Hear ye, hear ye my name is Samuel Seabury
And I present free thoughts on the proceedings of the continental congress
Heed not the rabble who scream revolution
They have not your interests at heart…
Finally, I've had the chance to digest the last 20 pages of this thread...
First, some of the stuff I kind of grimaced at (besides the one thing I quoted about best players playing forward...)
Ovechkin commanding respect of defenses. Who among these players didn't do that really? Messier? Nighbor? And even so, with Ovechkin, that shadowing was limited to power play time. At even strength, it was his own self-limiting nature that helped his teams fail in the postseason. It's Ovechkin's lack of well-roundedness as purely an offensive performer (meaning, I would look the other way on defense in some respects, if he brought more dimension offensively...a la Lemieux) that made him relatively easy to lock down (again, among players in this realm...not compared to a slug like Tomas Fleischmann) when the chips were down. Not strong in puck distribution, self-limiting, head-down carries up the LW...defensemen with positional integrity (even untalented technical players like Dan Girardi) were able to tie him up. He is what he is...a one-dimensional goal scorer who thrived in power play time. His power play prowess is among the best of all-time, his goal-scoring exploits are among the best of all time. His playoff and international resume is certainly not a positive for him for his career. In the same way that I argued against Maurice Richard for his lack of overall dimension, is this same way I'm going here. I'm not ready for Ovechkin time.
Guy Lafleur is not someone I could put over Ovechkin, as Ovechkin is probably a more dominant version of Lafleur (with some blur)...Lafleur is a playoff wagon, but it's not enough to quite get him over Ovechkin for me. They'll both be towards the very bottom of my ballot.
Nicklas Lidstrom and shot blocking. I do not rate shot blocking as a necessary skill for success. I don't rate shot blockers as good defensive players, I don't rate them as bad defensive players. There's no correlation there. If I had to pin shot blockers from the blueline into a type...it's typically loose gap, less-than-average lateral or backward skaters that give the blueline because they don't have the confidence or ability to match speed with different types of on-rushing forwards. That doesn't describe Nicklas Lidstrom, he could play defense any way you wanted against anyone you wanted, except he wasn't a bruiser. I'm happy that Nicklas Lidstrom didn't often leave his feet...leaving your feet gives up leverage and it's not something that should be encouraged at the higher levels. I know that it's fun to look at it, every so often, it does show effort...but if you're leaving your feet often, it's probably because you're a bad player. Learned that from Coach Larry Robinson. Lidstrom was too smart and too efficient to be lying on the ice being a pinata for clappers. Lidstrom will rank highly for me this ballot.
Denis Potvin, the expansion mule. This is an interesting point. One thing that's not interesting is suggesting that Nicklas Lidstrom or Alexander Ovechkin had expansion-like conditions. That really shows a lack of grasp of what constitutes an expansion environment and what is just a poor team. There is a marked difference. Particularly in Potvin's time, in a league that was already getting diluted...the only player that jumps to mind as coming out of an expansion-like environment is Mario Lemieux. A poor team, almost no marketable assets, inexperienced if not ruinous coaching, a slew of inexperienced managers, no money, no fans, intentionally losing hoping an 18 year old would save the franchise. Potvin had the benefit of Al Arbour and the Architect but I'm not going to punish him because smart people made smart decisions and he was their first smart decision. The advantage the Islanders had over almost every other team in the late 70's through the mid 80's is their cohesiveness and predictability on both sides of the puck (in a good way...there's good predictability and bad predictability)...Potvin and Trottier were the foundation for that. If you want to knock Potvin, you can say the early 80's were pretty weak. Even with that, Potvin will rate highly for me this ballot.
Red Kelly, a five-tool player. I value versatility and adaptability more than most. Therefore, I've been waiting for Kelly to come available to us. He could play virtually anywhere and be effective. That didn't stop at even strength either. PP, he could work the point and down-low as a playmaker from behind the net. PK he could line up in most spots as well. If you wanted to knock Kelly for something, maybe he's a little passive as a player (like Lidstrom) and maybe not the best backward skater I've seen...he often turned and went back with rushers, as opposed to keeping them in front of him from what I've seen. I would think it would be hard to distance Kelly from Lidstrom, however which way you have it. I see Lidstrom as a little better defensively, I see Kelly as more versatile. I see them as having similar dominance.
Discounted by circumstance, the 3x MVP Jaromir Jagr. I ran a similar justification with Sidney Crosby (and others) and I'm going to do it here with Jagr because he needs a little defending I think. I would say "let's be real..." but I know it's the opposite...so..."Let me be fake a second..." and say this...Jagr's a 3x Hart Trophy winner in my eyes. He missed a quarter of the season in 2000 and it gave way to a rare defenseman win...in the same way that we all know Crosby was the best player in 2013, we know (I'd like to think) Jagr was the best and most valuable player in 2000. Again, in a different era completely, in 2006 it took one of the worst trades in NHL history for him to be narrowly eclipsed for another one. Playing on a clown car roster of a bunch of mid-30's players, he drops a 120+ points and was 55% higher in points than nearest team Mikael Nylander. Some anti-Jagr folks here are confusing poor teams with poor top-six. My contention isn't that the Penguins top six was bad post-Mario (or even with Mario), it's that the team was completely hollow underneath it. No bottom six forwards, no defense, little to no goaltending. That's not a good team. That doesn't mean Alexei Kovalev is untalented, that's not what that means. It's that he played on teams where he had to do it all. So highlighting them being good regular season clubs is a testament to Jagr. Not a lot of top-six-only teams make it very far in the postseason...even in 1996 with Mario, the Penguins lost because of their lack of bottom six and lack of defense...it wasn't just a Jagr problem. When it was Lemieux and Jagr vs. the world - they lost. When it was Jagr vs. the world - they lost. When the team had players like 36 year old Petr Sykora and fourth line center Maxime Talbot in their top-six - they won. You just can't play that top-six or bust game and expect to win.
But here's an instance where we are trophy counting and it makes a player look much worse than he is. Forget the Lindros win in 1995 and all that...I'm not going to completely strip him of MVP credit in 2000 and 2006 though...Jagr offers more dimension to his game from an offensive perspective than Ovechkin and he did it across three distinctly different eras, where as Ovechkin has not. I'll take Jagr over Ovechkin for now, and it's not all that close...I mean, they aren't miles apart...but it's not like they're neighbors.
Miscellany: Jacques Plante seems undercooked this round. With no other goalie to compare him to, he seems to be stuck in limbo. I had Morenz (16), Nighbor (21), then Shore (25) on my initial list (because that was asked). I can definitely buy Nighbor now though. I'm still uncertain as to how much worse he really was than Morenz. They can't be too far apart, right? Stan Mikita's numbers are hard to ignore...it's not like he was a bad player of course...he looks a little weak in the playoffs (both statistically and on film), it's ok to punish him for some of the Blackhawks failures...but at what point do we say, "that's too far..."? I don't have a good answer for that at this moment, and I would like to...
now... just a Baldy Cotton Pick'n Minute here MXD. "Unbearable stench"?!!! You get high points for creative writing from me Man however... Wetcoaster is a friend of mine & was a regular contributor to the Business of Hockey Board and ya, was involved in the game professionally on the Legal/Agent side of the ice. I for one always enjoyed his input, observations & comments, knowledge & experience which was/is substantial just as I do the many others who are Lawyers or involved in that sector at whatever level career-wise. Sure some might seem Snippy, condescending at times perhaps, but then, you can get that from all quarters be it white or blue collar, from academics, media types, authors, self styled historians & or other self appointed experts of all stripes, all walks of life. He's a great guy, has contributed much to this site.
