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

[The Macho King]

I know Clapper wasn't in my Top-100 (nearly missed my Top-120 altogether); pretty sure Malone wasn't either.

As for Durnan, it's not that I don't think he's a Top-100 player (I do) and it's not that he looks bad in this group (he doesn't that much, especially with the two aforementionned names). It's just that Gardiner is both easily comparable (there aren't many available goalies with such short careers) and, well, better.

Clapper should get a bit of the "Red Kelly" bump for being elite at two positions.

 

[The Macho King]

Also I realized I completely forgot to get my vote in last round... My bad.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Seriously, with the numbers posted by Hockey Outsider earlier, I highly question whether he should even make it in the first place, despite looking great on tape.

I mean, I get that he was somewhat stiffled offensively for most of his career, but if you're both stiffled and bleeding goals against, that's a serious issue.

Moore was bleeding goals against?

 

[MXD]

Moore was bleeding goals against?

I will edit my post.

 

[ted2019]

Durnan becomes the first player up for voting that was not in my top-100.

I had Clapper at 99, so he's the lowest for me so far.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

From the Wingers Project:


Teemu Selanne: Playoff Evaluation

While we all recognize that he does not have that singular, dominant, Conn Smythe caliber run on his resume, a lot of what he has done gets lost in the shuffle when people look at his cumulative playoff totals.

Consider this:

...

If he had better support in his best years - whether it be defensively or offensively - he stood a very good chance of having a signature playoff run a la Pavel Bure in 1994 (who thankfully had Kirk McLean and Trevor Linden playing excellent hockey), but the individual runs were all too short. As a whole, however, despite playing for a team that only won 8 of 27 games, Teemu Selanne was an excellent playoff performer in his seven best seasons.

... it's time to give some real consideration to Selanne.

it may have been time in the wingers project when you wrote all that, but is it time here and now? we are not comparing selanne to pavel bure here we are comparing him to dickie moore.

i have no recollection of any mighty ducks playoff series before 2003, so i can’t judge. but i trust you are not counting 1993 selanne as an excellent performance. one excellent game, sure. overmatched by a superior team? absolutely. playing with historically bad playoff performers housley and tkachuk? yup. but still, there were five other games where you have fine excuses for not performing at a star level, not evidence of being excellent in the playoffs.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Not sure why everyone is so low on Bill Durnan at this point of the project. A lot of 6x 1st Team All-Stars that we’re waiting on?

We looked at quotes separating Vezina from the pack; anyone check Durnan’s reputation? Maybe the best received goaltender pre-Sawchuk who, yes, joined the depleted NHL during the war because he was in a position of leverage to get a better paycheck only to leave six Vezina Trophies later saying the money still wasn’t good enough.

“At the end of any given season when I was playing, I never seemed to have more than $2,000 in the bank, so I wasn't really getting anywhere that way. I wasn't educated and I had two girls to raise.”

The weird structure to his career is a product of the era - not a mark against his ability.

“When the Leafs found out about my injury they dropped me and I vowed that even when I got better never would I play pro hockey. I was disillusioned and figured if that was the kind of treatment I was to get, then hell, I didn't want any part of it. Besides, there wasn't much money involved; in those days they weren't paying anywhere near the money to be had today.”

He wasn’t some unknown quantity between his injury in the early 1930s that led to the Maple Leafs releasing him and his eventually joining the NHL. Consider the Dick Irvin line about Durnan when he was holding down an accounting job: “It was obvious the amateur team had much better goaltending than the professional team that played in the same building.”

Even just on the technical side of things, his lateral movement was fantastic and his ability to switch stick hands to the context of the opposition attack is more or less unreplicated.

Yeah, I'm a little surprised at how low everyone seems to be on Durnan. While the success during the war years may be discounted, Durnan kept his string of Vezina trophies and the accompanying 1st AST selections going up until his retirement after 1950. Montreal had a stronger roster during the war years, but was nothing special afterwards. Durnan nearly won the Hart in 1948-49, being edged out by Sid Abel. He was a fairly strong third for the award in the admittedly weak 1945-46 season.

I'm not honestly sure what creates significant separation between Durnan and Ken Dryden, long since discussed and listed. Both had short careers in which they were considered the best in the league or close to it and accordingly monopolized awards voting. Was the war-recovering NHL of the late 1940s really any weaker than the over-expanded, WHA-depleted, iron curtain-depleted NHL of the late 1970s?

Playoffs is for some reason considered a negative for Durnan, and I don't really understand why.

Durnan's playoff record:

1944: 8-1, 1.53 GAA, Stanley Cup winner. Durnan allowed one or fewer GA in six of nine games. Weak league yes, but what more was he supposed to do? He was expected to win the Cup and did so in very convincing fashion.

1945: Suffered huge upset against Toronto. The four losses were 1-0, 3-2, 3-2, 4-3(OT), and that Toronto team also upset Detroit in the Final. A blemish, but hardly a disaster from an individual perspective.

1946: Another 8-1 record, Stanley Cup win, the one loss came in OT. Montreal defeated Chicago then Boston, both of whom were only a few points behind them in the standings. Chicago led the NHL in goals by a big margin this year, but only scored 7 in four games against Durnan. Montreal swamped Chicago for 26 goals, so they probably could have won with a tutor-shooter in goal, but that shouldn't mean Durnan's strong performance is completely ignored.

1947: Montreal beat a decent Boston team 4-1 in the first round. Durnan allowed 10 total goals. They suffered a mild upset in the Final against Toronto. The Canadiens scored 0, 1, 1, and 2 goals in the losses, while they posted 6-0 and 3-1 wins, ultimately losing the series 4-2. Looks like Durnan performed pretty much how you'd expect him to, while Turk Broda was simply excellent at the other end.

1949: Montreal pushed first place Detroit to seven games in the first round. Durnan allowed 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 1, and 3 goals against. Unless a bunch of these goals were being lobbed in from 50 feet away, it seems Durnan at least gave Montreal a chance to win pretty much all of these games. One of the losses came in triple OT.

1950: Lost 4-1 to the Rangers in the first round, despite being favorites. Not great, but Montreal only scored seven goals in the whole series. Durnan would have needed a performance for the ages to win with that kind of support. I would say the whole Canadiens team shares the blame for this loss.

Unless a deeper look reveals that Montreal was playing suffocating defense and regularly losing games where they outplayed opponents, I don't see how Durnan's playoff record can have anything worse than a neutral effect on his overall reputation. There's really no instances of him blowing a series. Montreal finished in first place four times, and won two Cups in very convincing fashion, losing a third Final that was pretty close. Could have been better, but not something you'd complain about either.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Just thinking aloud...do you give any time to his lackluster Hart record...seems like goalies of the 40's, 50's and 60's were given some credit for willing some teams along and being the cornerstone...

Durnan doesn't seem to get much of that, despite his dominant stats in a weak league...

1944 - Nothing, no goalies. (Doesn't even win the Calder, because average player Gus Bodnar was a distant second on his team in scoring to above average player Lorne Carr).
1945 - Nothing, no goalies. (Goalie won the Calder though...if that's worth anything)
1946 - Quality 3rd place finish. First goalie, ahead of 19 year old Harry Lumley. (Despite missing 10 of 50 games).
1947 - Nothing. Two goalies received votes (Broda, Rayner, tied for 4th)
1948 - Nothing. Brimsek received votes (2nd).
1949 - Quality 2nd place finish. First goalie (Rayner received scant consideration in what was a two-horse race...Montreal struggled offensively this year, but I'm not sure why...other than perhaps the league was starting to fill back in, but that's lazy on my part).
1950 - 6th place finish. 2nd goalie (Rayner, 1st). 2nd on his team (Richard, 3rd) - not Hart related, but usurped for playoff starts for the first time by the small, but talented Gerry McNeil.

Do we have enough puzzle pieces to put together a picture that suggests that Durnan wasn't the engine that drove the team, but rather he was a beneficiary of being on the team least affected by the War? That's the impression in my head, but I've seen so little of Durnan's play that I'm taking a leap of faith...

 

[Kyle McMahon]

From the Wingers Project:


Teemu Selanne: Playoff Evaluation

While we all recognize that he does not have that singular, dominant, Conn Smythe caliber run on his resume, a lot of what he has done gets lost in the shuffle when people look at his cumulative playoff totals.

Consider this: we've been looking at seven-year VsX in the project so that we can better gauge the type of player these players were in their prime. Selanne happens to have exactly seven top-ten finishes in scoring. So what did Selanne's playoffs look like in those seven seasons?

First, let's look at how his teams performed in the playoffs during Selanne's seven top-ten finishes.

Team Playoff Record: 8-19, 68/90 GF/GA

They were pretty bad, lasting only five series, winning just one series. The teams that eliminated Selanne's teams had between 93-101 points. Hebert and Shtalenkov in 1997 provided the only goaltending in these runs that even exceeded .900 - not surprisingly being the tandem that won the only series in Selanne's seven best years, but even they were ultimately and understandably bested by the 1997 Detroit Red Wings who were on their 14-2 steak to close out the playoffs.

The teams Selanne played for in his seven best years did not put him in a situation conducive to a Conn Smythe-caliber run. People's instincts seem to be to put the blame on Selanne, the star player, but how did Selanne perform on an individual level in the playoffs following his seven top-ten seasons?

27 GP, 19 G, 27 PTS, 3 GWGs (1 OT)

He scored 28% of his teams' playoff goals, points on 40% of his teams' playoff goals, three of his teams' eight GWGs, and he was the team-leading goal scorer in every series. Those aren't exactly the ratios one would expect, given his reputation. If he had better support in his best years - whether it be defensively or offensively - he stood a very good chance of having a signature playoff run a la Pavel Bure in 1994 (who thankfully had Kirk McLean and Trevor Linden playing excellent hockey), but the individual runs were all too short. As a whole, however, despite playing for a team that only won 8 of 27 games, Teemu Selanne was an excellent playoff performer in his seven best seasons.


Of course, the NHL playoffs aren't the only measure of how Selanne played during pressure games. He played a lot of international hockey in his career. Consider this: the NHL has sent players to the Olympics five times. Despite playing for a team that is never one of the top-three favorites, Selanne's teams have won four Olympic medals in those five tournaments. Individually, he was the tournament's leading scorer in 1998, the tournament's leading scorer in 2006, and the tournament's Most Valuable Player in 2014. That's three of the five tournaments where Selanne was a major star.

People tend to brush off the 2014 selection as a parting-gift, but the circumstances weren't much different than how Joe Sakic won the MVP in 2002: like Sakic who was also not the leading scorer of the 2002 Olympics (trailing Sundin by 3 points), Selanne (trailing Kessel by 2 points) was the leading scorer of the playoff round (and in Selanne's case, he scored both of Finland's GWGs against Russia and the USA - goals that broke a tie in both games). And besides, if you're that against a player being named Most Valuable of a tournament that he wasn't the leading scorer of, remind yourself that Selanne already did that twice.

If a player stuck behind the Iron Curtain was the leading scorer of two best-on-best tournaments and the Most Valuable Player of a third, how would you treat that? Performing that well in an Olympic tournament once is nice, but not necessarily reflective of anything. Three times out of five though? That's a pattern of elevated performance under pressure.

He also scored 4-5-9 in the 10 World Cup games that were held while he was an NHL player, and in terms of non-best-on-best games, he was the leading goal scorer of the 1992 Olympics and the 1999 World Championship Most Valuable Player as well (that's the tournament a player goes to after their team posts an .874 series against Detroit...).


So how did Selanne get the reputation? Everything after his best seasons - things that would be otherwise ignored had his teams gone deeper in the playoffs when he was a top-ten player - makes up a much bigger percentage of his playoff resume. Despite spending 37.2% of his regular season games as a top-ten scorer, Selanne played just 20.8% of his playoff games in those years. In addition to his seven top-ten finishes, Selanne had another four seasons above a point-per-game. He made the playoffs twice in those years: the 2006 and 2007 (Mighty) Ducks.

Team Playoff Record: 25-12, 104/81 GF/GA

And here are Selanne's playoff stats for what are the 8th and 9th best seasons of his career relative to his peers.

37 GP, 11 G, 29 PTS, 4 GWGs (1 OT)

He was no longer a point-per-game player in the playoffs in his 8th and 9th best seasons, and while it is clear that he did not meet his regular season expectations on the powerplay in these runs, he was just as good at even-strength as he was in the accompanying regular seasons. 10 of his 11 playoff goals came at even-strength (0.27 per-game, same as in the regular season) despite him scoring 49% of his goals on the powerplay in the accompanying regular season. It wasn't a matter of him wilting under pressure; teams game-planned around Selanne being the league's best power-play goal scorer.

And these weren't exactly pushover defensive teams he was facing: of the seven playoff series in these two years, the (Mighty) Ducks faced both Jennings winners, two more top-five defensive teams, another top-ten defensive team, and Chris Pronger's Oilers. The closest thing they had to a break were the 2006 Avalanche, and not surprisingly, the Mighty Ducks swept them and Selanne was a point-per-game player.

Selanne was the team's leading playoff scorer in 2006, and tied for 2nd in 2007 behind breakout star Ryan Getzlaf. Cumulatively, no Anaheim player posted even a .80 point-per-game figure over their two deep runs, with only two players having anything above 0.65, so it isn't as if Selanne was a passenger; he was still the best offensive player over the two years.

1. Selanne, 11-18-29 (0.78)
2. Getzlaf, 10-14-24 (0.65)
3. McDonald, 12-11-23 (0.62)
4. S. Niedermayer, 5-17-22 (0.59)
5. Perry, 6-12-18 (0.56)
6. Beauchemin, 7-10-17 (0.47)
6. Penner, 6-11-17 (0.50)
6. Pahlsson, 5-12-17 (0.46)
9. Marchant, 3-13-16 (0.59)
10. Pronger, 3-12-15 (0.79)

I remind you, this is analysis of how Selanne played in the playoffs in the 8th and 9th best seasons of his career relative to his peers.

During these two runs, he scored big goals in big games. In 2006, Selanne had a game-tying goal in Game 6 against favored Calgary waived off for interference that happened after the puck was in the net...



...so Selanne scored the game-tying goal again, and then scored the opening goal (and GWG) in Game 7.

In 2007, the team faced adversity in only one series. Down 2-1 in the Conference Finals to Detroit, Selanne scored 6 points in the final 3 games to help take the series, including the last-minute game-tying assist in Game 5, and the OT GWG in the same game.

He wasn't as good as Scott Niedermayer or Chris Pronger (who played for Anaheim in 2007 but not 2006), but he was the next best player on the team in his 8th and 9th best seasons. People sometimes point to rounds where Selanne did not score enough points, but if you look at that list of Anaheim players, every one of them was held to 2 points or less in a series at least three times except for Selanne (once in seven series) and Pronger (once in four series). It might not have been the offensive contribution of his peak years, but it was still the most consistent series-to-series offensive contribution of a team that went deep twice.


The remaining portion of Selanne's career - the sub-point-per-game seasons caused by injury or age (all of them in his 30s or 40s) - contained the following anchor of a playoff record:

66 GP, 14 G, 32 PTS

Included in these are playoffs such as 2001, probably Selanne's best regular season of this sample.



But just because these years make up the largest sample of Selanne's playoff career does not mean that they should be reflective of how he was as a pressure performer. At that point, you're double-counting injury and age against him. We know why he wasn't particularly good in these 66 playoff games: he wasn't a particularly good player when he appeared in them.


Between how he performed in the playoffs when he was a top-ten player on a horrible team (19 goals in 27 games for 8-19 teams), how he performed in best-on-best tournaments (three exceptional Olympics), and how he was still the leading offensive contributor for the 2006 and 2007 (Mighty) Ducks (five points more than the 2nd place player), it's time to give some real consideration to Selanne.

Appreciate this run down. I would say this exonerates Selanne from any accusations that he didn't show up in the playoffs or for big games in general.

But I still don't think this necessarily means he is due for induction to the list at this stage.

The 16-team/4 round playoff era provides plenty of opportunities for the star player stuck on weaker rosters to look good in losing causes, or put together series like the one against Detroit in 2007 in years where they are on a contending roster.

I originally had Selanne outside of my top 100. And that was with the mind that he was lacking in the post-season, but not an outright bad playoff performer like a Dionne or Thornton. So I'd have to be convinced that I really seriously underrated his career as a whole to go from where I had him to top-70 position. Like Al MacInnis, he just didn't seem "well within top 100 of all time great" throughout his career.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Just thinking aloud...do you give any time to his lackluster Hart record...seems like goalies of the 40's, 50's and 60's were given some credit for willing some teams along and being the cornerstone...

Durnan doesn't seem to get much of that, despite his dominant stats in a weak league...

1944 - Nothing, no goalies. (Doesn't even win the Calder, because average player Gus Bodnar was a distant second on his team in scoring to above average player Lorne Carr).
1945 - Nothing, no goalies. (Goalie won the Calder though...if that's worth anything)
1946 - Quality 3rd place finish. First goalie, ahead of 19 year old Harry Lumley. (Despite missing 10 of 50 games).
1947 - Nothing. Two goalies received votes (Broda, Rayner, tied for 4th)
1948 - Nothing. Brimsek received votes (2nd).
1949 - Quality 2nd place finish. First goalie (Rayner received scant consideration in what was a two-horse race...Montreal struggled offensively this year, but I'm not sure why...other than perhaps the league was starting to fill back in, but that's lazy on my part).
1950 - 6th place finish. 2nd goalie (Rayner, 1st). 2nd on his team (Richard, 3rd) - not Hart related, but usurped for playoff starts for the first time by the small, but talented Gerry McNeil.

Do we have enough puzzle pieces to put together a picture that suggests that Durnan wasn't the engine that drove the team, but rather he was a beneficiary of being on the team least affected by the War? That's the impression in my head, but I've seen so little of Durnan's play that I'm taking a leap of faith...

I'm not sure we can term Durnan's Hart record as "lackluster". Over the course of his career, he appears to have the best voting record of any goaltender.

As you say, a quality 2nd and 3rd place finish for Durnan. Chuck Rayner has the win in 1950 and some throwaway votes in other years. Brimsek has a decent 2nd place finish, nothing more. Broda has some throwaway votes in a couple seasons. Lumley has the one substantial 4th place finish.

I think the fact that we're only just discussing him for the first time now suggests that his dominant stats and all-star record have been significantly discounted. Montreal allowed the fewest goals in the league six out of his seven seasons. So for those low on Durnan, I'd ask if they are particularly high on defensemen Butch Bouchard and Ken Reardon (I can't imagine either will appear for voting in this project). If we took his six 1st-AS at face value, Durnan should have appeared right along with Dryden.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Just thinking aloud...do you give any time to his lackluster Hart record...seems like goalies of the 40's, 50's and 60's were given some credit for willing some teams along and being the cornerstone...

Durnan doesn't seem to get much of that, despite his dominant stats in a weak league...

1944 - Nothing, no goalies. (Doesn't even win the Calder, because average player Gus Bodnar was a distant second on his team in scoring to above average player Lorne Carr).
1945 - Nothing, no goalies. (Goalie won the Calder though...if that's worth anything)
1946 - Quality 3rd place finish. First goalie, ahead of 19 year old Harry Lumley. (Despite missing 10 of 50 games).
1947 - Nothing. Two goalies received votes (Broda, Rayner, tied for 4th)
1948 - Nothing. Brimsek received votes (2nd).
1949 - Quality 2nd place finish. First goalie (Rayner received scant consideration in what was a two-horse race...Montreal struggled offensively this year, but I'm not sure why...other than perhaps the league was starting to fill back in, but that's lazy on my part).
1950 - 6th place finish. 2nd goalie (Rayner, 1st). 2nd on his team (Richard, 3rd) - not Hart related, but usurped for playoff starts for the first time by the small, but talented Gerry McNeil.

Do we have enough puzzle pieces to put together a picture that suggests that Durnan wasn't the engine that drove the team, but rather he was a beneficiary of being on the team least affected by the War? That's the impression in my head, but I've seen so little of Durnan's play that I'm taking a leap of faith...

Considering only one Hart Trophy was won by a goalie before Durnan retired, seems a very odd way to evaluate him.

Durnan played 7 seasons, only the first 2 were war years.

He was the first team all-star 6 of those seasons.

Won 2 Cups. Had 2.07 GAA in playoffs.

 

[MXD]

I'm not sure we can term Durnan's Hart record as "lackluster". Over the course of his career, he appears to have the best voting record of any goaltender.

As you say, a quality 2nd and 3rd place finish for Durnan. Chuck Rayner has the win in 1950 and some throwaway votes in other years. Brimsek has a decent 2nd place finish, nothing more. Broda has some throwaway votes in a couple seasons. Lumley has the one substantial 4th place finish.

I think the fact that we're only just discussing him for the first time now suggests that his dominant stats and all-star record have been significantly discounted. Montreal allowed the fewest goals in the league six out of his seven seasons. So for those low on Durnan, I'd ask if they are particularly high on defensemen Butch Bouchard and Ken Reardon (I can't imagine either will appear for voting in this project). If we took his six 1st-AS at face value, Durnan should have appeared right along with Dryden.

Montréal indeed had a very good defense, relative to the league, throughout Durnan's career.

He gets docked down a few points, because :
- That team should've won more than they did.
- He was significantly outplayed at least one contemporary goaltender in the playoffs.
- Yes, he won two cups. He was also on teams that were clearly the best in NHL. Never won anything when he wasn't in that situation.
- That wasn't exactly the strongest era.

Durnan wasn't an awful playoff goaltender, far from it. But, with all due respect, playoffs should be considered something of a non-factor for him. He was.. well... Bill Durnan. A solid netminder behind a solid defense behind a top-heavy offensive team who ended up having some depth issues.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Durnan played 7 seasons, only the first 2 were war years.

I think we've matured past the point of terming just years before we melted another country as the only War years, right? We understand that not all the talent returned, not all the talent returned to full form, not all the prospects returned, not all the prospects returned to full form and that the league didn't really normalize until late in the 1940's...

We don't honestly suggest that the day the War ended, all the hockey players - who were fighting a World War - just put their keys down on the coffee table and went back to crushing it in the NHL, do we? Because that's some video game stuff...

Nearly all of Durnan's career was in a weakened league...


(Also, that wasn't the only way I was evaluating him...for the record...it was just a point of conversation where there was none)

 

[quoipourquoi]

it may have been time in the wingers project when you wrote all that, but is it time here and now? we are not comparing selanne to pavel bure here we are comparing him to dickie moore.

i have no recollection of any mighty ducks playoff series before 2003, so i can’t judge. but i trust you are not counting 1993 selanne as an excellent performance. one excellent game, sure. overmatched by a superior team? absolutely. playing with historically bad playoff performers housley and tkachuk? yup. but still, there were five other games where you have fine excuses for not performing at a star level, not evidence of being excellent in the playoffs.

But we weren’t comparing him to Bure when I wrote that; we weren’t even comparing him to Dickie Moore. Besides Mahovlich, every player we were comparing him to in that round of the Wingers Project has already made this top-100 list: Bathgate, Conacher, Lindsay, Ovechkin, etc.

Teemu Selanne = Pavel Bure only really makes sense if we pretend he retired after getting traded from Anaheim in 2000-01 because despite starting a year later, he had already collected as many points as Bure had in his career before even joining the Sharks. Before his 2005-06 (90 points). Before his 2006 Olympics (leading scorer). Before his 2006-07 (3rd in Goals). Before his 2010-11 (8th in scoring at 40-years-old). Before his 2014 Olympics (MVP).

And one of the other five non-hat trick games in the first-round of 1993 saw him score the OT winner, giving him both of the Jets’ two GWGs. It would be nice if he scored 3 GWGs had he buried one in OT of Game 6, and even better if he scored 4 GWGs that way he had a signature run and we didn’t have to go in-depth year-by-year in his playoff record just to show the pattern of performance in the scattered years when he was one of the league’s best players.

Truth is that the Jets needed every one of his 4 goals to pull off the two wins they had, so it’s kind of a weird criticism of a losing series where we’re acknowledging that Vancouver outmatched Winnipeg.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

The first round where the new candidates significantly diverge from my original list. Not feeling inspired by most of this new group.

I'd have Denneny as the 5th or 6th best member of those Ottawa teams after Nighbor, Benedict, Boucher, Gerard, and maybe Cleghorn although he didn't spend much time there. In his defense, it's no shame to be considered lesser than those players, but it feels like it'd be reaching too far down for him at this point.

All project long I've been lower on players with short primes, so Moore and Durnan will take some convincing. Also, I remember reading a post somewhere on this board that showed Malone's ridiculous stats against Nighbor-less Ottawa in I think 1917-18. Anybody have that?

When did scoring actually become irrelevant?

In 11 seasons Denneny led the team in scoring 7 times. The last time he was 35 years old.

A very physical player, he was also known as the team's enforcer for much of his career. Took care of Nighbor & Darragh. Like a Clark Gillies who scored goals like Mike Bossy.

 

[overpass]

Durnan had a reputation for being a nervous type who felt the pressure. This was in stark contrast to his contemporary Turk Broda, who came across as cool and relaxed, joking around under pressure. This probably didn't help Durnan's reputation as a big-game player.

https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1955/3/19/why-big-league-goalies-crack-up

In the past five years two goalkeepers, Bill Durnan and Gerry McNeil, both of the Montreal Canadiens, have retired at the peak of their careers because of the pressure of playing major-league hockey, and in the last four years there have been twenty-five goalies performing at various times for the six teams in the NHL, an incredible average of more than four per club.

***

But the most celebrated victims of high tension belong to the modern group—Bill Durnan and Gerry McNeil, both of whom rejected a chance to earn about $15,000 a year from the Canadiens rather than face another season. McNeil even went to training camp last fall before deciding the money wasn’t worth the misery.

***
Bill Durnan had a different kind of problem—the Vezina Trophy. This award, along with a $1,000 cash prize, is given by the NHL to the goalkeeper who allows the least goals over a season. In seven years with the Canadiens Durnan won the Vezina an unprecedented six times. In each óf those six seasons he was voted to the NHL’s All-Star team, chosen annually by hockey writers and carrying an award of an additional $1,000 in cash for each player. But after earning the two laurels for the sixth time in 1950, plus playoff' money and a salary of $10,000 Durnan suddenly called a halt to the whole thing.
“The Vezina got to be a matter of personal pride with me after I’d won it a couple of times,” he says. “But the thing was always hanging over my head. Every time I blew a soft shot I suffered, and then I’d worry about blowing another soft shot and work twice as hard to avoid it.”
One night in a game against Toronto, Durnan set himself to stop a long shot by Reggie Hamilton, a defenseman who rarely scored. The puck skimmed along the ice and at the last second it struck a loose chip of ice, changed direction slightly and hopped over Durnan’s outstretched foot into the net.
Hamilton tried the same type of shot the next opportunity he got, and Durnan recalls that he was as taut as a violin string as he braced himself for the drive.
“I was prepared for that puck to hit any piece of ice in the building or for it to change course in any direction,” he recalls. “Only trouble was, it didn’t hit a damned thing; it went straight through my feet into the net again.”
He didn’t sleep all night, playing the two shots over and over again. The next day at practice he asked his coach if he’d let a player shoot that kind of long low shot at him after the regular practice session.
“I figured a puck might hit a piece of ice like that once in two hundred times,” Durnan explains, “so I wanted to forget odds like that and concentrate on the hundred and ninety-nine shots that didn't hit anything. Elmer Lach fired easy ice-skimming shots at me for an hour until I figured I’d prevented the thing from becoming a phobia.”
Durnan points out that playing goal involves physical as well as mental strain. “It would be tiring for most people simply to stand all through a game like a goaler does,” he says. “In the spring during the playoffs the temperature in those buildings climbs to the eighties. If a game goes into overtime a goaler might be on his feet under pressure for three hours. I used to lose from five to eight pounds every game. One time, in a playoff, I lost seventeen.”
That game was a Stanley Cup final in 1947 when the Leafs completely outplayed the Canadiens after Buddy O’Connor had put Canadiens ahead in the first minute of play. Toronto finally tied it and in overtime Gus Bodnar scored for the Leafs from a face-off after Durnan had played one of the greatest games in playoff history. Official tabulation showed that he’d stopped seventy-two shots, against a mere twenty-one by Broda.
A post-game picture in which the defeated Canadiens are congratulating the Stanley Cup-winning Leafs shows Broda and Durnan with their arms around each other, Broda looking harried and Durnan laughing heartily.
“I’d just stopped seventy-two shots,” Durnan says, “and the Turk had been having a picnic. But when we met the first thing he said was, ‘Jeepers, Bill, I’m getting too old to suffer like this.’ ”

***

In Montreal one night Bill Durnan’s mouth was badly cut in a goal-mouth pile-up and he was led away for stitching.
“There was absolutely nothing I feared more than stitches,” he recalls. “That needle scared me to death. To top it off there was no novocaine anaesthetic this night, and the interne kept muttering away about his sutures. ‘These damned dull sutures,’ he’d say, digging another one into my mouth.” Durnan was ready to scream when referee Bill Chadwick walked into the room. “How much longer is this going to take?” he asked.
“Almost finished,” said the intern.
“Well, hurry up,” grumbled Chadwick, turning to go, “there was a penalty shot on that play and Durnan’s gotta get out there.”
“The pay was good,” Durnan reflects, “but the wear and tear got to be more than I could take. The tension was almost as bad as the stitches'.”


https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1958/12/20/how-jacques-plante-brought-brinksmanship-to-the-nhl

Plante will never win a popularity contest because he seems compelled to blurt out exactly what he thinks, even if it means wounding his teammates. Nor is it likely that he will win immortality as a goalkeeper. There is a tendency to minimize his true worth because he has a team in front of him that includes many of the NHL's superstars. In addition, the Canadiens have had great goalkeepers in the past like Georges Vezina. for whom the Vezina Trophy, the Holy Grail of the goalers’ craft, was named; George Hainsworth, who scored twentytwo shutouts in one forty-four game season; and Bill Durnan. who won the Vezina Trophy six times and made the National Hockey League All-Star team six times too.
Durnan suffered a nervous breakdown in the playoffs with the New York Rangers in the spring of 1950 and asked to be replaced "for the good of the team.' He was succeeded by Gerry McNeil, who suffered a breakdown in the playoff scries with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1954. The Canadiens were behind in the series, three games to two. and coach Dick Irvin called Plante up from the minorleague Buffalo Bisons. He helped Canadiens beat the Black Hawks in the sixth game. 3-0. and the team went on to win the Stanley Cup. During the final series with Boston. McNeil returned and performed well, but the recuperation of his nerves proved only temporary and Plante took over as the regular goalkeeper at the start of the next season.

***

Great goalkeepers like Bill Durnan, Gerry McNeil and Detroit's Terry Sawchuk have cracked up under the gnawing and unyielding pressure of carrying the greatest single responsibility of any man on the team, but Plante is sure it will never happen to him.
"It's physical exhaustion that makes a goaler crack up." he claims. "His nerves are shot. It won't happen to me because I get enough sleep. I sleep a couple of hours every afternoon and I’m in bed around nine o'clock at night, wunter or summer. But I think it does a goaler good to have a short rest during the season.”

 

[Dr John Carlson]

When did scoring actually become irrelevant?

The further back in time you go, the more context is needed for looking at stats... the newspaper quotes paint him as not being as integral to the team as others. We're talking about hockey being played 100 years ago under vastly different conditions and rules. The expectation of what it meant to be a great player back then is almost certainly different than what the expectations are today.

And @BenchBrawl is right, I forgot about Clancy. No wonder that team ended up being the league's first dynasty.

 

[overpass]

I think you have to take Denneny’s stats seriously. Even if you end up rating other Senators over him, it’s important for the project to document why he would be rated less than his stats.

The Ottawa Senators, were a very strong regular season team for a full decade, from 1918-19 to 1927-28. They won the Stanley Cup in four of those seasons, concentrated primarily in the early 20s (1920, 1921, 1923, 1927). During this ten season stretch, they showed a remarkable ability to replace players.

Sprague Cleghorn was replaced by George Boucher, and while the Senators were never quite as good without Cleghorn, they won two Cups without him.

Eddie Gerard was replaced by King Clancy. They missed Gerard’s leadership for a couple of years but eventually won another Cup behind Clancy.

Clint Benedict was replaced by Alec Connell.

Frank Nighbor was a constant throughout the decade and was never successfully replaced by anyone. Hence his high rating in this project, as the key piece of a dynasty. Hooley Smith was supposed to be his replacement as a hook-checking, two-way centre, and it might have worked, but Ottawa had to let him go to the Maroons as money flooded into the NHL of the late 20s.

Cy Denneny was also on the Ottawa roster for the full decade in question. And he was indeed the leading scorer for most of the regular seasons. He also led them in playoff scoring over the decade. Wasn’t he, like Nighbor, an irreplaceable part? Well, there are a few reasons to suggest he wasn’t.

1. In 1917-18, Cy Denneny played a full season and finished second in league scoring with 36 goals, not far behind Joe Malone’s record season. Frank Nighbor missed half the season. Ottawa finished third in the league with a 9-13 record. So a prime Cy Denneny scoring season was no guarantee of team success, but the loss of Frank Nighbor was devastating.

2. In 1919-20, the Ottawa roster was loaded and they dominated the regular season. Denneny spent most of the season as a substitute on the wing, and finished behind Jack Darragh and Punch Broadbent in scoring. In the finals, Denneny was a substitute and not a factor, and George Boucher, Punch Broadbent, and Jack Darragh were all used ahead of him on wing. Boucher and Darragh were among Ottawa’s stars in the final. So when Ottawa’s lineup was at its deepest, Denneny could barely get on the ice. To be fair, it’s possible that Denneny was playing hurt or was not in shape that year, but it would be a coincidence for that to happen in the one season when he had serious competition for playing time on the wing.

3. More generally, in Ottawa’s Cup winning playoffs of 1920, 1921, and 1923, Denneny was only fifth in goals and tied for second in points. Again, among wingers, Darragh and Broadbent were right there with him. So on the best teams, in the biggest moments, he did not stand out.

Nighbor: 8 goals, 15 pts
Darragh: 11 goals, 13 pts
Denneny: 7 goals, 13 pts
Boucher: 9 goals, 11 pts
Broadbent: 8 goals, 11 pts

4. Punch Broadbent led all NHL scorers in goals and points in 1921-22. One of the more random leaders, his season almost came out of nowhere. Jack Darragh didn’t play, leaving the playing time on the wing wide open for Denneny and Broadbent. This raises the question—how many wingers could have put up big scoring numbers on the Ottawa Senators of the 1920s, when given a full season as a starter?

5. Some of Denneny’s best scoring regular seasons come in 1924, 1925, and 1926 when Ottawa doesn’t have any playoff success.

6. Denneny is basically done as of the 1927-28 season, becoming a rarely used substitute. Speedsters Frank Finnigan and Hec Kilrea take over the wing positions. Ottawa does have a worse record in the regular season, but their goal differential is actually slightly better. How much did they miss Denneny? Edit: OK, I have to be fair, they probably missed his 1927 playoff goal scoring in 1928 when they only scored 1 goal in 2 games against the Maroons.

I realize I’ve framed this to be unfavourable to Denneny, but I just get the feeling that he racked up offensive totals in a position where a lot of skilled players could have done the same—with Frank Nighbor centering him and with some combination of Eddie Gerard, Sprague Cleghorn, George Boucher, and King Clancy rushing the puck from the back.

 

[sr edler]

Truth is that the Jets needed every one of his 4 goals to pull off the two wins they had, so it’s kind of a weird criticism of a losing series where we’re acknowledging that Vancouver outmatched Winnipeg.

The criticism is perhaps he sprayed too much ketchup in the regular season against opponents like LAK, EDM, SJS giving a half/half fraudulent picture of a potential world beater. And this not only applies to 92–93, but partly. Bure was an all situations player both in RS and SCPs, but let's not get too off topic here.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I think you have to take Denneny’s stats seriously. Even if you end up rating other Senators over him, it’s important for the project to document why he would be rated less than his stats.

The Ottawa Senators, were a very strong regular season team for a full decade, from 1918-19 to 1927-28. They won the Stanley Cup in four of those seasons, concentrated primarily in the early 20s (1920, 1921, 1923, 1927). During this ten season stretch, they showed a remarkable ability to replace players.

Sprague Cleghorn was replaced by George Boucher, and while the Senators were never quite as good without Cleghorn, they won two Cups without him.

Eddie Gerard was replaced by King Clancy. They missed Gerard’s leadership for a couple of years but eventually won another Cup behind Clancy.

Clint Benedict was replaced by Alec Connell.

Frank Nighbor was a constant throughout the decade and was never successfully replaced by anyone. Hence his high rating in this project, as the key piece of a dynasty. Hooley Smith was supposed to be his replacement as a hook-checking, two-way centre, and it might have worked, but Ottawa had to let him go to the Maroons as money flooded into the NHL of the late 20s.

Cy Denneny was also on the Ottawa roster for the full decade in question. And he was indeed the leading scorer for most of the regular seasons. He also led them in playoff scoring over the decade. Wasn’t he, like Nighbor, an irreplaceable part? Well, there are a few reasons to suggest he wasn’t.

1. In 1917-18, Cy Denneny played a full season and finished second in league scoring with 36 goals, not far behind Joe Malone’s record season. Frank Nighbor missed half the season. Ottawa finished third in the league with a 9-13 record. So a prime Cy Denneny scoring season was no guarantee of team success, but the loss of Frank Nighbor was devastating.

2. In 1919-20, the Ottawa roster was loaded and they dominated the regular season. Denneny spent most of the season as a substitute on the wing, and finished behind Jack Darragh and Punch Broadbent in scoring. In the finals, Denneny was a substitute and not a factor, and George Boucher, Punch Broadbent, and Jack Darragh were all used ahead of him on wing. Boucher and Darragh were among Ottawa’s stars in the final. So when Ottawa’s lineup was at its deepest, Denneny could barely get on the ice. To be fair, it’s possible that Denneny was playing hurt or was not in shape that year, but it would be a coincidence for that to happen in the one season when he had serious competition for playing time on the wing.

3. More generally, in Ottawa’s Cup winning playoffs of 1920, 1921, and 1923, Denneny was only fifth in goals and tied for second in points. Again, among wingers, Darragh and Broadbent were right there with him. So on the best teams, in the biggest moments, he did not stand out.

Nighbor: 8 goals, 15 pts
Darragh: 11 goals, 13 pts
Denneny: 7 goals, 13 pts
Boucher: 9 goals, 11 pts
Broadbent: 8 goals, 11 pts

4. Punch Broadbent led all NHL scorers in goals and points in 1921-22. One of the more random leaders, his season almost came out of nowhere. Jack Darragh didn’t play, leaving the playing time on the wing wide open for Denneny and Broadbent. This raises the question—how many wingers could have put up big scoring numbers on the Ottawa Senators of the 1920s, when given a full season as a starter?

5. Some of Denneny’s best scoring regular seasons come in 1924, 1925, and 1926 when Ottawa doesn’t have any playoff success.

6. Denneny is basically done as of the 1927-28 season, becoming a rarely used substitute. Speedsters Frank Finnigan and Hec Kilrea take over the wing positions. Ottawa does have a worse record in the regular season, but their goal differential is actually slightly better. How much did they miss Denneny?

I realize I’ve framed this to be unfavourable to Denneny, but I just get the feeling that he racked up offensive totals in a position where a lot of skilled players could have done the same—with Frank Nighbor centering him and with some combination of Eddie Gerard, Sprague Cleghorn, George Boucher, and King Clancy rushing the puck from the back.

Incredible post deserving of more than a ''like''.

Thank you for taking the time to present the case in a clear yet throughout manner.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

But we weren’t comparing him to Bure when I wrote that; we weren’t even comparing him to Dickie Moore. Besides Mahovlich, every player we were comparing him to in that round of the Wingers Project has already made this top-100 list: Bathgate, Conacher, Lindsay, Ovechkin, etc.

Teemu Selanne = Pavel Bure only really makes sense if we pretend he retired after getting traded from Anaheim in 2000-01 because despite starting a year later, he had already collected as many points as Bure had in his career before even joining the Sharks. Before his 2005-06 (90 points). Before his 2006 Olympics (leading scorer). Before his 2006-07 (3rd in Goals). Before his 2010-11 (8th in scoring at 40-years-old). Before his 2014 Olympics (MVP).

And one of the other five non-hat trick games in the first-round of 1993 saw him score the OT winner, giving him both of the Jets’ two GWGs. It would be nice if he scored 3 GWGs had he buried one in OT of Game 6, and even better if he scored 4 GWGs that way he had a signature run and we didn’t have to go in-depth year-by-year in his playoff record just to show the pattern of performance in the scattered years when he was one of the league’s best players.

Truth is that the Jets needed every one of his 4 goals to pull off the two wins they had, so it’s kind of a weird criticism of a losing series where we’re acknowledging that Vancouver outmatched Winnipeg.

well we can certainly agree we are not comparing selanne to bure here, though those were the days, eh?

re: the 93 smythe semis, if you watched that series and tell me that selanne was excellent then i’ll respect that and admit it was a long time ago and i may need to go back and reevaluate because one of us would be remembering wrong. but i watched every second of that series and, given how much we all were anticipating the match up, was underwhelmed by selanne’s performance (relative to the standard of his regular season). that was legitimately a two line jets team and he was very quiet, basically shut down by vancouver’s big defense except that one game where the pp went off. he just was not (yet) a guy you saw all over the ice making things happen. although, of course, he was obviously still dangerous bc all he needed was a split second opening to get free and/or get that shot off, as evidenced by the goals he did score.

a 30 minute recap of that series is freely available on youtube. a 30 min recap of game six and the full hat trick game are also there to watch.

but i’m not calling selanne a naslund or thornton. i’m just saying i don’t think the playoff record you are showing here puts him in the ballpark of the other guys up here.

basically, i echo this:

Appreciate this run down. I would say this exonerates Selanne from any accusations that he didn't show up in the playoffs or for big games in general.

But I still don't think this necessarily means he is due for induction to the list at this stage.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

on more reflection i giess i find it hard to say selanne belongs when there’s a third three time goal scoring champ winger from the 90s who isn’t up yet (and rightfully so, imo).

feels early for macinnis too, and i love that guy.

dickie moore is interesting to me. resume and what i know of his playing style/skillset looks like a rich man’s corey perry. but man those are some serious riches. all those cups, two rosses, leading the playoffs in scoring twice, in goals, in assists. and then there’s the legit question of whether the spike scoring peak was more valuable or, as c1958 tells us, him being the go to guy to take on howe (and bathgate).

 

[kruezer]

I promised to re-post this when Malone showed up, so here it is plus a few more Malone related thoughts. He arrives at 21 and until 31 he is remarkably consistent (aside from injuries). His NHA/NHL scoring finishes are…

Year	League Rank	Team Rank
11/12	6th	1st
12/13	1st	1st
13/14	7th	2nd
14/15	Injured	Unsure
15/16	2nd	1st
16/17	2nd	1st
17/18	1st	1st
18/19	Injured	6th
19/20	1st	1st
20/21	4th	1st
21/22	5th	1st

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

3 times leading the league in scoring and 2 seconds, along with another 2 years where he was hurt but on pace for top 2 is a really impressive stretch of 11 years for the 10s/20s. Is it fair to say if the league wasn’t split Malone gets 8 or 9 top 10 point finishes with 5 in the top 5 and a Ross or two? It's an impressive run.

Unlike Denneny, Malone was generally the best player on his team, or at least was the offensive leader of his team. Aside from injury hit years he had just 1 season where he was second on his team in scoring.

I am not sure what we should dock him for the WWI years. Would be very interested to hear what people think about WWI and its affect in the NHA and PCHA.

I think he belongs behind Vezina, for a guy that was from a similar time period, depending on how much mileage we give goalies at the time. I could see an argument for putting Vezina below Malone, but only if it's because we are docking goalies as a position at the time.

I think he's solidly ahead of Denneny for me though.

A question for me is how does he relate to two guys that might show up soon-ish in Bill Cowley and Nels Stewart. Both have Hart trophies, and in a non-split league (at least for Bill, I can't recall if Nels' were pre-1927). Both are all offense guys with Hart's. Does Malone win a Hart or two if they existed? And in a non-split league over Taylor/Lalonde?

I would like to dig more into his Stanley Cup showings. Off the cuff he performed well offensively 3 out of 5 times.

 

[Michael Farkas]

dickie moore is interesting to me. resume and what i know of his playing style/skillset looks like a rich man’s corey perry. but man those are some serious riches. all those cups, two rosses, leading the playoffs in scoring twice, in goals, in assists. and then there’s the legit question of whether the spike scoring peak was more valuable or, as c1958 tells us, him being the go to guy to take on howe (and bathgate).

Much better puck carrier, much more skill in open ice, much more responsible and a much better skater than Corey Perry. Not similar in my eyes. He made offense, he didn't just cap it off.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I think you have to take Denneny’s stats seriously. Even if you end up rating other Senators over him, it’s important for the project to document why he would be rated less than his stats.

The Ottawa Senators, were a very strong regular season team for a full decade, from 1918-19 to 1927-28. They won the Stanley Cup in four of those seasons, concentrated primarily in the early 20s (1920, 1921, 1923, 1927). During this ten season stretch, they showed a remarkable ability to replace players.

Sprague Cleghorn was replaced by George Boucher, and while the Senators were never quite as good without Cleghorn, they won two Cups without him.

Eddie Gerard was replaced by King Clancy. They missed Gerard’s leadership for a couple of years but eventually won another Cup behind Clancy.

Clint Benedict was replaced by Alec Connell.

Frank Nighbor was a constant throughout the decade and was never successfully replaced by anyone. Hence his high rating in this project, as the key piece of a dynasty. Hooley Smith was supposed to be his replacement as a hook-checking, two-way centre, and it might have worked, but Ottawa had to let him go to the Maroons as money flooded into the NHL of the late 20s.

Cy Denneny was also on the Ottawa roster for the full decade in question. And he was indeed the leading scorer for most of the regular seasons. He also led them in playoff scoring over the decade. Wasn’t he, like Nighbor, an irreplaceable part? Well, there are a few reasons to suggest he wasn’t.

1. In 1917-18, Cy Denneny played a full season and finished second in league scoring with 36 goals, not far behind Joe Malone’s record season. Frank Nighbor missed half the season. Ottawa finished third in the league with a 9-13 record. So a prime Cy Denneny scoring season was no guarantee of team success, but the loss of Frank Nighbor was devastating.

2. In 1919-20, the Ottawa roster was loaded and they dominated the regular season. Denneny spent most of the season as a substitute on the wing, and finished behind Jack Darragh and Punch Broadbent in scoring. In the finals, Denneny was a substitute and not a factor, and George Boucher, Punch Broadbent, and Jack Darragh were all used ahead of him on wing. Boucher and Darragh were among Ottawa’s stars in the final. So when Ottawa’s lineup was at its deepest, Denneny could barely get on the ice. To be fair, it’s possible that Denneny was playing hurt or was not in shape that year, but it would be a coincidence for that to happen in the one season when he had serious competition for playing time on the wing.

3. More generally, in Ottawa’s Cup winning playoffs of 1920, 1921, and 1923, Denneny was only fifth in goals and tied for second in points. Again, among wingers, Darragh and Broadbent were right there with him. So on the best teams, in the biggest moments, he did not stand out.

Nighbor: 8 goals, 15 pts
Darragh: 11 goals, 13 pts
Denneny: 7 goals, 13 pts
Boucher: 9 goals, 11 pts
Broadbent: 8 goals, 11 pts

4. Punch Broadbent led all NHL scorers in goals and points in 1921-22. One of the more random leaders, his season almost came out of nowhere. Jack Darragh didn’t play, leaving the playing time on the wing wide open for Denneny and Broadbent. This raises the question—how many wingers could have put up big scoring numbers on the Ottawa Senators of the 1920s, when given a full season as a starter?

5. Some of Denneny’s best scoring regular seasons come in 1924, 1925, and 1926 when Ottawa doesn’t have any playoff success.

6. Denneny is basically done as of the 1927-28 season, becoming a rarely used substitute. Speedsters Frank Finnigan and Hec Kilrea take over the wing positions. Ottawa does have a worse record in the regular season, but their goal differential is actually slightly better. How much did they miss Denneny? Edit: OK, I have to be fair, they probably missed his 1927 playoff goal scoring in 1928 when they only scored 1 goal in 2 games against the Maroons.

I realize I’ve framed this to be unfavourable to Denneny, but I just get the feeling that he racked up offensive totals in a position where a lot of skilled players could have done the same—with Frank Nighbor centering him and with some combination of Eddie Gerard, Sprague Cleghorn, George Boucher, and King Clancy rushing the puck from the back.

Great post.

Point is Denneny was a product of the great players around.

Still, he outscored them all. Including Nighbor. Not saying he was in Nighbor's class as a player, he wasn't. But for his time he was one of the very best goal scorers. Third all-time in goals per game.