after this

89-90 From .871% and 3.21 GA to .838 and 4.30
90-91 .881% and 3.23 to .893% and 3.07
91-92 missed playoffs after trading Gilmour halfway through the season.
92-93 .888% and 3.32 to .814 and 5.35
93-94 .891% and 2.95 to .895% and 2.96

So in 2 years that's pretty big drops by the goalies in the playoffs


Also the teams they lost to went on
89-90 Los Angeles who lost in the next round to SC Edmonton
90-91 Edmonton lost in the 3rd round
91-92 missed playoffs
92-93 lose to LA who lose to Patrick Roy and Montreal for the SC
93-94 lose to Vancouver who make the SC finals.

3 of the 4 years here they lose to teams that make deep runs.

Once he goes to St. Louis the goaltending situation is generally better but the road of teams to go through becomes even harder.

94-95 they do lose to Vancouver who get swept the next round by the Black Hawks and Curtis Joseph does poorly in net.

95-96 they lose in the 2nd round to the mid 90's Detroit machine who lose in the next round to Colorado.

96-97 they lose again to SC Detroit

97-98 they lose in the 2nd round to SC Detroit

98-99 they manage to not play Detroit but instead lose to SC Dallas in the 2nd round.

99-00 they lose to San Jose who get knocked out in the 2nd round

00-01 they lose in the 3rd round to SC Colorado

01-02 they lose a 3rd time to SC Detroit

Yes that's 5 seasons out of 6 that they lost to the SC team in rounds 1 and 2, some really bad luck that I doubt many 06 players ever had the back luck of having.

 

[Canadiens1958]

And as it relates to our purposes, Calgary kept losing those post-1989 first round series because they couldn't keep the puck out of their net. They maintained a GAA of over 4.00 in the 26 playoff games MacInnis played with them in the 90s, despite being a pretty good defensive team in the regular season (always comfortably in the top half in goals against rank). Incidentally, St. Louis suffered a similar fate in 1995, MacInnis' first season there, surrendering 27 goals in a first round loss to the Canucks after finishing tied for 3rd overall in the NHL.

While being mindful that one player should never receive too much credit, good or bad, for his team's results, this is a troublesome six-year pattern smack in the middle of MacInnis' career. The numbers seem to jive with Mike Farkas' analysis that MacInnis wasn't the same caliber of defensive player in Calgary that he was during his late St. Louis career. MacInnis was a 5-time all star and four times a Norris finalist with the Flames, which looks really good on paper.

But part of me is really wondering how much of that is based purely on attractive point totals. The plus/minus numbers look good as well, but players on great teams in this era often racked up huge plus totals just by virtue of being on the ice for lots of superfluous goals for. Teammates Jamie Macoun, Brad McCrimmon, Frank Musil also have hugely positive +/- numbers in spite of being purely defensive players during the same time period. MacInnis was a legitimately strong defensive player during the last few years of his career when he grabbed two more AS-1's and a Norris, but I think there's a chance that this reputation is being projected backwards to the rest of his career. The Calgary and early St. Louis days just feel a little too Kris Letang-ish for my liking, to reference somebody current.

All that said, some may feel MacInnis was strong enough offensively that simply being okay in his own end was good enough to perpetually consider him a top 5-ish defenseman in the league throughout his career. MacInnis was better than a point-per-game producer for nearly a decade, which is fantastic even in a high scoring era.

Sign of a poorly coached team that ran into preparation and match-up problems over a seven game series.

MacInnis had better coaching in St.Louis.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Sign of a poorly coached team that ran intopreparationand match-up problems over a seven game series.

MacInnis had better coaching in St.Louis.

the fact that the same team featured future conn smythe winners vernon and nieuwendyk and playoff gods gilmour and fleury suggests that coaching might indeed be a disproportionately big culprit.

 

[wetcoast]

the fact that the same team featured future conn smythe winners vernon and nieuwendyk and playoff gods gilmour and fleury suggests that coaching might indeed be a disproportionately big culprit.

While I do agree with this for the most part both Vernon and Nieuwendyk weren't overwhelming during the regular season and playoffs in their Conn Smythe years.

But that Calgary team in the 80's and early 90's was a bit of a paper tiger that fell into total disarray following the Gilmour and MacInnis trades.

 

[blogofmike]

I am high on both MacInnis and Stevens.

I don't place as much blame on MacInnis for the Calgary playoff "black hole" in the 90s. The Smythe was a dangerous place for a goaltender to draw playoff matchups. The most "normal" offense they faced was in the 1994 run where MacInnis led both teams in plus/minus and scored 8 points, but the Flames lost 3 straight OT games to Vancouver in Game 5, 6, and 7. At the same time the Flames struggled, MacInnis posted a 2-4-6, +10 line at the 1991 Canada Cup and was an easy choice for the Canada Cup All Star team where he clearly overshadowed Stevens. At the moment I think pre-94 MacInnis is far more valuable than pre-94 Stevens, and by a much wider margin than post-94 Stevens is better than post-94 MacInnis.

I am a little confused by descriptions of Geoffrion as a point-taker. Everything I've seen of the Habs PP indicates that his role at the point was the critical piece. On a fun/random note, while looking up random things on NHL.com I found that Geofrrion had four 3+ point playoff games on the road. Doesn't sound huge, but players weren't great at road scoring, and it looks like more than Howe, Richard, and Beliveau. I think it may have been an NHL record until Bobby Hull broke it in the 1970s. The last two came against Horton-backed Maple Leafs teams in 1959 and 1960. Horton was a -2 in the latter game, and no plus/minus is available for the 1959 one. But it does look like if you needed a guy to have a huge game to steal one on the road, Bernie was as good as anyone else in the O6.

The unclutch nature of Dionne is the obvious knock against him, but I think his regular season scoring is undervalued in some years. He's clearly ahead of the pack, but he had some strong competition with him. He has strong 2nd place finishes where he beat the 4th and 5th place guys by bigger margins than some Art Ross winners, but there's a lot of Gretzky, Lafleur, and Orr that diminishes his offensive ranking.

 

[sr edler]

94-95 they do lose to Vancouver who get swept the next round by the Black Hawks and Curtis Joseph does poorly in net.

That was a wild wild West series, with "Gino gone mad" and everything, but I don't know if the blame should be put solely on Joseph. Watch MacInnis fumble with the puck at the offensive blueline and getting burned here, at a crucial game 7 moment.



Also, how's Joseph supposed to save goals like this one below (game 4). Blues' box is smaller than a peanut, screens are everywhere, Bure sneaks in from the point and whips it.

MacInnis probably gets a pass with some people where Leetch does not just because he's big boddied or something.



Next round Chelios and Craven handles it.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Voted.

Weird round.

I decided to soften on Dionne a little bit, and my vote is probably internally inconsistent this round because of this, but... he was a great talent.And a mediocre playoffs performer.The contrast is so pronounced it makes my head explode.I put him at 6th without any consistency with the rest of my voting and leave it at that.I pray I don't have to deal with this again next round.

 

[Canadiens1958]

voted

 

[kruezer]

i think, though, there is a distinction between 86 macinnis, 89 to 91 smythe/1AST level macinnis, and 99/03 norris macinnis.

86 macinnis was a pp specialist. but like 94 stevens, would we say there was a period between young and mature macinnis where he did everything at an extremely high level?

i don’t think 89 to 91 macinnis was as good defensively as 99 to 03 macinnis, but my memories are he was a very good player both ways and significantly more dynamic offensively than when he was old (obviously). an elite player overal, i’d say, but that’s on the back of being generationally good on the PP, on top of being very good defensively and elite offensively at ES.

if, for instance, you asked me who i’d want in my own end, macinnis or leetch, i don’t hesitate for a second to choose macinnis.

This hurts me as a Flames fan, but I always wondered if MacInnis's late career improvement at defense was his doing or just him playing with a rising defensive superstar.

	Pronger							MacInnis
	GP	GA	PPGA	ESGA	ES TOI	SH TOI	PP TOI	GP	GA	PPGA	ESGA	ES TOI	SH TOI	PP TOI
95/96	78	106	31	75				82	105	42	63
96/97	79	90	28	62				72	96	18	78
97/98	81	84	28	56	21:15	3:41	2:23	71	78	17	61	17:24	3:22	5:32
98/99	67	88	26	62	21:06	5:19	4:11	82	79	22	57	19:00	5:05	5:02
99/00	79	72	27	45	19:22	5:10	5:43	61	44	12	32	17:31	4:22	5:59
00/01	51	49	18	31	16:41	5:07	5:57	59	60	22	38	16:23	3:41	6:28
01/02	78	90	35	55	18:57	5:17	5:14	71	77	25	52	16:57	3:58	6:02
02/03	5	12	5	7	17:31	2:39	1:29	80	97	37	60	17:07	3:42	6:06
03/04	80	89	30	59	18:24	4:06	4:58	3	3	1	2	13:47	3:08	8:04

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Here are the raw GA & TOI data for them both over their time together in St. Louis. A few things to glean. Pronger was used more on the PK especially starting during his Hart season. MacInnis routinely got more PP time. Pronger routinely played more at ES. This all strikes me as Coach Q recognizing the different skill sets the two had an using them appropriately. I'm sure MacInnis improved defensively as he got older and taught Pronger many things, but did MacInnis' late career ESGA numbers look better than they would have not playing with an all time great player in his own zone? Also - is it fair to assume MacInnis played almost all his ES time with Pronger? I don't recall there exact usage.

Take 97/98 for example, Pronger played almost 4 more minutes a game at ES and 3 more actual games and had 5 less total ESGA than MacInnis. Or 01/02 Pronger played 2 more minutes a game and played 7 more actual games and only allowed 3 more total ESGA than MacInnis.

However, when Pronger was hurt in 02/03, MacInnis, to his credit, didn't have his ESGA rise much at all (the difference is fully explained by GP) but Coach Q didn't increase his ES TOI and decreased his SH TOI, MacInnis was close to retirement at this point so I can't read to much into it though, this could well have been very different if Pronger only played 5 games during one of the seasons earlier in the sample.

MacInnis is an all time PPQB there are very few better at it on this list or not and his ES offense is fantastic as well. But I'm not 100% confident he was ever anything more than average to above average in his own zone. I can't take him over Stevens for these reasons.

Also - the early nineties flames never should have dealt McCrimmon. They fired Crisp in 1990 anyway, what a waste. And for a second round pick? worse than the gilmour trade.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Voted. This Round, I took a closer-than-usual look at situational deployment.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Based solely on his color commentating, I would be stunned if Terry Crisp was a good coach from a tactical perspective...

 

[Michael Farkas]

Also, contrary to my R1 list...I'm going to vote Stevens over MacInnis...

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

This seems like a nostalgia pick from a lot of people in their 20s and 30s that remember watching him a lot growing up.

ironic, given that we should also all theoretically remember the lacklustre (by top 100 standards)-to-MIA 94, 95, and 2000-2004 seasons.

don’t make me make a comparison to another all-time goal scoring contemporary of his who had a lot of injury plagued and/or unhappy seasons mixed in with very high highs.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Also, contrary to my R1 list...I'm going to vote Stevens over MacInnis...

i ride for macinnis but stevens > chopper is an easy yes for me