Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 16

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vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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The "classic" question asked by Fedorov detractors is why should he rank over Doug Gilmour?

are there talking points in that debate that have already been hashed out in previous projects?

from where i sit, fedorov was the better player and had the higher notes to his career. better/more important to his best one or two cup runs than gilmour was to his, higher end regular season spikes, much more legit selkes.

i think fedorov's problem is he was so visually gifted that he gets overly penalized for his inconsistency, because a guy who skates like that, with that obvious hockey sense, shooting ability, etc. should never finish behind modano in scoring, let alone for every season from '97 to 2003. on the other hand, the gilmour between 1989 and 1993, that doesn't get brought up a lot. and man, killer just looked like he was squeezing every bit he could out of his abilities in '93 and '94.

and you know gilmour also had a reputation for being moody, sulky, and a problem in the room, at least in calgary and iirc also in st. louis. but toronto
 

Kyle McMahon

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May 10, 2006
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Durnan ahead of Gardiner is something I really, really have to be explained, let alone having suspicions over the latter while lauding the former. Especially playoffs that something that matters to you (and it appears it's the case, considering your paragraph on Fedorov). Both have the same "strike" against them (longevity), it's just that Durnan 'tended for a powerhouse that ended up underachieving while it was mostly the other way around for Gardiner.

Would I take Gardiner over Durnan in a playoff series? Yes, but we're dealing with some really small sample sizes here. Chicago upset Detroit in the 1934 Final...is this enough to declare them over-achievers during Gardiner's career? Most of the playoff series they played in during the early 1930s were pretty much toss-ups, it's not like they were repeatedly slaying giants. They did win more of them than they lost though, so this does build Gardiner's case.

Regular season I'd have to lean towards Durnan. Gardiner has the string of AST selections, as does Durnan. But Gardiner's do not come with any accompanying Hart support. Some of Durnan's AS-1 selections have been criticized as a product of the selection appearing to default to the Vezina winner...does the same not apply to Gardiner? Notably, Chicago defenseman Lionel Conacher just missed winning the Hart in 1933-34. Hart support for goaltenders looks a bit thin during Gardiner's career, other than Roy Worters, with a win and a runner-up. In general, I think it's reasonable to declare Gardiner the best goaltender overall from 1930-1934, but it seems no less reasonable to do the same for Durnan from 1945-1950.

Durnan's apparent nervous breakdown during the 1950 playoffs is not a good look. But Clint Benedict was said to be showing up drunk for playoff games in the mid-20s and still got listed last round. It really seems to me that Durnan is being punished harshly for this instance, combined with being the goaltender of record for one big upset (in which his team lost four one-goal games, including a 1-0 loss).

I guess I'm left thinking that these two goaltenders are pretty similar, and it's still unclear to me why a number of participants were clamoring for Gardiner three rounds ago while simultaneously suggesting Durnan had no business being available that soon.
 

VMBM

And it didn't even bring me down
Sep 24, 2008
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You mean "Canadian", I assume (based on the size of the hockey playing population). I'm sure Swedes don't like being called Finns and vica versa.

Nah, I'd be thrilled; Abba, Hasse och Tage, Hoola Bandoola Band, Ingmar & Ingrid Bergman, King, Queen, Prince, Princesses... Who the hell do we have? Sibelius... and hmm... Paavo Nurmi...
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
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Would I take Gardiner over Durnan in a playoff series? Yes, but we're dealing with some really small sample sizes here. Chicago upset Detroit in the 1934 Final...is this enough to declare them over-achievers during Gardiner's career? Most of the playoff series they played in during the early 1930s were pretty much toss-ups, it's not like they were repeatedly slaying giants. They did win more of them than they lost though, so this does build Gardiner's case.

Regular season I'd have to lean towards Durnan. Gardiner has the string of AST selections, as does Durnan. But Gardiner's do not come with any accompanying Hart support. Some of Durnan's AS-1 selections have been criticized as a product of the selection appearing to default to the Vezina winner...does the same not apply to Gardiner? Notably, Chicago defenseman Lionel Conacher just missed winning the Hart in 1933-34. Hart support for goaltenders looks a bit thin during Gardiner's career, other than Roy Worters, with a win and a runner-up. In general, I think it's reasonable to declare Gardiner the best goaltender overall from 1930-1934, but it seems no less reasonable to do the same for Durnan from 1945-1950.

Durnan's apparent nervous breakdown during the 1950 playoffs is not a good look. But Clint Benedict was said to be showing up drunk for playoff games in the mid-20s and still got listed last round. It really seems to me that Durnan is being punished harshly for this instance, combined with being the goaltender of record for one big upset (in which his team lost four one-goal games, including a 1-0 loss).

I guess I'm left thinking that these two goaltenders are pretty similar, and it's still unclear to me why a number of participants were clamoring for Gardiner three rounds ago while simultaneously suggesting Durnan had no business being available that soon.


- Gardiner, if anything, appear to have been the sole reason why these "toss-ups" were toss-ups to begin with. Here is how Gardiner teams fared offensively during his career :

27-28 : 9th out of 10
28-29 : 10th out of 10 (last team with less than 1 GPG, as far as I know)
29-30 : 6th out of 10
30-31 : 4th out of 10
31-32 : 8th out of 8
32-33 : Tied for last, out of 9.
33-34 : 9th out of 9

That's.... not exactly a huge margin of error. They did take out the Leafs in 30-31 : that team outscored the Hawks in the regular season and finished with a slightly better record... and that's with the Hawks allowing 21 less goals per game, something about which Gardiner certainly had something to do.

They did bow out to Montréal in the finals that season, but then again, Montreal was also quite a bit better then.

(For the record, Gardiner and Durnan could very well go 1st and 2nd as far as I'm concerned; he was clearly, absolutely no slouch. It's just that I'm not convinced that he's absolutely unreplaceable, and, from my perspective, replacing him with a generic NHL netminder changes absolutely nothing to the Montreal Canadiens' successes and lackthereof)
 
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Kyle McMahon

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May 10, 2006
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- Gardiner, if anything, appear to have been the sole reason why these "toss-ups" were toss-ups to begin with. Here is how Gardiner teams fared offensively during his career :

27-28 : 9th out of 10
28-29 : 10th out of 10 (last team with less than 1 GPG, as far as I know)
29-30 : 6th out of 10
30-31 : 4th out of 10
31-32 : 8th out of 8
32-33 : Tied for last, out of 9.
33-34 : 9th out of 9

That's.... not exactly a huge margin of error. They did take out the Leafs in 30-31 : that team outscored the Hawks in the regular season and finished with a slightly better record... and that's with the Hawks allowing 21 less goals per game, something about which Gardiner certainly had something to do.

They did bow out to Montréal in the finals that season, but then again, Montreal was also quite a bit better then.

Chicago's anemic offense is a good observation. It begs the question though, why was Gardiner's Hart support almost non-existent?

Looking at AST voting, it doesn't seem like Chicago defensemen got any significant support, other than Conacher in 1934. So on the surface, there's really no evidence that Chicago's generally good record was attributable to anyone besides Gardiner.

It is a little strange. Roy Worters similarly carried his teams in a lot of seasons, and this was acknowledged by the awards voters. Perhaps there was the sentiment that Gardiner was getting the Vezina anyway, and thus was ignored by Hart voters?
 

overg

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Dec 15, 2003
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Regardless of any other arguments for or against him, let's just make sure two Fedorov myths don't get perpetrated here. I don't really expect them to in the HoH section, but from time to time you see them pop up.

Myth 1: Fedorov could have been a Norris level defenseman. I believe some over-zealous member of Wings' management made this remark at some point, and you still see it trotted out from time to time as a legit fact. It is not.

Fedorov was a passable defenseman, but he wasn't even close to being the best (or second best) defenseman on the Wings, let alone in the league. And it should not be forgotten that he was originally placed on defense because he was underperforming on offense and Bowman was tired of listening to him complain about ice time.

Myth 2: Fedorov was a great playoff performer. Fedorov was a strong, consistent playoff performer, but there's a reason he never won the Smythe. Scoring 20 points in 4 straight playoffs is notable, but none of those runs were all that other-wordly by the standards of the late 90's. His best playoff performance was actually probably in a losing effort, as he was an absolute demon against New Jersey in '95, and the only Wing who presented any sort of sustained threat to the Devils that year.

The thing with Fedorov was that he clearly wanted to be "the man," and when called upon to be "the man" (e.g., the year he won the Hart when Yzerman was injured, the times he was called on to go head to head with the Forsberg's, Gretzky's, Lemieux's, Jagr's, etc), he was great at it. But when asked to fit into a team system (aka, the Bowman way), he tended to sulk and under-perform. He's probably a player who would have actually benefited from playing on a lesser team where he would have had the chance to be more of the go-to guy.
 
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MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
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Chicago's anemic offense is a good observation. It begs the question though, why was Gardiner's Hart support almost non-existent?

Looking at AST voting, it doesn't seem like Chicago defensemen got any significant support, other than Conacher in 1934. So on the surface, there's really no evidence that Chicago's generally good record was attributable to anyone besides Gardiner.

It is a little strange. Roy Worters similarly carried his teams in a lot of seasons, and this was acknowledged by the awards voters. Perhaps there was the sentiment that Gardiner was getting the Vezina anyway, and thus was ignored by Hart voters?

To be honest, Cy Wentworth/Art Coulter and Taffy Abel were two notably solid (albeit really unspectacular) D-Men. Especially Wentworth, from what I gathered over the years. But it's nothing the other teams didn't have. Coulter and Wentworth are considered like one D-Men because they were never there simultaneously.

Their forward corps though....
 

ChiTownPhilly

Not Too Soft
Feb 23, 2010
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AnyWorld/I'mWelcomeTo
Vote 16 Candidates
  • Aurele Joliat
  • Bill Durnan
  • Boris Mikhailov
  • Brett Hull
  • Charlie Gardiner
  • Cy Denneny
  • Jari Kurri
  • Max Bentley
  • Sergei Fedorov
  • Turk Broda
  • I knew my highest ranking un-nominated from my Prelim List had zero chance of being nominated this Round- so no surprise there.
However, my next three highest ranked from my List were nominated- so a worthy set of candidates, I think.

Barring any major discoveries on my part, bottom three last Round will equal bottom three this Round.
 

ted2019

History of Hockey
Oct 3, 2008
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Basically this.

Fedorov had an extremely long and productive career and was the best player in the world for a period of time and has by far the best playoff resume here.

If anything he is overdue.

He was never, ever the best player in the world for any time. He had 2 great seasons, 4 or 5 above average seasons and the rest were average or below average. The 2 Selke's help him to go along with the Hart and then when he was at his prime, a terrific 2 way player. He did most of his damage at the start of his career and after age 26, he started to go downhill. He was a great playoff performer also.
 
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sr edler

gold is not reality
Mar 20, 2010
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He did most of his damage at the start of his career and after age 26, he started to go downhill.

He had four 30+ goal seasons after age 26 and led the 02–03 Red Wings with 83 points as a 32 year old. That's only "average or below average" if you compare it to peak Fedorov or similar players, not if you compare him to the rest of the league. You had a poster up thread talking about Fedorov myths, but it seems some of his detractors have myth like conceptions of their own. Criticism of 97–02 Fedorov as an underwhelming regular season performer is fair though.
 

overg

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Since I attempted to dispel a couple of good Fedorov myths upthread, I should also dispell at least one bad one. And that was that Fedorov was a diver, which was something that was mentioned a fair bit starting in the mid-90's.

That was almost complete non-sense started by Mike Keenan during the first round of the '96 playoffs. The Wings were big time Cup favorites, and were likely to face the Blues in the second round. All of the sudden Keenan started spouting off to the press about Fedorov taking dives and embellishing.

It was a rather absurd claim, because Fedorov was one of the strongest skaters in the league, and rarely got pulled down. He was still routinely pulling his move where he'd break down along the boards, toss the puck toward the center of the ice, and step around/outmuscle the defenseman to retrieve the puck and have a point blank shot at the goalie. On the rare occasion he did fall down, it was almost always because he was being tackled by a defender. Diving in those situations would have been a loss, as he almost always had a prime scoring chance staying on his skates.

While I'm not going to claim Fedorov never dove, he sure didn't do it frequently or as much as many other star centers (hell, Yzerman did it more than Fedorov). So it was surprising and disappointing that a lot of people seemed to buy into Keenan's narrative, and you heard claims of Fedorov being a diver for years after that.
 
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Dennis Bonvie

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Dec 29, 2007
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Henri Richard was 49th, but Keon hasn't come up yet?

Forsberg 51st, but Lindros hasn't come up yet?

I had Charlie Gardiner at 72, so it seems OK to me that he's up now. I thought his 112-151-52 record would hurt him.

Could have the 3 goalies in my top 5.
 

BraveCanadian

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Jun 30, 2010
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He was never, ever the best player in the world for any time. He had 2 great seasons, 4 or 5 above average seasons and the rest were average or below average. The 2 Selke's help him to go along with the Hart and then when he was at his prime, a terrific 2 way player. He did most of his damage at the start of his career and after age 26, he started to go downhill. He was a great playoff performer also.

It's strange how Fedorov was legitimately a fantastic player who tends to be overrated at the same time. People talk like he was 1994 Fedorov all the time, but he took way too many nights off. I guess his better consistency in the playoffs erases that for a lot of people.


Forsberg 51st, but Lindros hasn't come up yet?

Forsberg had a better career, but Lindros was the better player before getting brained.

The placement of these guys (Fedorov and Lindros) around Selanne is definitely problematic for this list. Both were far superior players imo. Lindros definitely suffers on longevity, though.
 
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MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
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... If Fedorov has to be compared to the rest of the league in order to look good, it's puzzling as to why he's even being discussed at this point.
 

wetcoast

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Nov 20, 2018
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He was never, ever the best player in the world for any time. He had 2 great seasons, 4 or 5 above average seasons and the rest were average or below average. The 2 Selke's help him to go along with the Hart and then when he was at his prime, a terrific 2 way player. He did most of his damage at the start of his career and after age 26, he started to go downhill. He was a great playoff performer also.

93-94, he was by far the best skater in the NHL with his outstanding Hart and Selke performance.

Scoring is his weak spot but a lot of that was Bowman influenced (not playing very much on the PP and even as a Dman) and he by far made up for it with outstanding and consistent playoff play over an extremely long period of time.
 
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