Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 19

Dennis Bonvie

Registered User
Dec 29, 2007
29,206
17,561
Connecticut
Unless things change, this will most likely be my final order for this vote.
1. Nels Stewart. Nothing has changed my mind in regards to him and his positioning.
2. Mark Howe. I think myself and Mr. Farkas are the leaders in the clubhouse for Howe's cheerleading section. I see nothing that has been posted to change my mind on Howe.
3. Eric Lindros. Was near the top of my last vote list and no one except for Howe has surpassed him.
4. Eddie Gerard. My appreciation of him has grown since vote 1. I undervalued him and I see the error of my ways.

5/6/7/8 ( no particular order) Dave Keon, Serge Savard, Sid Abel, Valeri Vasiliev
9,10,11,12 ( again with the order) Peter Stastny, Joe Thornton, Bill Gadsby ( I overvalued him at the beginning), Norm Ullman

Put Keon at #5 and we would have 4 of the top 5 the same. Meaning, of course, you did a good job.
 

VanIslander

A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
Sep 4, 2004
35,133
6,428
I see three tiers of defensemen this round. But there are a few question marks I am possibly being persuaded to move up or down.

Bill Gadsby
Eddie Gerard

Brian Leetch ?
Duncan Keith
Mark Howe ?

Serge Savard
Valeri Vasiliev ?
Erik Karlsson
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
Eddie Gerard and Serge Savard are essentially the same player, no?
 

BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
30,844
13,628
Eddie Gerard and Serge Savard are essentially the same player, no?

In essence, yes.

-Both were great leaders, though edge to Gerard there.

-Both were great in the playoffs winning multiple championships on teams loaded with great defensemen.

-Both arguably the best defensive defensemen in the world.Both were described as safe, calming presence.

-Both tough enough but clean players.

-Savard has more longevity as a defenseman, but Gerard was still a solid player even at forward.Gerard's throat problem leading to his retirement would probably have been fixed by 1970s medicine, so hard to blame him there.

-I'd say Gerard was better offensively.

-Perhaps Gerard was a bigger star than Savard in their respective era, but it's hard to say with any certainty, not only because Gerard played in the 1920s, but also because Savard was always a mysterious player to rank even in his day.

Both will be ranked by me.
 

ted2019

History of Hockey
Oct 3, 2008
5,492
1,882
pittsgrove nj
I see three tiers of defensemen this round. But there are a few question marks I am possibly being persuaded to move up or down.

Bill Gadsby
Eddie Gerard

Brian Leetch ?
Duncan Keith
Mark Howe ?

Serge Savard
Valeri Vasiliev ?
Erik Karlsson

There's been a lot written about Mark Howe in this thread. The same for Vasiliev. I personally don't see Leetch as a top 100, or even top 120 type of Player. I think is the Rangers kept Sergei Zubov, he would've outplayed Leetch.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

sr edler

gold is not reality
Mar 20, 2010
11,845
6,290
I think is the Rangers kept Sergei Zubov, he would've outplayed Leetch.

Does this imply Zubov if he stayed with the Rangers would have 'out-careered' the version that went to Dallas? And if so, then why so? I was under the impression that most people thought Zubov got Hitchcocked in Dallas which made him a better all-round piece on cost of some offense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wetcoast

Michael Farkas

Grace Personified
Jun 28, 2006
13,350
7,832
NYC
www.HockeyProspect.com
Zubov would have been saddled with the same old, top heavy abortion of a roster...and he wasn't quite the gamebreaker that Leetch was, but was more composed, deliberate. I realize while typing this, I have no strong feelings.
 

DN28

Registered User
Jan 2, 2014
629
576
Prague
(...)

Valeri Vasiliev. He seems to really define the term "borderline top-100 player" for me. I've read everything posted about him thus far in the project and I feel like I'm not quite as high on him as I used to be. Or it might just be that too many good new players have come up in the past decade and he's exactly the caliber of player that is in position to get nudged out. With European forwards of the 70s and 80s, I don't find it all that difficult to fudge some regular season numbers and get an idea of where they would rank in a global league on a year-to-year basis. But I refuse to use offense to judge defensemen in any significant way, so the best thing we have is Vasiliev's eye-test based all-star voting record. But what do you do with it? When he was the best Soviet defenseman, where did that rank him in the world? You can probably safely say never 1st, but he very well could have been 2nd a couple times. There might also be times where even in that competitive era, a top-end all-star soviet defenseman might have only been 10th-15th in the world - who can say? Has anyone cooked up a fair and realistic assessment of what his NHL all-star record may have looked like? As with Firsov, I don't mean literally pretend he crosses the atlantic and starts playing here, but just base it on skill/talent, and overall quality of play and value delivered. Was he a potential NHL all-star, and how many times? I'm open to ranking him for sure, but he's a question mark in a field of so many sure things.

(...)

I´ll take a shot at this, it could be fun and helpful exercise.. Since we have sufficient amount of information to roughly make a season-to-season rankings of European d-men that played outside NHL during the 1970s, an estimation of what Vasiliev´s All-star / Norris voting record would be in a global league is certainly doable.

Vasiliev´s first taste of international hockey came in 1970 when he was 20 y/o at his first championship and played just 6 games with 0 points. He then missed the following championship. At ´72, Vasiliev was not 1 of the 16 d-men who got on at least one single ballot for the tournament´s All-star team, while 5 other Soviet d-men did.

He did not register a single vote in the SPOTY voting until 1973. Moreover, just for speaking strictly about Dinamo´s D corp, Vitaly Davydov was getting the votes up to 1971. So let´s move on to examine the seasons that actually matters for Valeri, starting with Summit Series...

I think the Series revealed weaknesses of Soviet defense but it also marked the start of Vasiliev´s prime as he was arguably the best USSR d-man during these games. This article on edmontonjournal.com made both of these points for me based on advanced stats:

"The weakness of the Soviet team was its defencemen. If a defenceman is doing his job against tough competition, he will help create one scoring chance for every scoring chance against where he makes a mistake. Usual mistakes include missing an assignment, losing a puck battle or giving away the puck.
Team Canada had two key defencemen, Brad Park and Bill White, who met that test. Park chipped in on 27 scoring chances at even strength, while making mistakes on 26 against (here are the team totals for the entire series). White contributed to 21 chances while making mistakes on 18 chances against.
The top six Team Canada defencemen were Park, +1 on scoring chances at even strength, White, +3, Guy Lapointe, -5, Pat Stapleton, -10, Serge Savard, -10, and Gary Bergman, -11, not a bad showing against such a skilled attacking team as the Soviet Union.
The Soviets didn’t have one top d-man who came close to meeting this standard.
In fact, their two top d-men, Vladimir Lutchenko and Gennady Tsygankov, helped out little on the attack at even strength, while often getting beat in their own end repeatedly.
Lutchenko contributed to 14 scoring chances at even strength, while making mistakes on 34 against. Even worse, Tsygankov contributed to 11 chances, while making mistakes on 43 against.
The top six Soviet defencemen were Valery Vasiliev, -6, Yuri Lyapkin, -12, Alexander Ragulin, -13, Alexander Gusev, -17, Viktor Kuzkin, -18, Lutchenko, -20, and Tysgnakov, with a chilly -32.
Vasiliev came on strong as the series when on (even if he made a bad giveaway on the sequence of pain for the Soviet’s leading up to Henderson’s historic goal). Indeed, Vasiliev strikes me as the first of the new breed of Soviet d-man, who was tough, even nasty, in his own end, but also skilled on the attack. This breed reached its peak with Alexei Kasatonov and Vyacheslav Festisov in the 1980s, but Vasiliev gave a taste of what was to come."


Vasiliev recorded 3 points of 8 games, +1. After that, it seems that he more or less confirmed his status of being the best Soviet d-man of the 1973 season when he was chosen by the Directoriate as the best defenseman of the championship. It should be said though, that his victory was not confirmed by the media, who voted for Gusev and Salming as All-star defense. Unfortunately, we don´t have any additional AST data, only other thing we have, is the 4 coaches´ selections half-way through the tournament:

1) World Championship 1973.
(...)

To finish off this topic to its entirety, here are the coaches´ selections when Československý sport asked them to name the temporarily best players at each position half-way through the 1973 championship (I´ve already mentioned this in Part 2):

J. Pitner (CSSR): Abrahamsson – “I´m not going to name any one defenseman because I would harm many others.” – Söderström.
L. Lunde (FIN): Holeček – Pospíšil – Petrov.
V. Bobrov (USSR): Holeček – Pospíšil – Petrov.
K. Svensson (SWE): Holeček – Vasiliev – Petrov.

Vasiliev finished 6th in SPOTY voting of 1973, 1st among d-men. Gusev was right behind him at 7th though.

Pospisil had a strong season as he finished 3rd in Golden Stick voting, particularly showed his brilliance at Ontario Cup in January 1973 when the CSSR national team clashed with Canadian amateurs for the last time and he won the tournament´s MVP award, but after the Championship 1973 ended, his play was criticized by the Czech media and coaches, in spite of two coaches Bobrov and Lunde speaking favourably about him after 1st half of WHC (Czechs dissapointed everyone with their 3rd place finish)... From the Swedish side of things, one could ask if Salming didn´t become the top Euro D already here in this season before he went to NHL, but I am sceptical of it. Mainly, there was a defenseman who actually won the Gold Pucken award for the best Swedish player of the season, but it was Thommy Abrahamsson, not Salming. Abrahamsson and Salming were both included into Swedish All-star team of the season as well.

All in all, based on these results, I´ll pick Vasiliev from this group for imaginary title of best European d-man here, but it´s not 100% conclusive and it´s definitely weaker season than what 5-8 forwards and perhaps 1-2 goalies had in 1973. Rookie Salming was 5th in Norris / 7th in NHL All-star voting following season. I´d guess similar result 5th-7th Norris / NHL All-star placement for Vasiliev in 1973 appears like a reasonable estimation.

Next season, Vasiliev is getting better and adds one of his strongest seasons: 3rd in SPOTY, voted behind Tretiak, Mikhailov, voted ahead of Maltsev, Kharlamov, Yakushev. At WHC, Vasiliev adds another all-star nod, but is outvoted by Sjöberg, and Sjöberg is also the Directoriate´s choice, so Vasiliev was clear number 2 d-man for the tournament, albeit closer to Sjöberg than to the rest of the field. Of course, Sjöberg is also included into Swedish All-star team, but we don´t know how well he fared in Gold Pucken voting (we only have a list of winners, as far as I know, and Sjöberg won the award in 1969 only). Sjöberg would go on to play for the Jets in WHA following season, scoring 65 points in 70 games, +43, almost double the amount of points of what the next best Winnipeg´s d-man scored. But he also missed the WHA 1st and 2nd all-star team.. fact that the Jets missed the playoffs could have something to do with it. Sjöberg was 30 when he came over so overall, I think his season was decent and doesn´t put this 1974´ Vasiliev´s season too much in doubt. Other thing which leads me to conclusion of improved play by the Russian is his league record: apparently Valeri scored 15 points from 31 games, while his offensive output in all of his previous seasons was almost non-existent (3-7 points in 35-42 games...).

Overall, I can see Vasiliev having a good chance for the 2nd NHL all-star team but probably not the 1st one, since he didn´t quite distinguish himself from all the other d-men in Europe yet. 3rd-5th in Norris / All-star voting for the 1974 is my estimation. As far as CSSR goes, it was a weak year for d-men there, and Pospisil went through a significant downseason, so nothing more to say here..

Next season initiated by 1974 Summit Series, Vasiliev scored 4 points and only J-C Tremblay was more productive among d-men. WHC ´75 - another quality showing, Valeri wins the media vote comfortably for defensemen with 69 votes out of 92 writers. Pekka Marjamäki was the next best d-man with 40 votes but it was Marjamäki, and not Vasiliev, who was picked by the Directoriate award for the best D.

Vasiliev finishes 6th in 1975 SPOTY voting. For the third time in row now, Vasiliev is voted as best Soviet d-man AND as the best Dinamo Moscow player too. Yes, he outplayed Maltsev every time between 1973-1975 according to Soviet observers, which is impressive... But thinking about this season specifically, there were 5 skaters + 1 goalie ahead of him.

Other d-men - Stig Östling wins the Gold Pucken, but we don´t really know how well Östling did at ´75 WHC, since we don´t have any data past the 1st AS team. Östling, just as Marjamäki, never played in North America so there´s not much to make of them. Frantisek Pospisil had pretty good season, 5th in GS voting, once more the best Czech d-man, also led his club team for the 1st title in his career, but based on all of these results I´ll definitely take Vasiliev again.

Although I hesitate even now to turn 1975 version of Vasiliev into a 1st NHL all-star team. I feel like it´d be too optimistic given he was not even top 5 Soviet and he still couldn´t string together both WHC all-star and Directoriate´s award, which would really assert his position as a clear top d-man in Europe. Salming was 4th in both Norris and All-star voting that year and I don´t see anything convincing that Vasiliev would have done either considerably better or worse than the Swede. I speculate the same result as previously, i.e. 3rd-5th Norris / All-star range for the 1975.

Moving on to the 1976 season, we immediately see a Valeri´s downseason. Yes, he was technically still voted as the co-best Soviet d-man with Lutchenko, but he and Lutchenko finished 12th in SPOTY voting with just 2 third place votes, when there were 64 voters and ballots... Soviets lost the gold to Czechs at the ´76 WHC and the captain of CSSR team, Pospisil, dominated the all-star D voting. After that, sources differ whether Pospisil or Mats Waltin received the Directoriate´s award. Moreover, Waltin won the Gold Pucken award for the top Swede of the season (Pospisil was 5th in GS voting again).

I´ll take Pospisil and Waltin instead of Vasiliev here for this season. Considering how well the Czechoslovaks played internationally specifically in this time, I wonder whether Oldrich Machac and Jiri Bubla (both had one of their best seasons, top 10 in GS voting, great stats and club-team results..) from the Czech team didn´t have a slightly better season than Vasiliev as well...

In sum, this is the season where I think you could expect merely some fringe support for Vasiliev in the NHL award votings. 12th-14th Norris / All-star placement for the 1976.

Next 1977 season started with the Canada Cup. I don´t know how exactly well Vasiliev played there but it was most certainly below the quality of Orr, Potvin and Salming at the least. The Soviet team didn´t advance to final round, lost to Czechs and Canadians, only tied with Sweden. Vasiliev was not the most productive Soviet d-man either...

Subsequent results at the Championship and Soviet MVP voting are somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, Vasiliev put up a great performance as he finally managed to be on the All-star team and winning the Best Defenseman award too - definitely indication of his dominance there. On the other hand and from what I´ve found, I don´t view Pospisil´s performance at the tournament, and at the season as a whole, any lesser than Dinamo´s d-man... First, it was the CSSR (Pospisil´s team) who defended their last year´s title. Soviets found themselves on a historically low 3rd final place, as the Swedes upset them too! Pospisil appeared on the all-star team along with Vasiliev. Unfortunately, there is no AST voting data from this championship as far as I know, so we don´t know if Vasiliev or Pospisil actually won the media vote. Second, the admiration of Pospisil´s play did not come only from his own countrymen this time, one Quebec writer was very impressed by him:

1) Hlinka, Ebermann, Pospisil
Claude Bédard, sport journalist and commentator for “Le Journal de Québec” and Montreal Television Company TVA, shared his thoughts about certain Czech players and Canadian National Team after WHC 1977 for Gól magazine. He said:

“Hlinka is unique to me, he is the ‘superstar’ reminding me with his elegance for us legendary Jean Beliveau. Ebermann is excellent, I am willing to bet that he would manage to score regularly 40 – 45 goals per season in NHL. Pospíšil would probably be a member of NHL All-Star Team. I genuinely like your team and in a lot of ways it reminds me Montreal Canadiens. It has a spirit. I will never understand what happened to them in the last game… I hope that next year I will arrive to Prague and that I will be commenting even better championship than this year´s. I am optimist, I assume that Canada now is going to understand how difficult tournament the World Championship is, that they are going to prepare long-term and that to Prague – with this point I am sure – they are going to send significantly better, more competitive, more responsible and more intelligent team…”

Third and most important point: the SPOTY and GS voting. Despite Vasiliev´s great WHC performance, he ended up only 7th, and only as a 3rd best Dinamo Moscow player. Alex Maltsev and Vasily Pervukhin (Vasiliev´s defense partner presumably) finished ahead on 5th and 6th place. I guess, you can argue that 20/21 years old Pervukhin had a breakout season, it was his 1st season with the National team after all, so his SPOTY record might have been slightly inflated but the fact remains that Vasiliev not appearing again in the top 5 Soviets of the season for the third time in row now + not voted as a clear-cut best d-man in his own team, forces me not to make a big deal out this season again. This is in spark contrast of Pospisil´s MVP voting record, which improved compared to previous two 5th place in 1976 and 1975. Pospisil finished 3rd in Golden Stick voting and his personal ´77 league stats also noticeably improved.

So... I´ll take Pospisil for this one as well, without a second thought. Looking at the NHL votings and Europeans, Salming finished 2nd only to Robinson in both Norris and All-star votings. Pospisil definitely could have been in the 2nd Team.. I don´t see 3 different European defensemen in 1977 occupying the top four exclusive spots in the All-star teams. So I´d probably put Vasiliev back to 5th-7th Norris´ place for the 1977.

Next 1978 season is looking worse. For starters, Vasiliev finishes 14th in SPOTY voting with mere 2 third place votes similarly to 1976, only this time there were 73 Soviet voters / ballots. What´s even more troubling is the fact that 2 other Dinamo Moscow d-men, Pervukhin and Bilyaletdinov, got bigger support, although to be fair, difference was negligible: Bilyaletdinov 10th with 4 points for 4 third places, Pervukhin 11th with 3 points for 1 first place, and Vasiliev 14th with 2 points as said above. From Vasiliev´s own team, Alex Maltsev´s 1978 was also more appreciated (4th SPOTY place). To complete this overview, young Fetisov had his breakout season where he amazed the Soviet observers enough to earn the 3rd place in SPOTY voting and he was also picked up by the Directoriate as the best d-man of the ´78 Championship. 1st WHC all-star team is occupied by Fetisov and Bubla. However, we know that Vasiliev at least found himself on the 2nd all-star team, so he was considered 3rd-4th best d-man of the tournament alongside Zinetula Bilyaletdinov.

Soviets finally broke their rival and restored their WHC domination here in this season. On the other hand, the Czechs still maintained their defensive focus and showed better (IMO) defense than the USSR. CSSR allowed 5 less goals than Soviets.... Jiri Bubla had arguably his peak season in this time, finishing 3rd in Golden Stick voting, made his club team into contender for this season (with his one other very good teammate to be fair..), and scored remarkably well for a defenseman - 51 or 56 points in 44 league games (depends on your source), which was good enough for a 6th place in scoring (and co-incidently right next to 21 y/o Peter Stastny..).

And more thing about 1978 d-men situation in Europe: Frantisek Pospisil decided to retire from international competition, but he still continued with his pace. He ended up 6th in GS voting, which was remarkable achievement considering he hadn´t even played for the CSSR anymore. His Kladno team won 4th title in a row (and they would lose the following one, once Pospisil went to play out his career in Germany..), and Pospisil himself was arguably the best Kladno player in the ´78 Superseries vs. NHL. If I remember correctly, Kladno had 2 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss vs. NYR, Chicago, Toronto and Cleveland, and Pospisil registered 5 points (0+5) in 4 games, and was +4.

Back to Vasiliev and his 1978 estimate, whether we like it or not, he could have been the 3rd Euro d-man at best. Fetisov and Bubla are a given.. I won´t argue with anyone if you prefer Vasiliev over older, still reliable Pospisil stricly based on the fact that Pospisil did not play at the WHC. But then you have Bilyaletdinov with basically the same results at domestic and international level as Vasiliev... Now, would this, say, 10th-14th best Soviet and 3rd-4th best Euro d-man finish in the 1st, 2nd or even hypothetical 3rd NHL All-star team? Probably not. With Salming coming at 4th in both of the categories in this season, the top 10 d-men ranking in a global league would have to contain 4-5 d-men raised in Europe.. I will be more conservative with my assesment here: 11th-13th Norris / All-star placement for the 1978.
_______________

Whoa, that´s an awfully long post once again.. I guess it´s better for everyone to digest this when I post it as a 1st part of this Vasiliev´s profile, and I´ll try to come soon with the 2nd part, preferably tomorrow before this week´s voting round is ended, but if not it would have to come out on Monday.

One brief comment to Vasiliev: I realize this has likely not been all that favourable to the otherwise greatest 1970s Soviet d-man, but really pause with your final judgement until the 2nd part is published (hopefully soon). Just the very next 78/79 season is Vasiliev´s best one, it is his true peak, and he aged really well in the early 1980s, so his final profile is going to look better than how it looks now...
 
Last edited:

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
I have a vague idea of what was said about him, man, that wasn't a go-to guy...that was just a good guy...really good even...but not great for me.

I don't know, I'm getting crippled at a bar right now so this will piss some people off...but you know how Ryan Getzlaf is better than Henrik Sedin, even though Henrik Sedin has "X" and Getzlaf probably doesn't...but you just know...it's like that. Not even for Keon vs Ullman, just against Ullman...he wasn't great. He wasn't better than Francis...

I dunno man, this seems like you think you can just take a few minutes to "scout" hockey from 60 years ago and expect to override what happened on the ice and what contemporary observers thought about what happened. You've got a great critical eye for modern day hockey, but we've already seen with Eddie Shore that you can take liberties (intentionally or not) with "contemporary, after-the-fact" eye test reviews of very old players. We've spent a decade here cultivating an environment where first-hand contemporary reviews of a player's play are of paramount importance, and I want to ensure that the pendulum doesn't swing too far away from that direction, if it swings that direction at all.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
I´ll take a shot at this, it could be fun and helpful exercise.. Since we have sufficient amount of information to roughly make a season-to-season rankings of European d-men that played outside NHL during the 1970s, an estimation of what Vasiliev´s All-star / Norris voting record would be in a global league is certainly doable.

Vasiliev´s first taste of international hockey came in 1970 when he was 20 y/o at his first championship and played just 6 games with 0 points. He then missed the following championship. At ´72, Vasiliev was not 1 of the 16 d-men who got on at least one single ballot for the tournament´s All-star team, while 5 other Soviet d-men did.

He did not register a single vote in the SPOTY voting until 1973. Moreover, just for speaking strictly about Dinamo´s D corp, Vitaly Davydov was getting the votes up to 1971. So let´s move on to examine the seasons that actually matters for Valeri, starting with Summit Series...

I think the Series revealed weaknesses of Soviet defense but it also marked the start of Vasiliev´s prime as he was arguably the best USSR d-man during these games. This article on edmontonjournal.com made both of these points for me based on advanced stats:

"The weakness of the Soviet team was its defencemen. If a defenceman is doing his job against tough competition, he will help create one scoring chance for every scoring chance against where he makes a mistake. Usual mistakes include missing an assignment, losing a puck battle or giving away the puck.
Team Canada had two key defencemen, Brad Park and Bill White, who met that test. Park chipped in on 27 scoring chances at even strength, while making mistakes on 26 against (here are the team totals for the entire series). White contributed to 21 chances while making mistakes on 18 chances against.
The top six Team Canada defencemen were Park, +1 on scoring chances at even strength, White, +3, Guy Lapointe, -5, Pat Stapleton, -10, Serge Savard, -10, and Gary Bergman, -11, not a bad showing against such a skilled attacking team as the Soviet Union.
The Soviets didn’t have one top d-man who came close to meeting this standard.
In fact, their two top d-men, Vladimir Lutchenko and Gennady Tsygankov, helped out little on the attack at even strength, while often getting beat in their own end repeatedly.
Lutchenko contributed to 14 scoring chances at even strength, while making mistakes on 34 against. Even worse, Tsygankov contributed to 11 chances, while making mistakes on 43 against.
The top six Soviet defencemen were Valery Vasiliev, -6, Yuri Lyapkin, -12, Alexander Ragulin, -13, Alexander Gusev, -17, Viktor Kuzkin, -18, Lutchenko, -20, and Tysgnakov, with a chilly -32.
Vasiliev came on strong as the series when on (even if he made a bad giveaway on the sequence of pain for the Soviet’s leading up to Henderson’s historic goal). Indeed, Vasiliev strikes me as the first of the new breed of Soviet d-man, who was tough, even nasty, in his own end, but also skilled on the attack. This breed reached its peak with Alexei Kasatonov and Vyacheslav Festisov in the 1980s, but Vasiliev gave a taste of what was to come."


Vasiliev recorded 3 points of 8 games, +1. After that, it seems that he more or less confirmed his status of being the best Soviet d-man of the 1973 season when he was chosen by the Directoriate as the best defenseman of the championship. It should be said though, that his victory was not confirmed by the media, who voted for Gusev and Salming as All-star defense. Unfortunately, we don´t have any additional AST data, only other thing we have, is the 4 coaches´ selections half-way through the tournament:



Vasiliev finished 6th in SPOTY voting of 1973, 1st among d-men. Gusev was right behind him at 7th though.

Pospisil had a strong season as he finished 3rd in Golden Stick voting, particularly showed his brilliance at Ontario Cup in January 1973 when the CSSR national team clashed with Canadian amateurs for the last time and he won the tournament´s MVP award, but after the Championship 1973 ended, his play was criticized by the Czech media and coaches, in spite of two coaches Bobrov and Lunde speaking favourably about him after 1st half of WHC (Czechs dissapointed everyone with their 3rd place finish)... From the Swedish side of things, one could ask if Salming didn´t become the top Euro D already here in this season before he went to NHL, but I am sceptical of it. Mainly, there was a defenseman who actually won the Gold Pucken award for the best Swedish player of the season, but it was Thommy Abrahamsson, not Salming. Abrahamsson and Salming were both included into Swedish All-star team of the season as well.

All in all, based on these results, I´ll pick Vasiliev from this group for imaginary title of best European d-man here, but it´s not 100% conclusive and it´s definitely weaker season than what 5-8 forwards and perhaps 1-2 goalies had in 1973. Rookie Salming was 5th in Norris / 7th in NHL All-star voting following season. I´d guess similar result 5th-7th Norris / NHL All-star placement for Vasiliev in 1973 appears like a reasonable estimation.

Next season, Vasiliev is getting better and adds one of his strongest seasons: 3rd in SPOTY, voted behind Tretiak, Mikhailov, voted ahead of Maltsev, Kharlamov, Yakushev. At WHC, Vasiliev adds another all-star nod, but is outvoted by Sjöberg, and Sjöberg is also the Directoriate´s choice, so Vasiliev was clear number 2 d-man for the tournament, albeit closer to Sjöberg than to the rest of the field. Of course, Sjöberg is also included into Swedish All-star team, but we don´t know how well he fared in Gold Pucken voting (we only have a list of winners, as far as I know, and Sjöberg won the award in 1969 only). Sjöberg would go on to play for the Jets in WHA following season, scoring 65 points in 70 games, +43, almost double the amount of points of what the next best Winnipeg´s d-man scored. But he also missed the WHA 1st and 2nd all-star team.. fact that the Jets missed the playoffs could have something to do with it. Sjöberg was 30 when he came over so overall, I think his season was decent and doesn´t put this 1974´ Vasiliev´s season too much in doubt. Other thing which leads me to conclusion of improved play by the Russian is his league record: apparently Valeri scored 15 points from 31 games, while his offensive output in all of his previous seasons was almost non-existent (3-7 points in 35-42 games...).

Overall, I can see Vasiliev having a good chance for the 2nd NHL all-star team but probably not the 1st one, since he didn´t quite distinguish himself from all the other d-men in Europe yet. 3rd-5th in Norris / All-star voting for the 1974 is my estimation. As far as CSSR goes, it was a weak year for d-men there, and Pospisil went through a significant downseason, so nothing more to say here..

Next season initiated by 1974 Summit Series, Vasiliev scored 4 points and only J-C Tremblay was more productive among d-men. WHC ´75 - another quality showing, Valeri wins the media vote comfortably for defensemen with 69 votes out of 92 writers. Pekka Marjamäki was the next best d-man with 40 votes but it was Marjamäki, and not Vasiliev, who was picked by the Directoriate award for the best D.

Vasiliev finishes 6th in 1975 SPOTY voting. For the third time in row now, Vasiliev is voted as best Soviet d-man AND as the best Dinamo Moscow player too. Yes, he outplayed Maltsev every time between 1973-1975 according to Soviet observers, which is impressive... But thinking about this season specifically, there were 5 skaters + 1 goalie ahead of him.

Other d-men - Stig Östling wins the Gold Pucken, but we don´t really know how well Östling did at ´75 WHC, since we don´t have any data past the 1st AS team. Östling, just as Marjamäki, never played in North America so there´s not much to make of them. Frantisek Pospisil had pretty good season, 5th in GS voting, once more the best Czech d-man, also led his club team for the 1st title in his career, but based on all of these results I´ll definitely take Vasiliev again.

Although I hesitate even now to turn 1975 version of Vasiliev into a 1st NHL all-star team. I feel like it´d be too optimistic given he was not even top 5 Soviet and he still couldn´t string together both WHC all-star and Directoriate´s award, which would really assert his position as a clear top d-man in Europe. Salming was 4th in both Norris and All-star voting that year and I don´t see anything convincing that Vasiliev would have done either considerably better or worse than the Swede. I speculate the same result as previously, i.e. 3rd-5th Norris / All-star range for the 1975.

Moving on to the 1976 season, we immediately see a Valeri´s downseason. Yes, he was technically still voted as the co-best Soviet d-man with Lutchenko, but he and Lutchenko finished 12th in SPOTY voting with just 2 third place votes, when there were 64 voters and ballots... Soviets lost the gold to Czechs at the ´76 WHC and the captain of CSSR team, Pospisil, dominated the all-star D voting. After that, sources differ whether Pospisil or Mats Waltin received the Directoriate´s award. Moreover, Waltin won the Gold Pucken award for the top Swede of the season (Pospisil was 5th in GS voting again).

I´ll take Pospisil and Waltin instead of Vasiliev here for this season. Considering how well the Czechoslovaks played internationally specifically in this time, I wonder whether Oldrich Machac and Jiri Bubla (both had one of their best seasons, top 10 in GS voting, great stats and club-team results..) from the Czech team didn´t have a slightly better season than Vasiliev as well...

In sum, this is the season where I think you could expect merely some fringe support for Vasiliev in the NHL award votings. 12th-14th Norris / All-star placement for the 1976.

Next 1977 season started with the Canada Cup. I don´t know how exactly well Vasiliev played there but it was most certainly below the quality of Orr, Potvin and Salming at the least. The Soviet team didn´t advance to final round, lost to Czechs and Canadians, only tied with Sweden. Vasiliev was not the most productive Soviet d-man either...

Subsequent results at the Championship and Soviet MVP voting are somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, Vasiliev put up a great performance as he finally managed to be on the All-star team and winning the Best Defenseman award too - definitely indication of his dominance there. On the other hand and from what I´ve found, I don´t view Pospisil´s performance at the tournament, and at the season as a whole, any lesser than Dinamo´s d-man... First, it was the CSSR (Pospisil´s team) who defended their last year´s title. Soviets found themselves on a historically low 3rd final place, as the Swedes upset them too! Pospisil appeared on the all-star team along with Vasiliev. Unfortunately, there is no AST voting data from this championship as far as I know, so we don´t know if Vasiliev or Pospisil actually won the media vote. Second, the admiration of Pospisil´s play did not come only from his own countrymen this time, one Quebec writer was very impressed by him:



Third and most important point: the SPOTY and GS voting. Despite Vasiliev´s great WHC performance, he ended up only 7th, and only as a 3rd best Dinamo Moscow player. Alex Maltsev and Vasily Pervukhin (Vasiliev´s defense partner presumably) finished ahead on 5th and 6th place. I guess, you can argue that 20/21 years old Pervukhin had a breakout season, it was his 1st season with the National team after all, so his SPOTY record might have been slightly inflated but the fact remains that Vasiliev not appearing again in the top 5 Soviets of the season for the third time in row now + not voted as a clear-cut best d-man in his own team, forces me not to make a big deal out this season again. This is in spark contrast of Pospisil´s MVP voting record, which improved compared to previous two 5th place in 1976 and 1975. Pospisil finished 3rd in Golden Stick voting and his personal ´77 league stats also noticeably improved.

So... I´ll take Pospisil for this one as well, without a second thought. Looking at the NHL votings and Europeans, Salming finished 2nd only to Robinson in both Norris and All-star votings. Pospisil definitely could have been in the 2nd Team.. I don´t see 3 different European defensemen in 1977 occupying the top four exclusive spots in the All-star teams. So I´d probably put Vasiliev back to 5th-7th Norris´ place for the 1977.

Next 1978 season is looking worse. For starters, Vasiliev finishes 14th in SPOTY voting with mere 2 third place votes similarly to 1976, only this time there were 73 Soviet voters / ballots. What´s even more troubling is the fact that 2 other Dinamo Moscow d-men, Pervukhin and Bilyaletdinov, got bigger support, although to be fair, difference was negligible: Bilyaletdinov 10th with 4 points for 4 third places, Pervukhin 11th with 3 points for 1 first place, and Vasiliev 14th with 2 points as said above. From Vasiliev´s own team, Alex Maltsev´s 1978 was also more appreciated (4th SPOTY place). To complete this overview, young Fetisov had his breakout season where he amazed the Soviet observers enough to earn the 3rd place in SPOTY voting and he was also picked up by the Directoriate as the best d-man of the ´78 Championship. 1st WHC all-star team is occupied by Fetisov and Bubla. However, we know that Vasiliev at least found himself on the 2nd all-star team, so he was considered 3rd-4th best d-man of the tournament alongside Zinetula Bilyaletdinov.

Soviets finally broke their rival and restored their WHC domination here in this season. On the other hand, the Czechs still maintained their defensive focus and showed better (IMO) defense than the USSR. CSSR allowed 5 less goals than Soviets.... Jiri Bubla had arguably his peak season in this time, finishing 3rd in Golden Stick voting, made his club team into contender for this season (with his one other very good teammate to be fair..), and scored remarkably well for a defenseman - 51 or 56 points in 44 league games (depends on your source), which was good enough for a 6th place in scoring (and co-incidently right next to 21 y/o Petr Stastny..).

And more thing about 1978 d-men situation in Europe: Frantisek Pospisil decided to retire from international competition, but he still continued with his pace. He ended up 6th in GS voting, which was remarkable achievement considering he hadn´t even played for the CSSR anymore. His Kladno team won 4th title in a row (and they would lose the following one, once Pospisil went to play out his career in Germany..), and Pospisil himself was arguably the best Kladno player in the ´78 Superseries vs. NHL. If I remember correctly, Kladno had 2 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss vs. NYR, Chicago, Toronto and Cleveland, and Pospisil registered 5 points (0+5) in 4 games, and was +4.

Back to Vasiliev and his 1978 estimate, whether we like it or not, he could have been the 3rd Euro d-man at best. Fetisov and Bubla are a given.. I won´t argue with anyone if you prefer Vasiliev over older, still reliable Pospisil stricly based on the fact that Pospisil did not play at the WHC. But then you have Bilyaletdinov with basically the same results at domestic and international level as Vasiliev... Now, would this, say, 10th-14th best Soviet and 3rd-4th best Euro d-man finish in the 1st, 2nd or even hypothetical 3rd NHL All-star team? Probably not. With Salming coming at 4th in both of the categories in this season, the top 10 d-men ranking in a global league would have to contain 4-5 d-men raised in Europe.. I will be more conservative with my assesment here: 11th-13th Norris / All-star placement for the 1978.
_______________

Whoa, that´s an awfully long post once again.. I guess it´s better for everyone to digest this when I post it as a 1st part of this Vasiliev´s profile, and I´ll try to come soon with the 2nd part, preferably tomorrow before this week´s voting round is ended, but if not it would have to come out on Monday.

One brief comment to Vasiliev: I realize this has likely not been all that favourable to the otherwise greatest 1970s Soviet d-man, but really pause with your final judgement until the 2nd part is published (hopefully soon). Just the very next 78/79 season is Vasiliev´s best one, it is his true peak, and he aged really well in the early 1980s, so his final profile is going to look better than how it looks now...

Wow, awesome. I've read the first 1/3 of it and I'm enthralled but I have to take off somewhere. Looking forward to reading the rest. It seems like exactly what I was looking for.

Seems like if we split the difference on your assessments, his best four seasons would see him finish 4th, 4th, 6th, 6th - am I reading that correctly? It's just what I noticed when skimming for bold stuff.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DN28

DN28

Registered User
Jan 2, 2014
629
576
Prague
Wow, awesome. I've read the first 1/3 of it and I'm enthralled but I have to take off somewhere. Looking forward to reading the rest. It seems like exactly what I was looking for.

Seems like if we split the difference on your assessments, his best four seasons would see him finish 4th, 4th, 6th, 6th - am I reading that correctly? It's just what I noticed when skimming for bold stuff.

That would have been just his 4 best seasons up to 1978.

As I´ve alluded at the end of the post, Vasiliev´s peak probably came in late 70s / early 80s, so we should expect better hypothetical results there. So far I´ve ended in 1978..

.. but I need to take a short break for the rest of the day now. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: seventieslord

Michael Farkas

Grace Personified
Jun 28, 2006
13,350
7,832
NYC
www.HockeyProspect.com
I dunno man, this seems like you think you can just take a few minutes to "scout" hockey from 60 years ago and expect to override what happened on the ice and what contemporary observers thought about what happened. You've got a great critical eye for modern day hockey, but we've already seen with Eddie Shore that you can take liberties (intentionally or not) with "contemporary, after-the-fact" eye test reviews of very old players. We've spent a decade here cultivating an environment where first-hand contemporary reviews of a player's play are of paramount importance, and I want to ensure that the pendulum doesn't swing too far away from that direction, if it swings that direction at all.

This probably isn't unfair. I should note that I view the game through a different lens and this is my only meaningful way to gather "data" and express it. Also, one could reason that if you trust my contemporary eye, you should trust my "past" eye because the talent evaluation portion isn't *so* different...

To that end, we see some coaches from back then (even Bowman) say some highly questionable things and we sometimes dismiss them as crazy...whether that's right or wrong, that's the place I'm coming from. Not that I am half the hockeyman that Bowman is and was...that would be like me saying I'm Jesus under the guise that "we're all God's children"...it's a charitable interpretation. The idea is that I treat this process a little bit like my draft list...for those who are draft wonks, you would be floored by the difference in lists from one team to another. Teams can have a guy at 17th overall on their list and another team can have him as a ND (no draft)...many online sources strive for consensus, and it pollutes the product. That's always my concern here is that: a player is here today because he was here yesterday.

I challenged Eddie Shore on this premise. I challenged Maurice Richard on this premise. To me, video is like re-opening a murder trial on the other side of the use of DNA. Maybe we find out the guy didn't do it...maybe we confirm he did...either way, we're using the entire buffalo...

So while I take zero umbrage with what you said because I know you're a good hockey guy, you have VsX and other tools (contemporary quotes, too of course) as a way to express yourself and I have my eyes and it's to the benefit of our work and this community that we (et al) challenge ourselves in this regard...if I thought I had the perfect top 100 list and I was infallible, I would have posted it by now...I need you guys too.
 

Canadiens1958

Registered User
Nov 30, 2007
20,020
2,773
Lake Memphremagog, QC.
I dunno man, this seems like you think you can just take a few minutes to "scout" hockey from 60 years ago and expect to override what happened on the ice and what contemporary observers thought about what happened. You've got a great critical eye for modern day hockey, but we've already seen with Eddie Shore that you can take liberties (intentionally or not) with "contemporary, after-the-fact" eye test reviews of very old players. We've spent a decade here cultivating an environment where first-hand contemporary reviews of a player's play are of paramount importance, and I want to ensure that the pendulum doesn't swing too far away from that direction, if it swings that direction at all.

Both are equally valuable. As are pictures. Will illustrate with an example. 1953 semi-finals Chicago vs Montreal, the prevailing contemporary newspaper accounts contributed the myth that Jacques Plante replaced Gerry McNeil who was battling nerves. Similar to Bill Durnan in 1950.

1953McNeilPlante.jpg


The above picture from the Montreal Herald in a post SC review by Elmer Ferguson shows the truth. McNeil was hiding a right ankle injury from stopping a shot in practice that Ferguson attended.

To summarize, you cannot rely on one option to the exclusion of visual alternatives.

We should be grateful to Mike and others who can and do breakdown videos or find telling images.
 

blogofmike

Registered User
Dec 16, 2010
2,178
926
1972 Summit Series. An Edmonton appreciation of Serge Savard's PK and defensive puck control skills:

Bobby Clarke was the villain of 1972, but was he also Team Canada's MVP?

Roughly the bottom 1/4 of the article.

Team MVP candidate per the article.

That article makes me think more highly of Vasiliev than Savard.

Savard was -2/per game on scoring chance contribution/mistake plus/minus. Worse than any of the other regulars (White, Park, Lapointe, Stapleton, Bergman) even if it's better than the other guys (Awrey, Seiling.) 3.6 mistakes per game leading to USSR ES scoring chances is higher than the other regulars, even if it is easily better than Awrey and Seiling.

According to Bendell stats, White was +7, Park +5, Stapleton + 5 and Bergman +6. Savard was a -1.

Savard has had his moments, but as far as Summit Series 1972 goes, Brian Leetch and Duncan Keith had far better moments in international play.
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
The rest of the centers, in rough order:

Dave Keon. My God, but those playoff ratios. The Leafs relied heavily on Keon in the 60s, and were rewarded with four cups. Keon literally doubled the Leafs' gf:ga ratio while he was on the ice in the playoffs. Hockey Outsider posted some numbers already that show him at 67% better than his team, if you weigh those numbers by season, he's a 1.81 to his team's 0.89 (and if you cut it off at 1975, it's 2.24 to 1.11). But what is it with Keon and the playoffs? By the same method, his career regular season numbers have him at 1.24/1.13, a great ratio but by no means impressive in a round like this, especially when you consider that Toronto never had an ice-tilting superstar player that would have made the team performance a tough standard to beat (Howe, Beliveau, Orr, Mikita). But my god, those playoffs. Why? Is it just small sample noise? If so, why did it happen year after year after year? It's already pretty clear that Keon was a superlative defensive forward, probably in the bottom half of the top-10 all-time. But his offense is weak for a top-100 player, he has no Hart recognition whatsoever and just one all-star team. If he had posted GF/GA data in the regular season anything close to what he did in the playoffs, he'd be a slam dunk. I get that he's a "you had to be there" player - probably in 40 years I'll be telling some young noob that he "had to be there" to appreciate Patrice Bergeron. More and more I'm thinking these two players will occupy the same echelon of all-time greatness one day - I'm not 100% convinced that is within the top-100, but I'm also not 100% convinced it is not.

Joe Thornton. The first and most obvious thing you notice about him is, he's got the best regular season offensive record of all available players. And mad props for that. You could vote him in on that basis alone. But there is one thing about that, that bothers me just a little, and it's this: Relative to his assist/point production, he was an awful goal scorer. His best goal-scoring seasons saw him finish 12th and 16th in goals, and the first of those two times, his playmaking clearly suffered (not sure what was going on that year; it's real strange looking back and seeing that there was in fact a season where Joe Thornton had more goals than assists). He never even approached the top-20 in goals ever again. With just 28% of his career points being goals, he's in a territory occupied by guys like Stumpel, Ribeiro, Cassels, Juneau, Janney and Marc Savard - I cherrypicked those names a bit, because among them are great players like Larionov, Sedin and Weight, and excellent players like Clarke, Forsberg and Oates - so I don't know how much we should devalue him. To be clear, I'm not saying "goals > assists", I'm firmly in the "points are points" crowd, BUT, there is real value to balance and unpredictability. And Thornton is not balanced, and he is not unpredictable. This could be a huge reason why great playoff success has eluded him - in a playoff series, you are able to make a 5, 6, 7-game long plan about how you are going to limit the effectiveness of a player like Joe Thornton. That is much more difficult to do when the player is Jean Beliveau, Sidney Crosby, Joe Sakic (to name three excellent centers who COULD score goals), or Mats Sundin, Pierre Turgeon or Gilbert Perreault (to name three centers who were great, yet decidedly inferior, who nonetheless COULD score goals, and did end up with better individual production records in the playoffs). And it's not just his playoff scoring - if he had managed to pick up 20% more points along the way, to bring his playoff production to an "acceptable" level, and managed to do this without affecting his goals against, he would still have a playoff R-on much worse than his R-off in his playoff career - meaning he's surrendering more goals than he should, too. San Jose has been a very good team this whole time, with a lot of "gimme" series along the way, and he never even really imposed his will on a regular basis in those ones. (edit to add one more thing: I don't want to sound like I'm devaluing the regular season either - it's a sample of 1500 games, and Thornton was, more often than not, his team's MVP and therefore the biggest reasons they had a "gimme" first round series - it's why we play the regular season after all - so I do highly respect what he was able to do year after year for so long) There's so much to like and so much that stinks, too.

Sid Abel. Part of me wants to say he's super similar to Norm Ullman (longtime wing, two-way guy, very good but not transcendent offense) and I want to see him rank just as highly as him. The other part of me sees a few reasons to have him a little below a guy like Norm. Longevity is one. Ullman put up 16 seasons that could be classified as "good" - VsX score od 60 or higher. Abel put up just half as many. What about peak, does he have a peak argument? He put up four seasons with a score of 80 or higher, while Ullman had six. A quick look at linemates doesn't help Abel's case vis-a-vis Ullman, either: Ullman had Gordie Howe for a linemate for one or two seasons, and a short part of another. Abel was Howe's linemate for five full seasons. While he was able to be 5th in points before Howe came along, this was his only high-end season. Then, four of his five best seasons came at age 29-33 with Howe as a linemate. Abel was a great player in his own right, but Howe helped every linemate put up points during his spectacular career and Abel is not an exception. In terms of non-scoring offensive skills (such as forechecking, digging in the corners, net presence) I get the sense that Ullman and Abel were the same kind of players and approximately equal in their effectiveness (and this may be really generous to Abel because Ullman was being called "perhaps the best forechecker ever"). Defensively, I think Ullman was better too. Reading Abel's bio, you get the sense that he was a conscientious player all over the ice, but by no means is the praise for him as glowing as it was for Ullman (to drop a few short passages - has long been one of the Wings' best defensive players and he ranks with the best at poke-checking, picking off passes and hounding a player, as valuable defensively as he is on offense, always one of the best defensive centers in the game, has always been regarded as an outstanding two-way player, a superb 2-way center) Abel certainly enjoyed more playoff success and was known as a an all-time great leader, so he's not without his positives, but he's too far behind the 8-ball at this point in the conversation for those things to make a difference.

Eric Lindros. On a per-game basis, he might be neck and neck with Erik Karlsson for the best player here. To hammer that home - if you take his 7 best seasons, (not his 7 best per-game seasons but his 7 best in terms of what he accomplished in them) and project them out to full seasons, his VsX score for them would be 103.3, meaning that over his best 7 years he performed at basically an art-ross level, or a 1st/2nd in league scoring level. (I should advise, that being that he was only 1st/2nd/3rd in PPG in his best 3 seasons, this is really generous to him because it gives no one else the same benefit) But once you get past how good he was on the ice, you have to acknowledge that he accomplished frighteningly little for a player of his stature. 1st and 3rd for the Hart. 1st, 6th and 7th in points. A 1st and a 2nd all-star team. One SCF appearance. 57 career playoff points. And yes, the reason that this is the case is, for the most part, injuries (I say "the most part" because some people like to romanticize him like he was the best player in the world for five years, when you had Lemieux, who was obviously better but also had problems staying in the lineup, Jagr who was better, Forsberg and Sakic who were comparable, as well as a couple of very dominant goaltenders and defensemen putting together world-beating seasons and playoffs - but I digress, the point was injuries)... and yes it's true, injuries prevented him from achieving more. But it's also true that his own lack of sense was the root cause of his injuries. Has the NHL ever seen an example of a player cutting through the middle with his head down and getting clocked so many times... and not learning from it? I was a staunch advocate for Lindros in the HHOF, but the HHOF can fit some 300 players. This is a top-100 players lis.

Peter Stastny. TDMM is right that Stastny gets a lot of mileage out of the whole "2nd most points in the 1980s" thing. I don't have a lot of time in a top-100 project for 1970s and 80s centers who racked up points but don't have demonstrably better offensive dominance better than many others once era is accounted for, did not move the needle in any noticeable way with their two-way play, AND didn't achieve much of anything, team-wise, in the playoffs - I'm looking at you, Stastny, Hawerchuk, Savard, Perreault, and Sittler... Now, with that said, I'm quite sure that Stastny is the cream of that crop, and our work in the centers project practically codified as much, so maybe he's worthy of some quick consideration. To add a little more nuance, I just took a quick look at the career point collaboration scores for all these players, and they are all practically even, with Sittler lagging behind, so there's no reason to question Stastny being the best of that crop of centers based on linemates (we all know by now, he was never Goulet's center, right?). But in the end, you just run out of room for a guy like him, with so many more players left out there who were more dominant and significant players in their own eras.
 
Last edited:

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
Both are equally valuable. As are pictures. Will illustrate with an example. 1953 semi-finals Chicago vs Montreal, the prevailing contemporary newspaper accounts contributed the myth that Jacques Plante replaced Gerry McNeil who was battling nerves. Similar to Bill Durnan in 1950.

View attachment 203709

The above picture from the Montreal Herald in a post SC review by Elmer Ferguson shows the truth. McNeil was hiding a right ankle injury from stopping a shot in practice that Ferguson attended.

To summarize, you cannot rely on one option to the exclusion of visual alternatives.

We should be grateful to Mike and others who can and do breakdown videos or find telling images.

I'm not sure it's that simple. The prevailing newspaper narrative certainly seems to be that he stepped aside due to nerves, but it's not like they just made it up - Irvin said so himself, and in doing so he was paraphrasing McNeil.

Then in the fall of 1954, McNeil retired due to nerves, and straight from his own mouth he confirmed it.

The picture from Ferguson seems to indicate an ankle injury, but we can only speculate on its severity. Perhaps it was so bad that he couldn't play - that doesn't mean that the prevailing narrative wasn't also true. The evidence seems to corroborate that it was. (the retirement article actually refers to him playing on a badly injured ankle - whether it's the injury from the 1953 playoffs, who can say)

McNeil aside, the point that you're really trying to make, though, is that "both are equally valuable", those being first-hand, contemporary accounts and after-the-fact scouting decades later. I would strongly disagree. Look at the Eddie Shore discussion from months ago. Mike looked at a very short highlight reel of Shore, came to the conclusion that he was not a very smart player, who thought only of smashing into other players and attempted to have us rank him accordingly. That's looking at 1930s hockey and expecting the players to live up to modern standards, which is just not fair. It does not take into consideration what kind of defense tactics were the most effective or appreciated in that time, and most egregiously, it assumes that these were routine moments instead of high-action moments cherrypicked by a 1930s editor for a hype video - you don't see Eddie Shore highlight videos detailing the dozens of times he may have taken guys out of the play in much more subtle ways, because no one wants to see that (except us 90 years later), and you don't have hours of footage where you can point to dozens of instances of someone less flashy like, say, Cy Wentworth, being so much smarter and more effective at defense. A 1980s Scott Stevens highlight reel would look very much the same, but we have much more information about Stevens' that tells us that these are just brief moments in a very long and effective career. We don't have that for Shore. It's great that we have a very brief look at him to apply the eye test, but let's weigh it accordingly with the eye tests from the people who rated hockey's best defenseman and indeed, best player, so many times. The argument against his style of play, intentionally or not, ends up being "but he played so long ago", just framed in a seemingly more intellectual way.

Same concept with Ullman - to a different degree. The first hand accounts and the results captured by numbers definitely paint the picture of a real catalyst in both the offensive and defensive zones.

20190323_155213.jpg
20190323_155222.jpg
20190323_155322.jpg
 

seventieslord

Student Of The Game
Mar 16, 2006
36,080
7,132
Regina, SK
The wingers:

This is in rough order of how I see them now, but I have so many open questions about them all, that they could still go in any order.

Patrick Kane. This stems from last week's brief discussion about what Martin St. Louis has on Kane, and although vadim gave a good overview of that, I'm not sure it's enough. At this point, Kane has put up just as many good seasons as MSL, and more great ones. Much more balance offensively - he can score goals just as well as he sets them up, instead of just "meh" goal scoring. Points are points, but MSL's a little on the predictable side. Not a lot, but a little. Didn't have elite centermen to the degree and duration that MSL did. Much better playoff results - at least in terms of raw offense - 33 more points in 20 more playoff games than MSL is not insignificant. But those playoff ratios are not very nice. I can forgive numbers like that for players who didn't score mind-blowing numbers, or those who had defensive responsibilities, but Kane has scored mindblowing numbers and he has not had defensive responsibilities, yet, the Hawks have been better without him on the ice, by ES GF/GA. His linemate situation has been more often than not crappy, but his deployment has also been rather sheltered, as I understand it from this week's discussion. I think of guys like Dino Ciccarelli and Daniel Briere - two guys who are always cited as having surprisingly strong playoff numbers, but then others are quick to point out that they also allowed a lot of playoff goals against and therefore their +/- numbers suck. Is Kane just a cadillac version of those kinds of guys? Do his playoff numbers overrate him? And if they do, does it even matter when it comes to players like MSL and Iginla, who aren't exactly close in sustained playoff production, anyway? I feel like it's so easy to go back and forth and back and forth on a player like this all day.

Jarome Iginla/Martin St. Louis. I haven't changed my mind on Iginla vs. MSL. MSL has a 7% edge in peak offense (7 year VsX) but I think Iginla chips away at that edge in a number of ways:

first of all, less predictable. Can be counted on to score and make plays.

Second, less linemate help - a lot less. Point collaboration scores demonstrate this pretty clearly - Iginla was 1.57X the scorer that the players who collaborated on points with him were - MSL was 1.38X the scorer of his collaborators. For context, Iginla's numbers mirror those of elite centers who carried lesser linemates for years - like Perreault, Hawerchuk, Stastny, and Savard - MSL's score looks more like very good wingers who were sometimes the straw, sometimes the drink - Mark Recchi, Luc Robitaille, Marian Hossa.

Both improved their team's GF/GA differentials by about the same amounts over their careers.

Both had their lulls during their prime - Iggy had 03, 06, 10, MSL had 06, 08, and 09.

Defensively, I think it's a wash. Maybe Iginla's cycling and board work helped on the possession side of things, but I don't see him as a great defensive player. By the last 1/3 of his career apparently he was getting somewhat ventilated going up against superior first lines all the time. MSL gets too much mileage out of his 2004 +/- and the selke votes it got him - I don't think he was any good defensively and he did surrender a ton of goals against.

MSL was on run-and-gun teams more often - in his prime, his "run and gun score", a simple stat that measures a team's GFA and GAA combined versus the average, has him at 1.05, and Iginla at 0.98, meaning that just based on team talent level, coaching and philosophy, he probably had about a 7% easier time.

Lastly, there's the divisional thing. Whether or not it can be shown that MSL himself feasted on poor defensive teams and boosted his numbers, it can be shown pretty easily that he played a lot more games against poor defensive teams, probably more than any other star of his era, and no matter his results against them, it was, by definition, easier to score against these teams. I can't do the full legwork on this right now, but look at his three best seasons: 2004, 2011 and 2013. In 2004, his divisional opponents were 17th, 22nd, 25th and 28th defensively - allowing 80 more goals than 4 average teams. And he played them more often than any other teams, other than eachother. In 2011, the Capitals were great, but Carolina, Atlanta and Florida were not, leading to a slight, but not drastic advantage. In 2013, his divisional opponents allowed 91 more goals than 4 average teams would have - in a lockout season. He got the worst two defensive teams in the league this season.

Now for Iginla, in 2002, he actually was going up against the two best defensive teams in the league. Colorado and - uh, Edmonton. Yes, I double checked this. Minnesota and Vancouver were closer to average. His divisional opponents allowed 61 goals less than four average teams would. In 2008, it was 13 goals less than average, and in 2009, 29 goals fewer. This should not be overstated - remember, they all played every team, and everyone played MSL and Iginla's divisional opponents too, but over time, having more games against tighter and looser teams makes an impact. I believe all of these things make MSL's seemingly large offensive advantage vanish.

Toe Blake: A lesser Jarome Iginla, maybe? One who actually had better linemates? Similar skill set, and an admirable all-around game, but did not even achieve Iginla's individual results despite the help of the punch line. Like Abel, he proved he was a great player in his own right before he had a generational talent on his line for the better part of a decade. But like Abel, his results with said generational talent lose a little shine. I'm also quite averse to putting two entire famous forward units on the list - the history of hockey is 150 years long and to think that many greats can be concentrated not just on one team, but on one line, seems unlikely. What is more likely is that the uniquely advantageous situations of being able to play with Howe/Lindsay and Richard/Lach made these great players look even better in retrospect. We aren't even guaranteed to induct a player from the quasi-dynasty 2010s Hawks and we are thinking of putting on two third wheels from famous forward lines (who, it should be added, also each had a defenseman and a goalie make the list already)? I'm not feeling it. He just compares so easily directly to Iginla because of their styles (physical, puck winning winger) and does not meet the standard set by him.
 
Last edited:

BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
30,844
13,628
Eddie Gerard

Last attempt, inspirational in spirit, to convince people to rank that guy.

Eddie Gerard was a natural talent from a young age

"As a youngster back in 1906 Gerard was attracting attention as one of the most promising of the younger crop of players in the Capital, and he quickly developed into a top notcher with powerful New Edinburgh teams." - Ottawa Journal

Eddie Gerard was a great all-around athlete, not just a great hockey player

"Though Hockey far from monopolized his sporting life- for he was a noted football player, an outstanding paddler and took an active interest in baseball and cricket- his career on the ice was sludded with feats of courage and skill." - Montreal Gazette

Eddie Gerard was a highly sought player before his NHA career; signed large contract right off the bat

"EDDIE GERARD SIGNS OTTAWA CONTRACT AT REGULAR N.H.A. SALARY

Eddie Gerard signed a contract to-day with the Ottawa Hockey Club and will be with the party which leaves for Quebec by the G.T.R. this afternoon.

LARGEST CONTRACT FOR SOME TIME" - Ottawa Journal (1914)

""It was a privilege to be connected with the club when Eddie Gerard turned professional.He was a much sought after player and from the time he joined the Senators to the time he left them he proved himself a sterling player and gentleman.I know of no one in my hockey experience who so typified the term sportsman.He was one of the greatest players to ever wear the red, white and black, and I am extremely sorry to hear of his passing." - Frank Ahearn

Eddie Gerard was a great leader

"WAS GREAT LEADER

Great as he was as a hockey player, Gerard was equally valuable as a leader, and in his capacity of captain he was largely responsible for the glorious hockey chapters written by the "Super-Six." - Ottawa Journal

"Eddie Gerard was the ideal type of hockey player," said Sprague Cleghorn."When I played on the defence with him for the Senators and we were winning world championships we were a team that didn't have a coach.We didn't need one.Every man on the team knew how to play his position, and Eddie Gerard knew more than any of us.He was a great puck-carrier, a fine blocking defenceman and he had all the courage in the world.He was a brainy hockey player and a natural leader on the ice.I am more than sorry to learn about Eddie's death." - Sprague Cleghorn

Eddie Gerard mentored young players and thus left a legacy on Ottawa's blueline after his retirement

"Eddie Gerard was an inspiration to all young players.He was one of the cleanest living athletes I have ever known.His conduct on and off the ice must always be an example for the younger generation.I am terribly sorry to hear he is done." - Dave Gill, long-time friend and former manager of the Ottawa Senators

"I cannot say how sorry I am to hear of Eddie's death.I have played with many athletes in my time, but no finer type than the same Eddie.He was a grand sportsman, not only a great athlete but a born leader.He was as much a coach as he was a player in the best days of the Ottawa Hockey Club.We all followed his advice and profited by his example." - George Boucher

"I mentioned that he helped me a lot.To start with, I played my first game as a professional in a pair of Eddie Gerard's skates.He gave them to my dad one day and otld him to pass them on to me.Eddie wanted me to get off to a good start in hockey, and what better way to do this than to make sure I was wearing a first-class pair of skates.

I got out on the ice, an 18 year old kid with no experience, and there was Gerard coming over to me to point out one thing and another about the game, giving me all the help he could.I have to say he was a wonderful inspiration to me.It was a dream come true to stand out there on the defence beside the one player who'd been my idol for years.It was Gerard who taught me to skate in a straight line.He told me to take the shortest route to the goal, to go straight up the middle.Eddie was a straightaway hockey player; he never took two strides if he could get there in one." - King Clancy

"Any success I may have had as a hockey player is due to my early training under Eddie and Buck Boucher." - King Clancy

"Through his death I have lost a friend whose actions I have tried to emulate on and off the ice." - King Clancy

King Clancy with high praise, comparing him to Doug Harvey and Eddie Shore

"Before I'm finished with this narrative, maybe you'll be thinking that far too often I say this player was great and that player was great; that I build too many pedestals for these stars of the past to stand on.But there's no question about Gerard being a fabulous hockey player.They talk about Doug Harvey and Eddie Shore and one or two other legendary defencemen.Gerard was in that class - a brilliant skater and a fine team man." - King Clancy Story

Clint Benedict could relax when Gerard had the puck:

"The second one to go in a great team, the late Jack Darragh, who could play left or right wing and now Eddie, one of the best defencemen that ever played in front of me.I have yet to see a player who could flip the puck on the end of his stick as Eddie could, it seemed to be a specialty of his own, when circling the nets.I could relax when the puck was on the end of Eddie's stick, knowing it would reach the other end of the rink, when Eddie had it.Believe me when I say I am sorry of his passing." - Clint Benedict

Capsule Summary of his performance in every playoffs game between 1920 and 1923 (I isolated the passages about Gerard)

1920 SC Finals

Game 1
Gerard and Cleghorn on the defence kept up constant series of rushes and used the body with telling effect.They individually wore down the Seattle forwards who were limping around exhausted by the time the third period was well under way.

Game 2
Gerard turned in one of his finest games.

Eddie Gerard
divided the inidivual honors with Boucher, and his rush, which netted Ottawa's second in the final period, was perhaps the prettiest of the night.

Game 3
Gerard and Cleghorn played heady games on the defensive.

Gerard worked like a beaver and was conspicuous at all stages.

Game 4
For the Senators, all seemed to be below par with Gerard and Cleghorn best.

Benedict gave a good account of himself in the Ottawa net, but Cleghorn and Gerard were not as steady as usual and they fafled to fathom Seattle's cleverly executed forward pass.Nighbor

Game 5
When Eddie Gerard rushed in the last frame and beat Holmes for Ottawa's third goal he settled the game.After that it was all Ottawa.

Cleghorn and Gerard worked body and stick with telling effect.

Cleghorn and Gerard played well defensively after the first period and defied the efforts of the Walker-Foyston-Rilet front line to beat them.

OTTAWA WINS THE STANLEY CUP!

1921 Playoffs

Game 1
Eddie Gerard [...] showed amazing speed in the dull going.He generallel his players well, and his puck-carrying was a revelation.Gerard never stopped trying, and kept a constant chatter of encouragement to his mates.

Game 2
It was a close fit all the way and looked anybody's game till Gerard made his dash.

Gerard was forced to rest for a spell.He played one of the greatest game of his career.

1921 SC Finals

Game 1
Gerard
, Nighbor and Denneny were particularly brilliant.

Captain Eddie Gerard was good in spots.

Gerard, Nighbor and Denneny were conspicuous for Ottawa.

Game 2
Smokey Harris bodied Gerard several times, hard enough to get the average player's goat, but Captain Eddie Gerard took' em all with a smile.

Game 3
Gerard played one of his cyclonic games.

Game 4:
Gerard played a hard game for the Senators, but his work was spoiled by the fact that he had to spend nine minutes on the bench.

Gerard, with a continual smile, played as much of a forward game as any of his team.

Game 5:
Gerard, Cook and Cleghorn got into a fight and a bench brawl erupted.Police intervened.Were given majors in the third period.

The great Mickey McKay was again overshadowed by Frank Nighbor, while Gerard and Cleghorn were in grand fettle on the defence.Gerard was given no fewer than five penalties and he got, in addition, a terrific panning from the crowd, but the Ottawa captain took it all with a smile and was one of the fastest men on the ice.

Gerard played a great game, had it not been for his unnecessarily strenuous tactics.

OTTAWA WINS THE STANLEY CUP!

1922 Playoffs

Game 1:
The defence of Boucher and Gerard was magnificient.

Boucher and Gerard were strong both defensively and offensively

Game 2:
Gerard skated like a demon, hurdled and stickhandled his way through time after time only to get his stick or skates clogged in a bank of flush.

Eddie Gerard stroked his crew in spendid style and the two boats were only noses apart at the finish.

Georges Boucher never played harder and the same may be said of Captain Eddie Gerard.The defence of this pair was perfect and the occasions were rare indeed when any of the St. Pats players got past them.

OTTAWA IS ELIMINATED!

1922 SC Finals (With Toronto)

Context: EDDIE GERARD TO PLAY FOR ST. PATS

LESTER PATRICK ALLOWS IRISH TO USE OTTAWA DEFENCE STAR TO TAKE PLACE OF INJURED PLAYER- EX-CHAMPIONS' SKIPPER SHOULD BOLSTER ST. PATRICKS FOR GAME TONIGHT

[...]

ST. Patricks' chances to defend the Stanley Cup were materially strenghtened tonight, at least insofar as the local viewpoint is concerned, when it became known that Eddie Gerard, captain of the ex-champion Senators, would play for the Irishmen for the remaining games of the championship series.

ST.PATRICKS should be a much stronger aggregation tonight with Eddie Gerard of the Ottawa ex-champions, p-laying a defence position.Harry Cameron, who is in the hospital with an oinjured leg, is a great hockey player but he hardly measures up to the Gerard standard.Eddie is just the kind of a player who will play his best in a series of this kind.

Game with Toronto:
The Irish, aided and abetted by the great skipper of the ex-champion Ottawa Senators--Eddie Gerard-- slammed, banged and buffeted the Vancouver squad around at will.

GERARD EFFECTIVE: The inclusion of Gerard makes a great difference to the locals as he steadied the defense and gave the forward line a large amount of assistance, while he rushed a number of times.

GERARD ADDS STRENGHT: The addition of Gerard is responsible for some of the great reversal to mid-season form (of the St. Pats), but the Irish have always been a good backs-to-the-wall team.

Gerard strenghtened the team a great deal (on Saturday night).He was good on the defence and under his coaching Stuart turned in one of the best defensive games that he has produced this season.

Toronto St. Pats were without the services of their star defence man, Harry Cameron, in Saturday night's game but they were evidently not handicapped with Eddie Gerard, substitute from Ottawa, playing the game of his life.

Gerard was so good, apparently, that Lester Patrick turned his thumbs down on any proposal to play him further.Gerard made an immense hit in Toronto, and the queen city papers showered him with praise, and the St. Pats management gave him 150$(?) for his little jaunt.

TORONTO WINS STANLEY CUP THE FOLLOWING GAME!

1923 Playoffs

(vs Montreal)

Game 1:
Boucher was prominent on the defence, and Clancy, Gerard and Hitchman did telling work.Gerard used a hook check and broke up innumerable rushes.

Game 2:
Gerard
and Boucher were not as effective on rushing as usual, but when the pinch came their defence play stood out.George missed a lot of chances, and seemed to be cautious about using his body, knowing that in such a close game a penalty might prove fatal.They were not brilliant, but they were steady.

Captain Eddie Gerard played his usual dashing game, and was very effective.

(vs Vancouver)

Game 1:
Gerard played a strong defensive game, using his body effectively and keeping the Maroons weil out most of the time.On the attack he did not scintillate, probably because Boucher was doing the bulk of the clearing.

But while Gerard and George Boucher were not so effective defensively as Cook and Duncan, they were whizz-bangs of the attack, especially Boucher.

Game 2:
Gerard played a hard game throughout, but was given a rough passage.He was checked off his feet a dozen times, but always came back for more.

Just when Ottawas were apparently hitting full stride in the second period Gerard had his leg cut by a skate, and had to retire for 15 minutes.Ottawas were weakened by his loss, and though Hitchman, who replaced him, did well, considerable of the Senatorial punch was taken out by the loss of the skipper.

Gerard was out of the play a lot in the second period, and was not as effective as on Friday.

Game 3:
George Boucher and Gerard were effective on the defense.Duncan being the only opponent to get through them with any frequency.The pair showed utterly no hesitation in throwing themselves in the way of opposing forwards as they dashed in exchanging dozens of spills with Duncan, Cook, Skinner and coming up for more Gerard got in wrong with the crowd for what they considered illegal tactics, but we have seen lots worse this season.

George Boucher was closely watched and was never allowed to get within shooting distance of Lehman.On the defence he was a bear, as was Gerard, who also delivered a strong game.

Gerard was the masterful tactician, not brilliant or showy, but very effective.

Eddie Gerard was the old boy of old.The Duke of Rockliffe shattered the Maroons with his heavy body checks and did enormous damage on the attack.

GERARD GREAT LEADER

Captain Eddie Gerard went into the game feeling unwell and a severe jolt from Duncan in the early stages of the play did not increase his effectiveness any, but the Senators Captain have a brilliant display even after being badly injured sticking ot his guns, under heaviest fire and directing his players most effectively.Good as Gerard's game was tonight it was not a particle better than anyone of the others.

Game 4:
Gerard took care of everything which came down from left wing and notched the second goal by a spectacular rush.

GERARD DISLOCATES SHOULDER

The victory was a costly one for the winners.In the second period Captain Eddie Gerard, who had turned in the best game he had shown in the series, was badly injured in a tangle with Corbett Denneny, sustaining a double dislocation of the shoulder that will keep him out of hockey till next fall.

Georges Boucher and Gerard were again baffling on the defense, and effective on the attack.

Captain Eddie Gerard and George Boucher on the defence were solid as the Rock of Gilbraltar.They used their heads when danger threatened and reserved their strenght for the opportune moments knowing full well they were woefully short on substitutes.

1923 SC Finals

Game 1 (Did not play):

Eddie Gerard, despite his dislocated shoulder, appeared in uniform, but presumably his presence was meant for moral effect, as he did not break into the game.

It was quite apparent that had Eddie Gerard been in condition to play Ottawas would have little difficulty in beating the Edmonton team.

Game 2:
GERARD BACK AGAIN

Eddie Gerard, whose dislocated shoulder must have become "located" again very suddenly, appear on the ice and played practically the entire game.He took all kinds of chances and performed in a stellar manner.

Eddie Gerard did not attempt to do much beyond coaching his players, but at that he could not refrain from making a few dashes into enemy territory.He received a bad fall in the second period, and had to be helped off the ice but pluckily returned to the fray.

Eddie Gerard actually played for the greater part of the game, notwithstanding his injuries.Twice he went down with a crash and three times with the shoulder, and after each occasion he skated over to the bench, groaning under the pain, but refusing to retire."Pull that shoulder back", he would shout to Trainer Dolan."I'm getting back into that game if it kills me."

And Gerard went back.In the last period with Hitchman showing singals of distress, Gerard fought his way out of our arms and back onto the ice to lead his team.It was a physical torture to skate and he could not shoot or handle the stick, yet he blocked with all his old time effectiveness, and steadied his team at critical moments.The Ottawa captain gave the greatest exhibition of pluck and endurance ever seen in Vancouver.

Gerard, despite the bad shoulder, proved practically impassable to the Eskimo forwards.He took his bumps uncomplainingly and although forced to retire and rest his injured joint at times, came back for more, holding his end as steadily as if he had been in the finest of shape.

OTTAWA WINS THE STANLEY CUP!
 
Last edited:

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
50,668
16,394
Ultimate nitpicking post incoming.

Toe Blake: A lesser Jarome Iginla, maybe? One who actually had better linemates? Similar skill set, and an admirable all-around game, but did not even achieve Iginla's individual results despite the help of the punch line. Like Abel, he proved he was a great player in his own right before he had a generational talent on his line for the better part of a decade. But like Abel, his results with said generational talent lose a little shine. I'm also quite averse to putting two entire famous forward units on the list - the history of hockey is 150 years long and to think that many greats can be concentrated not just on one team, but on one line, seems unlikely. What is more likely is that the uniquely advantageous situations of being able to play with Howe/Lindsay and Richard/Lach made these great players look even better in retrospect. We aren't even guaranteed to induct a player from the quasi-dynasty 2010s Hawks and we are thinking of putting on two third wheels from famous forward lines (who, it should be added, also each had a defenseman and a goalie make the list already)? I'm not feeling it. He just compares so easily directly to Iginla because of their styles (physical, puck winning winger) and does not meet the standard set by him.

That's totally peripheral to your point, and we've been doing these things long enough for me to say that you were absolutely not being in bad faith here... But I really have to correct this.

Toe Blake, and, thus, the Punch Line, played somewhere between 7 and 32 games with Doug Harvey, and that was during his last season (which also happened to be Harvey's rookie season, during which he didn't appear to be, you know, Doug Harvey as-we-know-it).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: seventieslord

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->