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

[Michael Farkas]

I think the key here is to look at the arguements and then evaluate the information.

For instance the 80s had 21 NHL team with a decent influx of good quality players from non traditional talent streams.

The 70s for the last 7 years had more than 30 professional North American teams so talent was spread out a lot more.

There probably was along more "talent" in the 80s NHL.

Sure...so, by the time it normalized in the later part of the decade, the game was better...yes. It also gave us perhaps our best international tournament...87 CC...

 

[Theokritos]

It also gave us perhaps our best international tournament...87 CC...

Not that it's terriblly relevant, but what makes the 87 CC the best international tournament? The entertainment value of the memoriably close and exciting finals between Canada and the USSR?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Bill Durnan was not nearly as good as his All-Star record appears at first glance

1. The Montreal Canadiens were much less affected by WW2 than any other team

Books have been written about the war-time NHL, but for the purposes of this post, one quote from wikipedia should suffice:

By 1943, the war effort had a devastating effect on many rosters. The Red Wings lost nine players and the Maple Leafs lost six to the military.[70] The Rangers lost ten players and had to be persuaded by the other teams not to suspend operations.[71][72] In contrast, the Canadiens lost only one key player in Ken Reardon. Young phenom Maurice Richard tried to enlist, but was turned down due to his medical history.[71] Canadiens General Manager Tommy Gorman reportedly ensured his players obtained jobs in key wartime industries to avoid conscription.[73]

History of the Montreal Canadiens - Wikipedia

Just looking at the Canadiens roster during the worse of war years (1943-44 and 1944-45), they look like almost any normal O6 team, while the other teams rosters are flat out terrible in comparison

2. When Durnan played, the 1st Team AS went to the GAA leader every year.

This was a big part of the case for Frank Brimsek, and was posted in previous rounds.

From 1935-1956, the 1st Team All Star was the goalie who led the league in GAA (among goalies who played at least 75% of the games) 100% of the time. The 2nd Team All Star was NOT always the goalie who was 2nd. Does this mean we should take 2nd Teams as seriously as 1st Teams for this era? Conversely, there is no reason to be certain that the 1st Team All-Star was better than the 2nd Team All-Star by the "eye test."

Certainly, newpaper articles during even the height of Durnan's prime seemed split between him and Brimsek as the best.

For a more concrete example, note that over his long illustrious career, Durnan contemporary Turk Broda was a 1st Team All Star exactly twice - the two times he led the league in GAA.

3. For 2 of Durnan's 1st Team nods, he beat out "competition" than belonged in the AHL (or lower). And a 3rd wasn't much better.

Every other NHL starter from 1943 went off to war for 1944 and 1945 (including the only 3 to get All Star votes in 1943 - Johnny Mowers, Frank Brimsek, and Turk Broda), and Durnan was left to beat up on what was left. Durnan's 1946 All Star Team wasn't much better, as Brimsek (34 of 50 games) and Broda (16 of 50 games) arrived late from the war. Brimsek was a 2nd Teamer, despite only playing 68% of the games in an era where starters usually played 100%.

1943-44: GOALTENDER: Bill Durnan, Mtl 756 (28-0); Paul Bibeault, Tor 175 (0-21); Mike Karakas, Chi 42 (0-4); Connie Dion, Det 28 (0-2); Bert Gardiner, Bos 7 (0-1)

1944-45: GOALTENDER: Bill Durnan, Mtl 378 (27-0); Mike Karakas, Chi 79 (0-14); Frank McCool, Tor 34 (0-10); Harry Lumley, Det 10 (0-2); Ken McAuley, NYR 3 (0-1)

1945-46: GOALTENDER: Bill Durnan, Mtl (15-2); Frank Brimsek, Bos (2-8); Harry Lumley, Det (1-7);
NOTE Brimsek missed 1/3 of the season due to the war and still finished 2nd.

4. Even contemporary sources wondered whether Durnan was a product of WW2:

Here's an article from the beginning of the 1946-47 season:

With the return of Johnny Mowers, completing the old "Big Three" of National Hockey League netminding, Goalie Bill Durnan of the Stanley Cup Montreal Canadiens may as well prepare now for a first-class struggle to defend his stranglehold on the Vezina trophy for these last three years

Durnan, like the Canadiens themselves, has drawn accusations of "ersatz king" of the netminders from some observers, who contended through the latter war years that the test of greatness for both the team and its individuals will come in this season when the roster of returning stars from the service is completed.
...
The other two of goaltending's big three, Frankie Brimsek of Boston and Walter (Turk) Broda of Toronto Maple Leafs rejoined their clubs late last season and this will be their first full test. Now Manager Jack Adams of Detroit Red Wings has decided that the 31 year old Mowers is "ready to go".

That means the old big 3 and Johnny-come-lately Durnan will all be showing their wares tonight when the NHL stages its first all-out hockey night of the season that started last Wednesday.

The Calgary Herald, Oct 26, 1946
The Calgary Herald - Google News Archive Search

5. His playoff record is disappointing, compared to how stacked his team was (relative to the war-torn competition)

The Canadiens destroyed the NHL in the regular season in the 2 worst war years, as they should have (see point #1). 38-5-7 record in 1944, followed by an easy Cup. 38-8-4 in 1945, followed by one of the biggest upsets in NHL history, of which Durnan deserves his share of blame. Canadiens lost in the 1st round 4-2 as Durnan was outdueled by nobody Frank McCool: 1945 NHL Stanley Cup Semi-Finals: MTL vs. TOR | Hockey-Reference.com

One bad playoff year doesn't make a career, but with regular season finishes of 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, winning 2 Cups is somewhat disappointing, especially when the team was easily the best in the NHL from 1944-1946 (again, see point #1).

6. Durnan retired in the middle of the 1950 playoffs

@overpass made a much more thorough post about Durnan regularly feeling the pressure. His retirement is the most famous instance:

Durnan left the game he loved because of the pressures involved in tending the net.

"Hockey started to get rough for me at the end of the 40's. I had broken my hand and after it mended it felt as if my arm was falling off whenever I'd catch the puck," said Durnan. "One of my main reasons for chucking it all was because the fun was going out of the game for me. A lot of my old pals were leaving - or had gone - and much of the camaraderie was missing."

Durnan also cited the money as a reason he got out of hockey.

"My reflexes had gotten a little slow and, besides, the money wasn't really that good. I'll admit, if they were paying the kind of money goaltenders get today, they'd have had to shoot me to get me out of the game! But at the end of any given season when I was playing I never seemed to have more than $2000 in the bank, so I wasn't really getting anywhere that way. I wasn't educated and I had two girls to raise."

Things came to a head in the 1950 playoffs against the New York Rangers however. The Rangers were on the verge of an upset when they had the Habs on the brink of elimination 3 games to 1. Durnan pulled himself from the series.

"I was afraid I was blowing things. I really wasn't, I guess, but we hadn't won a game and I didn't want to be blamed for it. And I felt I wasn't playing as well as I did in the past.. The nerves and all the accompanying crap were built up. It was the culmination of a lot of thinking and I realized 'What the hell, I'm quitting and this is as good as time as any'"

Gerry McNeil stepped in and finished the playoffs.

Montreal Canadiens Legends: Bill Durnan
___________________________

I wasn't originally going to include this in my post, but found it while browsing the HOH Top Goalies project. It's not my argument, but I'm putting it here to be complete:

7. While Durnan led the NHL in GAA every year he was awarded 1st Team All-Star, his cumulative statistical record doesn't really stand out compared to a number of goalies who aren't options yet.

Some voters seem to be getting frustrated with the continued fall of Bill Durnan, and as one of the voters who has not yet ranked Durnan in any round so far and does not currently plan to rank him in the top four this round either, I wanted to point out again the reasons why I strongly suspect that Durnan may be largely overrated in a historical context.

The biggest reason is that I think Durnan's actual performance relative to the competition is much less impressive than his trophy case suggests that it was. A big part of Durnan's case is based on those awards, as pretty much every summary of his career talks primarily about his Vezina Trophies and All-Star selections, and all those things certainly would have had an impact on rating his performances.

However, I am not a trophy counter (because I think the voters don't always get it right and because one season is really not a large sample size for goalies), and therefore I don't put very much weight at all on Vezinas or All-Star Team selection. Durnan's career also falls smack in the middle of the period where the GAA leader was always the 1AST (as long as they played at least 75% of the games), which means there is even less information encapsulated in his award history than usual. All that means I believe there is good reason to put a much heavier weighting on Durnan's numbers than on the awards he won.

I prefer to look at saves and goals against over multiple seasons rather than single season awards, and on that score there are definitely reasons not to be completely sold on Bill Durnan. I already presented some save percentage evidence, which was fairly questioned based on the issues of completeness and unofficial recording, but I think you can adjust for the missing data and assume some scorer undercounting in Montreal and still have to conclude that Durnan's save percentages were not dominant relative to the rest of the league in 1948-49 and 1949-50.

Even leaving those numbers aside, however, when you look at Durnan's actual GAA numbers vs. the rest of the league he is not quite as much of an outlier as one might expect given the number of times he led the league in that department. Looking at the five non-war years he played in the NHL, Durnan posted a 2.38 GAA compared to the league average of 2.95, meaning he allowed 19% fewer goals against than average. That is certainly excellent, but it's not an absurd number for a five season stretch, even among goalies who are generally ranked below Durnan. From 1928-29 to 1932-33, Tiny Thompson was also 19% better than league average (1.87 vs. 2.32). George Hainsworth from 1926-27 to 1930-31 was 27% below average (1.56 vs. 2.14). Yet because those periods overlapped, neither of those goalies was able to lead the league in GAA year after year like Durnan did. Nor were they able to rack up All-Star selections since the official awards didn't exist until 1930-31.

Other examples from this group would be Johnny Bower, 15% below league average over a ten year stretch from 1958-59 to 1967-68 (2.48 vs. 2.93), and Tony Esposito and Bernie Parent, who both had five year stretches at over 30% below league average (albeit in an expanded league).

From there we can get into discussions about team defensive strength and the depth of the talent pool and quality of the other goalie competition in the league. Maybe some points can be made there in favour of Durnan relative to some of the others mentioned, but the point is that the GAA vs. league average over multiple seasons framing puts Durnan at a very different starting point relative to the competition than if we begin the discussion with Vezinas and All-Star Teams.

To further support the argument, here are prime GVT numbers for the six goalies in this round who had their entire careers in the GVT era (1943-44 onwards). I took a minimum of five consecutive seasons for each goalie, and extended the period for goalies who performed at a consistent level for a longer period of time:

Parent: 5 seasons, 169.5 GVT in 262 GP, 0.65 GVT/GP
Bower: 7 seasons, 190.0 GVT in 345 GP, 0.55 GVT/GP
Esposito: 7 seasons, 223.1 GVT in 433 GP, 0.52 GVT/GP
Durnan: 5 seasons, 147.7 GVT in 283 GP, 0.52 GVT/GP
B. Smith: 10 seasons, 199.8 GVT in 419 GP, 0.48 GVT/GP
Belfour: 5 seasons, 138.4 GVT in 309 GP, 0.45 GVT/GP

In terms of GVT/GP, Durnan doesn't really stand out from the pack at all. Factoring in length of prime, playoffs, the size of the talent pool each goalie was competing against and possible shot prevention/shot undercounting for Belfour, I think there might well be a reasonable argument to rank Durnan last out of the six.

At the very least, this shows how Durnan needs to have his two war years (1943-44 and 1944-45) considered to be elite, all-time great seasons just to support the claim that he had a better prime than the goalies he is up against even in this round of voting. Durnan definitely had dominant stats in those two seasons, but the difficulty is that it is hard to isolate his individual contribution given that the Habs were just so much better than the rest of the league.

It was briefly mentioned as well last thread about Dick Irvin possibly being a coach that rode his players hard during the regular season, which would help a goalie's regular season stats. The Canadiens were less effective in the playoffs than their regular season results suggested, even though Durnan's regular season vs. playoff split was fairly typical for the period. To me that suggests that it was more of a team failure than a Durnan failure, which may mean that he shouldn't bear much of the blame for those playoff losses. Unfortunately, the flip side to that is the implication that Durnan's regular season stats may have been boosted. Newspaper articles during Durnan's rookie season talked about the Canadiens' backchecking and strong defensive play and debated how much Durnan was responsible for his ridiculous numbers. Durnan did not get to the NHL until relatively late in his career and he quit relative early, which just adds more uncertainty to his overall record.

In summary, I am still not sure that Durnan's peak really stands out that much among this group of goalies. That's a big problem given that he is giving up a big longevity edge to all of them and has a less distinguished playoff record than most. As a result, I still don't think that it is a open and shut case for Durnan being a top 16 all-time goalie.

 

[kruezer]

Can you explain why Malone is solidly ahead of Denneny? I'm not seeing it. Over the long run, Denneny was a better producer in the regular season, from the wing, and enjoyed infinitely more team success. Both non-factors defensively, but in Denneny's case it might be because he could afford to be, while still contributing greatly to winning, while Malone's loafing may have been a big reason why his teams never went anywhere. Also, Denneny at least had a physical dimension.

Fair question. To review my opinion on this.

I think its meaningful that when they played together Malone was subservient to Lalonde, especially in the POs. Malone probably would have filled the same role as Denneny if he was on the Senators, so I should at least take away the solidly part of my comment.

I'm not sure that Denneny was the better RS producer though. Cy had 12 meaningful years after he arrived at 24. Malone had 11 after he arrived at 21. Malone lead his league in scoring 3 times, and was top two another two times. Cy was 1st once and 2nd 5 times (he had a third too, but that same season Malone was fourth and played 4 less games so that's probably a wash). Cy only had 1 injury shortened campaign though whereas Malone had 2 and played 1 less meaningful season so Cy does add career value.

They are very close upon review, I think I'd take Malone for having done more with less though in terms of teammates in the RS.

Does Cy's superior PO record put him over the top? Does anyone with a copy of Trail of the SC have any info on Malone's SC play? He produced offensively in 11/12, but Jack McDonald led the team in scoring over the 2 games. He dominated game 1 in 12/13 but didn't play in game 2, not sure why.

 

[MXD]

...WTH, my paternal grand-dad was from Durnan's generation, raised 14 children and probably had only a vague idea of what was a bank account by 1950. #catholicism #grande_noirceur

 

[overpass]

Jim Hendy published an allstar team voted on by coaches for the 1945-46 season. Durnan was only the second team all-star, edged out by Harry Lumley in a tiebreaker. So there’s a data point that doesn’t rank Durnan as highly as his all star results.

WE NOMINATE... | Maclean's | MARCH 15, 1946

Bill Durnan, goaltender for Montreal Canadiens, who dominated most all-star teams in that position last season, had to be content to tie for first-team honors this year with youthful Harry Lumley of the Detroit Red Wings. Three out of six pilots picked Lumley for the first team and one placed him on the second. Two of them couldn’t see him at all. Durnan received only one first-team vote; four for second.

Bill Durnan was not nearly as good as his All-Star record appears at first glance

1. The Montreal Canadiens were much less affected by WW2 than any other team

Books have been written about the war-time NHL, but for the purposes of this post, one quote from wikipedia should suffice:



History of the Montreal Canadiens - Wikipedia

Just looking at the Canadiens roster during the worse of war years (1943-44 and 1944-45), they look like almost any normal O6 team, while the other teams rosters are flat out terrible in comparison

2. When Durnan played, the 1st Team AS went to the GAA leader every year.

This was a big part of the case for Frank Brimsek, and was posted in previous rounds.

From 1935-1956, the 1st Team All Star was the goalie who led the league in GAA (among goalies who played at least 75% of the games) 100% of the time. The 2nd Team All Star was NOT always the goalie who was 2nd. Does this mean we should take 2nd Teams as seriously as 1st Teams for this era? Conversely, there is no reason to be certain that the 1st Team All-Star was better than the 2nd Team All-Star by the "eye test."

Certainly, newpaper articles during even the height of Durnan's prime seemed split between him and Brimsek as the best.

For a more concrete example, note that over his long illustrious career, Durnan contemporary Turk Broda was a 1st Team All Star exactly twice - the two times he led the league in GAA.

3. For 2 of Durnan's 1st Team nods, he beat out "competition" than belonged in the AHL (or lower). And a 3rd wasn't much better.

Every other NHL starter from 1943 went off to war for 1944 and 1945 (including the only 3 to get All Star votes in 1943 - Johnny Mowers, Frank Brimsek, and Turk Broda), and Durnan was left to beat up on what was left. Durnan's 1946 All Star Team wasn't much better, as Brimsek (34 of 50 games) and Broda (16 of 50 games) arrived late from the war. Brimsek was a 2nd Teamer, despite only playing 68% of the games in an era where starters usually played 100%.

1943-44: GOALTENDER: Bill Durnan, Mtl 756 (28-0); Paul Bibeault, Tor 175 (0-21); Mike Karakas, Chi 42 (0-4); Connie Dion, Det 28 (0-2); Bert Gardiner, Bos 7 (0-1)

1944-45: GOALTENDER: Bill Durnan, Mtl 378 (27-0); Mike Karakas, Chi 79 (0-14); Frank McCool, Tor 34 (0-10); Harry Lumley, Det 10 (0-2); Ken McAuley, NYR 3 (0-1)

1945-46: GOALTENDER: Bill Durnan, Mtl (15-2); Frank Brimsek, Bos (2-8); Harry Lumley, Det (1-7);
NOTE Brimsek missed 1/3 of the season due to the war and still finished 2nd.

4. Even contemporary sources wondered whether Durnan was a product of WW2:

Here's an article from the beginning of the 1946-47 season:



The Calgary Herald, Oct 26, 1946
The Calgary Herald - Google News Archive Search

5. His playoff record is disappointing, compared to how stacked his team was (relative to the war-torn competition)

The Canadiens destroyed the NHL in the regular season in the 2 worst war years, as they should have (see point #1). 38-5-7 record in 1944, followed by an easy Cup. 38-8-4 in 1945, followed by one of the biggest upsets in NHL history, of which Durnan deserves his share of blame. Canadiens lost in the 1st round 4-2 as Durnan was outdueled by nobody Frank McCool: 1945 NHL Stanley Cup Semi-Finals: MTL vs. TOR | Hockey-Reference.com

One bad playoff year doesn't make a career, but with regular season finishes of 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, winning 2 Cups is somewhat disappointing, especially when the team was easily the best in the NHL from 1944-1946 (again, see point #1).

6. Durnan retired in the middle of the 1950 playoffs

@overpass made a much more thorough post about Durnan regularly feeling the pressure. His retirement is the most famous instance:



Montreal Canadiens Legends: Bill Durnan
___________________________

I wasn't originally going to include this in my post, but found it while browsing the HOH Top Goalies project. It's not my argument, but I'm putting it here to be complete:

7. While Durnan led the NHL in GAA every year he was awarded 1st Team All-Star, his cumulative statistical record doesn't really stand out compared to a number of goalies who aren't options yet.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Jim Hendy published an allstar team voted on by coaches for the 1945-46 season. Durnan was only the second team all-star, edged out by Harry Lumley in a tiebreaker. So there’s a data point that doesn’t rank Durnan as highly as his all star results.

WE NOMINATE... | Maclean's | MARCH 15, 1946

Bill Durnan, goaltender for Montreal Canadiens, who dominated most all-star teams in that position last season, had to be content to tie for first-team honors this year with youthful Harry Lumley of the Detroit Red Wings. Three out of six pilots picked Lumley for the first team and one placed him on the second. Two of them couldn’t see him at all. Durnan received only one first-team vote; four for second.

So a group that didn’t strictly adhere to GA still had him tied for first and with the most appearances on ballots?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Not that it's terriblly relevant, but what makes the 87 CC the best international tournament? The entertainment value of the memoriably close and exciting finals between Canada and the USSR?

Yeah, I mean, just the overall quality of the games and the memorable finishes...quality entertainment. Whether it's the best or not, I don't know...but it's certainly in the conversation...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

So a group that didn’t strictly adhere to GA still had him tied for first and with the most appearances on ballots?

Tied with 19 year old Harry Lumley, who likely isn't even a starter if it wasn't for the war.

Durnan was a great player, no doubt, but so is everyone available this round.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Tied with 19 year old Harry Lumley, who likely isn't even a starter if it wasn't for the war.

Durnan was a great player, no doubt, but so is everyone available this round.

Could be a reaction to Lumley playing the full season and Durnan missing 10 games. If anything, this raises eyebrows on Brimsek’s 2nd Team.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Could be a reaction to Lumley playing the full season and Durnan missing 10 games. If anything, this raises eyebrows on Brimsek’s 2nd Team.

Brimsek missed the first 1/3 of the season due to the war.

Competiton among goalies in 1945-46 was almost as bad as the true war years.

Re: Brimsek in 1945-46, I'm not sure what we can make of the fact that writers had 2/3 of a season of Brimsek as (barely) better than a full season of young Lumley, while coaches didn't.

 

[pappyline]

As I noticed, it doesn't make a difference.

I am with you brother. It is tough being an outlier though I continue to vote. Even though we are both outliers, I am quite sure that our voting patterns are quite different LOL.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'm an outlier too...*shrug*

 

[Canadiens1958]

Tied with 19 year old Harry Lumley, who likely isn't even a starter if it wasn't for the war.

Durnan was a great player, no doubt, but so is everyone available this round.

You are really stretching here. 18 and 19 year old Tom Barrasso was awarded 1st and 2nd AST honours in 1984 and 1985 while playing under 55 games:

Tom Barrasso Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

You are really stretching here. 18 and 19 year old Tom Barrasso was awarded 1st and 2nd AST honours in 1984 and 1985 while playing under 55 games:

Tom Barrasso Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

Are you seriously denying that it was unusual for a player that young to break into the NHL lineup in the Original 6 era?

 

[quoipourquoi]

Everyone is an outlier (except seventieslord). You all should vote.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Are you seriously denying that it was unusual for a player that young to break into the NHL lineup in the Original 6 era?

Don't change the subject.

Otherwise there is the obvious default conclusion that first half of the 1980s were WWII quality in terms of goaltending, probably worse given that the WWII era produced more future HHOFers.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Don't change the subject.

Otherwise there is the obvious default conclusion that first half of the 1980s were WWII quality in terms of goaltending, probably worse given that the WWII era produced more future HHOFers.

Durnan beat exactly zero HHOFers for his 1st Team nods in 1943-44 and 1944-45. In 1945-46, he did beat 2/3 of a season of Brimsek, teenage Lumley, and 15 games of Turk Broda, which I'm not sure is any more impressive.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Durnan beat exactly zero HHOFers for his 1st Team nods in 1943-44 and 1944-45. In 1945-46, he did beat 2/3 of a season of Brimsek, teenage Lumley, and 15 games of Turk Broda, which I'm not sure is any more impressive.

And how times did Durnan repeat 1st team honours between 1947 and 1950?

So your comlies parison for 1946 lacks substance since Durnan regularly beat Lumley, Broda and Brimsek for 1st AST honours when they were playing full seasons.

Also teenage Lumley. Detroit had a history of rushing teenage goalies into pro hockey before their junior career was over.

Notably Terry Sawchuk:

Terry Sawchuk Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

and Glenn Hall who played his last junior season as a pro.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

And how times did Durnan repeat 1st team honours between 1947 and 1950?

So your comlies parison for 1946 lacks substance since Durnan regularly beat Lumley, Broda and Brimsek for 1st AST honours when they were playing full seasons.

Also teenage Lumley. Detroit had a history of rushing teenage goalies into pro hockey before their junior career was over.

Notably Terry Sawchuk:

Terry Sawchuk Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

and Glenn Hall who played his last junior season as a pro.

Yes, Durnan did beat out real competition for the 1st Team AS in 1947, 1949, and 1950.

Should we care that in 1948, the only season in there when Durnan didn't lead the league in GAA, he finished 3rd behind Broda (GAA leader among starting goalies) and Brimsek?

Anyway, Durnan's 1949 looks to be a legit great season, as he was Hart runner up.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Here's a link to where I compared Joe Malone to Nels Stewart as goal scorers (since Stewart isn't available now, I'm only posting a link): Round 2, Vote 6 (HOH Top Centers)

My conclusion was that Malone had the best single season, they were even through best 5 seasons, and Stewart pulled away as a superior goal scorer once we got beyond their best 5 seasons. So why consider Malone over Stewart now? The main reason I can think of is that Stewart was a terrible defensive player, while Malone was... okay. Is that enough to have Malone be under consideration at this point?

 

[quoipourquoi]

Yes, Durnan did beat out real competition for the 1st Team AS in 1947, 1949, and 1950.

Is there evidence that he performed at a noticeably worse level in his first three 1st Team All-Star seasons than his 4th, 5th, and 6th 1st Team All-Star selections?

If we can’t give the value of those seasons context based on his competition, can we give it context based on himself? I’ve never read anyone suggest his game had improved substantially from 1947-onward - just that the proclamations of him as the best goaltender ever had increased (likely with the confirmation that he could replicate his performance in a stronger league).

 

[seventieslord]

For anyone wondering, I have Joe Malone at 98 over 7 years, and 87 over 10 years. I have Denneny at 96 over 7 years, and 88 over 10 years. They both appear to be the premier offensive players of this round.

Just re-posting this as I noticed a typo. Malone was not 82 over 10 years, he was 87. He and Denneny were basically equals as regular season producers when considering the margin of error in such calculations.

 

[seventieslord]

Here's a link to where I compared Joe Malone to Nels Stewart as goal scorers (since Stewart isn't available now, I'm only posting a link): Round 2, Vote 6 (HOH Top Centers)

My conclusion was that Malone had the best single season, they were even through best 5 seasons, and Stewart pulled away as a superior goal scorer once we got beyond their best 5 seasons. So why consider Malone over Stewart now? The main reason I can think of is that Stewart was a terrible defensive player, while Malone was... okay. Is that enough to have Malone be under consideration at this point?

Possibly. Stewart appears to be a historically poor defensive player.

I would also add in the fact that Stewart was an awful playmaker. In an era where assists were starting to be recorded more regularly, he really didn't get a lot. Malone's goals to assists ratio looks more like a guy like Lalonde in his own time, while Stewart was an outlier.

As point producers, I think it looks really similar to their goals records: Malone looks better in pure peak/prime (98 to 91), Stewart pulls even in the long run (88 to 87). So I think it's fair that Malone's up for voting sooner. Still, like Denneny/Malone, it looks like Stewart may be a standout the moment he's up for voting.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

The first statement is wrong. Neil Colville did that, too, at a tougher position (generally speaking) as a forward as well.
The second statement is relevant only if there's a premium to be a Bruin.

Never knew that (or forgot it). I stand corrected. And embarrassed.