Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 8

[MXD]

Coffey's plus/minus in PIT from 1988–1991 is very suspect, especially in 1991 when most of the team had turned the table towards plus. He also took quite a lot of penalties. Why does a guy with such epic skating take so many penalties?

The 1988-89 Pittsburgh team was EXCEPTIONALLY grumpy, or ended up playing a lot against trigger-happy refs. There's only two regular players that ended up with less than 100 PIMS : Zarley Zalapski and Phil Bourque (who was just 3 short). But they were also getting an enormous amount of PP, leading the NHL in PP, PPO, PPAO.

EDIT : A quick look at HR for that season tells me that there was indeed some trigger happy teams & refs in the Lester Patrick division. The Islanders were quiet, and the Flyers were not too bad either, but other than that...

 

[The Macho King]

Coffey will likely be my NR this round *and* next round. I just can't see the justification for having him in this group.

Park feels like he's in the right vote, but just isn't good enough to come to the top of it.

Chelios came a vote late IMO. He'll have an argument for my top 5 here.

Feels a smidge early for Dryden? But not criminally so.

Sawchuk probably finally makes my top 5.

 

[wetcoast]

Yeah well that's why he is just 'poor man's' Orr.


Calling Coffey a passanger is a bit of a joke. Makes it seem like he was Bernie Nicholls or something like that.

I agree that calling Coffey a passenger is leaning towards joke territory and I'm not a big supporter of Coffey but why the hate towards Nicholls?

 

[overpass]

Paul Coffey pros and cons:

Pro: Showed he could be a core part of a winning team in winning Stanley Cups with Edmonton in 1984, 1985, 1987, and with Pittsburgh in 1991. Two different teams means he could contribute in two different situations. Had an all-time great playoff run in 1985, surely one of the best non-Smythe winning runs. Was also a part of great Detroit teams in 1994-95 and 1995-96 and went to the finals with Philadelphia in 1997.

Con: His teams also won without him. Edmonton won in 1988 after Coffey left, with their most dominant playoff run and best defense. Pittsburgh in 1991 actually won with Coffey missing half the playoff run and playing a limited, PP-focused role for some of the games -- and then they traded Coffey away and won again in 1992. The LA Kings traded Coffey away and went to the finals in 1993 without him. The Detroit Red Wings had several playoff failures with Coffey, and won the Stanley Cup in 1997 and 1998 after trading Coffey away.

Pro: All time great scoring from the defence position. Paul Coffey broke Bobby Orr's scoring records for defencemen and is the only player to even approach them. Easily the second best offensive defenceman of all time, with a big gap between him and #3.

Con: How much did he give up going the other way? Maybe quite a bit. Coffey was +298 for his career in the regular season and +53 in the playoffs. Good numbers, but they don't stand out among the other great defencemen. What's more concerning is he was +262 and +58 through his age 24 season (1985-86), and then only +36 in the regular season and -5 in the playoffs for the rest of his career. Coffey's game may not have adapted well to the short shift, structured NHL of the 1990s.

Pro: The plus-minus numbers above don't account for the power play. Coffey was a great power play scorer, with 135 power play goals and 664 power play points in his career.

Con: Coffey was a great power play scorer, but not necessarily #2 behind Orr in this role. Ray Bourque (173 PPG, 761 PPP) and Al MacInnis (166 PPG, 722 PPP) both outscored him for his career. Nicklas Lidstrom scored 590 PPP in a lower scoring era. Even Phil Housley wasn't far behind Coffey (612 career PPP). Also, the power play is only one aspect of special teams -- the penalty kill is the other. Paul Coffey contributed relatively little on the penalty kill for most of his career, playing second unit minutes or as a depth spare. Chris Chelios, Larry Robinson, and Brad Park (especially Chelios) contributed more in this side of the game that isn't captured by the offensive stats.

Pro: Ranked #29 all time by THN
Con: Ranked as the #68 Canadian player all time by Scotty Bowman

I should say I’m a bit of a Coffey hater...pretty sure I was the lowest on him in the defenceman project. A Coffey supporter might put more emphasis on the positives such as his offensive performance.

 

[wetcoast]

I hope they become eligible together; Firsov certainly has a case over Kharlamov. (That's the two Soviets I have in mind anyway.)

EDIT: Well, Tretiak's there too, I guess.

Those are the 2 I came up with, although there are 2 NHL Soviets who could come up soon as well, or definitely before Firsov.

Considering how much Star power has helped some already in this project it might extend to Kharlamov as well maybe?

 

[VMBM]

Those are the 2 I came up with, although there are 2 NHL Soviets who could come up soon as well, or definitely before Firsov.

Umm, why?

I don't think there's any Soviet who should "definitely" come up before Firsov at this stage; he was the complete package (super offence, good defence and PK'ing, excellent numbers & accolades). Shortish prime, but excellent peak (1966-71)

 

[MXD]

Is there such a thing as an NHL Soviet?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I also hope that those two Soviet LWs come up soon, but for now, let's try to stick to the guys up for discussion, as boring as they may be.

I mean, it's not exactly a crime for those two to go under Lindsay and Bossy.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Paul Coffey might be the most talented player available and I look forward to voting him 2nd after Terry Sawchuk for, like, the next month.

I'm starting to warm to the idea that we've slapped around Sawchuk enough, already. Doesn't mean my mind is totally made up on this one- but I'm currently leaning towards waiving him through, at last.

For the purpose of this Vote, my evolving perspective is probably bad news for Yzerman.

As for that Coffey Vote- yeah- I could see that going on for a couple/few weeks.

 

[ted2019]

I have the defensemen ranked like this
Robinson
Park
Chelios
Coffey

Coffey sucked in his own end, while Chelios was a strong 2 way defender and a very physical ( at times dirty) player. As a 46 year old on a cup winning team, Chelios was still getting a tick under 17 minutes a game in the regular season and just under 13 in the playoffs. When Coffey went to the Flyers, during the 1996-97 season, He was so bad defensively, he played forward on the 4th line and defense on the 2nd PP unit.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I agree that calling Coffey a passenger is leaning towards joke territory and I'm not a big supporter of Coffey but why the hate towards Nicholls?

Paul Coffey may have been the second most talented member of the Oiler dynasty after Gretzky. If he played centre instead of defense, and played apart from Gretzky, history may have viewed him far better. It's too bad for Coffey that defensemen have to, you know, play defense.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I feel as though there's too much desire for participants in this project to come across as "edgy" and "different" in certain regards. I don't deny the value of digging deeper in some data - but there seems to be too big of a propensity to dismiss stats and award voting.

Specifically offense vs defense. There's too much of a defense > offense vibe around here. The hockey world has always recognized offense more. Gretzky was winning those hart trophies - not Bourque or Messier. Espo beat Orr with enough offense. Guy Carbonneau and Bob Gainey were never in discussion for the best players in the world (nor close).

Keeping it relevant to this stage of voting - Steve Yzerman. Big offensive guru to defensive master. It also coincides with going from high hart recognition to barely marginal votes after his transformation.

Paul Coffey is almost all about offense. I don't think that should be seen as a bad thing.

Except they were always in the discussion,at the top, of players you want defending against the top offensive stars.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I have the defensemen ranked like this
Robinson
Park
Chelios
Coffey

Coffey sucked in his own end, while Chelios was a strong 2 way defender and a very physical ( at times dirty) player. As a 46 year old on a cup winning team, Chelios was still getting a tick under 17 minutes a game in the regular season and just under 13 in the playoffs. When Coffey went to the Flyers, during the 1996-97 season, He was so bad defensively, he played forward on the 4th line and defense on the 2nd PP unit.

Why Park over Chelios? I realize Park lost 4 Norrises to Orr, but other than Orr, the guys Park beat out was a fairly weak group. In other words, Orr and Park were both great, but other than them, the competition among early 1970s defensemen was quite weak (it got way stronger in the late 70s as guys like Robinson, Park, and Salming came of age).

Meanwhile, Chelios peaked at probably the toughest time ever for defensemen:

(FOLLOWING IS A REPOST FROM HOH TOP DEFENSEMEN PROJECT)

I'm fairly confident in saying that but for Bobby Orr, Brad Park would have 4 Norrises... and they'd be 4 of the weakest Norrises of all-time, with MUCH weaker competition than Lidstrom faced on average.

Compare to Chelios who actually did beat out prime Ray Bourque (and Al MacInnis and Paul Coffey) for 3 Norrises, the first two in convincing fashion. Here are the years when Chelios finished top 5 in Norris voting - talk about competition!

1988-89: Chris Chelios, Mtl 226 (37-12-5); Paul Coffey, Pit 115 (14-14-3); Al MacInnis, Cgy 57 (3-10-12); Ray Bourque, Bos 56 (3-8-17); Steve Duchesne, LA 30 (2-5-5)

1990-91: Ray Bourque 257 (35-27-1); Al MacInnis 228 (27-28-9); Chris Chelios 56 (2-9-19); Brian Leetch 30 (2-0-20); Paul Coffey 8 (0-0-8)

1992-93: Chris Chelios 201 (33-10-6); Ray Bourque 97 (6-19-10); Larry Murphy 93 (9-11-15); Kevin Hatcher 17 (0-5-2); Phil Housley 16 (1-2-5)

1994-95: Paul Coffey 69 (12-3-0); Chris Chelios 39 (2-9-2); Ray Bourque 20 (1-1-12); Larry Murphy 7 (0-2-3) (weird voting with the lockout)

1995-96: Chris Chelios 408 (22-19-9-3-1); Ray Bourque 403 (23-16-8-7-0); Brian Leetch 245 (6-6-23-7-7); Vladimir Konstantinov 131 (2-6-7-10-4); Paul Coffey 83 (0-4-2-12-9)

1996-97: Brian Leetch 494 (42-8-3-1-0); Vladimir Konstantinov 178 (2-10-13-6-5); Sandis Ozolinsh 176 (2-12-9-8-3); Chris Chelios 172 (0-7-18-9-6); Scott Stevens 171 (7-8-4-7-4)

2001-02: Nicklas Lidstrom, Det 472 (29-20-7-2-1); Chris Chelios, Det 431 (28-10-13-4-4); Rob Blake, Col 321 (4-19-22-12-2); Sergei Gonchar, Was 147 (0-6-6-22-9); Chris Pronger, StL 62 (0-4-1-8-5)

Note also that Chelios, as a defense-first defenseman (especially in later years) was at a disadvantage, as postexpansion voters often look to stats first.

 

[MXD]

I have the defensemen ranked like this
Robinson
Park
Chelios
Coffey

Coffey sucked in his own end, while Chelios was a strong 2 way defender and a very physical ( at times dirty) player. As a 46 year old on a cup winning team, Chelios was still getting a tick under 17 minutes a game in the regular season and just under 13 in the playoffs. When Coffey went to the Flyers, during the 1996-97 season, He was so bad defensively, he played forward on the 4th line and defense on the 2nd PP unit.

I've been really on Coffey's case so far and I had him nearly in the 70ies in my R1 list, so no one is gonna accuse me of defending Coffey out of self interest, but....

The underlined has to be qualified. He really, really looks bad in that group, but I tend to reserve the word "suck" and its variations to players like, I don't know, Phil Housley or Marc-André Bergeron, or your 5th D-Men playing 17 minutes a night who has issues playing against other teams' 2nd lines and whose penalty kill skillset can be summed up by "let's block and slap the puck out of the zone ASAP". Coffey was better than that defensively. Let's just say that he's the worst D-Man on the defensive side of the game up until Brian Leetch becomes available and leave it at that.

 

[DannyGallivan]

while Chelios was a strong 2 way defender and a very physical ( at times dirty) player. As a 46 year old on a cup winning team,

I'd say that Chelios was far dirtier than he was "physical".

 

[MXD]

Why Park over Chelios? I realize Park lost 4 Norrises to Orr, but other than Orr, but the guys Park beat out was a fairly weak group. In other words, Orr and Park were both great, but other than them, the competition among early 1970s defensemen was quite weak (it got way stronger in the late 70s as guys like Robinson, Park, and Salming came of age).

To expand, here are the players that finished 3rd in Norris voting (when Park was finishing 2nd to Bobby Orr) :
- 31 year old Carl Brewer who had just spent 5 seasons not playing in the NHL
- 32 year old JC Tremblay (that's actually decent competition, Tremblay being something of a late bloomer, but Tremblay's real value was as a playoff performer, not as a RS defender)
- 32 years old Bill White
- 34 years old Bill White

 

[bobholly39]

I've been really on Coffey's case so far and I had him nearly in the 70ies in my R1 list, so no one is gonna accuse me of defending Coffey out of self interest, but....

The underlined has to be qualified. He really, really looks bad in that group, but I tend to reserve the word "suck" and its variations to players like, I don't know, Phil Housley or Marc-André Bergeron, or your 5th D-Men playing 17 minutes a night who has issues playing against other teams' 2nd lines and whose penalty kill skillset can be summed up by "let's block and slap the puck out of the zone ASAP". Coffey was better than that defensively. Let's just say that he's the worst D-Man on the defensive side of the game up until Brian Leetch becomes available and leave it at that.

lol

Funny especially you're the one who made this comment earlier:

Oh, and if this group was Defense > Offense, Serge Savard, Ching Johnson, Black Jack Stewart and Rod Langway would be up for voting.

This is the defenseman that stands along among all defenseman among NHL history as bar non the best offensive defenseman (outside Orr). He also lacks neither longevity, consistency nor playoffs, nor Norris recognition/wins.

If he was a forward it would be the equivalent of a Hull, Lafleur, Jagr or Espo being seen as the unanimous best offensive forward after the Big 3. Nobody quite reaches that high for forwards - but for defensemen, Coffey does.

How in the world does that translate to close to 70s?

And yes I realize the irony of calling you out for your placement of Coffey in the one post where you come to his defense. The above still stands

 

[MXD]

lol

Funny especially you're the one who made this comment earlier:



This is the defenseman that stands along among all defenseman among NHL history as bar non the best offensive defenseman (outside Orr). He also lacks neither longevity, consistency nor playoffs, nor Norris recognition/wins.

If he was a forward it would be the equivalent of a Hull, Lafleur, Jagr or Espo being seen as the unanimous best offensive forward after the Big 3. Nobody quite reaches that high for forwards - but for defensemen, Coffey does.

How in the world does that translate to close to 70s?

And yes I realize the irony of calling you out for your placement of Coffey in the one post where you come to his defense. The above still stands

I'm not dignifying that post with an answer. If you have an issue with my R1 rankings (because that's the only actual point you're making here), you may bring them to Quoipourquoi, or to one of the screeners.

 

[DannyGallivan]

To expand, here are the players that finished 3rd in Norris voting (when Park was finishing 2nd to Bobby Orr) :
- 31 year old Carl Brewer who had just spent 5 seasons not playing in the NHL
- 32 year old JC Tremblay (that's actually decent competition, Tremblay being something of a late bloomer, but Tremblay's real value was as a playoff performer, not as a RS defender)
- 32 years old Bill White
- 34 years old Bill White

I don't know if I buy the notion that the NHL was suddenly devoid of decent defensemen between the early 70's to mid-70's. Bill White, Pat Stapleton, Trembley and Brewer were very well thought of. And in future Norris voting, Park finished ahead of the likes of Robinson, Savard, Lapointe and Salming.

Park finished second in Norris voting 8 times (and third once). The way the voting system works in this very Top 100 project, 8 second place votes will get you further than three first place votes.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I don't know if I buy the notion that the NHL was suddenly devoid of decent defensemen between the early 70's to mid-70's. Bill White, Pat Stapleton, Trembley and Brewer were very well thought of. And in future Norris voting, Park finished ahead of the likes of Robinson, Savard, Lapointe and Salming.

Park finished second in Norris voting 8 times (and third once). The way the voting system works in this very Top 100 project, 8 second place votes will get you further than three first place votes.

Park was 2nd 6 times, not 8. I posted their full records a page or two back: Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 8

 

[DannyGallivan]

Park was 2nd 6 times, not 8. I posted their full records a page or two back: Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 8

It won't be the first time I mis-read Hockey-Reference.com. Yet, my point remains the exact same. Yet my point remains the exact same.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

It won't be the first time I mis-read Hockey-Reference.com. Yet, my point remains the exact same. Yet my point remains the exact same.

Okay. But my point is this:

Chelios has a noticeably better Norris record than Park. He also has more non-Norris-worthy-but-still-productive seasons than Park.

The argument for Park would be level of competition, but I don't think that argument actually works, once you look deeper than Bobby Orr.

 

[MXD]

I don't know if I buy the notion that the NHL was suddenly devoid of decent defensemen between the early 70's to mid-70's. Bill White, Pat Stapleton, Trembley and Brewer were very well thought of. And in future Norris voting, Park finished ahead of the likes of Robinson, Savard, Lapointe and Salming.

Park finished second in Norris voting 8 times (and third once). The way the voting system works in this very Top 100 project, 8 second place votes will get you further than three first place votes.

It's not that these players are bad. They're actually very good.

But that's not exactly strong at that level. More accurately, it's the kind of player/competition that you'd expect a Top-50 skater of all-time to consistently beat. Had Park won the Norrises he lost because of Orr (say, because Orr... I dunno, retires in 1968), we'd probably be talking about the weakest competition of all-time on D.

My point is, mostly, that it's a bit more complicated (with Park) than "He'd have 5 Norris if it wasn't of Orr".

 

[Kyle McMahon]

One thing that sticks out to me is the level of Norris/AST support Park received in seasons where he missed large amounts of games. There's two ways to look at it. One, Park was really a fantastic player on a per-game basis. Two, competition for those awards was very weak after Orr considering nobody else was able to use those extra 20 GP to move ahead of Park.

Park was AS-1, Norris runner-up in 1969-70 (16 missed games)

Park was AS-2, third place in Norris in 1972-73 (26 missed games)

Park was AS-1, Norris runner up in 1975-76 (24 missed games)

This last point is more out of curiosity, but what the heck happened in 1976-77? Park strangely has no Norris support and was 6th in AST voting despite playing a full season at a level statistically comparable to the two surrounding seasons (where he was both times AS-1 and Norris runner up).

 

[kruezer]

1980-81	Player	GP	G	A	P	Team GF	Team GA	TGF+TGA	PPTGF	PPTGA	Plus/Minus	Home	Road
	Lee Fogolin Jr.	80	13	17	30	97	135	232	2	43	3	17	-14
	Risto Siltanen	79	17	36	53	144	108	252	61	29	4	7	-3
	Kevin Lowe	79	10	24	34	90	109	199	15	24	-10	8	-18
	Paul Coffey	74	9	23	32	97	77	174	21	6	5	6	-1
	Doug Hicks	59	5	16	21	86	77	163	16	27	20	11	9
	Pat Price	59	8	24	32	81	91	172	21	24	-7	-1	-6
	John Hughes	18	0	3	3	13	26	39	1	8	-6	3	-9
	Garry Lariviere	13	0	2	2	18	12	30	0	3	9	2	7
	Charlie Huddy	12	2	5	7	18	20	38	4	7	1	7	-6
	Tom Bladon	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	-1	-1	0
1981-82	Player	GP	G	A	P	Team GF	Team GA	TGF+TGA	PPTGF	PPTGA	Plus/Minus	Home	Road
	Kevin Lowe	80	9	31	40	128	104	232	16	37	45	27	18
	Lee Fogolin Jr.	80	4	25	29	110	106	216	1	36	39	27	12
	Paul Coffey	80	29	60	89	203	120	323	64	16	35	42	-7
	Risto Siltanen	63	15	48	63	127	72	199	53	11	13	14	-1
	Garry Lariviere	62	1	21	22	90	73	163	2	14	29	34	-5
	Doug Hicks	49	3	20	23	66	60	126	11	10	5	14	-9
	Charlie Huddy	41	4	11	15	52	37	89	7	10	18	14	4
	Mike Forbes	16	1	7	8	31	16	47	2	1	14	4	10
	Don Jackson	8	0	0	0	6	6	12	1	1	0	0	0
1982-83	Player	GP	G	A	P	Team GF	Team GA	TGF+TGA	PPTGF	PPTGA	Plus/Minus	Home	Road
	Paul Coffey	80	29	67	96	219	117	336	69	19	52	44	8
	Kevin Lowe	80	6	34	40	122	111	233	15	43	39	10	29
	Randy Gregg	80	6	22	28	95	105	200	7	36	19	8	11
	Charlie Huddy	76	20	37	57	193	99	292	53	20	61	42	19
	Lee Fogolin Jr.	72	0	18	18	94	99	193	2	32	25	3	22
	Don Jackson	71	2	8	10	73	81	154	1	22	13	2	11
	Garry Lariviere	17	0	2	2	22	15	37	0	6	13	7	6
	John Blum	5	0	3	3	5	3	8	0	0	2	1	1
1983-84	Player	GP	G	A	P	Team GF	Team GA	TGF+TGA	PPTGF	PPTGA	Plus/Minus	Home	Road
	Paul Coffey	80	40	86	126	230	130	360	70	22	52	42	10
	Randy Gregg	80	13	27	40	132	108	240	15	31	40	32	8
	Kevin Lowe	80	4	42	46	122	104	226	15	35	38	24	14
	Lee Fogolin Jr.	80	5	16	21	104	98	202	2	29	33	22	11
	Charlie Huddy	75	8	34	42	172	103	275	35	18	52	41	11
	Don Jackson	64	8	12	20	77	66	143	0	17	28	23	5
	Rick Chartraw	24	2	6	8	27	25	52	0	3	5	11	-6
	John Blum	4	0	1	1	2	2	4	0	0	0	1	-1
	Jim Playfair	2	1	1	2	4	0	4	0	0	4	4	0
1984-85	Player	GP	G	A	P	Team GF	Team GA	TGF+TGA	PPTGF	PPTGA	Plus/Minus	Home	Road
	Paul Coffey	80	37	84	121	215	125	340	59	26	57	28	29
	Charlie Huddy	80	7	44	51	188	128	316	41	27	46	21	25
	Kevin Lowe	80	4	21	25	95	105	200	15	38	13	12	1
	Lee Fogolin Jr.	79	4	13	17	84	93	177	2	31	20	13	7
	Don Jackson	78	3	17	20	84	64	148	1	11	30	17	13
	Randy Gregg	57	3	20	23	79	54	133	12	15	28	17	11
	Larry Melnyk	28	0	11	11	36	21	57	2	3	16	5	11
	Steve Smith	2	0	0	0	1	3	4	0	0	-2	-1	-1
1985-86	Player	GP	G	A	P	Team GF	Team GA	TGF+TGA	PPTGF	PPTGA	Plus/Minus	Home	Road
	Lee Fogolin Jr.	80	4	22	26	102	80	182	1	25	46	30	16
	Paul Coffey	79	48	90	138	246	162	408	67	44	61	42	19
	Charlie Huddy	76	6	35	41	172	128	300	45	29	28	24	4
	Kevin Lowe	74	2	16	18	89	78	167	8	22	25	17	8
	Randy Gregg	64	2	26	28	113	83	196	20	21	31	12	19
	Marty McSorley	59	11	12	23	39	30	69	0	1	10	6	4
	Steve Smith	55	4	20	24	70	40	110	9	7	28	8	20
	Don Jackson	45	2	8	10	42	41	83	2	4	3	8	-5
	Larry Melnyk	6	2	3	5	11	5	16	0	2	8	7	1
	Selmar Odelein	4	0	0	0	3	2	5	0	0	1	1	0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Apologies for the wall of data, I was just looking thru the detail on the Oiler D from the early to mid 80s to get some perspective on Coffey.

This is the standard +/- report from NHL.com, sorted by GP. I added the Team GF an Team GA columns into the TGF+TGA column (to use as a rough guide for how much they were on the ice).

A few thoughts I got from this...

The Coffey/Huddy pair generally were big plusses at home and much less so on the road. Not surprisingly looking like a pair that needed home matchups to look good. Were they generally together throughout this time or am I just mis-reading stats here?

I assume Coffey also was most years staying on the ice thru 2 partners a decent amount of the time. I don't know the LD/RD breakdown of these teams, was Fogolin cycling in at times? Did Fogolin & Lowe tend to pair up thru these years? Siltanen and Gregg both were clearly top 4 at times as well so may well have cycled in as well.

I assume the Oilers used Coffey & 4 forwards on the PP?

In the 84/85 season Coffey/Huddy suddenly changed and were about equal in +/- on the home and road. Can an Oiler expert share why? Did they go from playing behind Gretzky a lot to playing behind Messier more or something? I'm really curious about this season and why it looks so different from the others, especially 83/84 where Coffey's boxcars are roughly the same. Did Sather and he really get along that season? Cause he clearly took a hit when he was record chasing the next season.

Edit: Typos galore