Defensemen:
You have: Horton, Salming, Clancy, Stanley, Day, Horner, Baun, Brewer, Kaberle, Pratt, Turnbull, Barilko, Thomson (Mortson, Stanowski, McCabe).
I have: Horton, Salming, Clancy, Stanley, Thomson, Brewer, Day, Baun, Horner, Kaberle, McCabe, Pratt, Mortson, Stanowski, Turnbull, Ellett, Yushkevich (Macoun, Phaneuf, Hamilton).
Overall I think just 12 defensemen making a top-50 is really light and we should look at getting a couple more in there - I'll get to that. is 17 too many? Perhaps, I admit.
I think the first four are pretty obvious: You start with a guy with six postseason all-stars (three 1st team), then a guy with six (one 1st), who was the leader of a much less successful team, then a guy who was easily better than either of them, but played half his career with another team. Clancy is nonetheless third all-time in postseason all-star teams by a leaf defensemen with four (two 1st), with two Hart finalist seasons to go with them. If he'd played his whole career as a Leaf, he'd be ahead, but just behind Salming is fair based on how their careers actually played out. Then we have Stanley, a three-time 2nd team all-star with substantial longevity.
But the next guy should definitely be Carl Brewer or Jimmy Thomson. They should both bump up ahead of all three of Horner, Baun and Day, considering Brewer earned three all-star teams, which is three more than the three of them combined - Thomson earned two himself. That's not to say Baun, Day and Horner weren't good players, or they never earned some consideration throughout their careers, or that they don't have Brewer beaten in longevity, but the peak value is just too much in his and Thomson's favour. Look at their collective all-star voting records as Leafs:
Thomson:
3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6.
Brewer: 2, 3, 4, 5
Day:
5, 6, 6, 7, 7.
Horner: 5, 6, 8, 9.
Baun:
5, 7, 8, 9, 11.
With the high water mark 5th place finishes of Day, Horner and Baun all being very distant and with small vote totals, it's reasonable to say Brewer put up four better seasons than any of their bests, and Thomson three. They are both slam dunks to be ahead of them. Which should be ahead? That's a tough one. I went with Thomson because he appears to have a couple more high end seasons as a Leaf, as well as four more full seasons of solid service, and his Leafs were just as successful as Brewer's (four cups).
We both had Day/Baun/Horner in a clump and here's why I think they go in this order within that clump. With these guys, all-star voting gives us no obvious answer so without splitting hairs, we can do a bit more digging. For starters, I think Day's all-star record is the most impressive because he had six seasons in which he was a Leaf prior to all-star teams being awarded. If he was consistently placing 5th-7th from 1931-1935, he likely would have in the few years prior to that. He also started as a LW his first two seasons, and in the first of those, he was actually 6th in Hart voting, 2nd among LWs, so he was a valuable player from the start, even if he never crossed into truly elite territory. He also served as captain and I admit that his posthumous recognition seems to exceed what contemporaries thought (after all, he made the HHOF without a single postseason all-star team, which is mighty peculiar). Whether that was due to his coaching career or not, we may never know, but he is somewhat of a Leafs icon. Second, Horner and Baun look interchangeable from all-star records, but I'd take Baun for greater team success (4 cups to 1), and a slightly longer tenure with the team. So from among those three, I only recommend you bump Baun over Horner (another very rare HHOF defenseman without a postseason all-star team).
Following that, I think a recent dynamic duo should follow. And one of them, you agree on, but the other trails well behind. I'm referring, of course, to Kaberle and McCabe. Kaberle was a pretty highly relied on Leaf (23.9 minutes for 878 games), but McCabe's tenure wasn't exactly short (523 games), and he played 25.5 minutes himself, which is pretty huge. I think in the end, Kaberle's extra time put in before and after McCabe's tenure give him the edge, but while they were together, McCabe was the better and more relied upon player. He played 25.5 minutes to Kaberle's 25.0, but perhaps more importantly, when the going got tough in the playoffs, he played 28.8 to Kaberle's 25.2 in the 51 playoff games they both played. Voters thought he was better: He was 4th and 9th for the Norris, with 67 total votes earned as a Leaf to Kaberle's 13. I think it's only fitting that they go back to back considering they were joined at the hip for a few years like no top leaf pairing since Salming/Turnbull. McCabe has the clearly better peak, Kaberle the longer tenure.
Pratt we both agree on next, so I'll bypass him. Following that, you have Barilko. His name is obviously very well known; he scored that iconic goal and then met a tragic end. And I don't want to downplay the fact that he was even in the NHL at his young age - it was a highly exclusive league and he did well, and stuck on a very powerful defensive team, no less. But, he was not an elite player and, until you get to his name, this list is pretty exclusive to players who had brushes with eliteness or were more important to the team (and/or just as important but for longer tenures). Just going by what we know about the other Leaf defensemen during his career (their reputations, voting records, etc), Barilko started as their #4 defenseman and had become their #3 by the time he scored that fateful goal. Thinking back to the Philly list and Barry Ashbee, I noted that you may want to consider getting him on there considering his freak career-ending accident, then pointed out that he did have a peak case - two seasons as their #1, 25-minute defenseman, followed by a 2nd all-star team in 1973. But Barilko never reached those heights either league-wide (or leaf-wide), and the Leafs list should be twice as hard to make, anyway (their history is twice as long and, if I do say so myself, at least twice as successful). So, Barilko I recommend to drop, and not a small distance, either. In his place, Gus Mortson should move up. Mortson played for the Leafs at the exact same time as Barilko, plus two full seasons bookending his career. During that time, he was the more important Leaf, and was in fact 1st in all-star voting in 1950 - a virtual Norris. He never had any elite seasons besides that, but on longevity and peak he's surely ahead of Barilko. Stanowski, too - the war completely destroyed his prime, but he was 2nd in all-star voting in 1941, and failed to have an elite season again, similar to Mortson. but like Mortson, he was an important leaf at an important time in their history, winning four cups. These two seem like a natural back-to-back pair: very similar peaks, similar off-peak years, similar team success, similar tenure lengths.
Assuming you've taken my advice and added McCabe, Mortson and Stanowski while dropping Barilko, you're at 14 defensemen which is pretty fair, but there's a logjam coming. Also, assuming you have taken that advice, you currently have 8 players representing the entire last 30 years of leaf history - that's 16% representing 30%. I know they haven't been the most illustrious 30 years but that still seems low.
Turnbull? I can get on board with him being the next name. But arguably, Ellett, Yushkevich, Macoun and Phaneuf were on his level. I see that those four earned a grand total of zero votes from any of our other esteemed panelists, so it's an uphill battle getting any of them to be placed there. If you put any two of them at the bottom - and I hardly care which two - you'd bring the post-1987 recognition up to 10 players - still low, but reasonable. Look at the lengths of their tenures plus their average TOI:
Ellett: 446+52, 23.7
Yushkevich: 506+44*, 22.6 (*missed 20 playoff games in 2002 with a blood clot but was the defensive leader of this gutsy squad)
Macoun: 466+52, 22.6
Phaneuf: 423+7, 24.4
Playoff games are included as a way of demonstrating the success the team had with each player. Their tenures are all about the same length that it hardly matters who was there for how much longer - though Phaneuf is somewhat of an outlier in that regard. Their TOI numbers are similar enough to call it a wash, too. Phaneuf was the most relied on Leaf, but it was for a shorter time and the team was brutal (was he a default #1? most likely). On the other hand, he served as captain. On the other other hand, was he considered a good captain at all? Looking at my gut, if I pretend it's 50 years in the future and Leaf fans are reminiscing about who they remember from the 90s, I feel like Yushkevich is the guy. But it could be anyone. You guys should break the tie for me. I really think a 15th and even 16th defenseman belongs here, and I really think a player from after 1987 does too, but I can't definitively decide which one.
In conclusion: Thomson and Brewer up over Day/Horner/Baun, Swap Horner and Baun, insert Mccabe after Kaberle, remove Barilko, and make room for Mortson and Stanowski.
