Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 7

[MXD]

Everybody now!

Everyone *clap clap* has biases *clap clap* and the only way *clap clap* to see past them *clap clap* is to recognize your own *sing it again!*

I'm biased in favor of the better players over the lesser players.

 

[The Macho King]

I'm biased in favor of the better players over the lesser players.

Yet did you not rank Richard in the top 10? I see holes in your story.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Do we care at all that Scottie Bowman ranked Serge Savard over Larry Robinson?

 

[DannyGallivan]

I'm biased in favor of the better players over the lesser players.

Then I assume you chose Bobby Orr at number one.

As a comic in all seriousness, just a quick glance at the wide range of votes most players get each round shows that subjectivity still plays a huge part. Of course, I maintain that in reality, since we're taking such a tiny sampling of players out of the massive pot that history has accumulated, there is mere fractions between (as an example) number 12 and number 30 on our list. Yet, when we vote and when we compare players, it appears like there are oceans between them.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Do we care at all that Scottie Bowman ranked Serge Savard over Larry Robinson?

Depends if you agree with his track record comparing other players. Perhaps as a coach, he valued the calm, meticulous, uber-efficient way that Savard played (the only player on Team Canada '72 to have not played in a single loss to the Soviets... but we'll touch more on that later when Serge's name comes up).

 

[MXD]

Do we care at all that Scottie Bowman ranked Serge Savard over Larry Robinson?

I know I don't, because many coaches would prefer the veteran (which Savard clearly was when Bowman coached him) over the youngster (which Robinson clearly was when Bowman coached him).

 

[ted2019]

Because they all share one defining characteristic. When I am being accused of bias, yet the accuser displays one of his own... well...

How is mine biased? That's where I have them ranked. I'm a Flyers fan and could have been trumping Clarke last round as the top player, but I'm realistic and trying to do this project without being biased. Can you say the same about yourself, since it's all about Russian players and Red Wings? In my top 120 that I sent in them ranked as follows.

Sawchuk 29th
Lindsay 43rd
Yzerman 44th

Other data that I didn't know existed showed that Sawchuk was ranked too high by myself, hence him falling in value for me. Depending on the next round, they still might drop in my view. No bias whatsoever.

 

[ted2019]

To be honest, I have those three specific players quite low myself, and they may end up 9-10-11 (but probably won't) this round-- and I wouldn't be surprised to see them end up 9-10-11 for the whole round. If anything, that mostly involves they were available a tad too early, or really very much super too early in the case of Sawchuk. Some players have to be last, and while Yzerman probably became available at the right time as far as I'm concerned... somebody has to be at the bottom (or, well, just ahead of Terry Sawchuk for that matter).

I mean, if, say, Frank Boucher was available this round instead of Steve Yzerman, he'd also end up in the bottom group. That's nothing against Steve Yzerman, and nothing against the fact he's mostly associated with the Wings. If anything, that mostly has to do with the very good posts on Cyclone Taylor detailing how he was a bit more than some very flashy player.

But Ted Lindsay stacks up well in this group.

What about Lindsay stacks well for you? I slid Lindsay down due to his post season AS selections and the real lack of talent at LW during that time period.

 

[ted2019]

I am pleased but also perplexed. Brodeur wasn't the lynchpin? At worst he was #2 most important player after Stevens. In the 90s-00s when someone said "Devils," you'd think "Brodeur."

When I think of those Devils teams, I think of system, not Brodeur or Stevens.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Do we care at all that Scottie Bowman ranked Serge Savard over Larry Robinson?

I do, and it's one reason among many I ranked Savard rather high instead of bumping down Robinson.

More likely Savard is underrated than Robinson is overrated, and I don't think it's both because I don't think Robinson is overrated at all.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Do we care at all that Scottie Bowman ranked Serge Savard over Larry Robinson?

Yes as it explains deployment and circumstantial usage.

 

[MXD]

What about Lindsay stacks well for you? I slid Lindsay down due to his post season AS selections and the real lack of talent at LW during that time period.

First, he had his first elite seasons well before Gordie Howe became Gordie Howe, so the whole idea he was "made up" by Howe doesn't pass the smell test. That's a very bad analogy because of the skill level of players involved, but saying that Lindsay was made up by Howe, to me, is akin the idea that Lemaire was made up by Lafleur, or, more to the point, that Elmer Lach was made up by Maurice Richard.

Second, that's not Lindsay's problem if he was, by far, the best LW in the NHL between Toe Blake and Dickie Moore. He would have garnered very good AS consideration had he been playing at C (probably not so much at RW, but let's not blame him for that...) instead.

Third, even if Gordie Howe did have an upward effect on his "numbers" (which is not, in and of itself, a problem at this point at this juncture, considering every player in this group would've been positively affected... at least, amongst non Right wingers), Lindsay arguably has the best "numbers" amongst forwards here (see VsX, on page 1). So he can afford to lose a bit and still look good.

Fourth, by "stacks", I mostly meant that he's not an afterthought. This group doesn't do him any favors, because there's three wingers and he is (to me, at least) the worst of them.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Because that's what "peak" is. How great the player was, when everything came together for him.

Well, let's draw this out to its conclusion then. Yzerman's 155 point season led the Red Wings to first place in the Norris Division with 80 points. They were matched up against a weak (66 points) Chicago team in Round 1.

The Red Wings were upset in 6 games by the Hawks. Yzerman looks alright production-wise, with 5 goals and 10 points. But a deeper look suggests he was out-dueled by the opposing #1 C Denis Savard in an offensive track meet. Yzerman was a disastrous minus-7, most of the damage coming on the road, where he only mustered three points in three games. Savard exploded for 13 points and was a plus-7, producing well regardless of home or road conditions. So at his peak, Yzerman was badly outplayed by a player who will not appear on this list.

If one season is going to be the crux of the argument, we need to consider all facets of it. Mike Bossy won the Conn Smythe in his peak season. Joe Sakic was probably the runner-up in his.

 

[seventieslord]

VsX results (1927-2018)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	7YR	10YR
Ted Lindsay	116.4	113.0	110.4	101.6	100.0	100.0	89.4	86.7	70.4	69.9	104.4	95.8
Joe Sakic	122.9	100.0	100.0	94.8	89.7	88.6	87.8	87.7	86.2	82.1	97.7	94.0
Mike Bossy	108.6	100.0	97.5	95.2	88.1	87.2	86.7	83.5	77.3	69.4	94.8	89.4
Bryan Trottier	115.5	112.8	91.7	87.8	87.4	80.6	79.8	76.3	71.8	68.6	93.7	87.2
Steve Yzerman	111.5	98.4	93.9	92.6	88.8	84.0	83.3	79.2	78.0	77.9	93.2	88.8
Larry Robinson	81.0	63.0	59.6	58.2	52.6	50.8	50.4	46.3	40.1	37.0	59.4	53.9

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Just to post what I have for the three older players not covered here:

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	7YR	10YR
Bill Cook	116	114	103	103	96	95	91	88	79	77	102.6	96.2
Newsy Lalonde	109	108	100	94	92	90	80	72	71	66	96.1	88.2
Cyclone Taylor	123	111	106	100	100	62	54	53	38	33	93.7	78

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Cyclone Taylor's numbers include 9 seasons he was a forward, and one where he played point (1911). The other seasons are 1918, 1914, 1919, 1915, 1916, 1913, 1917, 1920, and 1907 (IHL).

From these numbers, it's arguable that Taylor had a Guy Lafleur-like best 5 years - but so did Cook, and Cook's got so much better longevity beyond that.

Lalonde was not as dominant as Taylor offensively in his best seasons, but his 10th best season was better than Taylor's 6th.

Knowing everything we know about these players, I'm not sure how we can rank either Lalonde or Taylor over Cook. He's just better.

Lalonde vs. Taylor might come down to one's personal priorities.

(these VsY numbers - since a VsX snob once told me not to call it VsX - are manually calculated year-by-year, league-by-league. I imagine a fully consolidated hockey world, including prominent minor and european leagues, and manipulate benchmarks to create a realistic leaderboard for each season. Like post-1926 VsX, one player typically gets a score over 100, one earns 100, and everyone falls in from there. This allows me to judge each season case by case - does the PCHA have a more impressive leaderboard and dominant scoring leader, or does the NHA? Does that guy who led the OPHL by a drastic margin deserve consideration as a top-10 scorer? And so on.)

 

[wetcoast]

Who is this pappline you refer to? If you are going to insult me at least get the name right.

If it is me you are referring to, I made posts about Hall & Esposito in vote 5 (which was just last week), two players I know quite a lot about. Nice to know you are keeping track.

I don't always agree with you, and no one should always agree with anyone here all of the time, but your comments are always informative.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Few things.

One: @pappyline is awesome. You’re all awesome. I couldn’t pick a better group of participants and non-participants to do this project with over the 10 years I’ve been here.

Two: I love the walk-ins who want to talk about their favorites, because sometimes that twisted level of obsession produces brilliant context that could otherwise have been overlooked for the seemingly black-and-white numbers. And if we take them seriously in spite of their intentions of advocacy, they may stick around and learn about other players from other cities.

Three: Keep the streak of 30+ ballots going!

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Just to post what I have for the three older players not covered here:

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	7YR	10YR
Bill Cook	116	114	103	103	96	95	91	88	79	77	102.6	96.2
Newsy Lalonde	109	108	100	94	92	90	80	72	71	66	96.1	88.2
Cyclone Taylor	123	111	106	100	100	62	54	53	38	33	93.7	78

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Cyclone Taylor's numbers include 9 seasons he was a forward, and one where he played point (1911). The other seasons are 1918, 1914, 1919, 1915, 1916, 1913, 1917, 1920, and 1907 (IHL).

From these numbers, it's arguable that Taylor had a Guy Lafleur-like best 5 years - but so did Cook, and Cook's got so much better longevity beyond that.

Lalonde was not as dominant as Taylor offensively in his best seasons, but his 10th best season was better than Taylor's 6th.

Knowing everything we know about these players, I'm not sure how we can rank either Lalonde or Taylor over Cook. He's just better.

Lalonde vs. Taylor might come down to one's personal priorities.

(these VsY numbers - since a VsX snob once told me not to call it VsX - are manually calculated year-by-year, league-by-league. I imagine a fully consolidated hockey world, including prominent minor and european leagues, and manipulate benchmarks to create a realistic leaderboard for each season. Like post-1926 VsX, one player typically gets a score over 100, one earns 100, and everyone falls in from there. This allows me to judge each season case by case - does the PCHA have a more impressive leaderboard and dominant scoring leader, or does the NHA? Does that guy who led the OPHL by a drastic margin deserve consideration as a top-10 scorer? And so on.)

Thanks for posting this. I was pretty sure Bill Cook's numbers were that much better than Taylor/Lalonde, but wasn't about to thoroughly crunch the numbers myself.

Cook is the reason Marty Brodeur isn't an easy #1 for me, though he'll probably end up there.

Taylor is hurt at least a little by spending some good years as a defenseman though, right? Edit: also, as a playmaker, he was hurt a little bit by potential assist undercounting if we believe that was a thing back then - and based on Nighbor's spot several places above Clarke, we clearly as a group do

Btw, nothing snobby about asking you not to name an offshoot of something the same thing as the original.

 

[MXD]

For the record, if anyone wants some more specific numbers about the whole "underassisting in Montreal", for the years in which this has a direct effect on Newsy Lalonde. Didn't include the numbers for the Wanderers because too small sample size :

TEAM	Goals	Assists	Assists Per Goals
Canadiens	115	38	0,33
Toronto	108	51	0,47
Ottawa	102	52	0,51
1917-1918 Avg.	325	141	0,43
Canadiens	88	37	0,42
Toronto	64	33	0,52
Ottawa	71	43	0,61
1918-1919 Avg.	223	113	0,51
Canadiens	129	47	0,36
Toronto	119	48	0,40
Ottawa	121	63	0,52
Québec	91	48	0,53
1919-1920 Avg.	460	206	0,45
Canadiens	112	42	0,38
Toronto	105	45	0,43
Ottawa	95	45	0,47
Hamilton	92	44	0,48
1920-1921 Avg	404	176	0,44

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

It might be due to systemic reasons (that is, the way the Canadiens played was less conducive to assists), but it's not like the Canadiens were doing something wrong, since they led the NHL in goals scored every season during what we can probably call Lalonde's resurgence. The 19-20 numbers are quite revealing (The Canadiens leading in goals, but not in points) and the 17-18 numbers are even more revealing (The Canadiens leading in goals, but last in points, so their players are actually ones ending getting the less "credit" for their scoring, despite the team leading the NHL in scoring).

It's probably up to everyone to assess how to process this... but the logical conclusion is that Newsey Lalonde was probably a TAD better than his numbers suggest. And keep in mind this is pretty much a 60-minute shift era, so there's really something to be said about being the best player (and best scorer for every year but 17-18, injury) of the highest scoring team.

Also, keep in mind this happened while Montreal had (in average, I know they had Harry Cameron in 1920...) the worst puck rushing (from D) in the NHL.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

For the record, if anyone wants some more specific numbers about the whole "underassisting in Montreal", for the years in which this has a direct effect on Newsy Lalonde. Didn't include the numbers for the Wanderers because too small sample size :

TEAM	Goals	Assists	Assists Per Goals
Canadiens	115	38	0,33
Toronto	108	51	0,47
Ottawa	102	52	0,51
1917-1918 Avg.	325	141	0,43
Canadiens	88	37	0,42
Toronto	64	33	0,52
Ottawa	71	43	0,61
1918-1919 Avg.	223	113	0,51
Canadiens	129	47	0,36
Toronto	119	48	0,40
Ottawa	121	63	0,52
Québec	91	48	0,53
1919-1920 Avg.	460	206	0,45
Canadiens	112	42	0,38
Toronto	105	45	0,43
Ottawa	95	45	0,47
Hamilton	92	44	0,48
1920-1921 Avg	404	176	0,44

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

It might be due to systemic reasons (that is, the way the Canadiens played was less conducive to assists), but it's not like the Canadiens were doing something wrong, since they led the NHL in goals scored every season during what we can probably call Lalonde's resurgence. The 19-20 numbers are quite revealing (The Canadiens leading in goals, but not in points) and the 17-18 numbers are even more revealing (The Canadiens leading in goals, but last in points, so their players are actually ones ending getting the less "credit" for their scoring, despite the team leading the NHL in scoring).

It's probably up to everyone to assess how to process this... but the logical conclusion is that Newsey Lalonde was probably a TAD better than his numbers suggest. And keep in mind this is pretty much a 60-minute shift era, so there's really something to be said about being the best player (and best scorer for every year but 17-18, injury) of the highest scoring team.

Also, keep in mind this happened while Montreal had (in average, I know they had Harry Cameron in 1920...) the worst puck rushing (from D) in the NHL.

Perhaps this partially explains the low team assist totals?

On the subject of assists from bygone eras...

I believe it's possible Bill Cook might also be affected by the NHL's stingy handing out of assists in the 1920s and 30s. The Bread Line was lauded for their great combination play in an era where relying on solo rushes from a Morenz or a Shore was still a common offensive strategy.

 

[MXD]

Perhaps this partially explains the low team assist totals?

On the subject of assists from bygone eras...

I believe it's possible Bill Cook might also be affected by the NHL's stingy handing out of assists in the 1920s and 30s. The Bread Line was lauded for their great combination play in an era where relying on solo rushes from a Morenz or a Shore was still a common offensive strategy.

Maybe... That's certainly logical.
But 19-20 was the year they had Cameron.

And I mostly wanted to "target" the Canadiens since they got way, way less assists than any other team (and again, it's not like they were doing something wrong, since they were actually leading the league in goals). Of course, assists were awarded stingily for I while. Here's the table for 1926-1927 :

Canadiens	99	34	0,34
Toronto	79	43	0,54
Ottawa	86	43	0,50
Maroons	71	34	0,48
Boston	97	51	0,53
Pittsburgh	79	28	0,35
Amerks	82	37	0,45
Rangers	95	48	0,51
Chicago	115	64	0,56
Detroit	76	43	0,57
1926-1927 AVG	879	425	0,48

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Of course, players can be effected in an "absolute" way by this. As the years progress, assists start to be handed somewhat more liberally, so you don't have a team with, like, 75% more assists per goal than the others.

But I don't quite think you can say something like "Bill Cook would've fared better in the scoring race if there was 1 asssist per goal instead of 0.5", because Cook :
- Was on a team that was, at least for 26-27, roughly league-average for assists (and that's despite icing an elite playmaker)
- Wasn't a bad playmaker, but doesn't exactly scream "playmaker" either, so he's probably not the guy who would benefit the most from this. Though his statline would probably look less "comical" to us than 33 Goals and 4 Assists.

 

[tony d]

Will vote later tonight, hoping I don't put a player in twice this week as I did last week

Here are my weekly thoughts on this week's entries:

Bill Cook- A memory I've often shared on this site is from my ATD days. I had the chance to draft Bill Cook and put him with Mark Messier. I went instead with Glenn Hall. Still Cook is no slouch and should be put on the main list in short order.
Bryan Trottier- His standing seems to have gone down in recent times but still he's a good player. Looking at this week's list I think he may be on the main list when it is released on Monday.
Cyclone Taylor- One of the game's early stars, certainly a guy that could hold his own in any era.
Joe Sakic- Didn't follow this thread much this week but I guess the inevitable Sakic/Yzerman comparison happened. Yzerman is my choice there but that says more about Yzerman than it does Sakic.
Larry Robinson- AKA Big Bird, he had a good career, looking at this list I think he'll rank high for me in my vote.
Martin Brodeur- Surprised that Hall ranked above Brodeur & Sawchuk. I think both goalies will rank high for voters this week.
Mike Bossy- One of the top goal scorers ever. I wonder who ends up ranking higher on the main list, Trots or Bossy.
Newsy Lalonde- Like Taylor Lalonde was an early star of the game. He was one of the first early stars I learned about in my early hockey fandom days.
Steve Yzerman- Stevie Y, such a good player. Good transformation from being offense only to more responsible later in his career.
Ted Lindsay- While Ovie has took over as the 2nd best LW ever, Lindsay shouldn't be discounted for his career.
Terry Sawchuk- One of the top goalies ever, I think he'll rank high for voters this week.

Those are my weekly thoughts. Did we decide on Christmas break yet? I'm gone but don't hold this up on my account. I'll be good with whatever.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Voted.

 

[ted2019]

Voted.

 

[VanIslander]

Voted.

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

People's latter-day love for Sakic is just the latest fad. In their respective time together nobody put Joe above Steve on the all-time lists.

Sakic > Yzerman.

One played in the 80's and we all know that forwards tend to peak in their earlier years, the other played in the 90's where scoring started to become lower. This is why Yzerman career numbers are "better". But Sakic was also a better playoffs performer and had a better longevity than Yzerman.