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

[The Macho King]

Crosby has it all. Regular season success. Playoff success. International success. I like the fact that the Canada Cup was rebooted with the World Cup of hockey and Sid was the MVP of the tourney as well as the leading scorer. Gives it a Gretzky feel.

Multiple of both Hart’s and smythes as well as three second place finishes in hart voting and Crosby’s mvp finishes overall are mighty impressive. The only real flaw on Crosby’s resume is a full season peak this due to injuries.

Look if you're just going to come in here and pump the tires of various Pens I'm just going to block you. This is pointless.

 

[seventieslord]

he had another top 20 player as a linemate

as a teammate, not as a linemate.

 

[The Macho King]

as a teammate, not as a linemate.

I was under the assumption that Mikita and Hull lined up together. Is that not so?

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Look if you're just going to come in here and pump the tires of various Pens I'm just going to block you. This is pointless.

Is he not one of the eligible players? The last time this project was done A. I wasent a member of the site and B. Crosby was still fresh in the league. Been waiting along time to be able to push for him for 5th place..

 

[Hockey Outsider]

My first impression is to put Beliveau first. He has perhaps the most balanced resume out of everyone.

He has a dominant regular season where he trounced the field (1956). He was "balanced" offensively, having led the NHL in goals and assists twice each. He had a long, steady prime (12 times in 15 years he was either a year-end all-star, a Hart finalist, or a Smythe winner). He had good longevity and career numbers (retired 2nd to Howe in scoring in the regular season, and 1st in the playoffs). From what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) he was solid defensively (not a strength, but not a weakness). He was a top ten playoff performer all-time (won the inaugural Smythe, likely would have won another in 1956). He has an excellent Hart trophy record. He's universally lauded as one of the greatest captains ever.

I don't have time now to run through everyone's cases, but Beliveau seems to be well-rounded in a way that others aren't (for example, Hull was clearly the better goal-scorer, but Beliveau was a much better playmaker, better defensively and better in the playoffs; or Richard too is a better goal-scorer, but Beliveau is a far superior playmaker, a better offensive talent overall, and did better with Hart voting).

Crosby is coming close to have a Beliveau-esque resume (balanced success in many areas without a single overwhelming advantage). His biggest weakness, as of now, is the lack of full seasons (only 10 so far, counting 2012-13).

Of course, "well-rounded" doesn't necessarily mean best. Beliveau is arguably more well-rounded than Lemieux, but nobody seriously argues that Gros Bill is better. But now that none of the candidates (in my opinion) have an overwhelming trump card (like Lemieux's ridiculous offensive peak), I don't think it's wrong to take a close look at candidates who are balanced.

 

[The Macho King]

Is he not one of the eligible players? The last time this project was done A. I wasent a member of the site and B. Crosby was still fresh in the league. Been waiting along time to be able to push for him for 5th place..

Thanks for making this decision easy.

 

[MXD]

@kruezer : In 27-28, Eddie Shore was tied with lots of players who might, or not, have been D-Men at that time (Lionel Conacher, Hap Day) and was Tied or Behind the two members of the S-line who might have been tagged as D because they would play some D later on, but who where clearly not at that point (Babe Siebert and Hooley Smith).

I don't want to tell you what to do, but there should be a provision for ties, especially for Shore, who played a few season in a very tough environment to score, with less games to boot.

 

[Nick Hansen]

I was under the assumption that Mikita and Hull lined up together. Is that not so?

No, I learnt that on here a while ago. Think he was centered by Bill Hay for the first years and then Pit Martin took over the reigns.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I was under the assumption that Mikita and Hull lined up together. Is that not so?

From what I understand... no. Don't forget, Espo was Hull's regular centre until he left for Boston.

 

[The Macho King]

No, I learnt that on here a while ago. Think he was centered by Bill Hay for the first years and then Pit Martin took over the reigns.

So I'm mistaken then. Alright that knocks a negative off of the list then.

 

[DannyGallivan]

the

Now we get into some interesting comparisions

Morenz/Beliveau/Crosby

Who is the best Hab of all time?

Roy/Harvey/Beliveau/Richard/Morenz

Guy Lafleur (but alas that will be an argument further down the road in this exercise).

 

[steve141]

Is he not one of the eligible players? The last time this project was done A. I wasent a member of the site and B. Crosby was still fresh in the league. Been waiting along time to be able to push for him for 5th place..

Yeah, this project shouldn't really be about pushing players. I'm here to learn, are you?

The person whose list changes the most from round 1 to round 2 has probably won the project (learnt the most), not the one who convinces anyone else.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Guy Lafleur (but alas that will be an argument further down the road in this exercise).

I have a hard time seeing Lafleur as the greatest former Hab of all time he has 6 very great seasons and then the rest is not great. But if you put Orr first I can understand why you'd say Lafleur

 

[bobholly39]

Warning : If you argued for Lemieux being high last round (that means, higher than 4th), and for Crosby being high THIS round (think, amongst the two or three best players), I'm totally judging you.

That's likely going to be me. At least - for Lemieux it's already done, and if my round 2 doesn't change from my round 1 ranking, Crosby would follow top 3 this round.

Why judgement though? Don't both players actually have a lot in common?

Two things I value greatly are:

1. Offense. Obviously - both are great there.

2. Domination over peers. or "best player in the world" status

Both of them score quite high in those metrics.

 

[kruezer]

@kruezer : In 27-28, Eddie Shore was tied with lots of players who might, or not, have been D-Men at that time (Lionel Conacher, Hap Day) and was Tied or Behind the two members of the S-line who might have been tagged as D because they would play some D later on, but who where clearly not at that point (Babe Siebert and Hooley Smith).

I don't want to tell you what to do, but there should be a provision for ties, especially for Shore, who played a few season in a very tough environment to score, with less games to boot.

From what I can see there were only 2 cases where Shore tied for a lead, 27/28 and 31/32 where he tied with George Owen. NHL.com doesn't tag Siebert and Smith as D in 27/28 though, but it does tag Northcott as a D. I gave Shore a win in my column for both years, for the exact reason you mentioned, it was a low scoring environment so he deserves credit of some kind for those two years.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Neat factoid on Crosby:

"Internationally, Crosby has represented Team Canada on numerous occasions. He won gold at the 2005 World Junior Championships, and was later named to Team Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Playing against the United States in the gold medal game, he scored the game-winning goal in overtime. Crosby captained Team Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics, winning his second consecutive Olympic gold medal. A year later, he led his country to gold in the World Championship in Prague, thus becoming a member of the Triple Gold Club and the only player in the club to have captained all three winning teams. In 2016, Crosby captained Canada to gold in the World Cup of Hockey and was elected MVP by a unanimous vote."

 

[bobholly39]

Initial breakdown for me is.

Players i'd love to see in the 5th spot:

Crosby, Roy, Hasek or Beliveau. (I really want us to give goalies a fair look here - they are often underappreciated)

Players i don't want to see in the 5th spot but I could still "get behind":

Hull (who has fallen a bit in my book lately) and Harvey (who might be a worthy candidate, even if i find his resume a bit 'boring')

Players who don't belong anywhere near the top:

Morenz (safely as #3C for me - as a result don't see room for him), Bourque & Shore (both are more next-round for me).

Yes I realize i made no mention of Rocket. Unsure about him. Probably in between the 2nd and 3rd group - but i'd be ok with him slightly higher too.

 

[DannyGallivan]

So the adds are Dom, Shore, Morenz, and Crosby? I'm okay with that. Initial impressions - I want to hear the argument for #5. I could see any of four players in that spot.

My gut reaction (and my round 1 vote) was for Harvey in that spot, but I could see Bobby, Beliveau, or a goalie taking that spot.

I have seven time league scoring champion Bobby Hull as the top of round two, but I see him and Beliveau going toe-to-toe for that spot. The toughest thing will be reconciling Hull's WHA days. I'm convinced that he could have won another couple of goal scoring titles if he stayed in the NHL (or at least one more). Three Art Ross along with his two Harts and 11 times top ten in scoring (despite jumping to the "rebel league" in '72) trump Beliveau during the regular season.

Both he and Beliveau led the playoffs in scoring once, while Hull led in playoff goals three times while Beliveau did it once. Hull has a slightly better points per game numbers in the playoffs as well. Plus, Hull was underrated for his defense, and had to fend for himself on the ice (there was no John Ferguson around for him).

Anyways, that's all the explanation I have time for now.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I have a hard time seeing Lafleur as the greatest former Hab of all time he has 6 very great seasons and then the rest is not great. But if you put Orr first I can understand why you'd say Lafleur

True. I actually prepared an argument for Lafleur over Beliveau (my number two pick as greatest Hab), but I'll save that for when Lafleur's name actually comes up.

 

[MXD]

That's likely going to be me. At least - for Lemieux it's already done, and if my round 2 doesn't change from my round 1 ranking, Crosby would follow top 3 this round.

Why judgement though? Don't both players actually have a lot in common?

Two things I value greatly are:

1. Offense. Obviously - both are great there.

2. Domination over peers. or "best player in the world" status

Both of them score quite high in those metrics.

... That's the other way around, actually : The only way to rank Lemieux higher than the reminder of the Top-3 (more like, Howe and Orr) was to completely disregard everything that wasn't a raw number.

Crosby? Very balanced player, whose non-numbers case is VERY good.

 

[ResilientBeast]

While Crosby has a long tail to his career, I had him at 10 on my initial list his three seasons right before his injury stretch 08-10 from ages 20 t0 21 feel disappointing for a top 5-8 player of all time. Right in the middle of his peak athletically (in terms of age)

AST: 5, 6 (08), 3 (09), 2 (10)
Hart: 6 (08), 3 (09), 17 (10)
Points: 2 (09), 3 (10)

07-08: Lost to Malkin, Thornton, Datsyuk, Lecavalier
08-09: Lost to Malkin and Datsyuk
09-10: Lost to Henrik Sedin

I understand that he had two deep playoff runs consecutively but when he should've been at his best he lost to lets say interesting competition.

In 2012-13 he comes back healthy and manages to rack up 3 first teams and 2 second team all star nods.

Competing again Toews, Stamkos, Tavares and an aging Datsyuk.


Any insight into why he wasn't great in the regular season during this period?

 

[seventieslord]

From what I can see there were only 2 cases where Shore tied for a lead, 27/28 and 31/32 where he tied with George Owen. NHL.com doesn't tag Siebert and Smith as D in 27/28 though, but it does tag Northcott as a D. I gave Shore a win in my column for both years, for the exact reason you mentioned, it was a low scoring environment so he deserves credit of some kind for those two years.

Over the years I did a lot of meticulous research to make sure we were clear on the defense scoring leaders over the years, and that guys who switched were properly accounted for when applicable. Here is what I have for defense scoring leaders during Shore's career:

1927: Clancy, Shore, Conacher
1928: Shore/Day/Conacher
1929: Shore, Clancy, Mantha
1930: Clancy, Shore, Mantha
1931: Shore, Owen, Clancy
1932: Shore/Owen, Clancy
1933: Shore, Conacher, Clancy
1934: Clancy, Seibert, Conacher
1935: Shore, Hollett, Seibert
1936: Goodfellow, Siebert/Jerwa
1937: Siebert, Goodfellow/Conacher
1938: Horner, Fowler, Seibert
1939: Hollett, Clapper, Heller
1940: Clapper, Goodfellow, Hollett

Shore was 1st 4 times, tied for 1st twice, and was 2nd twice for a total of 8 times in the top-3.

 

[BenchBrawl]

First thoughts:

Star Power

So high up the list I still put a lot of value on star power.I separate the list in three tiers (not a list!) for star power:

Maurice Richard
Jean Béliveau
Eddie Shore
Sidney Crosby
Bobby Hull
Howie Morenz

Doug Harvey
Patrick Roy

Dominik Hasek
Ray Bourque

Clearly the first group had way more star power than the rest.IMO it's not even close.

 

[overg]

He has a dominant regular season where he trounced the field (1956).

One of the reasons I'm not voting in this is because the farther back you go, the less likely I am to know or fully appreciate things like this. So, for those out there like me, could you elaborate a bit on what it meant to trounce the field in 1956? Are we talking best peak year of all time outside of the Big 4? A peak year that might compare to one of the Big 4's best? Or are there other players currently up for voting who might have a better season, just not the rest of Beliveau's resume?

To put it another way, if one were solely to look at peak, how high does Beliveau rank?

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

While Crosby has a long tail to his career, I had him at 10 on my initial list his three seasons right before his injury stretch 08-10 from ages 20 t0 21 feel disappointing for a top 5-8 player of all time. Right in the middle of his peak athletically (in terms of age)

AST: 5, 6 (08), 3 (09), 2 (10)
Hart: 6 (08), 3 (09), 17 (10)
Points: 2 (09), 3 (10)

07-08: Lost to Malkin, Thornton, Datsyuk, Lecavalier
08-09: Lost to Malkin and Datsyuk
09-10: Lost to Henrik Sedin

I understand that he had two deep playoff runs consecutively but when he should've been at his best he lost to lets say interesting competition.

In 2012-13 he comes back healthy and manages to rack up 3 first teams and 2 second team all star nods.

Competing again Toews, Stamkos, Tavares and an aging Datsyuk.


Any insight into why he wasn't great in the regular season during this period?

Think it was him recovering from his ankle sprain. 08-09 and 09-10 are recovery years for Crosby IMO. 10-11 he was about as fast as he was every going to be able to be at that point.

 

[seventieslord]

While Crosby has a long tail to his career, I had him at 10 on my initial list his three seasons right before his injury stretch 08-10 from ages 20 t0 21 feel disappointing for a top 5-8 player of all time. Right in the middle of his peak athletically (in terms of age)

AST: 5, 6 (08), 3 (09), 2 (10)
Hart: 6 (08), 3 (09), 17 (10)
Points: 2 (09), 3 (10)

07-08: Lost to Malkin, Thornton, Datsyuk, Lecavalier
08-09: Lost to Malkin and Datsyuk
09-10: Lost to Henrik Sedin

I understand that he had two deep playoff runs consecutively but when he should've been at his best he lost to lets say interesting competition.

In 2012-13 he comes back healthy and manages to rack up 3 first teams and 2 second team all star nods.

Competing again Toews, Stamkos, Tavares and an aging Datsyuk.


Any insight into why he wasn't great in the regular season during this period?

He was injured in 2008.

In 2009 he missed just enough games to give the edge to Malkin and Datsyuk (who he didn't exactly outperform). He was 21 this season, Malkin was a year older and Datsyuk right at his best at 30.

Crosby is great, probably generational, but that doesn't mean he has to be better than every player, every season.

In 2010 he famously came from nowhere to lead the league in goals, though he wasn't actually as good a player as Ovechkin. Both were better than Sedin, who took advantage of some brother synergy and extremely favourable usage to win the ross and Hart. It was a funny year because the voters seemed to think Sedin was better than those two as of April, but then the following summer no one wanted to actually admit they briefly thought so.

 

[Canadiens1958]

It's not just that Shore had more Harts than any other defenseman, he had more than any other player. Until Gordie picked up his 5th.

Contemporary opinion? What do you mean about that? The Hart and all-star voting pretty much IS contemporary opinion!

His team success needs to be discussed, but the most important thing to point out is that during nearly his entire career, the NHL placed the division winners in a series against eachother. That means that unless the league's two best teams were in one division, it was impossible to see a final with the league's two best teams. It also means that every season, a powerhouse would be out after 2-5 games, and not even because they were the victims of an upset, just that they had to play their (more or less) equal for a first opponent. This greatly deflates the GP and point totals of anyone who was on a typically strong team. The "most likely" occurrence for a division winner is to roll over an also-ran in round one, picking up nice stats along the way, then have a closer division final, but ultimately win, then have a finals matchup that could go either way. But division winners (which Shore's Bruins were 9 times in his career) had this scenario fast-forwarded for them. They had eight first round series (1928 was more logical) that could have gone either way, and they did - they won three times and lost five. Here are the results:

1929: 57-point Boston defeated 59-point Montreal, 3-0, 5 GF, 2 GA
1930: 77-point Boston defeated 51-point Maroons, 3-1, 9 GF, 5 GA
1931: 62-point Boston lost to 60-point Montreal, 2-3, 13 GF, 13 GA
1933: 58-point Boston lost to 54-point Toronto, 2-3, 7 GF, 13 GA
1935: 58-point Boston lost to 64-point Toronto, 1-3, 2 GF, 7 GA
1938: 67-point Boston lost to 57-point Toronto, 0-3, 3 GF, 6 GA
1939: 74-point Boston defeated 58-point New York, 4-3, 14 GF, 12 GA
1940: 67-point Boston lost to 64-point New York, 2-4, 9 GF, 15 GA

1939 and 1949 weren't quite like the other two - the league was one division, and the top-2 teams played a best of 7 to get to the finals, while the other 4 playoff teams had little best-of-3 series to get there. Again, pretty nonsensical.

We would look at the playoff records of a few 1930s stars a lot differently if the playoff format had made sense back then. Eddie Shore is affected by this more negatively than anyone else.

In total, Boston was 17-20 in these eight series, with 62 GF and 73 GA. On average, they were 6.6 points better than their first round opponent. These results are disappointing, of course - Boston was, on the whole, favoured to win more than three of eight series, but this is not a train wreck either.



FYI, based on my "defense VsX", Harvey' 10-year score is 113, Shore's is 110 and Bourque's is 108.



Really, Crosby a wildcard? At this point I kinda see him as a guy with a resume you can really set your watch to.

Excellent description of post consolidation NHL playoff formats.

Add the two games total goals format that was also used in the playoffs at that time.

Finally consideration has to be given that in the NHL, icing with impunity was allowed well into the 1930s.

This further supressed scoring in the playoffs while increasing the chances of an upset.