Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 17

[DannyGallivan]

Has anyone done a deep dive into Gadsby's competition? He was the clear #3 defenseman of his era behind Harvey and Kelly, but I was under the impression that his competition for that spot wasn't overly impressive.

Tom Johnson was no slouch in Montreal. There was also Pronovost in Detroit, Horton in Toronto, Allan Stanley in New York and Pilote in Chicago.

However, only Horton and Pilote have come up in this project (and both - along with Stanley and the likes of Trembley, Brewer and Laperriere - were more productive in the 60's, when Gadsby was in his decline).

Meanwhile, you could say that Salming's competition was a little tougher with Orr, Robinson, Potvin, Park, Lapointe and a few others.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Maurice Richard scored 50 goals in 50 games in 1945.
Elmer Lach pretty handily beat him for the Hart that season.
I think that's worth mentioning, even though we all know it.

Yeah- Lach & Richard really tore up the AHL er... I mean-- the Wartime NHL during that span.

Lach's runner up Hart finish in 1951-52 was largely due to his performance with Maurice Richard out of the lineup

And in Richard's absence, Lach was compromised by dealing with the considerable burden of having to gel with someone else at RW. Who was that guy, again(?)

I don't really want to come off as sounding "down" on Elmer Lach. To me, it feels like he comes along at the right time... and (as I hinted before), I'm passably sure that he's a better option than Toe Blake. Right now, I have him ahead of the Goaltenders and the One-Way guys. I'm just not seeing him as field-promotion worthy this time 'round.

[Leetch] was a landslide because his competition was Sandis Ozolinsh and Vladimir Konstantinov

So, of all the lenses with which to view Defensemen during that year, we pick up that one. Let me offer up this aperture, instead.

1996-97 Defensemen- All-Star Team:
1st Team-- Brian Leetch/Sandis Ozolinsh
2nd Team: NeverMindMoveAlongNothingToSeeHere/NeverMindMoveAlongNothingToSeeHere

Sometimes, y'can pick up a bit'a the skinny by lookin' at what's omitted from presentations.

 

[pappyline]

current thoughts:


8/9) Bill Gadsby/Brian Leetch - I can never decide who I like better. Hopefully, I'll be able to think about it next round. In Leetch's favor - better at his best - in particular the 1992 Norris (won by a landslide; this one over excellent competition) and his 1994 playoffs. Gadsby could never manage to win that Norris, even when Harvey was mostly out of the picture in 1959. In Gadsby's favor - He was consistently the best non-Harvey/Kelly defensemen for quite some time. Unlike Leetch, he was able to reinvent himself as a more defensive defenseman later in his career.

.

This is pure speculation on your part and there is no evidence that he wasn't a excellent defensive defenseman with Chicago and New York. You know he played 8+ seasons with Chicago and was making all star teams with that sad sack team. Was he good or bad defensively then? You can't blame one player for the failure of his team. In an early post, I pointed out that Gadsby was in some seasons the only quality player those teams had.

Actually, the last line of your quote sounds like you are describing Scott Stevens. I think both Pronger and Stevens were ranked too highly and should not be ranked so far ahead of Gadsby. Voting Gadsby number one this round will at least partially fix that anomaly.

 

[Vilica]

Okay, get-it you are into customizing data that you then misinterpret, because of your lack of deep knowledge about NHL hockey.

Nels Stewart table. Up thread you claim he was a better home scorer than away:

Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 17

Yet the table clearly shows that in the last pre-consolidation season, Stewart dominated at home while in the first forward pass season he dominated away.

Factor in that in 1932 Stewart went from the Maroons to the Bruins, where the smaller rink created a home scoring bias and you get a clearer picture. BTW 1932 marked the start of the 1930s Salary Cap era similar to the modern era in terms of opposition roster continuity.

So regardless of your claims, a better picture does emerge inadvertently about the strengths of Nels Stewart.

You're right about my relative lack of deep knowledge, which is why I tend to rely on the numbers, but you're slightly conflating my arguments. I provided the two Nels Stewart years, and then said I really wouldn't feel comfortable interpreting home/away or team splits based on those sample sizes. I've tried to state up front that I feel much more confident in my data for players in the O6 era, and not as much for players before 1942. Over his career, Stewart was a .70 ppg player away and a .875 ppg player at home, but that's to be expected - most all players do better at home. Yes he did much better away in the first season, but different teams, not as solid definition of assists in that era, perhaps many other reasons.

Let me try and clarify my position by providing a series of 3 year samples. I'm not trying to draw any conclusions from this, but I want to show you how I'm trying to think.

Alex Ovechkin				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots
PIT 15-16	2	0	0	0	1	8		3	0	0	0	-2	14		5	0	0	0	-1	22
PIT 16-17	2	0	2	2	-5	8		2	3	0	3	1	10		4	3	2	5	-4	18
PIT 17-18	2	2	1	3	3	9		2	1	1	2	1	9		4	3	2	5	4	18

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

243 Games, 132+95=227, +30, 1066 Shots

Sidney Crosby				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots
WAS 15-16	3	1	1	2	2	10		2	0	2	2	0	6		5	1	3	4	2	16
WAS 16-17	2	0	1	1	-5	2		1	1	3	4	3	3		3	1	4	5	-2	5
WAS 17-18	2	0	1	1	-2	3		2	0	2	2	-2	11		4	0	3	3	-4	14

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

237 Games, 109+154=263, +36, 750 Shots

What could you conclude about Ovechkin/Crosby over this 3 year period? You're talking about 14 or 12 games, and nothing conclusive other than maybe Crosby's better at home, or Ovechkin's disappointing because he's .71 ppg compared to his normal .93. Let's compare that to Elmer Lach and Ted Kennedy over a similar 3 season sample.

Elmer Lach				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points
TOR 49-50	7	2	0	2	0	0		7	2	4	6	0	0		14	4	4	8
TOR 50-51	5	2	1	3	0	0		7	1	1	2	0	0		12	3	2	5
TOR 51-52	7	2	5	7	0	0		7	1	6	7	0	0		14	3	11	14

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

199 Games, 51+107=158

Ted Kennedy				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points
MTL 49-50	6	0	2	2	0	0		5	1	1	2	0	0		11	1	3	4
MTL 50-51	7	1	4	5	0	0		6	2	4	6	0	0		13	3	8	11
MTL 51-52	7	3	1	4	0	0		7	1	1	2	0	0		14	4	2	6

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

186 Games, 57+100=157

Now we're looking at 38 or 40 game samples, and though I'm still not completely confident in the size, the fact that Kennedy (in his age 24-26 seasons mind you, compared to Lach's age 32-34) was a .84 ppg player against the entire NHL during that time, versus a .55 ppg against Montreal, in 38 games, there might be something there. In contrast, Lach was a .79 ppg player in that period, and .675 against Toronto. It could even be how Toronto used Max Bentley and Ted Kennedy.

Max Bentley				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points
MTL 49-50	7	2	0	2	0	0		7	0	4	4	0	0		14	2	4	6
MTL 50-51	7	0	3	3	0	0		6	4	5	9	0	0		13	4	8	12
MTL 51-52	7	1	1	2	0	0		7	2	4	6	0	0		14	3	5	8

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

205 Games, 68+76=144

Looks like Bentley was .75 ppg in that time, and .63 against Montreal, so a similar drop to Lach. Basically the point I'm making is that 3 years of Crosby/Ovechkin, with different teammates, gets crammed into 1 year of O6 play, with same teammates. I did get lucky, because I chose 49-52 mostly randomly, but the narrative I'm trying to build is still supported by my numbers. I also know that Ted Kennedy and Max Bentley are already voted in, while Elmer Lach is up now, but I wanted to provide something concrete for you.

Also, my argument about Lach basically boiled down to that he benefited from his prime being the war years, especially at home, and that he won his Cups in those war years, and after everybody returned, his team never really did anything, despite Durnan, Richard, Harvey, etc, until you had the next wave in Beliveau, Geoffrion, and others. This stuff with him versus Kennedy and Bentley would've better belonged in the discussions about them, but I wasn't that far along enough in my project to be able to participate in the discussion then.

I've seen Hockey Outsider's question about Gadsby, and I do have a partial answer, so I guess I'll put that massive table in my next post.

 

[Batis]

Agreed. The 1974 and 1976 WHC All-Star team nods were clear choices in Martinec's favour, and although the 1977 and especially the 1975 tournament ASTs were somewhat less clear, apparently Mikhailov just wasn't that great in either tournament (for example, I know that Mikhailov and his line twice failed badly vs Sweden in 1977, which de facto cost them the world championship, whereas Martinec was an absolute key player and prolific scorer in the wins over USSR and vs Sweden in the medal round).
Like it has been mentioned, in the 1969-72 WHCs, Mikhailov wasn't anything special (though certainly good in 1969), and in 1978, Maltsev had one of his best later performances when playing with (and maybe mentoring?) his Dynamo Moscow teammates the Golikov brothers, and furthermore, would Mikhailov even have beaten Balderis at RW (in 1978)?
Also, if there had been All-Star selections at the Winter Olympics (1972, 1976, 1980), Mikhailov hardly would have gotten any nods; in 1972, he played partly injured (knee-injury, and according to a Finnish sports book, his other leg was never quite the same after that) and did not get many points, poor stats also in 1976 (but he did miss the 16-1 game vs Poland?), and in 1980 he was one of the scoring leaders but failed to score in the Miracle game, and no way he would have beaten Makarov for the AST.

It seems like Mikhailov actually did beat out Balderis in the 1978 All-Star voting considering that he made the 2nd All-Star Team. Aside from that I agree with everything you wrote here.

WHC 1978 All-Star Teams:
118 journalists participated with their ballots. I have the number of votes for the 1st team but only list of names of the second team without votes.

1st Team: Jiří Holeček (79 votes) – Jiří Bubla (39), Vyacheslav Fetisov (69) – Alexander Maltsev (23), Ivan Hlinka (58), Sergei Kapustin (60)
2nd Team: Daniel Bouchard – Valeri Vasiliev, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov – Boris Michailov, Marcel Dionne, František Černík

 

[Canadiens1958]

You're right about my relative lack of deep knowledge, which is why I tend to rely on the numbers, but you're slightly conflating my arguments. I provided the two Nels Stewart years, and then said I really wouldn't feel comfortable interpreting home/away or team splits based on those sample sizes. I've tried to state up front that I feel much more confident in my data for players in the O6 era, and not as much for players before 1942. Over his career, Stewart was a .70 ppg player away and a .875 ppg player at home, but that's to be expected - most all players do better at home. Yes he did much better away in the first season, but different teams, not as solid definition of assists in that era, perhaps many other reasons.

Let me try and clarify my position by providing a series of 3 year samples. I'm not trying to draw any conclusions from this, but I want to show you how I'm trying to think.

Alex Ovechkin				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots
PIT 15-16	2	0	0	0	1	8		3	0	0	0	-2	14		5	0	0	0	-1	22
PIT 16-17	2	0	2	2	-5	8		2	3	0	3	1	10		4	3	2	5	-4	18
PIT 17-18	2	2	1	3	3	9		2	1	1	2	1	9		4	3	2	5	4	18

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

243 Games, 132+95=227, +30, 1066 Shots

Sidney Crosby				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots
WAS 15-16	3	1	1	2	2	10		2	0	2	2	0	6		5	1	3	4	2	16
WAS 16-17	2	0	1	1	-5	2		1	1	3	4	3	3		3	1	4	5	-2	5
WAS 17-18	2	0	1	1	-2	3		2	0	2	2	-2	11		4	0	3	3	-4	14

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

237 Games, 109+154=263, +36, 750 Shots

What could you conclude about Ovechkin/Crosby over this 3 year period? You're talking about 14 or 12 games, and nothing conclusive other than maybe Crosby's better at home, or Ovechkin's disappointing because he's .71 ppg compared to his normal .93. Let's compare that to Elmer Lach and Ted Kennedy over a similar 3 season sample.

Elmer Lach				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points
TOR 49-50	7	2	0	2	0	0		7	2	4	6	0	0		14	4	4	8
TOR 50-51	5	2	1	3	0	0		7	1	1	2	0	0		12	3	2	5
TOR 51-52	7	2	5	7	0	0		7	1	6	7	0	0		14	3	11	14

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

199 Games, 51+107=158

Ted Kennedy				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points
MTL 49-50	6	0	2	2	0	0		5	1	1	2	0	0		11	1	3	4
MTL 50-51	7	1	4	5	0	0		6	2	4	6	0	0		13	3	8	11
MTL 51-52	7	3	1	4	0	0		7	1	1	2	0	0		14	4	2	6

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

186 Games, 57+100=157

Now we're looking at 38 or 40 game samples, and though I'm still not completely confident in the size, the fact that Kennedy (in his age 24-26 seasons mind you, compared to Lach's age 32-34) was a .84 ppg player against the entire NHL during that time, versus a .55 ppg against Montreal, in 38 games, there might be something there. In contrast, Lach was a .79 ppg player in that period, and .675 against Toronto. It could even be how Toronto used Max Bentley and Ted Kennedy.

Max Bentley				Away							Home							Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots		Games	Goals	Assists	Points
MTL 49-50	7	2	0	2	0	0		7	0	4	4	0	0		14	2	4	6
MTL 50-51	7	0	3	3	0	0		6	4	5	9	0	0		13	4	8	12
MTL 51-52	7	1	1	2	0	0		7	2	4	6	0	0		14	3	5	8

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

205 Games, 68+76=144

Looks like Bentley was .75 ppg in that time, and .63 against Montreal, so a similar drop to Lach. Basically the point I'm making is that 3 years of Crosby/Ovechkin, with different teammates, gets crammed into 1 year of O6 play, with same teammates. I did get lucky, because I chose 49-52 mostly randomly, but the narrative I'm trying to build is still supported by my numbers. I also know that Ted Kennedy and Max Bentley are already voted in, while Elmer Lach is up now, but I wanted to provide something concrete for you.

Also, my argument about Lach basically boiled down to that he benefited from his prime being the war years, especially at home, and that he won his Cups in those war years, and after everybody returned, his team never really did anything, despite Durnan, Richard, Harvey, etc, until you had the next wave in Beliveau, Geoffrion, and others. This stuff with him versus Kennedy and Bentley would've better belonged in the discussions about them, but I wasn't that far along enough in my project to be able to participate in the discussion then.

I've seen Hockey Outsider's question about Gadsby, and I do have a partial answer, so I guess I'll put that massive table in my next post.

Well. Your time would be better spent learning about hockey in general and hockey history specifically. You make too many mistakes otherwise.

Examples. Why compare a LW, Ovechkin to a C, Crosby? Reference Top Centers and Top Wingers projects.

Elmer Lach see the bolded. Lach scored the Cup winning goal in OT, 1953 finals. Guess that would not count as an accomplishment?

Trust you understand why it is hard to take your efforts seriously.

 

[Vilica]

Has anyone done a deep dive into Gadsby's competition? He was the clear #3 defenseman of his era behind Harvey and Kelly, but I was under the impression that his competition for that spot wasn't overly impressive.

Here's Gadsby's entire career, with the 4 defensemen named to the All-Star team, along with their point ranks and Gadsby's totals.

Gadsby 9th (18)	1946-1947		Butch Bouchard	Ken Reardon		Jack Stewart	B Quackenbush
			18th	Tied 2nd		Tied 13th	Tied 2nd
Gadsby t13 (16)	1947-1948		B Quackenbush	Jack Stewart		Neil Colville	Ken Reardon
			Tied 2nd	Tied 6th		Tied 13th	Tied 2nd
Gadsby t13 (13)	1948-1949		B Quackenbush	Jack Stewart		Glen Harmon	Ken Reardon
			2nd	Tied 3rd		Tied 5th	Tied 9th
Gadsby 2nd (35)	1949-1950		Gus Mortson	Ken Reardon		Red Kelly	Leo Reise
			Tied 9th	3rd		1st	6th
Gadsby t19 (10)	1950-1951		Red Kelly	B Quackenbush		Jimmy Thomson	Leo Reise
25 Games			1st	Tied 3rd		2nd	Tied 6th
Gadsby 6th (22)	1951-1952		Doug Harvey	Red Kelly		Jimmy Thomson	Hy Buller
			3rd	1st		4th	2nd
Gadsby t6 (22)	1952-1953		Doug Harvey	Red Kelly		Bill Gadsby	B Quackenbush
			2nd	1st		Tied 6th	10th
Gadsby 2nd (41)	1953-1954		Doug Harvey	Red Kelly		Bill Gadsby	Tim Horton
			3rd	1st		2nd	4th
Gadsby 6th (24)	1954-1955		Doug Harvey	Red Kelly		Bob Goldham	Fern Flaman
			1st	2nd		Tied 12th	Tied 9th
Gadsby 1st (51)	1955-1956		Bill Gadsby	Doug Harvey		Red Kelly	Tom Johnson
			1st	3rd		2nd	Tied 18th
Gadsby 2nd (41)	1956-1957		Doug Harvey	Red Kelly		Fern Flaman	Bill Gadsby
			1st	3rd		Tied 4th	2nd
Gadsby 1st (46)	1957-1958		Bill Gadsby	Doug Harvey		Fern Flaman	Marcel Pronovost
			1st	2nd		15th	12th
Gadsby 1st (51)	1958-1959		Bill Gadsby	Tom Johnson		Doug Harvey	Marcel Pronovost
			1st	2nd		14th	4th
Gadsby 4th (31)	1959-1960		Doug Harvey	Marcel Pronovost		Allen Stanley	Pierre Pilote
			7th	10th		2nd	1st
Gadsby t2 (35)	1960-1961		Doug Harvey	Marcel Pronovost		Allen Stanley	Pierre Pilote
			1st	Tied 12th		Tied 4th	Tied 2nd
Gadsby 5th (37)	1961-1962		Doug Harvey	Jean-Guy Talbot		Carl Brewer	Pierre Pilote
			7th	1st		Tied 10th	3rd
Gadsby 3rd (28)	1962-1963		Carl Brewer	Pierre Pilote		Tim Horton	Moose Vasko
			Tied 7th	6th		Tied 7th	Tied 20th
Gadsby t15 (18)	1963-1964		Tim Horton	Pierre Pilote		J Laperriere	Moose Vasko
			Tied 5th	1st		4th	Tied 13th
Gadsby t22 (12)	1964-1965		J Laperriere	Pierre Pilote		Bill Gadsby	Carl Brewer
			Tied 5th	1st		Tied 22nd	Tied 5th
Gadsby 18th (17)	1965-1966		J Laperriere	Pierre Pilote		Allen Stanley	Pat Stapleton
			5th	1st		Tied 16th	3rd

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The numbers that struck me most were how few points were required to be in the top tier of points-scoring defensemen. Also, I was kinda amused how the notion that Norris voters sort by points was borne out by these All-Star voters kinda sorting by points.

 

[Batis]

Regarding Mikhailovs WHC All-Star voting record I thought that it would be a good idea to look at how his overall voting record compares to the other top forwards. First here you have the voting record of Mikhailov. Note that when a player made the First All-Star Team but we don't have the exact vote count I have put that down as a Top 3 finish among forwards and when a player made the Second All-Star Team I have put it down as a top 6 finish. Then we can of course speculate on the actual voting finish based on the strenght of the players performance in the tournament.

Boris Mikhailov: Top 3 (1973), Top 3 (1979), 4th (1974), Top 6 (1978), 8th (1972) Tied for 12th (1971), Tied for 16th (1970)

I don´t really know what to think about Mikhailovs voting record. On the one hand it is a deep and strong voting record for only being a 2-time First Team All-Star. On the other hand I would say that it is a rather disappointing voting record for a player of Mikhailovs quality. Especially the sub-par results in 1969-1971. It is of course entirely possible that Mikhailov led both the 1973 and the 1979 votings considering that he was voted Best Forward by the Directorate in those tournaments (3-way tie in 1979). It is also entirely possible that Mikhailov did rather well in the 1975 and 1977 votings even if he did not make the All-Star team. But based on the data we have available I would say that Mikhailov probably does not quite belong in the Kharlamov/Petrov/Martinec tier when it comes to WHC All-Star voting but rather in the Nedomansky/Krutov tier.

For comparisons sake here are the voting records of the other 9 players which I would have in the top 10 when it comes to WHC All-Star voting among forwards. With some short commentary on each player.

Sergei Makarov: 1st (1982), 1st (1985), 1st (1986), 2nd (1987), 2nd (1989), 3rd (1981), Top 3 (1979), Top 3 (1983)

Makarovs WHC All-Star voting record is simply outstanding and it is not impossible that he led the forwards in the voting 5 times. This considering that he in the two years from which we don't have the voting result won the Directorate award in a 3-way tie in 1979 and was voted the All-Star team RW ahead of the Directorate award winner Lala in 1983. And even without speculating about his results in 1979 and 1983 further than that he almost certainly finished top 3 in the voting Makarov still clearly has the most impressive voting record among forwards. It is perhaps also worth noting that he in 1982 led the All-Star voting ahead of a certain Wayne Gretzky who finished in second place. So it would be difficult to complain about his top competition that tournament.

Anatoli Firsov: 1st (1967), 1st (1968), 1st (1971), 2nd (1969), 2nd (1970), 11th (1965)

Firsovs 1967-1971 stretch is along with Makarovs 1982-1986 stretch in my opinion the most impressive consecutive peak period when it comes to WHC All-Star voting. Firsovs five straight tournaments finishing top 2 in the voting during that 1967-1971 stretch is also something that only Makarov possibly managed to beat out between 1982 and 1989 (depending on how high he ranked in 1983). In fact outside of Makarov and Firsov no other forward even has five top 2 finishes in the voting consecutive or not. And the final time that Firsov led the voting in 1971 he had among the toughest top competition one could get in Europe consisting of peak Maltsev and Kharlamov who was just about to enter his peak.

Alexander Maltsev: 1st (1970), 1st (1972), 1st (1981), 2nd (1971), 4th (1978), 6th (1974)

Maltsevs WHC All-Star voting record definitely belongs in the top tier along with Makarovs and Firsovs voting records. The two things that stands out to me with Maltsevs voting record is his peak in 1970-1972 where he finished 1st, 2nd, 1st over 3 tournaments and his outstanding elite longevity considering that he led the voting the first time in 1970 and the last time in 1981. No other forward even had so much time between their first and last top 3 finish although Makarov was rather close there with 1979-1989. The competition among forwards during Maltsevs peak 1970-1972 was also very high considering that he first was up against peak Firsov in 1970-1971 and then peak Kharlamov in 1972.

Valeri Kharlamov: 1st (1976), 2nd (1972), 3rd (1971), Top 3 (1973), 4th (1969), 7th (1970), 8th (1974)

For a player with "only" 3 First Team All-Star selections Kharlamovs WHC All-Star voting record really is very strong as he managed to finish top 3 in the voting four times and top 4 five times. That is as many top 3 finishes and more top 4 finishes than 4-time All-Stars like Martinec and Petrov. The only reason that Kharlamov does not have 4 First Team selections himself is that he was stuck behind peak Firsov at LW in 1971 which means that he did not make the team despite being third in the overall voting.

Vladimir Petrov: 2nd (1975), Top 3 (1973), Top 3 (1977), Top 3 (1979), 6th (1970), Tied for 7th (1971), 10th (1974)

As Petrovs 4 First Team selections already suggests his WHC All-Star voting record is very strong. Since we don´t have the voting results for 3 of the 4 tournaments when Petrov made the All-Star team it is difficult to know exactly how strong his voting record is though. But considering that Petrov never won the Directorates Best Forward award it does not seem that unlikely that Petrov never led the All-Star voting among forwards either. Considering that the Media All-Star vote and the Directorates vote relatively often had different selections as the top forward this is far from certain though. Whether Petrov ever led the voting or not I would still say that his voting record clearly belongs in the truly elite group. Especially considering that he also had some strong results outside of his First Team All-Star tournaments.

Vladimir Martinec: 1st (1974), 2nd (1976), 3rd (1975), Top 3 (1977), Tied for 9th (1972)

Martinec peak period in 1974-1977 is really very impressive with top 3 finishes at four straight tournaments. Four consecutive top 3 finishes is something that only Makarov and Firsov managed to beat out among forwards. The only problem with his voting record is that Martinec outside of that peak period did not add much of value compared to the other players with the strongest voting records. Still I would say that the strenght of that peak period firmly puts him among Kharlamov and Petrov in the second tier of players when it comes to WHC All-Star voting records.

Vaclav Nedomansky: 2nd (1974), 3rd (1969), 3rd (1970), 5th (1971), 7th (1965), Tied for 7th (1968)

Out of the players that we know for sure did not lead the WHC All-Star voting at any tournament Nedomansky clearly has the strongest voting record. Three times top 3, four times top 5 and six times top 7 is a very deep and strong voting record. With this said I personally don´t think that Nedomansky quite belongs in the Kharlamov/Petrov/Martinec tier of WHC All-Star voting records but rather the tier below them.

Vladimir Krutov: 1st (1987), 2nd (1986), Top 3 (1983), 5th (1985)

For being a 4-time First Team All-Star Krutovs voting record is not overly strong. Mainly due to his 1985 selection being a rather weak one with him only finishing 5th in the overall voting but still getting the LW spot on the All-Star team. Still three top 3 finishes and four top 5 finishes is a rather strong record. Especially when taking into account the strenght of his 1987 tournament where he dominated the voting.

Alexander Yakushev: 1st (1975), 3rd (1972), 3rd (1974)

Yakushev has a strong voting record for only being a 2-time First Team All-Star having three top 3 finishes including one first place finish. Just like Kharlamov once missed out on a place on the All-Star team due to being stuck behind peak Firsov at LW despite finishing top 3 in the overall voting Yakushev had the exact same thing happen to him in 1972 when he was stuck behind peak Kharlamov at LW. The only problem with Yakushevs voting record is that he outside of his peak in 1972-1975 did not get much voting support and the lack of more strong voting finishes is what in my opinion keeps Yakushev from belonging to the Nedomansky/Krutov/Mikhailov tier even if he is rather close to them.

Like I said earlier I think that Mikhailovs voting record definitely is a strong one for "only" being a 2-time First Team All-Star but I would still say that he belongs in the bottom half of the top 10 forwards when it comes to WHC All-Star voting.

 

[wetcoast]

I think both Pronger and Stevens were ranked too highly and should not be ranked so far ahead of Gadsby. Voting Gadsby number one this round will at least partially fix that anomaly.

Is this really a good way to vote?

If one thinks Gadsby or any player is #1 this round compared to other players this round that's one thing but your prescription on how to vote has huge red flags all over it.

 

[Vilica]

Well. Your time would be better spent learning about hockey in general and hockey history specifically. You make too many mistakes otherwise.

Examples. Why compare a LW, Ovechkin to a C, Crosby? Reference Top Centers and Top Wingers projects.

Elmer Lach see the bolded. Lach scored the Cup winning goal in OT, 1953 finals. Guess that would not count as an accomplishment?

Trust you understand why it is hard to take your efforts seriously.

I just chose the most high profile modern comparison to show you the difference in sample sizes - I stated up front that I wouldn't conclude anything about them. I threw out some stuff that you could maybe pick up from that, but it's all just anecdotes. As for the Lach OT goal, it is a fact that he did that. Is there anything predictive about it, or was it just random? Lars Eller scored both the double OT goal to turn the Columbus series, and the Stanley Cup-clinching goal last year. What's he going to do in the playoffs this year - score another big goal? Brett Hull had 2 goals against Canada in the 96 World Cup final. If they play that game again, maybe he has 0 points and somebody else is the hero. If Ken Mosdell scores the goal instead of Lach, that wouldn't change my assessment of Lach, and it shouldn't change yours.

 

[wetcoast]

Well. Your time would be better spent learning about hockey in general and hockey history specifically. You make too many mistakes otherwise.

Examples. Why compare a LW, Ovechkin to a C, Crosby? Reference Top Centers and Top Wingers projects.

Elmer Lach see the bolded. Lach scored the Cup winning goal in OT, 1953 finals. Guess that would not count as an accomplishment?

Trust you understand why it is hard to take your efforts seriously.

This is really weird advice since this project is comparing players across all positions right?

 

[Canadiens1958]

I just chose the most high profile modern comparison to show you the difference in sample sizes - I stated up front that I wouldn't conclude anything about them. I threw out some stuff that you could maybe pick up from that, but it's all just anecdotes. As for the Lach OT goal, it is a fact that he did that. Is there anything predictive about it, or was it just random? Lars Eller scored both the double OT goal to turn the Columbus series, and the Stanley Cup-clinching goal last year. What's he going to do in the playoffs this year - score another big goal? Brett Hull had 2 goals against Canada in the 96 World Cup final. If they play that game again, maybe he has 0 points and somebody else is the hero. If Ken Mosdell scores the goal instead of Lach, that wouldn't change my assessment of Lach, and it shouldn't change yours.

History does not require predictivity, just accuracy.

 

[wetcoast]

History does not require predictivity, just accuracy.

Are you claiming that the stats provided aren't accurate?

 

[Captain Bowie]

Let’s not overrate the value of the 1997 Norris Trophy.

Let's not underrate it too much either. He can't control how his competition for the Norris plays. It was a weaker field that year, and the voting reflected as such. He got 42 of 54 first place ballots.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

One thing that needs to be clear - the VsX numbers HO keeps posting at the beginning of each thread already reduce the value of war time totals. For anyone interested, here is an explanation of the "war time fudge:"

Ok, I've got an idea of how to handle the war years. I'm going to post the new benchmarks I've thought up here, and then work my way through how they affect the various wartime players. Any comments or critiques are welcome, as is help in crunching the numbers should anyone be so inclined.

1942-43: I don't see this season as particularly problematic. In all likelihood, the scoring champ, Doug Bentley, would have been at or around the top of "the pack" (so, he'd have been the benchmark, himself), in a completely normal season. The old benchmark used the averaging method because there is a big gap between the top three and the next group, but I think this is distorted. The problem in this year is not the guys at the top, but rather the crappy next group. Their crappiness is what forced us to use the averaging method for this season (due to the gap between #3 and #4), but I think that method is misguided in this case, and we should simply use Cowley's #2 score as the benchmark. For 1942-43, I think the benchmark should be set to a standard Vs2, using Cowley's 72 points.

1943-44: I think this is the single most problematic season of the war years. Herb Cain didn't only win the scoring title this year, but he won it by a healthy margin. I think this year is an absolute disaster, and my solution is a relatively tough one. I think we can use Bill Cowley, who was the #2 scorer and our benchmark from the previous season, as our benchmark for this season as well, prorated for the number of games he played.

What do I mean by this? Well, we simply assume that Cowley's offensive production remained constant from 1942-43 to 1943-44. That seems fairly reasonable, and is perhaps even generous to the 1943-44 season given that Cowley was evidently hurt during the year and missed 25% of the games. So we assume that a Cowley who plays 48 games (which he had played in 1942-43) is our benchmark, and we calculate from that how many points he would have reached at his scoring rate for 1943-44 had he played 48 games. For 1943-44, we arrive at a benchmark of 95 points.

Now, this is pretty harsh. Herb Cain, in his career year, goes from a VsX score of 106 to a score of 86. Doug Bentley goes from being the benchmark (and a score of 100) to a score of 81. And so on down the line. Among hall of famers, this obviously hurts Doug Bentley the most, but I don't think that is inappropriate considering that he is the one and only hall of famer who was playing at his real peak this season, and he got easily outscored by Herb Cain.

1944-45: Elmer Lach's first scoring title. The trick with this season is that Lach also won a scoring title in a full-strength league, so we cannot dismiss out of hand the idea that he was a worthy #1 scorer in this season. What does look suspicious, however, is the margin of his victory.

What I propose is simple: assume that Lach's offensive production was just as good in 1944-45 as it was in 1947-48, and by extension assume that a normalized benchmark scorer would have been behind Lach's year-end scoring totals by the same margin. Lach won the 1947-48 Art Ross trophy by a single point, 61 to 60, over Buddy O'Connor in the latter's Hart Trophy season. So...

61/60 [1947-48 margin of victory] = 1.02
80/1.02 [Lach's 1944-45 scoring output/above margin] = 78

I propose 78 as a benchmark for the 1944-45 season.

1945-46: Some argue that this is not really a war year, but I disagree. The league was clearly still quite weak, Apps only played 40 games, Schmidt was not in hockey shape, and the scoring leaderboard is just a hot mess. What to do?

Luckily, we can repeat the process we used for the 1944-45 season here. Max Bentley won the scoring championship in consecutive seasons starting in 1945-46. The problem in this year is that his margin is much bigger than in the following season in a full-strength league. So if we assume that Max is the legitimate scoring champ but recalculate the margin between #1 and #2 to establish our benchmark for the 1945-46 season, this is what we get:

72/71 [1946-47 margin of victory] = 1.01
61/1.01 [Bentley's 1945-46 scoring output/above margin] = 60

I propose 60 as a benchmark for the 1945-46 season.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Questions, comments or personal attacks are welcome. I really hate asterisks, and the problem of the war years has been bothering me ever since we started down this road with the VsX project. I want to do the war years players justice without making them look better than they are, and I also want to differentiate them from one another, as one asterisk is not necessarily the same as the next. Anyway, let me know what you all think.

I will start working my way through the adjusted numbers for the wartime stars using the above benchmarks.

In short, the 1943-44 and 1944-45 years are brutally discounted (as they should be) by raising the benchmarks, while 1942-43 and 1945-46 (what I have started calling "partial war years") are discounted, but less so.

Here is the thread where the VsX system was refined: Post-consolidation VsX Benchmarks

Some of the tables are missing, but are the most important information is still there, including the math that went into it refining a system that started off as a simple "Vs2."(meaning comparisons are based on the 2nd best scorer in the league... Except when that isn't a fair standard).

So Lach's VsX score (86.1 compared to 88.0 for Hull and 80.8 for Fedorov) already takes the war years into account, and is already a pretty good estimate of his per-season (NOT per-game) offensive value,

 

[pappyline]

Is this really a good way to vote?

If one thinks Gadsby or any player is #1 this round compared to other players this round that's one thing but your prescription on how to vote has huge red flags all over it.

I can only speak for myself but I am voting Gadsby #1 this round because IMO he is the best player listed for this round.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Let's not underrate it too much either. He can't control how his competition for the Norris plays. It was a weaker field that year, and the voting reflected as such. He got 42 of 54 first place ballots.

But winning a positional trophy over weak competition doesn’t necessarily mean that a season is better than one that doesn’t win a positional trophy. All we can really derive from the 1996-97 Norris results is that Leetch was better than the 4th best member of the Colorado Avalanche.

1995-96 Sergei Fedorov is also better than 1996-97 Sandis Ozolinsh, but there’s not really a trophy he can win for that.

Given the disparity in the Hart voting (where Fedorov, again, was on 1/3rd of the ballots in a stacked year while Leetch was a non-factor in a weak year for candidates), I’m not really seeing a reason to believe Leetch had the better 2nd-best-season of these two players, and I wouldn’t rely on the Norris results to make my case for me.

The Rangers hemorrhaged goals with Leetch being on the ice for virtually double Fedorov’s GA (despite the difference in 1996 vs. 1997) and had the 2nd worst penalty kill in the league. Their 5-12-4 record with Healy’s slightly worse save percentage (.907 vs. Richter’s .917) was a good indicator of how the Rangers were more dependent on goaltending than Leetch’s defense to stay afloat. Once that disappeared, you have the rest of Leetch’s tenure on poor defensive non-playoff Ranger teams.

Again, I can’t see Leetch as being a top-5 player in 1996-97 the way Fedorov was assessed in 1995-96 - and that’s with there being far fewer top-end seasons from star players in 1996-97.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

But winning a positional trophy over weak competition doesn’t necessarily mean that a season is better than one that doesn’t win a positional trophy. All we can really derive from the 1996-97 Norris results is that Leetch was better than the 4th best member of the Colorado Avalanche.

1995-96 Sergei Fedorov is also better than 1996-97 Sandis Ozolinsh, but there’s not really a trophy he can win for that.

Given the disparity in the Hart voting (where Fedorov, again, was on 1/3rd of the ballots in a stacked year while Leetch was a non-factor in a weak year for candidates), I’m not really seeing a reason to believe Leetch had the better 2nd-best-season of these two players, and I wouldn’t rely on the Norris results to make my case for me.

The Rangers hemorrhaged goals with Leetch being on the ice for virtually double Fedorov’s GA (despite the difference in 1996 vs. 1997) and had the 2nd worst penalty kill in the league. Their 5-12-4 record with Healy’s slightly worse save percentage (.907 vs. Richter’s .917) was a good indicator of how the Rangers were more dependent on goaltending than Leetch’s defense to stay afloat. Once that disappeared, you have the rest of Leetch’s tenure on poor defensive non-playoff Ranger teams.

Again, I can’t see Leetch as being a top-5 player in 1996-97 the way Fedorov was assessed in 1995-96 - and that’s with there being far fewer top-end seasons from star players in 1996-97.

You have a good point but you take it too far when you 1) compare Hart voting at face value between forwards and defensemen (I know this is an argument we've had before); 2) focus on Sandis Ozolinsh's outlier year and not Konstantinov (who may have had a shot at the HHOF if not for the accident), Stevens, or Chelios. 1996-97 defensemen voting was basically Leetch way ahead and the next 4 in a cluster. Yes, I realize Stevens and Chelios weren't as much regular season competition by 96-97 due to declining point totals.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

This is pure speculation on your part and there is no evidence that he wasn't a excellent defensive defenseman with Chicago and New York. You know he played 8+ seasons with Chicago and was making all star teams with that sad sack team. Was he good or bad defensively then? You can't blame one player for the failure of his team. In an early post, I pointed out that Gadsby was in some seasons the only quality player those teams had.

Actually, the last line of your quote sounds like you are describing Scott Stevens. I think both Pronger and Stevens were ranked too highly and should not be ranked so far ahead of Gadsby. Voting Gadsby number one this round will at least partially fix that anomaly.

Unfortunately, we only have one coach's poll from Gadsby's offensive prime (1958):

"Best defensive defenceman - Doug Harvey, Montreal (far and away the best defensive rearguard - Marcel Pronovost and Fernie Flaman were mentioned also)

Best attacking defenceman - Bill Gadsby, New York (Harvey was very, very close behind)"

Combine it with the fact that Gadsby was scoring similar point totals to Harvey overall (and significantly more than Harvey at even stength), but was never even close to healthy prime Harvey in Norris or All-Star voting, as well as having basicially no Hart recognition (as opposed to Harvey amd Kelly who had a lot).

I guess I'm more impressed with Salming finishing below just the Robinson/Savard duo in "best defensive defensman" a couple of times in the late 1970s while also in his offensive prime.

Is it splitting hairs? Yes. But what else are we supposed to do at this point?

 

[pappyline]

Unfortunately, we only have one coach's poll from Gadsby's offensive prime (1958):

"Best defensive defenceman - Doug Harvey, Montreal (far and away the best defensive rearguard - Marcel Pronovost and Fernie Flaman were mentioned also)

Best attacking defenceman - Bill Gadsby, New York (Harvey was very, very close behind)"

Combine it with the fact that Gadsby was scoring similar point totals to Harvey overall (and significantly more than Harvey at even stength), but was never even close to healthy prime Harvey in Norris or All-Star voting, as well as having basicially no Hart recognition (as opposed to Harvey amd Kelly who had a lot).

I guess I'm more impressed with Salming finishing below just the Robinson/Savard duo in "best defensive defensman" a couple of times in the late 1970s while also in his offensive prime.

Is it splitting hairs? Yes. But what else are we supposed to do at this point?

Let me put it this way. I disagree with your approach. You seem to be looking for negatives on Gadsby. I don't expect him to be up there with Harvey and Kelly but he deserves some credit for his accomplishments when he was competing with them. After all Harvey and Kelly were ranked very high in this project.

 

[blogofmike]

Let me put it this way. I disagree with your approach. You seem to be looking for negatives on Gadsby. I don't expect him to be up there with Harvey and Kelly but he deserves some credit for his accomplishments when he was competing with them. After all Harvey and Kelly were ranked very high in this project.

Most players would have highly ranked competition by this point. Just as we consider Gadsby competing with Harvey and Kelly, Brian Leetch must get credit for competing with and beating out Ray Bourque for a Norris and Brett Hull deserves credit for competing with and beating Wayne Gretzky for the Hart.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

I'm using it to compare players across eras in similar seasons. Let's just for example take Elmer Lach's age-30 season, 1947-48. That year, he was the 1st team All-Star Center, finished 3rd in Hart voting, and won the Art Ross, though Montreal did miss the playoffs. Montreal averaged 2.45 Goals For per game, while the league average was 2.92.

Here are his team splits (as it was post-war, his home/road splits have normalized 29 points in 30 away games, 32 points in 30 home games):

	47-48	Elmer	Lach	Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
BOS (59)	12	8	2	10
CHI (46)	12	8	10	18
DET (72)	12	3	4	7
MTL (51)	0	0	0	0
NYR (55)	12	6	6	12
TOR (77)	12	5	9	14
	60	30	31	61
		0.500	0.517	1.017

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Compare that to Sergei Fedorov's age-30 season. In 1999-2000, Fedorov played 68 games, going 27+35=62, +8. Detroit averaged 3.39 Goals For, much higher than the league average of 2.74. Detroit lost in the 2nd round of the playoffs.

Lach had a point on 42% of Montreal goals, while Fedorov only registered points on 22% of Detroit's goals. In the end though, I'd judge that Lach's year was much better than Fedorov's, as his post-season awards indicate.

Let's turn our attention to their age-26 seasons. That would be 1943-44 for Lach, and 1995-96 for Fedorov.

I posted Lach's full splits earlier in the thread, so you can see his huge discrepancy between away and home games, but here are his team splits:

	43-44	Elmer	Lach	Total
	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
BOS (43)	10	6	10	16
CHI (49)	10	1	14	15
DET (58)	9	10	7	17
MTL (83)	0	0	0	0
NYR (17)	10	5	8	13
TOR (50)	9	2	9	11
	48	24	48	72
		0.5	1	1.5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Lach was named to the 2nd team All-Star, and Montreal won the Stanley Cup in 9 total games, completing a dominant season where Montreal averaged 4.68 Goals For compared to a league average of 4.05, and lost 1 home game all year. Weirdly, despite Montreal's domination, none of their players received any votes for Hart or Lady Byng, and Bill Durnan was the only AS-1 nomination - Lach, Richard and Bouchard had to content themselves with 2nd team nominations.

Now you have Fedorov's age-26 season. In 78 games, he scored 39 goals and added 68 assists, for 107 points, and was a +49. Detroit averaged 3.96 Goals For per game, while the league average was 3.14. Detroit lost in the de-facto Stanley Cup finals against Colorado, as both teams would have handled Florida in the finals. Due to a deeper league in comparison to Lach's year, Fedorov finished a distant 5th in both Hart voting and in All-Star Center voting, while winning the Selke.

I'd argue that Fedorov's year was more impressive than Lach's year, though more due to the lesser competition because of the war as opposed to any outliers on team splits. For all I know, you might agree with me.

You also don't have to just compare individual season to individual season, you can also compare peak to peak, or prime to prime, and to me that's where I start to put more weight on team splits. You see that a player is 0.80 PPG for his career, then you look at his scoring environment to see how that helped or hurt, and then you look at team splits to try and gauge his true talent. I'm jumping around a bit, but take for example Ted Kennedy. You guys probably voted him in more for his Cups than his regular season performance, but his splits are shocking. His career PPG is 0.80, but look at the gaps between his points against "good" teams versus his points against "bad" teams.

Away	G	GPG	APG	PPG		Home	GPG	APG	PPG		Total	GPG	APG	PPG
BOS	71	0.324	0.282	0.606		69	0.478	0.580	1.058		140	0.400	0.429	0.829
CHI	71	0.408	0.521	0.930		71	0.479	0.620	1.099		142	0.444	0.570	1.014
DET	63	0.143	0.317	0.460		68	0.382	0.382	0.765		131	0.267	0.351	0.618
MTL	71	0.155	0.324	0.479		68	0.265	0.412	0.676		139	0.209	0.367	0.576
NYR	72	0.278	0.639	0.917		72	0.375	0.639	1.014		144	0.326	0.639	0.965

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Head-to-head results over the years against Detroit and Montreal are inconclusive, though I don't know how you'd judge expected results versus actual results. I don't have Sid Abel's team splits, but looking at Lach's, against Toronto he was a career .866 ppg player (.78 away, .94 home), compared to his career .94 average. That'd indicate to me that if Kennedy matched up against Lach, Lach had the better of that matchup, if you just look at scoring rates compared to their averages. That's the sort of place where I think you would find value in these team splits.

Sorry for such a rambling post, I was basically working this out in my head as I was typing this up. It's a variation of the argument I made about Frank Mahovlich, where I tried to show that if you took his prime years, when he made 6 straight All-Star teams, and compared it to a few modern wingers - Jamie Benn, Corey Perry, Marian Hossa - you'd see that over the same age period, in similar league scoring environments, those 3 wingers had the same or better stats than Mahovlich, but because of better league depth, not as much recognition. In fact, I still maintain that despite Marian Hossa's single AS-2 nomination over his entire career, his regular season performance to go along with his 3 Cups, 5 Finals and 7 Conference Finals, that his career was clearly better than Mahovlich's, even with his 6 Cups in 8 appearances, and 3 AS-1/6 AS-2 nominations.

Looking back at my argument, I should probably have deleted the Lach/Fedorov comparison, because it isn't very well articulated. I like the Kennedy/Lach stuff a bit better, because comparing careers or primes allows you to increase your sample size. Finally, I just want to mention that I'm not treating that Schmidt year as any sort of argument - it's just trivia. It just happens to be the most extreme sample-size performance I've found so far.

I do agree that Fedorov's 1996 was likely a better season than Lach's 1944. But we already know the NHL was significantly affected by war-time departures. I guess I'm just not really sure how these players' splits against individual teams relate to this.

The Kennedy splits are difficult to properly evaluate. Yes, in general Detroit and Montreal were strong throughout his career, and the Rangers were bad. But teams change year over year. As C1958 suggested, showing splits against teams based on how good or bad they actually were in specific years would likely tell us more. For all we know Kennedy did great against the Rangers in 1949-50 when they were actually decent, or struggled against Montreal when they were bad in 1947-48.

The bottom line is, the NHL played a fully balanced schedule in the entirety of the Original Six era. Everyone was competing against the same competition, with the caveat that a player on a great team didn't have to play his own team, and vice versa. Unless it can be shown that a certain player consistently piled it on against the bad teams more than all the other guys he was close to in the scoring race, I'm not sure what the takeaway really ought to be.

 

[quoipourquoi]

You have a good point but you take it too far when you 1) compare Hart voting at face value between forwards and defensemen (I know this is an argument we've had before); 2) focus on Sandis Ozolinsh's outlier year and not Konstantinov (who may have had a shot at the HHOF if not for the accident), Stevens, or Chelios. 1996-97 defensemen voting was basically Leetch way ahead and the next 4 in a cluster. Yes, I realize Stevens and Chelios weren't as much regular season competition by 96-97 due to declining point totals.

Would Brian Leetch be on your Hart ballot for 1996-97? It’s easy to dismiss the Hart balloting until you actually look at 5-8 names just from that year and realize a defenseman with poor GA numbers wouldn’t be one of them. Hasek, Lemieux, Kariya/Selanne, Brodeur, Roy, Jagr, Lindros... where exactly are we placing Leetch in their company? Like I said, he’s like the 3rd best Ranger.

But if you think Leetch was a top-5 player in 1997 like Fedorov was in 1996, you do you.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Also you guys have to be kidding mentioning Chelios as though he’s some heavy Norris competition in a year in which his point totals dipped from 72 to 48 and his team falls to an 8th seed.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Would Brian Leetch be on your Hart ballot for 1996-97? It’s easy to dismiss the Hart balloting until you actually look at 5-8 names just from that year and realize a defenseman with poor GA numbers wouldn’t be one of them. Hasek, Lemieux, Kariya/Selanne, Brodeur, Roy, Jagr, Lindros... where exactly are we placing Leetch in their company? Like I said, he’s like the 3rd best Ranger.

But if you think Leetch was a top-5 player in 1997 like Fedorov was in 1996, you do you.

First of all, who's Lindros?

Second of all, if Leetch was 3rd best Ranger that year, who were the players that were better than him?