Where does Scott Niedermayer rank?

[Fish on The Sand]

Pronger wasn't going to win the award based on his two different suspensions during the playoffs.

Giguere might have received some consideration but since he had already won the award he might have been held to a slightly higher standard.

Pahlsson had a great playoff run but he was a member of a shutdown line (Pahlsson, Moen and R. Niedermayer) that collectively dominated opponents. Since the Conn Smythe award goes to an individual and not a line, it would be tough to single out Pahlsson.

Niedermayer was as deserving of the trophy as anyone on the Ducks. He scored the series clinching goal over Vancouver in OT, scored an OT winner against Detroit (unfortunately for Detroit since they probably would have whacked Ottawa that year as well). His last minute goal against Detroit in game 5 set up Selanne's more famous OT winner and probably saved the series for Anaheim. Time and time again, when the team needed someone to come through for them in crunch time, it was Scotty.

Scott Niedermayer was terrible in the middle 2 rounds. He was MVP because Giguere missed the first round and because Pronger got suspended. It was a pretty bad selection.

 

[Big Phil]

Oh Steve Simmons is saying Scott Neidermayer is the 9th best d-man of all time.

When I ask him why he simply replies with.

4 Stanley Cups. 2 Oly Gold medals. Mem Cup championship. Really.

Yeah, and never underestimate the power the media has over a player. Joe Nieuwendyk can thank the media for his HHOF induction, not his career. As much as I love Neely I too believe the media and his likeability got him in there rather than an objective look. Now, Niedermayer is a HHOFer regardless, but we will be told that he was much better than he truly was just because he won everything that you need to win in hockey. Not that there is anything wrong with that because it does boost his career but 9th? You might have a hard time putting Niedermayer in the top 25.

It reminds me of the hysteria in 2007 when Niedermayer announced his "retirement". Pierre McGuire placed him as the 7th best of all-time. He put him ahead of Chelios, Robinson as I recall. That's just crazy. Hyerbole can do that. Kind of how people forget about Ray Bourque all of the sudden and put Lidstrom as the best d-man other than Orr.

 

[Laphroaig]

Somewhere between 23 and 30. I have him 21st among dmen I've actually seen in their prime (post 1960). Harvey and Shore would certainly be considered better and probably a few more from the dark ages.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Just because you face more competition, doesn't mean it is necessiarily greater competition.

The talent pool hasn't expanded so much since the 50s that variation cannot outpace the growth in the talent pool (note that this is the growth in the talent pool. There are more NHL players because there are more NHL teams, doesn't mean the talent pool is 5x greater.)

At some point the talent pool overall does become 5 times greater with the onset of US College players,Europe and just plain growth in the numbers of top Jr teams in Canada, as well as top Canadian kids playing NCAA1 which wasn't the case even in the 70's for the most part.

then there is the whole evolution of Canada being untouchable until the early 70's to the situation today where other countries can compete or ahve greatly closed the gap to the dominant top team and there is a trickle down affect of that not just 20 guys on each national team.

There is no doubt that the talent in the NHL was different in the 40"s, 50's, 60"s,....there are some spurts and its not totally linear but talent has increased during the history of hockey and too often the explosive growth in the last 30-40 years has been greatly downplayed IMO.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Nope. Giguere. Hands down.

Not sure what you are talking about but Ilya Bryzgalov was vastly greater in the 06 playoffs and Giguere's equal in 07.

There is no way he wins the Conn Smythe in 07 and rightly so.

 

[kmad]

Not sure what you are talking about but Ilya Bryzgalov was vastly greater in the 06 playoffs and Giguere's equal in 07.

There is no way he wins the Conn Smythe in 07 and rightly so.

But he said "hands down"!

 

[Hardyvan123]

But he said "hands down"!

Maybe he has his years mixed up?

 

[Big Phil]

At some point the talent pool overall does become 5 times greater with the onset of US College players,Europe and just plain growth in the numbers of top Jr teams in Canada, as well as top Canadian kids playing NCAA1 which wasn't the case even in the 70's for the most part.

then there is the whole evolution of Canada being untouchable until the early 70's to the situation today where other countries can compete or ahve greatly closed the gap to the dominant top team and there is a trickle down affect of that not just 20 guys on each national team.

There is no doubt that the talent in the NHL was different in the 40"s, 50's, 60"s,....there are some spurts and its not totally linear but talent has increased during the history of hockey and too often the explosive growth in the last 30-40 years has been greatly downplayed IMO.

I don't think top level talent has changed much at all though. That's the key to talking about Hall of Famers and top 20 players at each position. These players were not normal. Maybe there are significantly more Richard Matvichuk's in the NHL now than in the 1970s, but that shouldn't effect a player of Niedermayer's ilk. You can have 50 more of them and none of them are as good as Niedermayer. So in the end, it doesn't effect the top level talent. Larry Robinson would still be the best defenseman in the NHL today. His best year or two would have easily won the Norris in 2012.

 

[Paul4587]

Not sure what you are talking about but Ilya Bryzgalov was vastly greater in the 06 playoffs and Giguere's equal in 07.

There is no way he wins the Conn Smythe in 07 and rightly so.

Giguere had a groin injury in the '06 playoffs, sucked because of it and was replaced by Bryzgalov who got hot then faded in the Edmonton series where we eventually went back to Giguere.

In '07 Bryz played the first 4 games because Giguere's son had just been born with eye issues and he took a small leave of absense from the team before coming back to dress for game 2 as a backup. As soon as Carlyle had an excuse to pull Brygalov he did and Giguere played the rest of the way. Without Giguere's efforts in the Detroit series (especially game 5) the Ducks don't have a cup. He was definitely a viable Smythe candidate that year.

 

[thom]

You can say players are bigger and faster than ever but the amount of children playing is the lowest in percentage ever.In the 70's Millions of kids could play in the Soviet Union because it was free.In Canada we had over 600 thousand kids playing.The costs are too high and I believe in capitalism but something must be done for single parents who can't afford the costs.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I don't think top level talent has changed much at all though. That's the key to talking about Hall of Famers and top 20 players at each position. These players were not normal. Maybe there are significantly more Richard Matvichuk's in the NHL now than in the 1970s, but that shouldn't effect a player of Niedermayer's ilk. You can have 50 more of them and none of them are as good as Niedermayer. So in the end, it doesn't effect the top level talent. Larry Robinson would still be the best defenseman in the NHL today. His best year or two would have easily won the Norris in 2012.

Except in the early 70's Canada was top of the ehap and by quite a bit, russia closed the gap and the Czechs to a certain degree as well.

Now we have the States and Sweden as top nations and other countries and other areas of both the US and Canada producing more players and stars, ie. BC, the maritimes and California.

As for Larry Robinson's best year or 2 easily winning the 2012 Norris who really knows about his play, it's pure conjecture as to what team he is on and other factors.

Would he have won playing on the Habs this year, I seriously doubt it.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Giguere had a groin injury in the '06 playoffs, sucked because of it and was replaced by Bryzgalov who got hot then faded in the Edmonton series where we eventually went back to Giguere.

In '07 Bryz played the first 4 games because Giguere's son had just been born with eye issues and he took a small leave of absense from the team before coming back to dress for game 2 as a backup. As soon as Carlyle had an excuse to pull Brygalov he did and Giguere played the rest of the way. Without Giguere's efforts in the Detroit series (especially game 5) the Ducks don't have a cup. He was definitely a viable Smythe candidate that year.

Except their stat lines in 07 are both extremely similar, it just happened to be JS in the nets, he didn't separate his performance from Ilya's enough to be seriously considered for the Conn Smythe IMO.

 

[Hardyvan123]

You can say players are bigger and faster than ever but the amount of children playing is the lowest in percentage ever.In the 70's Millions of kids could play in the Soviet Union because it was free.In Canada we had over 600 thousand kids playing.The costs are too high and I believe in capitalism but something must be done for single parents who can't afford the costs.

Sure the % of kids playing is less but there is more focus on elite players and competition at a younger age now as well which has vastly improved the overall level of talent in the NHL.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Except their stat lines in 07 are both extremely similar, it just happened to be JS in the nets, he didn't separate his performance from Ilya's enough to be seriously considered for the Conn Smythe IMO.

If you only look at the stat lines, Giguere gets defined in the Conference Finals as a .909 goaltender when everyone who watched it knows that he was the most important player. That's the problem with averaging statistics; he had two bad games out of eighteen and just five years later, you've already forgotten that he very much was considered for the Conn Smythe and was the save percentage leader through the first two rounds.

 

[Big Phil]

Except in the early 70's Canada was top of the ehap and by quite a bit, russia closed the gap and the Czechs to a certain degree as well.

Now we have the States and Sweden as top nations and other countries and other areas of both the US and Canada producing more players and stars, ie. BC, the maritimes and California.

As for Larry Robinson's best year or 2 easily winning the 2012 Norris who really knows about his play, it's pure conjecture as to what team he is on and other factors.

Would he have won playing on the Habs this year, I seriously doubt it.

But you also have a less percentage of Canadians on the top. So it all evens out really, in my mind. I don't think it matters what country they come from.

As for Robinson, I am pretty sure his best year wins the Norris regardless of what team he is on. Robinson in his prime is better than any defenseman in the NHL today for sure and that isn't a knock on today's d-men, but we are talking about a top 10 defenseman

 

[Hardyvan123]

If you only look at the stat lines, Giguere gets defined in the Conference Finals as a .909 goaltender when everyone who watched it knows that he was the most important player. That's the problem with averaging statistics; he had two bad games out of eighteen and just five years later, you've already forgotten that he very much was considered for the Conn Smythe and was the save percentage leader through the first two rounds.

Sure the goalie is almost always considered for the Conn Smythe, they do play all 60 minutes after all, but he had already won one and wasn't hands down better than other starting goalies in those playoffs finishing 4th in GAA among regular starters and 7th in save %.

Some people are acting here like Nieds was a bum or something in 07 when he won the Conn Smythe and this simply wasn't the case.

The biggest problem with the Conn Smythe IMO is that it always goes to someone on the winning team when there are quite often better playoff performances around and when it goes to a Dman we can't point to a statistic of defense but for other positions we can.

Maybe they should have a best Dman and best forward award, it might help matters a bit, or perhaps not.

 

[Hardyvan123]

But you also have a less percentage of Canadians on the top. So it all evens out really, in my mind. I don't think it matters what country they come from.

As for Robinson, I am pretty sure his best year wins the Norris regardless of what team he is on. Robinson in his prime is better than any defenseman in the NHL today for sure and that isn't a knock on today's d-men, but we are talking about a top 10 defenseman

Back to the original point about players from other countries.

People were talking about how guys finished in Norris trophy voting in the Dman project and not accounting for the players from the new countries. For example compare Nieds how he did in Norris voting among Canadians to get a better balance comparing to previous generations of guys who only played against other Canadians.

This idea was basically ignored by the majority in the process and didn't gain any traction.

IMO if you are going to compare guys from different eras one should at least make the comp between apples and apples as much as possible one would think eh?

 

[Hardyvan123]

Here are the apples to apples breakdown of how Nieds voting went against Canadian only competition to give him a comp against earlier Canadians who only played in a Canadian league.

98-4th
99 7th


03 7th
04 1st lockout

06 1st
07 1st
08 5th in only 48 games played
09 5th

I won't even bother with the fact that the 06 guys guys 7th place put them at around the top 1/4 of Dmen in the league compared to what it is in a 20-30 team league.

that record plus the other stuff, playoff performances ext should put him safely in the argument of the top 25 Dmen in history IMO but perhaps the parameters and the "history" component of the project makes it harder for later day players to pass inferior ones form previous days gone by.

Not sure what to make of the lockout year but alot of discretion was given to a guy like Ken Readon making it to 51st on the top 60 list, concerning the WW2 years.

Depending on certain criteria it's pretty hard seeing Nieds lower than 25th but his range could be from high teens to low 40's but I wonder if guys would be consistent with that criteria for all players.

He has 3 "Canadian Norris trophies" and probably 4 if not for the lockout and 6 times in the top 5.

 

[tarheelhockey]

See the bolded lines below for some thoughts on what those "Canadian Norris" totals reflect.

Here are the apples to apples breakdown of how Nieds voting went against Canadian only competition to give him a comp against earlier Canadians who only played in a Canadian league.

98-4th 0-0-3-10-13 There were 3 more Canadians (Murphy, Bourque, MacInnis) after Nieds who drew at least one 1st or 2nd place vote. Begs the question, if Euros and Americans were not present, would Nieds have fallen?
99 7th 0-2-0-1-1 Not a meaningful sample IMO.

Canadian defensemen who got Norris votes during this 3-year gap: Sean Hill, Wade Redden, Dan McGillis, Brad Lukowich, Jason Smith, Adrian Aucoin... but not Scott Niedermayer.

03 7th 0-0-1-0-2 Again not a meaningful enough sample to clearly distinguish him from guys who ranked lower, such as Eric Desjardins' 0-0-0-1-3 or Scott Stevens' 0-0-0-1-2.
04 1st lockout

06 1st
07 1st
08 5th in only 48 games played 0-2-1-1-0 Duncan Keith was 6th with 0-0-2-0-9, which is arguably a stronger ballot.
09 5th 0-0-3-2-6. Next on the list is the immortal Dennis Wideman with 0-0-2-3-5

It's kind of laughable to think of Dennis Wideman as a contender for any Norris, Canadian or otherwise. I think the big takeaway from this exercise is the folly of using Norris voting in this manner, particularly for players who drew only a few votes in the 3rd-through-5th range.

He has 3 "Canadian Norris trophies" and probably 4 if not for the lockout and 6 times in the top 5.

Here are the "Canadian Norris" winners of the past 20 years.

2011 - Shea Weber
2010 - Duncan Keith
2009 - Mike Green
2008 - Dion Phaneuf
2007 - Scott Niedermayer
2006 - Scott Niedermayer
2005 - lockout
2004 - Scott Niedermayer
2003 - Al MacInnis
2002 - Rob Blake
2001 - Ray Bourque
2000 - Chris Pronger
1999 - Al MacInnis
1998 - Rob Blake
1997 - Scott Stevens
1996 - Ray Bourque
1995 - Paul Coffey
1994 - Ray Bourque
1993 - Ray Bourque
1992 - Ray Bourque
1991 - Ray Bourque

Bolded the CN winners who didn't win the real-life Norris. I'll leave it up to the group to judge the efficacy of these results.


This method has Niedermayer as the best Canadian defenseman since Ray Bourque (who never looked better than he does here). Also, those post-lockout winners...

 

[Epsilon]

If you are going to strip Lidstrom (and to a lesser extent Chara and others) away from the Norris trophy voting and then give Niedermayer "Canadian only" Norris finishes, it only makes sense to do that for everyone else as well (which tarheelhockey has done to a degree, removing Leetch and others in the 1990s, but which also applies to anyone who would place higher in voting if Borje Salming is removed in the 1970s).

 

[kmad]

Comparing to only Canadian defensemen for Norris voting records is one of the more useless endeavours I've seen on this site.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Comparing to only Canadian defensemen for Norris voting records is one of the more useless endeavours I've seen on this site.

Why is it useless? I think it's an interesting attempt at normalizing competition levels. It's a project i've been meaning to take on for awhile.

One issue is that it assumes voting trends remain the same. If Niedermayer wins the Norris in 2004 and 2006, does he still win it in 2007 or does it go to Pronger? We know the writers hate repeating award winners.

I also agree with tarheel that a handful of votes can't really be used as meaningful rankings.

 

[Big Phil]

Back to the original point about players from other countries.

People were talking about how guys finished in Norris trophy voting in the Dman project and not accounting for the players from the new countries. For example compare Nieds how he did in Norris voting among Canadians to get a better balance comparing to previous generations of guys who only played against other Canadians.

This idea was basically ignored by the majority in the process and didn't gain any traction.

IMO if you are going to compare guys from different eras one should at least make the comp between apples and apples as much as possible one would think eh?

I think it is classic over-analyzing. There was a study done, well, not even much of a study, you just have to look at the elite defenders of the 1970s and wonder if Lidstrom would have even won a Norris at all. Certainly nothing up until Orr's last in 1975. Potvin in 1976? I don't think he had a year that good. Or Robinson in 1977. Or Potvin again in 1978 and 1979. Maybe Robinson in 1980 he has a shot. The early 1980s for sure are a different time. So really, when you look at the competition in the 1970s, even after Orr, it is pretty darn good. Potvin, Robinson, Park, Salming, Lapointe, Savard. The latter 4 never won a Norris

A gap in the early 1980s but elite talent with Coffey, Bourque, Chelios, etc. on into the 1990s with Bourque, Coffey, Leetch, MacInnis, Stevens, Chelios, etc. The irony is that Lidstrom probably had the benefit of most of those players being out of their prime by the time he won his Norrises. He had Blake to compete with, an injury prone Pronger and Niedermayer wasn't even on the radar until 2004 as was Chara. Post lockout its pretty much the same minus Blake. Take away Niedermayer after 2007 and there was Mike Green, Chara, Weber and Phaneuf.

This is certainly not taking away anything from Lidstrom's accomplishments because we saw with our eyes his value, and 7 Norrises is 7 Norrises. When only Orr had more than you I don't care what era you are coming from, that's exceptional. But really, when people try and pretend that Niedermayer and Lidstrom actually are hurt more because "other countries are good" well, now that the can of worms is open I think we can be honest and say that they both hit their primes at a more convenient time for trophy collecting among defensemen

 

[tarheelhockey]

I think it can have some merit in certain, very clear-cut seasons. Take for example 2006:

NORRIS: Nicklas Lidstrom, DET 1,152 (91-28-8-2-0)
2. Scott Niedermayer, ANA 817 (29-57-16-15-3)
3. Sergei Zubov, DAL 464 (0-21-42-31-14)
4. Zdeno Chara, OTT 430 (5-14-35-30-17)
5. Wade Redden, OTT 115 (0-1-12-12-12)
6. Mathieu Schneider, DET 111 (4-5-1-4-19)
7. Chris Pronger, EDM 97 (0-1-5-15-20)
8. Dion Phaneuf, CGY 61 (0-0-6-6-13)
9. Bryan McCabe, TOR 44 (0-1-2-6-9)
10. Lubomir Visnovsky, LOS 39 (0-0-2-6-11)

One could argue that if this cohort of defensemen existed in 1966, Niedermayer would have been the clear-cut Norris winner. It would also have been regarded as a very weak season for defensemen, like the real 1966, but a Norris is a Norris to some extent.

On the other hand, I don't see how this:

1.Chris Chelios 201 (33-10-6)
2. Ray Bourque 97 (6-19-10)
3. Larry Murphy 93 (9-11-15)

can be inferred as a Norris for Bourque in 1993 or how this:

1. Brian Leetch 494 (42-8-3-1-0)
2. Vladimir Konstantinov 178 (2-10-13-6-5)
3. Sandis Ozolinsh 176 (2-12-9-8-3)
4. Chris Chelios 172 (0-7-18-9-6)
5. Scott Stevens 171 (7-8-4-7-4)
6. Nicklas Lidstrom 60 (0-5-2-3-6)
7. Darryl Sydor 45 (1-1-1-5-8)
8. Ray Bourque 45 (0-2-2-4-9)
9. Eric Desjardins 21 (0-1-0-3-5)

gives Stevens a Norris in 1997. Voting patterns are much too fickle to be applied in that kind of linear fashion.

 

[kmad]

Why is it useless? I think it's an interesting attempt at normalizing competition levels. It's a project i've been meaning to take on for awhile.

It doesn't really give us anything meaningful. Drawing more heavily from the talent pools in the Czech Republic and Sweden is just as significant as drawing more heavily from those in Alberta and British Columbia. Nation of birth seems completely arbitrary when trying to normalize for era.