Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 14

[ChiTownPhilly]

Apologies for the digression- but I thought I'd do a little work with this one:

Maybe it's possible that after the rule change, referees were actually more inclined to call infractions, feeling as though they weren't necessarily determining the entire outcome of the game with such calls.

Average seasonal PiMs for the six-year span prior to 1955-56 were 595 PiMs lower than the average seasonal PiMs for the 11 year span 1956-57 to 1966-67.

The 1955-56 league-wide PiM total was, in context, a freak outlier. Iz'not the biggest freak outlier of the 70 game O-6 era. [That distinction belongs to the 1964-65 season.] Still, it's clear at a casual glance that 1955-56 is not characteristic of the general run.

To use an outlier-numbers in furtherance of a counter-argument against a trend is an example of the "bikini-principle." What's revealed is suggestive... but it's what's concealed that's absolutely vital.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I know that some of this is trivial in ranking top 100 players, but few comments.



Yes Irvin was interested him already earlier. This clip is from the late 1940-1941 which was his first in Quebec senior league.

Montreal Gazette March 4, 1941
Of Durnan, Irvin says. "He is big, has style and perhaps possesses the pro complex to greater extent than any of the others." If Royals should be knocked out by Ottawa, it wouldn't be a great surprise if Durnan is offered a Habitant contract. The other amateur goalies Irvin has in mind are Paul Bibeault and Coney Dion but Durnan is the one he prefers above all.

Start of the 1943-1944 was a very good point to start pro career. Legs Fraser, another highly touted amateur goalie on Canadiens list, skipped the season before. Paul Bibeault was in army (and actually participated on Bruins camp "just for fun"). Durnan´s only competition in camp was promising 17 year old Gerry McNeil. Technically Bert Gardiner was still their property but Canadiens didn´t have room in their plans for him.

Now ofcourse later both Bibeault and Fraser came back later but neither could challenge Durnan. Bibeault was actually pretty decent goalie and being French-Canadian a fan favourite. In the start of the 1944-1945 part of the crowd was chanting "WE WANT BEE-BOO". Legs Fraser was one of the most wanted amateur goalies (Happy Day had one of his scouts watching Fraser perform in the Habs nets last week and is convinced that the giant Westerner might win the Stanley cup for the Leafs if they could secure him.)







Yeah I have always thought that Brimsek´s second team All-Star on that season is bit odd. Now looking at what Overpass posted it may have been bit reputation selection? You can´t blame Brimsek of being bit rusty after being out from skates 16 months. But still the fact is Bibeault was outplaying him before his recall to Montreal.

The Winnipeg Tribune, 1946-02-06
Durnan´s Injury Aided Brimsek

It seems as though Bill Durnan´s injured hand, which has kept him out of play for a month, while it has not been particularly helpful to Montreal Canadiens at least proved benificial to Frankie Brimsek, Mr. Zero of the Boston Bruins.

Frankie was not doing particularly well on his return from the armed services and had to be content with sharing the goal-keeping job with Paul Bibeault. At that time, Bibeault was more popular than Brimsek, and drew the assignments in Boston Garden. Paul of course still was nominally property of Montreal Canadiens.

When Durnan suffered his broken hand, Bibeault was recalled immediately and Brimsek took over the goalie assignment for the Bruins.

Then Bruins was content with a fourth-place spot in the national hockey league standings, but in the past month have won eight and lost four games to soar right to the top. Brimsek seeme to have recovered that skill that won him the title of Mr. Zero, but he might still have been playing second fiddle to Bibeault if Paul had not been recalled by Montreal.

Thank you Sanf for the alternative Bill Durnan performance presentation especially the perspective about Senior goalies during WWII.

Also the Bibeault/Brimsek background piece is priceless.

 

[Canadiens1958]

The PP issue was framed as a direct motivator for referees to call more penalties. The 1956-57 season showed that this was not the case.

Post 1956-57 taking into account 1956-57 results is a totally different issue.

Also when looking at the seasonal results one should look at the turnover of referees every year. This was not done.

 

[wetcoast]

It doesn't change anything on substance (AKA, the underlined), but the argument is based on a faulty premise.
Clapper was the first to do it, but he isn't the only one : Neil Colville did so, too : AST2 as a Center in 1939 and 1940; AST2 as a D-Men in 1948).

NHL.com has him listed as a center that year and the year before, obviously that must be a mistake as he did win the 2nd team all star that year.

Wondering if there are any accounts of Colville playing at center that year as well, since totalling up games by defenseman show a large increase from 245 to 268 in 46-47 to 47-48 before we even account for Colville's 55 GP in 47-48

 

[wetcoast]

as an observer, i'd say if the process is indeed more important than the list itself then the pools should be kept small to ensure close discussion of each player, instead of struggling to do keep on top of a larger pool of guys in each round.

Pretty much this as the larger the group the less intense the focus will be on all eligible to vote in.

Nothing to ever be embarrassed about! The goal of the project is education - not an accurate top-120 list. The people whose lists change the most are often the people who learned the most, and if you’re doing that, you’re doing great!

Also this, the claim for larger groups to vote on appears to be tied directly to some not liking the current round to their previous lists and in my humble opinion as a non participant doesn't really balance the education side of the project and begins to look more like defending one's opinion instead.

Having at least one participant drop out of the project already doesn't really help matters of critical analysis either but to be fair there wasn't a lot of detailed discussion from that poster either.

 

[wetcoast]

I'm waiting impatiently for Timo Jutila to show up. Participants seems to have a weak spot for defensemen, so he should appear any round now.

I actually thought you were talking about under rated Timo Blomqvist who had his breakout year overshadowed by some trivial defenseman from Taiwan on the 82-83 Washington Capitals.

 

[wetcoast]

New data - NHL archives, research, digitalization intersecting with old project creates conflicting views and results.

Yet we still have limited information for defensive play for most players, NHL archive dump or not.

 

[wetcoast]

3. Limited number of strong regular seasons, and they correlate strongly to playing on the best team of all-time.

Top 20 point finishes: 14th (1956), 8th (1957), 1st (1958), 1st (1959), 11th (1960), 8th (1961), 19th (1963)

Moore's 1st finish as a top 20 scorer wasn't until 1955-56 at the age of 25. 1955-56 also just happened to be Beliveau's really huge season. his only notable accomplishment outside Montreal was his playoff performance in St. Louis in 1967.

Apologies for just pointing out 2 things out of a very well balanced post on Moore.

Top 20 finishes in a 6 team league mean 18 first line guys and 26 top 6 forwards in the entire league.

Compared to another winger this round in Selanne should we be including top 40, 50 or 60 finishes for him to be fair?

Also brought this up earlier Moore in the regular season basically has so few even very good years for a guy to be ranked this high.

He has his 2 elite years, with not so great Hart finishes, then 2 quite good years and then the drop off is quite large when compared to the staying power of the Big M and the Finnish Flash.

Cy Denneny is a difficult comp due to league size and elite players outside of the NHL but the strength of both dynasties is an interesting comparison.

For the wingers this round I would have them as
1. Selanne
2.Big M
3. Moore/Denney
5 Dit Clapper

Where they fit into the overall picture is more confusing though to be sure, some strong Dmen this round.

 

[wetcoast]

I'm not trying to bash Mahovlich (this will be my last post on his playoff plus/minus), but here's the data, since you're asking a fair question:

On the Leafs (1960 to 1967), there were five forwards who played 63-73 games. Keon was on the ice for 26 ES GA; Armstrong for 31; Mahovlich for 52; Kelly for 51; and Pulford for 46. (Keon played 63 games; the others were on the ice for 70, 70, 72 and 73 - so the difference can't be explained by games played). He was on the ice for fewer goals (both ES and in total) than Kelly, Keon and Armstrong (and fewer ES goals for than Pulford), so his plus/minus looks bad in comparison.

He just played one season in Detroit but was on the ice for 7 ES GA compared to 5 for Delvecchio and 4 for Howe. They were all on the ice for 1 ES GF. Small sample though.

On the Habs from 1971 to 1974, he was one of five forwards to play all 49 games. He was on the ice for 59 ES GA; the other for forwards were on the ice for 36, 38, 39 and 40. His offensive results were somewhat better though (ranking 3rd of five).

Unless the NHL's recently released data is wrong, it looks like Mahovlich bled even-strength goals against in the playoffs with alarming consistency.

He was a very good special teams player though, which isn't reflected in the numbers above. He was 6th in playoff PP scoring over the span of his career, and played a fair bit on the PK for a non-defensive-specialist forward.

Aside from playing on the PK he sounds a bit like a poor mans version of Mario.

 

[Michael Farkas]

That's basically what he was...including the PK stuff. Mario and Mahovlich did killing for the same reasons effectively...

 

[wetcoast]

That's basically what he was...including the PK stuff. Mario and Mahovlich did killing for the same reasons effectively...

You are right, I totally forgot that Mario did play on the PK but he was a horrible 200 foot player and often couldn't really outscore his weaknesses.

Punch Imlach also gave the Big M the Scotty Bowman treatment to a guy who will come up next round perhaps.....

 

[Michael Farkas]

So, I struggled to put a fifth guy on my ballot this round...everyone cool if I leave 6 guys NR'd?

I have a 3M ballot basically...and to be a little less ambiguous, Malone seems like a weak-league, bad-team-scorer product...I don't have a lot of time for him...I don't think very highly of Dit Clapper really, and I really value versatility...but he gets assigned a lot of trivial things that are masquerading around as merits, a lot of Clapper's accolades read like when people go: "Did you know that Marian Gaborik was the highest scoring player in NHL history in all the scattered games that Marian Gaborik played in?"

Not trusting of the three goalies that are available...

I guess Denneny is a fine mid-ballot guy...

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Will be sending in my votes (which technically makes them late) in the next couple of hours.