Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 3

[quoipourquoi]

Procedure

• You will be presented with ~15 players based on their ranking in the Round 1 aggregate list
• Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias
• You will submit ten names in a ranked order, #1 through #10, without ties via PM to quoipourquoi
• Results of this vote will be posted after each voting cycle, but the individual ballots themselves will remain secret until the completion of this project
• The top-5 players will be added to The List

Eligible Voters

• Ballots from voters who have submitted an approved Round 1 ranking of 220 players (which was used to shape the aggregate list) will have their votes tabulated in the History of Hockey ranking
• Batis, BenchBrawl, bobholly39, buffalowing88, Dennis Bonvie, DN28, Dr John Carlson, Hockey Outsider, MXD, Professor What, ResilientBeast, seventieslord, tarheelhockey, ted2019, TheDevilMadeMe, Vilica, Weztex

Guidelines

• Respect each other. No horseplay or sophistry!
• Stay on topic and don't get caught up in talking about non-eligible players
• Participate, but retain an open mind throughout the discussion
• Do not speculate who cast any particular ballot. Do not make judgments about the mindset of whoever cast that particular ballot. All individual ballots will be revealed at the end of the project.

House Rules

• Any attempts to derail a discussion thread with disrespect to old-time hockey will be met with frontier justice
• We encourage interpositional discussion (forward vs. defenseman vs. goaltender) as opposed to the safer and somewhat redundant intrapositional debates
  
• Take a drink when someone mentions the number of hockey registrations in a given era
• Finish your drink when someone mentions that goaltenders cannot be compared to skaters

The actual voting period will open up on Friday, January 29th at midnight and continue through Sunday, January 31st at 8:59pm. Eastern time zone. I will release the results of the vote on Monday, February 1st.


Vote 3 Candidates

• Bernie Parent
• Bill Quackenbush
• Busher Jackson
• Doug Gilmour
• Jiri Holecek
• Johnny Bower
• Pavel Bure
• Pavel Datsyuk
• Peter Stastny
• Rod Langway
• Ron Francis
• Roy Worters
• Serge Savard
• Toe Blake
• Valeri Vasiliev

Click to read more...

 

[MXD]

Really pleasantly surprised to see Roy Worters up for voting.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Worters starts the round #1 for me. A shame we never got the chance to compare him to Tony Esposito - they seem similar to me, but while Esposito's playoff record is a bit disappointing, Worters' is more incomplete.

Blake, Gilmour, Quackenbush will be in my top 5. Beyond that I'm not sure. None of the new candidates other than Worters really excite me

 

[seventieslord]

Love seeing Worters this high. One of those guys I was super high on before anyone else was.

 

[seventieslord]

Gilmour, Quackenbush and Worters will definitely be in my top 5. Beyond that, not sure.

 

[quoipourquoi]

 

[Hockey Outsider]

VsX summary

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	7 YEAR	10 YEAR
Busher Jackson	106.0	100.0	93.6	88.9	88.4	77.3	72.1	61.4	59.1	55.0	89.5	80.2
Peter Stastny	100.0	98.3	94.6	86.5	84.7	80.7	74.1	71.3	61.2	56.6	88.4	80.8
Ron Francis	99.2	95.6	86.1	85.6	84.3	82.6	78.3	77.7	77.5	75.7	87.4	84.2
Toe Blake	106.8	85.9	83.7	83.3	83.3	81.9	79.4	75.0	72.7	62.1	86.3	81.4
Pavel Bure	100.0	98.9	95.8	89.2	76.7	74.3	61.4	51.7	50.5	28.8	85.2	72.7
Pavel Datsyuk	91.5	88.2	86.0	82.1	78.2	76.3	75.6	69.1	64.2	59.6	82.5	77.1
Doug Gilmour	97.2	92.5	85.8	77.7	75.2	75.0	70.5	70.4	65.6	61.2	82.0	77.1
Serge Savard	49.6	40.0	39.5	38.5	37.5	36.0	29.0	28.4	19.8	17.9	38.6	33.6
Bill Quackenbush	43.9	42.6	36.7	36.2	35.2	35.0	34.9	29.7	29.5	27.9	37.8	35.2
Rod Langway	33.3	30.3	27.3	26.5	25.8	25.0	19.3	15.1	12.8	12.2	26.8	22.8

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Mostly the same names as the previous round. The new additions are Ron Francis (quite similar to Stastny through seven years, then pulling ahead after that), Pavel Datsyuk (very similar to Gilmour), and Rod Langway (not exactly here for his scoring ability).

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Hart trophy summary (5% vote threshold)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th+	Total
Roy Worters	1	1		1	1			4
Rod Langway		1		2				3
Doug Gilmour		1		1	1			3
Bernie Parent		1		1				2
Johnny Bower		1					1	2
Pavel Bure			1				1	2
Toe Blake	1							1
Pavel Datsyuk			1					1
Ron Francis						1		1
Serge Savard						1		1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Players who weren't eligible for the Hart - Holocek, Vasiliev

Players who were eligible, but never received a non-trivial number of votes - Quackenbush, Jackson, Stastny

To repeat my comment from last week - Stastny is surprising, since the Hart tends to favour scoring forwards. It's worth mentioning that in the 1980s, there were only three votes on each ballot (from 1996 onwards there have been five votes), and Gretzky took one of those votes from nearly every writer throughout the decade. Stastny received Hart votes five times over a span of six years (from 1981 to 1986), but never enough to reach the 5% threshold I'm using (even in 1982, when he finished 4th).

Now that Worters is up, there's only one player who earned a non-trivial number of Hart votes (as I've defined it) in 4+ seasons. You guys think Bure is divisive? Wait until Connor McDavid is up.

Norris trophy summary (5% vote threshold)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th+	TOTAL
Rod Langway	2		1		2		1	6
Serge Savard				1	3	1		5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Not sure if there's much value presenting this if there were only two Norris-eligible defensemen, but here it is. Langway's Norris record is very impressive for this stage in the project. The question with him - is his trophy case really representative of what he accomplished? I feel pretty strongly that, although he was a great player, Langway's Norris record overstates how good he was. I'll try to post some thoughts on that later (I doubt I'm the only one who will make that type of comment).

To repeat my comment from last week - Quackenbush peaked just before the Norris was first awarded in 1954. He was a 1st team all-star three times and a 2nd team all-stat twice. Scanning through the results, he finished 1st (1948), 1st (1949), 2nd (1951), 3rd (1953), 4th (1947), and 5th (1946) - which, on paper, is better than any of the players list above, but it was a relatively weak era for defensemen.

 

[sr edler]

The New York Americans improving dramatically in the standing, and especially in the goals against department, for the 1928–29 NHL season seems to me be more of a case of a coaching change than anything else, switching Shorty Green for Tommy Gorman, with Green fizzling out as an irrelevant AHA coach the next few years whereas Gorman went on to win back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Blackhawks & the Maroons.

Case in point, the back-up goalie on the NY Americans in 1928–29 Flat Walsh played 4 games with 3 shutouts going undefeated (2-0-2) while conceding 1 goal against for a 0.23 save %. This screams a Julien/Tippett/Hitchock type of system to me and a Tim Thomas/Brian Elliott kinda situation/thing going on. The Americans had a steady but pretty unspectacular team already with a few HHOFers in Bullet Joe Simpson, Lionel Conacher & Billy Burch still doing their things.

Another case in point, the team acquired Punch Broadbent this season and Broadbent had 1 goal & 4 assists in 44 games. He still had 59 PIMs though (3rd amount of PIMs on the team that year) which means he still must played more than just sporadically, which means Gorman probably used him pragmatically in a more defensive position where he could use his body to stop other bodies, realizing it was either that-a-way or the bench for good old pluffy face.

This plus I think the NHL at this point in time was a little more consistent and/or eager in giving out the Hart Trophy on its supposed/actual definition/premise, other cases in points being Billy Burch with Hamilton & Tommy Anderson.

 

[blogofmike]

Even the guy who was frozen in ice at the time knows better than us...

 

[blogofmike]

Bernie Parent has the obvious strength of 2 Conn Smythe playoff runs as the best part of his case.

We should also keep in mind how great he was in those regular seasons. While playing for a team that faced literally double the amount of PPOA of the Chicago Black Hawks, Parent had better save percentage and GAA numbers in 1974.

While he's thought of as a 2-year player, he was pretty good in other years. Parent played more minutes from 1967-68 to 1971-72 than anybody but Giacomin.

Parent played pretty well with the Flyers expansion teams. If people were complaining about Tony O's win thresholds from the 4 year winless run where Esposito posted a middling .883 and allowed 4 GA in 9 of 14 games, they should really be impressed by 1968 Parent only going 2-1 in 1-GA games, losing a game 2 GA game, and dropping a 3-GA game in double overtime, posting a .963 along the way.

His numbers tail off at the end, presumably due to neck issues, but playing in the same era, Bernie Parent (.916, 2.44) basically has the playoff save percentage and GAA of Ken Dryden (.915, 2.41). Parent had more losses though because he didn't really get great goal support to steal any games - he NEVER won a 4-GA game in the playoffs. Tony Esposito won multiple 4-GA games in the 1973 Finals alone (granted allowing at least 4 GA in every game boosted his chances.) Parent was individually good from 1968-72, but look where his teams ranked in scoring: NHL Stats

Sadly for Parent, the two worst scoring playoff teams of his early career were the expansion Flyers and a Leafs team that prominently featured Norm Ullman.

 

[ResilientBeast]

I'm kinda shocked that Doughty and Karlsson went in back to back.

Looking at this crop

Worters, Holecek, Quackenbush & Glimour stand out to me

I think it's too early for Francis, Bure and Langway

 

[bobholly39]

So Ron Francis has by far the best 10 year VsX #s here. Has the best longevity as well (5th all time in points). Two cups with a pretty strong playoff resume. Great Selke record as well here.

I know some voters may very heavily lean towards peak - and for peak he doesn't stand out in this group (no hart, nor close). But id say he has the best career - pretty easily so.

He's my tentative#1 so far

 

[Byron Bitz]

I’d go with Bure, back to back Rockets and that wasn’t even his peak.

 

[bobholly39]

I feel its way too early for Datsyuk personally.

I like Parent a lot too here. Complete opposite case to Francis since peak is king for him - but its a very impressive peak.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

So Ron Francis has by far the best 10 year VsX #s here. Has the best longevity as well (5th all time in points). Two cups with a pretty strong playoff resume. Great Selke record as well here.

I know some voters may very heavily lean towards peak - and for peak he doesn't stand out in this group (no hart, nor close). But id say he has the best career - pretty easily so.

He's my tentative#1 so far

Francis played in the highest scoring era. He played forever. Ho got to play with Mario & Jagr.

Still, the fact that he has more assists in his career than anyone other than Gretzky is pretty impressive.

Also don't think the Pens win their 2nd Cup in 1992 without him carry the team against the Rangers when Mario was hurt.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I feel its way too early for Datsyuk personally.

I like Parent a lot too here. Complete opposite case to Francis since peak is king for him - but its a very impressive peak.

It really is.

But even for me that's a really short peak.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Ron Francis's offense is definitely not as good as his stats look at first glance.

The short version? Francis hit offensive numbers he never came close to before in his 30s, in the exact same years he centered Art Ross winning Jagr.

Top 10 finishes make it easy to see:

1994-95 NHL 59 (5th)

1995-96 NHL 119 (4th)

1996-97 NHL 90 (8th)

1997-98 NHL 87 (5th)

2001-02 NHL 77 (9th)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

1994-95 was Jagr's first year as an Art Ross threat, and 1997-98 was Francis' last year with Jagr.

Francis' 2001-02 was a legit strong season on his own, but that was also a really weak year for forwards in the NHL.

The longer versions from Vote 21 of the HOH Top 100.

The first quoted post is the most important. The rest just add details:

The other point to make about Ron Francis (and then I'll stop talking about him) is I don't think he's as good as his numbers suggest (which is a strange thing to say about a player who was very good defensively, and who developed into a well-respected leader).

From 1982 to 1991 (covering ages 18 to 27), Francis was never in the top ten in scoring in any season. Nor was he in the top ten in scoring overall (that's also true if you exclude his rookie season, or even if you cherry-pick his few best years in that range).

I think there were some challenges in getting him integrated with the Pens' killer offense (65 points in his first 84 games in Pittsburgh). But once he started getting top icetime, his stats shot upwards. He was a top ten scorer four times in a row (three of those in the top five) from ages 31 to 34. It's not impossible that Francis got better with age, but it's much more likely that his stats got a big boost by getting so much ice time with Lemieux, Jagr and Robitaille.

Corroborating that notion is, as soon as Francis left Pittsburgh, his offense plummeted (he scored 25 fewer points in 1999 - dropping from tied for 5th to tied for 69th in scoring - despite playing basically the same number of games in both years). That same year, Jagr had his best offensive season - I don't doubt that playing with Francis helped Jagr, but it seems clear who needed who more.

The only other time in Francis's career when he placed in the top ten in scoring was in 2002, when he was tied for 9th. That's routinely regarded as one the weaker years for top-end talent (for example, Forsberg missed the entire regular season; Lemieux missed two-thirds; Lindros, Bure, Thornton and Kovalev all missed enough to keep them out of the top ten).

I actually like and respect Ron Francis a lot as a player. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, he's pretty much the perfect complementary player for a championship team. But even though he's the 5th highest scoring player in NHL history, he's not anywhere close to a top five (or probably even a top fifty) scoring talent - his numbers are what they are thanks to a perfect storm of playing in a high-scoring era and having his numbers boosted by playing on a run-and-gun team after his offensive peak "should" have ended.

====

The other player who we might want to consider making a "preemptive" argument against - Scott Niedermayer. There seem to be a number of people in the mainstream hockey media who talk about him as if he's a top ten defenseman all-time.

is ron francis even definitely a top ten center in the league in the late 80s?

francis' late 80s points totals were 93 in '87, 75 in '88, 77 in '89, 101 in '90, and he got one single 2nd team all star and second place hart vote, probably from the same hartford reporter.

he's definitely behind

gretzky
mario
messier
yzerman
hawerchuk (100, 121, 96, 81)
savard (90, 131, 82, 80 -- plus playoff runs of 19 and 22 points)
gilmour (105, 86, 85, 91 -- plus playoff runs of 17 and 22 points)

and then a legit question whether he's ahead of lafontaine, bernie nicholls, bobby smith, later stastny, even kirk muller who played mostly center in those years. and i guess on the basis of still being late prime trottier in '87 and '88, you could argue trots too.

when john bucyk retired he was 4th all time in points behind howe, esposito, and mikita; 4th all time in goals behind howe, esposito, and hull; and 4th all time in assists behind howe, mikita, and delvecchio.

that's your basic context for ron francis right?

very good but unspectacular and ultimately non-needle-moving player toiling away on a weak team for a decade, very good two-way player who did a lot of little things, finds himself on a superteam that won two cups but should have had more with two of the 5-10 greatest offensive players of all time, puts up some bananas point totals, peaks late, all-round game gets overrated due to his great fundamentals and being the wise old voice of reason on teams with... some mercurial personalities, plays forever because he was always slow to begin with and lived off his hockey IQ, walks away with a bunch of lady byngs.

I'm not actually sure if Hartford/Carolina Francis was any better than Keon offensively. 80-90 point seasons in the 1980s just aren't anything special. Keon's 55 point seasons playing 10 less games in a much lower scoring environment with less PP time are arguably superior from an offensive standpoint. Pittsburgh Francis, sure, but it's hard to ignore the inflationary effect of Jagr on his wing and Lemieux on the PP on his numbers. Francis was a good defensive player, but Keon was one of the best of all time. I don't see this comparison as particularly close to be honest, though of course I'm higher on Keon than most and would have voted him in several rounds sooner than we did.

Ron Francis:

1981-1990:

13th in points
Tied for 17th in points per game (min. 200 GP)
Ninth and tenth in Hart voting
Fifth in Selke voting one season
Never top ten in points
-52


Eric Staal:

2006-2013:

Tenth in points
Tied for 20th in points per game (min. 200 GP)
Fourth and 23rd in Hart voting
16th in Selke voting one season
Sixth and seventh in points
-22


Eh.

I think Francis needs to be on our top 200 somewhere, but this is just too early for him.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

VsX summary

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	7 YEAR	10 YEAR
Busher Jackson	106.0	100.0	93.6	88.9	88.4	77.3	72.1	61.4	59.1	55.0	89.5	80.2
Peter Stastny	100.0	98.3	94.6	86.5	84.7	80.7	74.1	71.3	61.2	56.6	88.4	80.8
Ron Francis	99.2	95.6	86.1	85.6	84.3	82.6	78.3	77.7	77.5	75.7	87.4	84.2
Toe Blake	106.8	85.9	83.7	83.3	83.3	81.9	79.4	75.0	72.7	62.1	86.3	81.4
Pavel Bure	100.0	98.9	95.8	89.2	76.7	74.3	61.4	51.7	50.5	28.8	85.2	72.7
Pavel Datsyuk	91.5	88.2	86.0	82.1	78.2	76.3	75.6	69.1	64.2	59.6	82.5	77.1
Doug Gilmour	97.2	92.5	85.8	77.7	75.2	75.0	70.5	70.4	65.6	61.2	82.0	77.1
Serge Savard	49.6	40.0	39.5	38.5	37.5	36.0	29.0	28.4	19.8	17.9	38.6	33.6
Bill Quackenbush	43.9	42.6	36.7	36.2	35.2	35.0	34.9	29.7	29.5	27.9	37.8	35.2
Rod Langway	33.3	30.3	27.3	26.5	25.8	25.0	19.3	15.1	12.8	12.2	26.8	22.8

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Mostly the same names as the previous round. The new additions are Ron Francis (quite similar to Stastny through seven years, then pulling ahead after that), Pavel Datsyuk (very similar to Gilmour), and Rod Langway (not exactly here for his scoring ability).

Gilmour and Datsyuk's regular season numbers look almost identical? I guess it shouldn't surprise me. Both had short but strong peaks and more years as productive players.

Two advantages for Gilmour:
1) He put up his numbers without playing his whole prime with an offensive/PP defenseman as good as Lidstrom
2) While Datsyuk was perfectly fine in the playoffs (started weak then got better), Gilmour was a playoff monster.

Gilmour will definitely be in my top 5 this round. Datsyuk is probably a few rounds away, but he doesn't look as out of place as when I first saw his name.

 

[quoipourquoi]

For Worters, is his Hart voting a reflection of his standing among the best players or a reflection of being the sole bright spot on absolutely tragic teams?

Without All-Star voting, it’s hard to tell if we’re looking at apples-to-apples comparisons - after all, he was a distant 2nd Team when placing higher than any other goaltender in Hart voting in 1934.

But we don’t have All-Star voting to indicate how heavy voters were leaning on valuable when voting for him over Hainsworth and Connell on better teams.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Hart trophy summary (5% vote threshold)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th+	Total
Roy Worters	1	1		1	1			4
Rod Langway		1		2				3
Doug Gilmour		1		1	1			3
Bernie Parent		1		1				2
Johnny Bower		1					1	2
Pavel Bure			1				1	2
Toe Blake	1							1
Pavel Datsyuk			1					1
Ron Francis						1		1
Serge Savard						1		1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Players who weren't eligible for the Hart - Holocek, Vasiliev

Players who were eligible, but never received a non-trivial number of votes - Quackenbush, Jackson, Stastny

To repeat my comment from last week - Stastny is surprising, since the Hart tends to favour scoring forwards. It's worth mentioning that in the 1980s, there were only three votes on each ballot (from 1996 onwards there have been five votes), and Gretzky took one of those votes from nearly every writer throughout the decade. Stastny received Hart votes five times over a span of six years (from 1981 to 1986), but never enough to reach the 5% threshold I'm using (even in 1982, when he finished 4th).

Now that Worters is up, there's only one player who earned a non-trivial number of Hart votes (as I've defined it) in 4+ seasons. You guys think Bure is divisive? Wait until Connor McDavid is up.

Norris trophy summary (5% vote threshold)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th+	TOTAL
Rod Langway	2		1		2		1	6
Serge Savard				1	3	1		5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Not sure if there's much value presenting this if there were only two Norris-eligible defensemen, but here it is. Langway's Norris record is very impressive for this stage in the project. The question with him - is his trophy case really representative of what he accomplished? I feel pretty strongly that, although he was a great player, Langway's Norris record overstates how good he was. I'll try to post some thoughts on that later (I doubt I'm the only one who will make that type of comment).

To repeat my comment from last week - Quackenbush peaked just before the Norris was first awarded in 1954. He was a 1st team all-star three times and a 2nd team all-stat twice. Scanning through the results, he finished 1st (1948), 1st (1949), 2nd (1951), 3rd (1953), 4th (1947), and 5th (1946) - which, on paper, is better than any of the players list above, but it was a relatively weak era for defensemen.

Langway's Hart record for three consecutive years is really impressive. Consider Gretzky is the runaway winner each of those seasons. When Langway finished 2nd in 1983-84, he was pretty much the consensus pick after The Great One. His votes were 1-26-19 to Trottier's (3rd) 1-14-7.

I understand that people who didn't see him play can't understand how he could be considered that good. They say the numbers don't lie. This is a rare occasion when they do. Probably applies to Serge Savard also.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Norris trophy summary (5% vote threshold)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th+	TOTAL
Rod Langway	2		1		2		1	6
Serge Savard				1	3	1		5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Not sure if there's much value presenting this if there were only two Norris-eligible defensemen, but here it is. Langway's Norris record is very impressive for this stage in the project. The question with him - is his trophy case really representative of what he accomplished? I feel pretty strongly that, although he was a great player, Langway's Norris record overstates how good he was. I'll try to post some thoughts on that later (I doubt I'm the only one who will make that type of comment).

To repeat my comment from last week - Quackenbush peaked just before the Norris was first awarded in 1954. He was a 1st team all-star three times and a 2nd team all-stat twice. Scanning through the results, he finished 1st (1948), 1st (1949), 2nd (1951), 3rd (1953), 4th (1947), and 5th (1946) - which, on paper, is better than any of the players list above, but it was a relatively weak era for defensemen.

I believe I had Langway, Savard, Black Jack Stewart, and Ching Johnson all right next to each other on my list. I see them as the best-of-the-best "one-way" defensive defensemen. (Yes, Savard started as a two-way defenseman until injuries cut out that aspect of his game). Savard with a little weaker regular season record than the rest, but a stronger playoff record.

Re: Savard vs Langway, it should be noted that Savard's prime happened at the same time as Potvin, Robinson, Salming, and Lapointe, while Langway won his 2 Norrises as competition got a lot softer during the generational shift in the early 1980s. Right around when Wilson and Carlyle won a Norris each. On the other hand, Langway did do well in Hart voting those two years, as well.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Ron Francis's offense is definitely not as good as his stats look at first glance.

The short version? Francis hit offensive numbers he never came close to before in his 30s, in the exact same years he centered Art Ross winning Jagr.

Top 10 finishes make it easy to see:

1994-95 NHL 59 (5th)

1995-96 NHL 119 (4th)

1996-97 NHL 90 (8th)

1997-98 NHL 87 (5th)

2001-02 NHL 77 (9th)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

1994-95 was Jagr's first year as an Art Ross threat, and 1997-98 was Francis' last year with Jagr.

Francis' 2001-02 was a legit strong season on his own, but that was also a really weak year for forwards in the NHL.

The longer versions from Vote 21 of the HOH Top 100.

The first quoted post is the most important. The rest just add details:












I think Francis needs to be on our top 200 somewhere, but this is just too early for him.

Unfortunately for Francis, the first 10 years of his career are spent in the craphole known as Hartford.

From the day he came up as an 18 year-old he was the best player on that team.

 

[Professor What]

I didn't have Worters this high on my list, but I think he's very worthy of consideration here. I don't think it would be very hard for him to be talked up for me, since I strongly feel that I ranked him too low to start with. Maybe he doesn't even have to be talked up.

Langway is just plain too early for me. If I want a strictly shutdown guy, I don't know if there's anyone else I'd turn to first, but his offense was so woefully low that his overall game isn't at the level of a Savard for me, who, while getting closer, still doesn't feel quite right here for me. If it were strictly up to me, Langway would still be waiting a while.

Francis is close to me, but I don't think I'm ready to pull the trigger on placing him on the list. I had him just below this level originally, and I still feel good about that. I think @TheDevilMadeMe made some excellent points above about Francis. I love him as a playmaker, and I think he was an excellent defender, but he did have to have the right setup to be at his absolute best offensively. I tend to think that it's a bit too early for him, but I also think that he played at a high enough level for a long enough period of time to mean that he probably shouldn't wait too much longer. Right now, my gut says he should probably wait one more round.

Datsyuk has always reminded me quite a bit of Francis. He's not as big, and he leaned more toward defense as opposed to playmaking, but those are still common strengths of the two of them. I just feel like they offer the same sort of things, though Datsyuk didn't fare nearly so well in the longevity department. I think Francis needs to go before Datsyuk.

Parent is the type of player that I have a very difficult time judging. I don't care for his lack of longevity at all, and that year in the WHA doesn't really help that. But, obviously, he was quite good, and during that two year peak was peak Hasek caliber, aka, about as good as anyone at the position has ever been. Here's a question I'd like to pose to the group: How, with the common features lack of longevity but very high level of peak play, does he compare to Bure? I think Bure was probably more consistently close to his peak over time, but I'm not sure that his peak was quite as high as Parent's. Parent has those two years that can stack up to any goalie in history, but I don't think Bure was ever at "best scorer in history" level. But, he's got five top flight seasons as compared to two. I may be the only one, but I'm fascinated by this particular comparison.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

For Worters, is his Hart voting a reflection of his standing among the best players or a reflection of being the sole bright spot on absolutely tragic teams?

Without All-Star voting, it’s hard to tell if we’re looking at apples-to-apples comparisons - after all, he was a distant 2nd Team when placing higher than any other goaltender in Hart voting in 1934.

But we don’t have All-Star voting to indicate how heavy voters were leaning on valuable when voting for him over Hainsworth and Connell on better teams.

Good question.

This has been largely answered in recent years as we now have access to GM-voted All-Star teams for every year from 1926-27 to 1929-30. IMO, since the GMs voted, these All-Star teams might actually be even more valuable than the writer-voted ones that started in 1930-31. 1926-27 to 1929-1930 All-star team selected by coaches

Here are the 1st and 2nd Team AS goalies from 1926-27 to 1929-30 according to NHL GMs:

1926-27 1st Team: George Hainsworth
1926-27 2nd Team: John Ross Roach
1926-27 3rd Team (seems to have actually been official): Roy Worters

1927-28 1st Team; Roy Worters
1927-28 2nd Team: George Hainsworth

1928-29 1st Team: Roy Worters
1928-29 2nd Team: George Hainsworth

1929-30 1st Team: Tiny Thompson
1929-30 2nd Team: Roy Worters

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Here is how goalies faired in Hart voting during Worter's prime:

1925-26 (no corresponding All-Star Team): 4. Roy Worters, 9. Charles Stewart
1926-27: 10. Roy Worters
1927-28: 2. Roy Worters (we only know top 6 in Hart voting)
1928-29: 1. Roy Worters (we only know top 7 in Hart voting)
1929-30: 7. Charlie Gardiner (we only know top 7 in Hart voting)

___________________

So we know this is Roy Worters's record according to NHL GMs:

1st Team All Star in 1927-28 and 1928-29
2nd Team All Star in 1929-30
"3rd Team All Star" in 1926-27

We don't have an all-star vote in 1925-26, but given how far ahead Worters is in Hart voting than any other goalie, he probably would be the 1st Team All Star that season too:

Hart Trophy 1925-26:

#	Player:	Pos:	Team:	Pts:
1.	Nels Stewart	C	Montreal Maroons	88
2.	Sprague Cleghorn	D	Boston Bruins	75
3.	Frank Nighbor	C	Ottawa Senators	68
4.	Roy Worters	G	Pittsburgh Pirates	44
4.	Hooley Smith	C/RW	Ottawa Senators	44
6.	Howie Morenz	C	Montreal Canadiens	34
7.	Jimmy Herbert	C	Boston Bruins	33
7.	King Clancy	D	Ottawa Senators	28
9.	Charles Stewart	G	Boston Bruins	24
9.	Lionel Conacher	D	Pittsburgh Pirates	24
11.	Billy Burch	C/LW	New York Americans	18
12.	Reg Noble	D	Montreal Maroons	14
13.	Bert McCaffery	D	Toronto St. Patricks	10
14.	Babe Siebert	D	Montreal Maroons	8

[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

________________________________________________________

Conclusion - this is what Worter's All-Star record looks like if you include the seasons before the first writer-voted team in 1930-31:

1925-26: 1st (estimated based off the wide gap in Hart voting)
1926-27: 3rd (behind Hainsworth and Roach)
1927-28: 1st
1928-29: 1st
1929-30: 2nd (behind Thompson)
1930-31: 3rd (behind Thompson and Gardiner)
1931-32: 2nd (behind Gardiner)
1932-33: 3rd (behind Roach and Gardiner)
1933-34: 2nd (behind Gardiner)
1934-35: 3rd (behind Chabot and Thompson, tied w Connell, definitely a softening of the competition after Gardiner's death)
1935-36: 5th (behind Thompson, Cude, Karakas, Hainsworth, kind of a "who cares" placing)

So Worter's overall record would be: 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 5th. That only includes one single estimated 1st place based off Hart voting. Yes, that's 10 straight years voted top 3 among goalies in the NHL.

(Edit: 1925-26 was the last year before the WCHL folded, so it's possible Worters wasn't the best goalie across both leagues. George Hainsworth was 1st team AS in the WCHL in 1925-26. Still, I think this is highly likely a top 3 finish for Worters across both leagues)

IMO, Worters easily has the best regular season record of any player available this round. His playoff record isn't good or bad, it's more of an "incomplete," as he played on teams that were generally awful other than him.