2010 Hall of Fame Inductees

[MXD]

Comparing LeClair is Howe is laughable. LeClair has more all-star nods, because of the position he played. Brian Propp was a better player than LeClair and never got an all-star nod.

Howe was the best player, and far and away the most valuable player on the 80's Flyers team (the best ever to not win a Cup).

LeClair was the 4th most valuable player of the 90's Flyers (Desjardins, Lindros, Brind'amour).

Euh... kèsssssé?

 

[John Flyers Fan]

Euh... kèsssssé?

Not talking about a one year team to not win the Cup, but an extended 3 or more year run with no Stanley Cup.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Brad McCrimmon

McCrimmon was a very solid defenseman. But he did not have the on-ice impact of Howe. Comparinmg career +/- doesn't tell the whole story as it is team-influenced. Adjusted +/-, however, starts to get to the heart of the matter.

McCrimmon had adjusted +/- ratings of 1, -3, 22, 76 and 30 in his five seasons with Philadelphia from 1983-1987. Howe's ratings in those seasons were 27, 13, 17, 79, and 47. I can't say for sure which seasons they played together but based on this it appears that it was the 1985 and 1986 seasons. Howe led McCrimmon by 5 and 3 points these seasons so even if they had influence on eachother (which is very likely) things still went better for the Flyers in the instances where Howe was on the ice and McCrimmon wasn't, compared to the opposite. In the other three seasons, the discrepancies were 27, 16, and 17, always in favour of Howe.

That covers the time they were together. What about the time they were apart? In the three NHL seasons they each spent prior to joining the Flyers, McCrimmon was -18 compared to his average teammate, and Howe was +74. In the seven years following their separation up to the age of 38, Howe was +122 compared to his teammates (about +17 per season), and McCrimmon was +120 over the next ten years (about +12 per season) through to age 37.

This is not to take anything away from Brad McCrimmon, but to show that Howe's excellent on-ice impact on goal differential was before, during, and after his time with McCrimmon, and McCrimmon's numbers were not as good before or after Howe.



Everyone has flaws, even Gretzky and Orr. It's just a matter of how many and how large. Oates and Gilmour didn't have enough flaws to keep them out of the hall forever. Bure might. Leclair and Mogilny certainly did.

Still does not explain the lack of AS selections after McCrimmon left
and the slide in Howe's performance as a result. McCrimmon's numbers before or after Howe are not the issue.

Flaws. Depends on how they are compensated and the team results.

 

[overpass]

Agreed for most of those comparisons, but not Bure vs. Oates. I'd put Bure in ahead of Oates every time.

Oates just ... bothers me for some reason. I know he'll get in eventually and with his career assist totals he deserves to, but I've never liked him as a player to the extent that his raw numbers impress.

To me, he was a passionless player and a mercenary (requested trades away from the two most successful stops in his career for money reasons), and never really won anything of significance. Was also never selected to Team Canada for any international tournament. I believe he also declined invites to the WCs several times after early playoff exits, which doesn't help my assessment of his character/competitiveness.

I find him to be a bit of a reverse Bondra in that his numbers become more impressive because they're skewed one way - in Bondra's case lots of goals but no assists, in Oates' case the opposite.

If Adam Oates had 150 fewer assists and 150 more goals over the course of his career, I don't think the difference between he and Pierre Turgeon - a guy few people here think belongs in the HHOF - is very much at all.

There's something about Oates that bothers me as well. He has a great defensive reputation, but his plus-minus was never very impressive. And if you look at the numbers in detail, he was on the ice for a lot of goals against.

Here's a somewhat arbitrary selection of forwards, the top 10 scorers of the 1990s, sorted by even strength goals against per game.

Player | GP | ESGF | ESGA | GF/G | GA/G | R-ON | R-OFF
Wayne Gretzky | 640 | 628 | 636 | 0.98 | 0.99 | 0.99 | 0.95
Adam Oates | 723 | 730 | 662 | 1.01 | 0.92 | 1.10 | 0.99
Mark Recchi | 774 | 701 | 644 | 0.91 | 0.83 | 1.09 | 0.97
Brett Hull | 712 | 630 | 591 | 0.88 | 0.83 | 1.07 | 1.10
Jaromir Jagr | 725 | 822 | 580 | 1.13 | 0.80 | 1.42 | 0.95
Joe Sakic | 702 | 644 | 560 | 0.92 | 0.80 | 1.15 | 1.06
Pierre Turgeon | 693 | 640 | 507 | 0.92 | 0.73 | 1.26 | 1.00
Ron Francis | 760 | 672 | 554 | 0.88 | 0.73 | 1.21 | 1.01
Theoren Fleury | 770 | 698 | 553 | 0.91 | 0.72 | 1.26 | 0.98
Steve Yzerman | 742 | 678 | 529 | 0.91 | 0.71 | 1.28 | 1.25

Oates was on the ice for significantly more goals against than anyone but Gretzky.

Why the disconnect between reputation and results? My theory is that Oates may have been a great faceoff guy, and had great technique and dedication in the defensive zone, but his skating hurt him as a full-ice force. He wasn't able to "tilt the ice" and keep the play in the other team's end, and in the end he had to rely on being such a great skilled player to outscore the other team.

Funny you compared him to Bure, he's another guy who was on the ice for a ton of goals against, but for an entirely different reason.

Though, the biggest "wow!" about Howe needs some number-crunching, and I don't think the HHOF committee is about number-crunching. If it was the case, Howe would already be in.

Obviously the HHOF committee isn't going to go for number-crunching. But I don't know why they haven't been able to see John Flyers Fan's point below. It's a powerful argument if you actually look at how good the Flyers were and look at their roster. Or maybe they just see team success as a binary thing - either you won a Cup or you didn't - and don't consider, say, how it's harder to win a Cup when the '80s Oilers are at their peak.

Howe was the best player, and far and away the most valuable player on the 80's Flyers team (the best ever to not win a Cup).

Also, regarding Howe's apparently short peak, he had terrible luck early in his career. First, the HHOF probably punishes him for his excellent years before the age of 24 in the WHA, rather than giving him credit. And then when he entered the NHL, he had that horrific injury when he crashed into the net, and lost effectiveness for almost two seasons because of that. He finally got going in Philadelphia at age 27 and had a great six year peak, and then ran into back and knee injuries that prevented him from playing full seasons for the rest of his career. (Although he still was +91 in these injury-plagued years, and had a very good playoff run in 1989).

 

[nik jr]

mark howe had many injuries later in his career. he could not get much attention in all star voting.

howe's games played:

'85: 73
'86: 77
'87: 69

'88: 75

'89: 52
'90: 40
'91: 19
'92: 42
'93: 60
'94: 44
'95: 18


'88 was the only full season howe played after mccrimmon left. howe probably suffered b/c the flyers were not as strong as they had been before.

mccrimmon was obviously a big loss. hextall had a great rookie season, but his 2nd season was not so great.
flyers fell from 2nd best in GA to 9th.

tim kerr, who averaged 56g over the previous 4 seasons, also missed almost all of the '88 season.
flyers were 4th in scoring in '87, but in '88 they fell to 12th, below average.

 

[seventieslord]

Still does not explain the lack of AS selections after McCrimmon left
and the slide in Howe's performance as a result. McCrimmon's numbers before or after Howe are not the issue.

You sure it didn't have anything to do with him being 32 and up against Bourque (27), Paul Coffey (26), Chris Chelios (25) and Al MacInnis (24) as of 1988?

What about the fact that he only had one injury-free season post McCrimmon? In 1988 he was 9th in Norris voting; after that, he never played more than 60 games in a season. Should he have overcome the lack of games played, and the fact that he was aging and against an amazing class of defensemen in their primes, and picked up a few more All-star team selections?

Let me guess, the injuries were due to a flaw in his game.

Howe's +/- compared to his teammates throughout those McCrimmonless years is even more impressive considering he only averaged half a season per season.

And while I'm at it, here are the all-time playoff +/- leaders (since 1984 when they started tracking it). Howe is 6th all-time, and along with Randy Gregg, a 5-time cup winner, is the only player to average "half a plus" per game. (for a few players who had some games before 1984, their average would be skewed by playing games without +/- tracked, but either way, his effect on his team's goal differential is indisputable)

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pp/...&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=plus_minus

 

[overpass]

Furthermore, it's not the case that Howe and McCrimmon played together for Howe's whole time in Philadelphia.

For Howe's first two years in particular, their plus-minuses don't match up. So I checked the Hockey Summary Project data to see how often they both received a point on the same goal in 1982-83 and 1983-84 at even strength, for a rough estimate on who their defence partners were.

Howe, over those two seasons, collaborated with the following D-men at EV:

Glen Cochrane x6
Doug Crossman x3
Behn Wilson x2
Brad Marsh x1

And the same list for McCrimmon:

Behn Wilson x5
Doug Crossman x3
Miroslav Dvorak x2
Frank Bathe x1

That's right, Howe and McCrimmon never received a point on the same EV goal in those two years. Imprecise, yes, but I highly doubt they were partners over this time. Maybe someone who is more familiar with those teams can confirm this.

Their plus-minuses are almost identical for their next three years together, so I'll just assume they were together for those years without bothering to check in more detail.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

this is not to detract from howe, who is a hall of famer in my books, but if you look at mccrimmon's career, could you make the argument that he's one of the best defense partners ever?

he pairs with howe to form one the decade's great defense pairs, with ridiculously high +/-

he leaves for calgary, continutes be a league leader in +/- and helps gary suter to a 2nd team all-star finish/career year

later, he tutors lidstrom in his first two years, then pronger in hartford, and both later thanked him for being vital to their development in their norris acceptance speeches.

which is all to say, i'd consider mccrimmon with guys like carbonneau and claude lemieux as longshot, non-traditional HHOF candidates.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Mark Howe -Injury Exception

Basically the Mark Howe proponents are using the "injury exception" argument. Could be used for a few others - Richard Martin, Alexander Mogilny,Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros, Gilles Tremblay,to name a few. Where does the line get drawn in such situations?

The old "there is always something" excuse that somehow creates a unique exception that once generalized does not work well.

Basic summation to date is the following. If Mark Howe played his whole career, healthy, with the Flyers playing with Brad McCrimmon, a healthy Tim Kerr, and a rookie year version of Ron Hextall then he would be a sure fire HHOF. Unfortunately that is not the hand that was dealt.

Nice five year peak during a borderline HHOF career.

 

[nik jr]

Basically the Mark Howe proponents are using the "injury exception" argument. Could be used for a few others - Richard Martin, Alexander Mogilny,Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros, Gilles Tremblay,to name a few. Where does the line get drawn in such situations?

The old "there is always something" excuse that somehow creates a unique exception that once generalized does not work well.

Basic summation to date is the following. If Mark Howe played his whole career, healthy, with the Flyers playing with Brad McCrimmon, a healthy Tim Kerr, and a rookie year version of Ron Hextall then he would be a sure fire HHOF. Unfortunately that is not the hand that was dealt.

Nice five year peak during a borderline HHOF career.

you wanted an explanation for howe's absence from AS voting. it was given.

howe also had a much longer peak than 5 years.

 

[Canadiens1958]

HHOF Criteria

this is not to detract from howe, who is a hall of famer in my books, but if you look at mccrimmon's career, could you make the argument that he's one of the best defense partners ever?

he pairs with howe to form one the decade's great defense pairs, with ridiculously high +/-

he leaves for calgary, continutes be a league leader in +/- and helps gary suter to a 2nd team all-star finish/career year

later, he tutors lidstrom in his first two years, then pronger in hartford, and both later thanked him for being vital to their development in their norris acceptance speeches.

which is all to say, i'd consider mccrimmon with guys like carbonneau and claude lemieux as longshot, non-traditional HHOF candidates.

Basically you are making a case for intangibles as a stronger HHOF consideration. Larry Robinson helped many young defensemen in this regard, Chelios, Svoboda, Desjardins, Blake all come to mind.

 

[overpass]

Basically the Mark Howe proponents are using the "injury exception" argument. Could be used for a few others - Richard Martin, Alexander Mogilny,Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros, Gilles Tremblay,to name a few. Where does the line get drawn in such situations?

The old "there is always something" excuse that somehow creates a unique exception that once generalized does not work well.

Basic summation to date is the following. If Mark Howe played his whole career, healthy, with the Flyers playing with Brad McCrimmon, a healthy Tim Kerr, and a rookie year version of Ron Hextall then he would be a sure fire HHOF. Unfortunately that is not the hand that was dealt.

Nice five year peak during a borderline HHOF career.

To some degree how you look at Mark Howe's career depends how much you value 60-75 games of very good play.

Mark Howe wasn't a Rick Martin, who had an injury-shortened 10 year career. His pro career lasted 22 years. Unfortunately, he missed games in almost every season. He had 7 years in which he played between 60 and 75 games. Players who miss a few games will almost never be recognized in the end of year awards. But I guarantee you the Flyers were very happy to have Howe for 70 regular season games and a playoff run.

 

[Canadiens1958]

It Is What It Is

To some degree how you look at Mark Howe's career depends how much you value 60-75 games of very good play.

Mark Howe wasn't a Rick Martin, who had an injury-shortened 10 year career. His pro career lasted 22 years. Unfortunately, he missed games in almost every season. He had 7 years in which he played between 60 and 75 games. Players who miss a few games will almost never be recognized in the end of year awards. But I guarantee you the Flyers were very happy to have Howe for 70 regular season games and a playoff run.

Yes and that is why he is a borderline HHOFer because you cannot get an accurate read on his body of work.

 

[Blades of Glory]

I've made my case for Barrasso, but obviously I doubt he is going to get in this year, maybe ever. I will make a case for Pierre Turgeon. It will be challenging, but I want to see how others respond.

 

[Minirex22*]

Pavel Bure should've been in the hof long time ago.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I would have no problem with Bure getting in over Oates. It's the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Best Players.

That said, I don't agree with the Oates/Bondra comparison. Oates had more points than anyone in the 90s but Gretzky. He was Top 10 in points 7 Times, and Top 3 in points 3 times. Bondra was never higher than 11th in points. Oates' biggest claim to fame was making his linemates better, something that would never be said about Bondra.

 

[Blades of Glory]

Well since there are obvious questions about Tom Barrasso's attitude, and considering Doug Gilmour's, um, transgressions may be playing a part in his rather shocking wait to get into the Hall, does anyone else think Bure will be waiting for a few more years? He was not looked upon very highly by his teammates and was reckoned to be a cancer in the locker room. I remember Trevor Kidd saying after Bure was dealt to New York, something like "You all wonder why we traded him, but I can tell you that there isn't one player that is sad to see him go."

That said, I think anything other than ridiculous character issues (crime) should not keep a Hall-worthy player out. But I don't know if the selection committee thinks that.

 

[DaveG]

I really don't see any way that any of Leclair, Nieuwendyk, Bondra, Turgeon or Burke make the hall on their first ballot, yet alone at all in some of their cases.

So 2010 is probably the year to right some past wrongs.

Here's how I'd vote if I had one:
Mark Howe, Doug Gilmour, Sergei Makarov, Adam Oates

If I had to bet though, it will be one of those years where only two or three players are inducted and one will certainly leave everyone scratching their heads over it. Housley would be my bet for that one.

 

[RECsGuy*]

The first set of statistics (regular season plus playoffs) are that of a retired non-Stanley Cup champion, non-Hall Of Famer. The rest of the numbers represent six non-Stanley Cup winning contemporaries (or, at the very least, those whose careers overlapped) that have gained induction into the hallowed shrine. Can you guess who these players are?

---

766 GP - 472 G (51 G/82 GMS AVG.) - 377 A - 849 PTS (91 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

---

1554 GP - 751 G (40 G/82 GMS AVG.) - 677 A - 1428 PTS (75 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

934 GP - 494 G - 581 A (51 A/82 GMS AVG.) - 1075 PTS (94 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

1285 GP - 548 - 960 (61 A/82 GMS AVG.) - 1508 PTS (96 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

819 GP - 452 G (45 A/82 GMS AVG.) - 331 A - 783 PTS (78 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

1070 GP - 483 G - 861 A (66 A/82 GMS AVG)- 1344 PTS (103 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

1181 GP - 587 G - 643 A (45 A/82 GMS AVG) - 1230 PTS (85 PTS/82 GMS AVG)

For those that threw in the towel:

Pavel Bure

---

Mike Gartner

Pat Lafontaine

Dale Hawerchuk

Cam Neely

Peter Stastny

Michel Goulet

and, yes, I am making a statistical argument for Bure being inducted into the HHOF.

 

[Blizzard]

If I had to bet though, it will be one of those years where only two or three players are inducted and one will certainly leave everyone scratching their heads over it. Housley would be my bet for that one.

In my mind this wouldn't be a bad idea because after Babysplitter, I mean Gilmour, and Makarov, I'm on the fence about all the rest. Oates, depite his gawdy numbers, is almost like putting Marc Savard in.