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

[Hockey Outsider]

@Hockey Outsider and @overpass are the ones to ask.

I only have the playoff version; overpass has the regular season one.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Random Jari Kurri observation...

The numbers seem to indicate that Kurri's scoring was heavily biased towards even strength (and shorthanded) production in his prime years. His numbers are surprisingly ordinary as a PP producer for a player of his ilk. Hockey-reference has PP scoring leaderboards on their site, and Kurri is almost never present. Gretzky and Coffey make frequent appearances on "PP-goal on ice for" leaderboards, but Kurri is always absent. This would seem to suggest that Kurri received less PP time than his famous centre. And while I don't think anybody would suggest it anyway, Kurri's PP numbers from his post-prime Los Angeles days indicate that he was perfectly capable of producing with the man advantage, so there's no basis for suspecting that he was receiving high amounts of PP time in Edmonton and simply failing to produce. The Oilers career playoff numbers are pretty much identical to the regular season (around 23% of his goals coming on the PP in both instances).

It's reasonable to be a little skeptical of Kurri's raw numbers due to the Gretzky effect. And indeed, his goal scoring totals tend to follow a somewhat similar curve as Gretzky's assist totals. However, Kurri's assist totals don't show any sort of decline related to Gretzky's absence. His 1988-89 and 89-90 totals are right in line with the rest of his Oilers career, as are 87-88 and 92-93, years that Gretzky was his teammate but missed significant games injured.

Given these two factors, I'm inclined to believe Kurri's numbers can be taken at face value. On an average team without Gretzky as his primary linemate, his ES goal totals likely take a hit. However, it's hard to believe that his PP numbers wouldn't noticeably increase had he been in a situation where his coach's PP personnel options were more limited.

None of this in and of itself is a reason why Kurri should rank high in this round (I'm undecided myself), but if your main hangup with Kurri is "Gretzky inflated his numbers...", this is some food for thought.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

In 97 he was tasked with shutting down Lindros. In 2002 he carried the line of Shanahan and Yzerman's leg. His defensive play was stellar.

Who's Lindros?

 

[pappyline]

Max Bentley is my number one. If available he would have been my number one many votes ago. He was arguably the greatest stickhandler of all time and was called the "Dipsy Doodle Dandy from Delile".

TDMM has done a good job explaining his statistical record. But it needs to be fleshed out with some commentary and video.

Take a few minutes to go to this link to get an idea of how special Max was. In particular watch the video portions.

Max Bentley: 100 Greatest NHL Players

 

[ted2019]

Max Bentley is my number one. If available he would have been my number one many votes ago. He was arguably the greatest stickhandler of all time and was called the "Dipsy Doodle Dandy from Delile".

TDMM has done a good job explaining his statistical record. But it needs to be fleshed out with some commentary and video.

Take a few minutes to go to this link to get an idea of how special Max was. In particular watch the video portions.

Max Bentley: 100 Greatest NHL Players

Not a surprise since he played for the Blackhawks. This isn't a project about for your favorite player or the most players that you like project, it's suppose to be a true assessment of the top 100 players in history. Not picking on you, but with the "Russian" contingent, the "Habs" contingent and a few others, I feel that this project is becoming to much about being fanboys, then picking the top players.

 

[pappyline]

Not a surprise since he played for the Blackhawks. This isn't a project about for your favorite player or the most players that you like project, it's suppose to be a true assessment of the top 100 players in history. Not picking on you, but with the "Russian" contingent, the "Habs" contingent and a few others, I feel that this project is becoming to much about being fanboys, then picking the top players.

It hasn't a damn thing to do with him playing for the Blackhawks. I agree that there may be a few fanboys on here but not for the reasons you state. I suggest that you stop questioning other people's motives and work on being more constructive.

 

[MXD]

In a round with three goaltenders (and me), Bentley has something of a very uphill battle. But... I'm warming up. Slightly. Bentley seems like a players who would do really well in today's game, if anything, and his game appears to have been more well-rounded than what I had initially credited him for.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Current thoughts:

1. Charlie Gardiner - clear cut, consensus best goalie of the 1930s. Great in both the regular season and playoffs. Probably should have been ranked over Benedict, but either way, lets get him in ASAP.

2. Max Bentley - best offensive player available in both the regular season and playoffs (possible exception - Cy Denneny - see him later). The gap between him/Ted Kennedy and the rest of the league in the late 1940s playoffs was absurd. Immense star power - was traded by himself for 5 players in his prime and the team that got Bentley clearly won the trade. Probably had his regular season numbers hindered by the trade to a deep, defensive-minded Toronto team, and he did miss 2 prime years due to WW2.

3. Aurele Joliat - Fantastic two-way player, long productive career, lots of star power. I have him slightly above Kurri because his longevity as an impact player is better. Also, Joliat did more away from Morenz than Kurri did away from Gretzky (again, mainly due to longevity).

4. Jari Kurri - Great two-way player and difference maker. As I more or less said last round, I think his ability to play the center's role in the defensive zone so Gretzky didn't have to helped Gretzky's numbers at least as much as Gretzky helped Kurri.

"The pack" (in alphabetical order):

Turk Broda - great longevity and playoff performances. But was probably never really the best goalie in the league. Similar case to Benedict, though.

Cy Denneny - At first glance his offense looks to be even better than Bentley's, but he just doesn't seem to have been as important to his teams. Often the only shoot-first player on a dynasty of pass-first players in an era that undercounted assists. I guess I just don't trust the stats from that era that much, not when they conflict with contemporary opinion about his importance. All that said, if Denneny was something of a Brett Hull of the era (useless defensively and in transition), he still seems to have been a significantly better playmaker than Hull (even as a shoot first player), and I'm favoring him slightly over Hull.

Bill Durnan - I think there should be some serious separation between Gardiner and Durnan due to Gardiner's far superior playoff reputation. Vs Broda is a tougher question. Broda kills Durnan in longevity and playoffs, but Durnan seems to have had the better regular season prime and (for a little while) been in the conversation for best goalie in the world. I think I prefer Broda, but not by much.

Brett Hull - Most one-dimensional player to appear so far. His R-on / R-off numbers are terrible in the regular season - giving the impression of someone who usually ended possession either with a shot or a turnover. Not a good possession player. I started this project with him below the current "pack," but raised him after seeing (or being reminded of?) just what a clutch player he was. His R-on / R-off in the playoffs are actually not bad. Still think it's probably a round or 2 too early though. There are some unavailable centers who I think contributed more.

Boris Mikhailov - probably the least flawed resume of anyone in "the pack" - good leader, good all-round player, good longevity. But kind of lacks that peak that wows you. I have him as similar to Iginla - but that's not really an insult, as I think Iginla should probably come up soon.

Last place

Sergei Fedorov - Weakest regular season resume of any player who showed up so far - basically 2 great seasons and a bunch of decent ones. Great player performer, but so were players like Bentley and Hull with clearly superior regular season records. I just can't comprehend adding Fedorov over fellow two-way centers Elmer Lach and Norm Ullman.

Again, this would have been a tossup with Brett Hull, before I saw Hull's playoff R-on (his playoff plus minuses) are much better than his regular season ones.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Max Bentley is my number one. If available he would have been my number one many votes ago. He was arguably the greatest stickhandler of all time and was called the "Dipsy Doodle Dandy from Delile".

TDMM has done a good job explaining his statistical record. But it needs to be fleshed out with some commentary and video.

Take a few minutes to go to this link to get an idea of how special Max was. In particular watch the video portions.

Max Bentley: 100 Greatest NHL Players

I like the comment in the video that Bentley said he really "learned to play the game" under Hap Day in Toronto. We know he could already score as good or better than anyone else, so this quite likely refers to play without the puck, which is one of the question marks I have about Bentley.

 

[Batis]

Not a surprise since he played for the Blackhawks. This isn't a project about for your favorite player or the most players that you like project, it's suppose to be a true assessment of the top 100 players in history. Not picking on you, but with the "Russian" contingent, the "Habs" contingent and a few others, I feel that this project is becoming to much about being fanboys, then picking the top players.

With a few possible exceptions I personally have not felt as if it has been very much "fanboyism" going on during this project. But the thing is that everyone will be somewhat effected by their own bias when ranking players. In fact I don't even know if I would call it bias in most cases but rather different ways of viewing things. Some posters value the achiviements of Non-NHL Europeans higher than other posters. Some posters value certain eras higher than others. Some posters value two-way play higher than others and so on.

But I have not got the impression that there are many participants in this project who rank players high or low purely based on where the players in question come from or which team they played for without taking the strenght of their achiviements into account. I would probably be considered a part of this "Russian contingent" by some (even though I come from Sweden) and it is true that I on average have ranked the Russian players somewhat higher than the collective effort in this project but I would say that the reason for this rather is that I view things from a somewhat different perspective than the group as a whole does when it comes to Non-NHL achiviements. And for what it is worth I had the two Russian players in the 9th and the 10th spot on my recently sent in list for this vote. So I am most certainly not ranking Russian players (or players of any nationality) high for any other reason than when I think that they deserve to be ranked high based on their merits.

 

[ted2019]

It hasn't a damn thing to do with him playing for the Blackhawks. I agree that there may be a few fanboys on here but not for the reasons you state. I suggest that you stop questioning other people's motives and work on being more constructive.

If it wasn't true, then why are you being so testy? You rarely post in this threads anymore and the first person you push is a former Blackhawk in Bentley. Is it coincidence then that it's Bentley you post about?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

With a few possible exceptions I personally have not felt as if it has been very much "fanboyism" going on during this project. But the thing is that everyone will be somewhat effected by their own bias when ranking players. In fact I don't even know if I would call it bias in most cases but rather different ways of viewing things. Some posters value the achiviements of Non-NHL Europeans higher than other posters. Some posters value certain eras higher than others. Some posters value two-way play higher than others and so on.

But I have not got the impression that there are many participants in this project who rank players high or low purely based on where the players in question come from or which team they played for without taking the strenght of their achiviements into account. I would probably be considered a part of this "Russian contingent" by some (even though I come from Sweden) and it is true that I on average have ranked the Russian players somewhat higher than the collective effort in this project but I would say that the reason for this rather is that I view things from a somewhat different perspective than the group as a whole does when it comes to Non-NHL achiviements. And for what it is worth I had the two Russian players in the 9th and the 10th spot on my recently sent in list for this vote. So I am most certainly not ranking Russian players (or players of any nationality) high for any other reason than when I think that they deserve to be ranked high based on their merits.

Worse than bias, it seems, is the desire of many posters to make the list look like their own list. Instead of trying to learn something about the history of the game, its become a power trip. Closest to final list wins, knows the most about hockey.

As for bias, not for a moment have I thought you to be anything but an excellent provider of data and perspective on players most of us need to learn more about. Kudos.

 

[Canadiens1958]

If it wasn't true, then why are you being so testy? You rarely post in this threads anymore and the first person you push is a former Blackhawk in Bentley. Is it coincidence then that it's Bentley you post about?

And you post often?

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Cy Denneny Playoffs

I'll post relevant info taken from the Trail of the Stanley Cup regarding Cy Denneny's playoff career.

1919: Denneny's stat line of 2G-3A-5Pts looks alright, but this doesn't seem to have been a particularly good playoff for him. Ottawa lost the best of seven 4-1 against Montreal, being outscored 26-18. Given that seven different Senators scored at least twice, Denneny's three goals is not overly impressive considering he scored at goal-per-game pace in the regular season. Denneny is listed as a starter in only two of the five games. It seems Eddie Gerard was moved to forward for Game 2 to take his place. Frank Nighbor returned to the Senators lineup for Game 4 after missing the first three, and Denneny is listed as the starting winger. For Game 5, Jack Darragh took his place as starter. Ottawa was a loaded roster, but it is somewhat surprising to see Denneny listed as a sub in three games after finishing third in the NHL in goals that year.

1920: Ottawa played Seattle for the Stanley Cup. No mention at all is made of Denneny specifically, and he recorded no goals in Ottawa's 3-2 series win. Denneny is only listed as having been a starter in one game.

1921: Denneny scored twice in Ottawa's two game/total goals win over Toronto (7-0 total). George Boucher, who scored a hat trick in Game 1, was considered the best for the Senators in this series. The Cup Final again gives us the odd situation of Denneny being listed as a sub in Game 2, Boucher (a defenseman) apparently being moved up to the wing. Denneny is described as "a star" in Game 3 though, scoring a goal in a game that ended in a 3-2 win. The Senators won the Cup in a close 5-game series, Denneny recording two goals, but receiving no specific mention besides Game 3.

1922: Ottawa was upset by Toronto (5-4, two-game/total goals) in a series where they seem to have outplayed their opponent, but were foiled by John Ross Roach in the Toronto net. Denneny did score 2 of Ottawa's goals, Nighbor scoring the other two.

1923: This is the first instance where it is apparent that Denneny was one of Ottawa's key players in a playoff series. He scored in the opening game, a 2-0 victory for Ottawa, and was deliberately injured by Billy Coutu of the Canadiens right after his goal. Denneny was only fit enough to sub in intermittently in the second game, but he scored the goal that gave the Senators the series win, 3-2 on goals. Ottawa won the Cup again by defeating Vancouver 3 games to 1, and then Edmonton 2 games to 0. Denneny scored the OT winner against Edmonton in the first game, his only goal in either of these two series. However, in addition to concussion he received earlier, it was said that he had injured his elbow early in series against Vancouver.

I will add to the post later on to cover the rest of Denneny's playoff career.

 

[ted2019]

It's a bit late to do this I realize, but he is my take.
1. Jari Kurri. I had Kurri 4th last round and as the other 3 players went in last round, He's next on my list. His defense allowed Gretzky to really ignore his defensive responsibilities and only care about half the rink.
2. Clint Benedict. Should've been already and it's time for him to be included.
3. Max Bentley. Great player and he was so good in the playoffs.
4. Aurele Joliat. Fantastic 2 way player but I have Kurri over him as my personal preference.
5/6/7. ( no particular order) Bill Durnan , Cy Denneny , Turk Broda
8. Brett Hull. He would be lower if there were 2 better players left.
9. Boris Mikhailov. Not a "wow" type of player and that might hurt him a bit. Steady Eddie.
10. Sergei Fedorov. I don't even see him as a top 120 player, let alone being available this soon.

 

[Canadiens1958]

With a few possible exceptions I personally have not felt as if it has been very much "fanboyism" going on during this project. But the thing is that everyone will be somewhat effected by their own bias when ranking players. In fact I don't even know if I would call it bias in most cases but rather different ways of viewing things. Some posters value the achiviements of Non-NHL Europeans higher than other posters. Some posters value certain eras higher than others. Some posters value two-way play higher than others and so on.

But I have not got the impression that there are many participants in this project who rank players high or low purely based on where the players in question come from or which team they played for without taking the strenght of their achiviements into account. I would probably be considered a part of this "Russian contingent" by some (even though I come from Sweden) and it is true that I on average have ranked the Russian players somewhat higher than the collective effort in this project but I would say that the reason for this rather is that I view things from a somewhat different perspective than the group as a whole does when it comes to Non-NHL achiviements. And for what it is worth I had the two Russian players in the 9th and the 10th spot on my recently sent in list for this vote. So I am most certainly not ranking Russian players (or players of any nationality) high for any other reason than when I think that they deserve to be ranked high based on their merits.

Not the mandate of the project which basically is an effort to represent and respect hockey history.

So, let's start by differentiating Soviet from Russian.

Then recognizing that the Soviets hockey targeted competition with the top North American and NHL teams as the ultimate measure of the success of their program.

 

[sr edler]

Sergei Fedorov - Weakest regular season resume of any player who showed up so far - basically 2 great seasons and a bunch of decent ones.

Fedorov's regular season resume isn't worse than Chris Pronger's, both had a single peak season they didn't replicate, and Pronger was voted in a few rounds ago without much drama. Fedorov at least got 2 Selkes whereas Pronger only got 1 Norris.

 

[Canadiens1958]

It's a bit late to do this I realize, but he is my take.
1. Jari Kurri. I had Kurri 4th last round and as the other 3 players went in last round, He's next on my list. His defense allowed Gretzky to really ignore his defensive responsibilities and only care about half the rink.
2. Clint Benedict. Should've been already and it's time for him to be included.
3. Max Bentley. Great player and he was so good in the playoffs.
4. Aurele Joliat. Fantastic 2 way player but I have Kurri over him as my personal preference.
5/6/7. ( no particular order) Bill Durnan , Cy Denneny , Turk Broda
8. Brett Hull. He would be lower if there were 2 better players left.
9. Boris Mikhailov. Not a "wow" type of player and that might hurt him a bit. Steady Eddie.
10. Sergei Fedorov. I don't even see him as a top 120 player, let alone being available this soon.

Clint Benedict is not part of this round, added last round:

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

Charlie Gardiner, a Blackhawk is eligible.

 

[Elvis P]

I'm really enjoying reading the great posts in this project. It will be interesting to see if any more Dmen make the top 100. Some possibles who MAY be Top 100 worthy are Gadsby, Salming, Leetch, and Dit Clapper. Keep up the great work!

 

[danincanada]

“Fantastic two-way player, long productive career, lots of star power.”

Sounds like Fedorov, except this guy was 136 lbs. At that size he isn’t making the show in Fedorov’s era, or today. Drop Fedorov in his era and I’m thinking Bobby Orr-like dominance. Got me scratching my head about what exactly “Top 100” is supposed to be. To me, it’s not this.

 

[pappyline]

If it wasn't true, then why are you being so testy? You rarely post in this threads anymore and the first person you push is a former Blackhawk in Bentley. Is it coincidence then that it's Bentley you post about?

Did I bust your balls at some point? Because this is the second time you have personally attacked me. I don't post a lot and I don't always post about Blackhawks. If you are so interested in me, why don't you go back over my posts and write a full report. Bentley is known as a Leaf as well as a Blackhawk. My most recent posts before Bentley were about Mahovlich, Charlie Conacher, and Schmidt. None of whom played for the Blackhawks.

BTW, I haven't been a Blackhawk fan in many years.

I am not sure how often you post but your last one indicates you should be paying more attention to the voting results than to me. If you plan on voting for Benedict this round you are too late.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'm not intetested in getting involved in a tit-for-tat with anyone who only comments when a modern Red Wing is involved.

But Joliat was consistently great and put up overall offensive results significantly better than Fedorov's.

 

[wetcoast]

Max, on the other hand, put out outstanding playoff numbers for Toronto.

Leading playoffs scorers 1948-1951 (Toronto wins 3 Cups in 4 years):

1. Max Bentley (TOR) 37 points in 36 games
2. Ted Kennedy (TOR) 34 points in 36 games
3. Sid Abel (DET) 24 points in 41 games
4. Ted Lindsay (DET) 21 points in 40 games
5. Gordie Howe (DET) 20 points in 28 games
6. Sid Smith (TOR) 20 points in 26 games
7. Maurice Richard (MON) 18 points in 23 games
8. Joe Klukay (TOR) 17 points in 36 games
9. Harry Watson (TOR) 16 points in 30 games
10. George Gee (DET) 14 points in 30 games

The gap between Bentley/Kennedy and the pack is absurd.

It does look absurd but a point here before we look at Fedorov in his consecutive 20 point+ in the playoffs

5 of the top 10 point getters in the table above are Maple Leafs, and 4 are Red Wings.

Smaller league less chance for variance.

Then I looked up Fedorov 94-98 where he had those 4 consecutive 20+ point playoffs and how he ranked.

Well he actually did better than I thought placing 1st with 84 points ahead of Sakic and Yzerman who tied for 2nd

Fedorov also played an outstanding defensive role in those playoffs (and through 183 NHL playoff games) making the point lead even more impressive.

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

It does look absurd but a point here before we look at Fedorov in his consecutive 20 point+ in the playoffs

5 of the top 10 point getters in the table above are Maple Leafs, and 4 are Red Wings.

Smaller league less chance for variance.

Then I looked up Fedorov 94-98 where he had those 4 consecutive 20+ point playoffs and how he ranked.

Well he actually did better than I thought placing 1st with 84 points ahead of Sakic and Yzerman who tied for 2nd

Fedorov also played an outstanding defensive role in those playoffs (and through 183 NHL playoff games) making the point lead even more impressive.

Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

Games played matter. That link you provided shows Fedorov at 1st in points... And 16th in points per game (14th among forwards who played 10+ games).

Even among 50+ game players, he's way behind Sakic and Jagr. Behind Lindros and Forsberg as well.

Federov was a great playoff performer of course, but I don't think that table shows what you think it does.

 

[wetcoast]

Worse than bias, it seems, is the desire of many posters to make the list look like their own list. Instead of trying to learn something about the history of the game, its become a power trip. Closest to final list wins, knows the most about hockey.

As for bias, not for a moment have I thought you to be anything but an excellent provider of data and perspective on players most of us need to learn more about. Kudos.

Sadly there seems to be many comments and posts that reflect this.

Although I'm sure some, like where one might have placed a certain player is more conversational in nature rather than anything else.

In this regard, perhaps some of the bias is on the reader.

I think it would be beneficial to read posts on these boards blinded and not knowing who the poster is then focusing entirely on the context of the post and not who the poster is.

Sadly after posting this I got an alert and then confirmation on what I was alluding to.

Kind of ironic and sad at the same time.