Top 20 Canucks Defencemen All-Time #5

[Captain Bowie]

Simple Question: Who are the top 20 Canucks Defencemen of all-time?

The List:
1. Mattias Ohlund (770 GP, 325 P)
2. Jyrki Lumme (579 GP, 321 P)
3. Ed Jovanovski (434 GP, 234 P)
4. Sami Salo (566 GP, 236 P)


Stats:

Player| Games|Goals|Assists|Points| +/-| PIM| PPG| PPP
Mattias Ohlund | 770| 93| 232| 325| 9| 756| 36| 139
Dennis Kearns| 677| 31| 290| 321| -158| 386| 11|
Jyrki Lumme | 579| 83 |238| 321| 21| 379| 28| 123
Doug Lidster| 666| 65| 242| 307|-92| 526| 22| 80
Alexander Edler| 620| 72| 207| 279| -6| 387| 38| 134
Kevin Bieksa| 597| 56| 185| 241| 22| 879| 19| 84
Sami Salo | 566 |74| 162| 236| 78| 202| 48| 123
Ed Jovanovski | 434| 57| 177| 234| -3| 536| 22| 100
Rick Lanz| 417| 56| 171| 227| -81| 331| 37|
Kevin McCarthy| 352| 51| 148| 199| -15| 388| 12|
Harold Snepsts| 781| 35| 160| 195| -42| 1446| 5| 1
Douglas Halward| 324| 45| 118| 163| -102| 389| 19|
David Babych| 409| 23| 131| 154| -27| 290| 13| 54
Dan Hamhuis| 389| 23| 119| 142| 78| 190| 5| 33
Garth Butcher| 610| 33| 107| 140| -121| 1668| 3| 13
Dale Tallon | 222| 44| 93| 137| -79| 219| 21|
Jocelyn Guevremont| 227| 44| 88| 132| -108| 124| 19|
Robert Dailey| 257| 38| 93| 131| -62| 417| 18|
Brent Sopel| 322| 33| 97| 130| 29| 139| 14| 53
Lars Lindgren| 335| 23| 99| 122| -19| 292| 5|
Adrian Aucoin| 341| 49| 71| 120| 11| 245| 27| 51
Jiri Bubla| 256| 17| 101| 118| -51| 202| 7|
Paul Reinhart| 131| 24| 90| 114| -2| 74| 12| 70
Bret Hedican| 310| 17| 85| 102| 13| 281| 4| 26
Christian Ehrhoff|159| 28| 66| 94| 55| 94| 12| 51
Gerald Diduck| 265 |17| 55| 72| 15| 553| 3 |21
Christopher Tanev| 295| 14| 51| 65| 26| 40| 2| 6
Willie Mitchell| 264| 10| 48| 58| 49| 233| 0| 1
Jeff Brown| 72| 10| 44| 54| 6| 44| 3| 33

*Some of the PPP stats are skewed because there was a time when the NHL recorded PP goals, but not PP points.

Click to read more...

 

[Captain Bowie]

Voting Snepstsy here.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Bump to see if anyone can catch Eddie.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Edler now? Really?

This is so slanted towards the modern era because a lot of people voting probably never saw any of the older guys play.

 

[MS]

At least you can make an argument for Edler in this position.

Salo at #4 is just nuts.

 

[absolute garbage]

I mean, these things are much more of a favorite contest than actually who was the best.

Salo was a great guy to root for, a sympathetic soldier, and he played in the last decade. So he's going to get votes. The actual purpose of these polls is left in the background.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

put it this way: if you took the tanev of the last four years, double the length of that span, give him a signature playoff run, and made him an ironman instead of a guy who is good for missing 10-15 games a year with injuries, that's harold snepsts.

obviously, their styles are completely different but in terms of impact i think it's pretty close.

so the question is, would you take this bizarro tanev over edler?

 

[Jyrki21]

This is so slanted towards the modern era because a lot of people voting probably never saw any of the older guys play.

Well also because the Canucks were better overall than in the first half of their history, so it's not a huge leap to think more about the players on successful teams.

And if you don't "adjust for era", it's also not a huge leap to believe that players today are simply better overall than they used to be, so in an absolute sense a lot of the top players are going to come from more modern periods.

 

[MS]

Well also because the Canucks were better overall than in the first half of their history, so it's not a huge leap to think more about the players on successful teams.

This is probably fair. But Salo also shouldn't be ahead of guys he played with like Edler and Hamhuis.

And if you don't "adjust for era", it's also not a huge leap to believe that players today are simply better overall than they used to be, so in an absolute sense a lot of the top players are going to come from more modern periods.

This isn't. Middling players in today's NHL are probably better than Maurice Richard, in terms of raw ability. But this is never how any lists like this are composed. You judge based on the success a player had against his peers.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

This is probably fair. But Salo also shouldn't be ahead of guys he played with like Edler and Hamhuis.

nas-tuzzi nostalgia? lingering gillis negativity?

that said, sedin sedin naslund salo in 4-on-4 was a thing of beauty.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Middling players in today's NHL are probably better than Maurice Richard, in terms of raw ability.

i can't imagine that this could possibly be true.

i mean, rocket richard played at the same time as the young unstoppable gordie howe and they were on a similar level. an older gordie howe played at the same time as peak jean ratelle and was better than him. by the very end of jean ratelle's run as an elite player, he was keeping pace with perreault, lanny mcdonald, sittler, bobby clarke. and those guys all were still elite players at the beginning of the gretzky era, better than for instance bernie federko. bernie federko, top ten in scoring almost every year from 1979 to 1985. and so on and so on until you get to jamie benn or whoever.

 

[Jyrki21]

i can't imagine that this could possibly be true.

i mean, rocket richard played at the same time as the young unstoppable gordie howe and they were on a similar level. an older gordie howe played at the same time as peak jean ratelle and was better than him. by the very end of jean ratelle's run as an elite player, he was keeping pace with perreault, lanny mcdonald, sittler, bobby clarke. and those guys all were still elite players at the beginning of the gretzky era, better than for instance bernie federko. bernie federko, top ten in scoring almost every year from 1979 to 1985. and so on and so on until you get to jamie benn or whoever.

Every other human athletic pursuit has seen basically linear progression as long as we can remember, would hockey really be any different? With the development of technology, nutrition, training regimens, coaching techniques, etc., etc., etc., not to mention 21st century communications that allow for talent identification across the world and easy transportation? And overall population growth, of course.

Guys from the 6-team league were basically competing with other 5'9" white, smoking Canadians who were lucky enough to be known, and that was about it. It's a whole other world now.

That said it's moot anyway, because a guy like Richard would be deemed "too small" today and drop like 17 rounds in the draft.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Every other human athletic pursuit has seen basically linear progression as long as we can remember, would hockey really be any different? With the development of technology, nutrition, training regimens, coaching techniques, etc., etc., etc., not to mention 21st century communications that allow for talent identification across the world and easy transportation? And overall population growth, of course.

Guys from the 6-team league were basically competing with other 5'9" white, smoking Canadians who were lucky enough to be known, and that was about it. It's a whole other world now.

That said it's moot anyway, because a guy like Richard would be deemed "too small" today and drop like 17 rounds in the draft.

i'm not saying guys aren't faster than they used to be, or on average bigger and stronger. of course they are. i'm just saying that a guy who was the greatest player of all time 66 years ago isn't going to be worse than a scrub NHLer today. i mean, is tanner glass's hockey sense better than rocket richard or howie morenz or hell cyclone taylor? tanner glass has the hockey sense of my fist.


but seriously, if hockey changes that much then how was gordie howe top 5 for twenty years? how was ray bourque a first team all-star in 1980 and 2001? depth players might get better as time passes, but the greats are the greats in any era.

and incidentally, rocket richard was bigger than a certain RW who was recently recently drafted first overall, you know, the guy who was this year's MVP.

 

[rypper]

I'll take a prime Bieksa over a prime Edler anyday.

 

[RandV]

i'm not saying guys aren't faster than they used to be, or on average bigger and stronger. of course they are. i'm just saying that a guy who was the greatest player of all time 66 years ago isn't going to be worse than a scrub NHLer today. i mean, is tanner glass's hockey sense better than rocket richard or howie morenz or hell cyclone taylor? tanner glass has the hockey sense of my fist.


but seriously, if hockey changes that much then how was gordie howe top 5 for twenty years? how was ray bourque a first team all-star in 1980 and 2001? depth players might get better as time passes, but the greats are the greats in any era.

and incidentally, rocket richard was bigger than a certain RW who was recently recently drafted first overall, you know, the guy who was this year's MVP.

In my opinion there would have been a spike in the 90's when you had a combination of the Russian migration, goaltending's butterfly revolution, modernization of equipment, a greater emphasis on coaching systems (the trap), and sky rocketing player salaries.

Ray Bourque actually makes a good example, relative to his peers he was a 1st team all-star as a 90 point dman in the 80's, and a 1st team all star as a 60 point dman in 2000. It's harder to score against better players, so there were probably a lot more Tanner Glass' for the elite talent to feast on in the 80's.

 

[RandV]

Also, like someone else mentioned the modern lean in this instance is largely because the Canucks never haven't had a good history of noteworthy dmen. I mean Chris Tanev is already top 30 in franchise dman scoring?

 

[Hi-wayman]

put it this way: if you took the tanev of the last four years, double the length of that span, give him a signature playoff run, and made him an ironman instead of a guy who is good for missing 10-15 games a year with injuries, that's harold snepsts.

obviously, their styles are completely different but in terms of impact i think it's pretty close.

so the question is, would you take this bizarro tanev over edler?

When Snepsts first made the Canucks roster he was so nervous all the opposing player had to do was to skate at him & he pass the puck to him. As soon as Snepsts was passed the puck the whole crowd groaned as we knew we'd turn the puck over.

Missing Popiel, Doak, Quinn, DeMarco & Robitaille

 

[jonnygf40]

Lol, any way you break it down ... that is one hurting d group considering they are our best of all time.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

In my opinion there would have been a spike in the 90's when you had a combination of the Russian migration, goaltending's butterfly revolution, modernization of equipment, a greater emphasis on coaching systems (the trap), and sky rocketing player salaries.

Ray Bourque actually makes a good example, relative to his peers he was a 1st team all-star as a 90 point dman in the 80's, and a 1st team all star as a 60 point dman in 2000. It's harder to score against better players, so there were probably a lot more Tanner Glass' for the elite talent to feast on in the 80's.

bourque score 65 points and was tied for 5th in scoring as a 19 year old, and scored 59 points in a lower scoring era (tied for 3rd) as a 40 year old. those 90 point years were when bourque was in his massively dominant prime and was much much better than he was as a teenager or 40 year old.

if twenty years apart the same guy as a kid and an old man can dominate at basically the same level relative to his peers, then his peers didn't really improve that much did they?

 

[ChilliBilly]

Edler now? Really?

This is so slanted towards the modern era because a lot of people voting probably never saw any of the older guys play.

I voted Edler, but there are a lot of guys on that list that are close. Butcher, (who I play with) Bubla Mitchell etc are all in the ballpark now.

 

[MikeK]

I'll take a prime Bieksa over a prime Edler anyday.

Same here. I'm one who feels Edler has been grossly overrated around here. He isn't even a top 10 for me... Well maybe bottom 10 but there have definitely been more than a handful off better Dmen who've played for Van.