ATD2025 Bio Thread

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[Professor What]

RED KELLY

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First of all, kudos to @TheDevilMadeMe for the work on the 2014 bio, which this extensively borrows from.

Scoring among defensemen:

Goals: 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,5,5

Assists: 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,5,8,10,10

Points: 1,1,1,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5,5,10



Scoring among all players: (D) means scored as a defenseman

Assists: 2,4(10),6(D),8(D),8,9(D),10(D)

Points: 6(D),6,8(D),9(D)



Hart voting: 2,3,3,4

Doug Harvey for comparison: 2,3,5,5,5

No other defenseman finished top five in voting for the award from 1947-1966.



In 2018, The Hockey News awarded Kelly three “Retro” Norris trophies, finding him to be the best defenseman in the NHL for each of the final three years before the award was first handed out (1951, 1952, 1953). He also won the inaugural Norris Trophy (1954). This would bring Kelly to an overall total of 4. Lending further credence to this idea is the fact that Kelly was a unanimous first team all-star in each of these three seasons. Thus, it seems accurate to say that from the 1950-51 season to the 1953-54 season, Kelly was the best defenseman in the world.

He was a six-time first team all-star (1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957) and a two-time second-team all-star (1950, 1956). Additionally, he won four Lady Byng Trophies (1951, 1953, 1954, 1961) and played in 12 all-star games.



Quotes:

“I can tell you as you go through the history of defensemen in the NHL, they talk about Eddie Shore, they talk about Red Kelly, they talk about Doug Harvey, they talk about Bobby Orr, they talk about Nick Lidstrom and a few other from the '80s and '90s.

“But Red Kelly was the premier offensive defenseman throughout his time in Detroit,” – Scotty Bowman

“So Mild-mannered, never uttering a curse word, Kelly nevertheless was one of the NHL's most feared fighters during those rare occasions when he engaged in fisticuffs. Likewise, he was a nonparalled defenseman, yet he could carry the puck on attack better than most of the foremost forwards.” – Detroit Red Wings Greatest Moments and Players

“To this day he remains the most underrated superstar to come down the pike. Yet his dossier cannot be disputed. He was the balance wheel of champions as a defenseman in Detroit, and, as a center, the most decisive factor in creating a dynasty in Toronto more than a decade later. No other hockey player can make that statement. – Stan Fischler

“Kelly, for instance, ranked ninth among all NHL scorers with the 54 points in 1950-51. Last year he placed eighth with 46 points (the next nearest defenseman was Doug Harvey, 26th with 34 points). His 19 goals last year ranked him 14th in that department.Strangely enough, neither of Kelly’s best totals are NHL records. He fell one short of the goal mark last year, Flash Hollett having made 20 while a Detroiter. And three years ago he came within three of Babe Pratt’s record of 57 points by a defenseman, made while Babe was with Toronto.Despite all this scoring year after year, Kelly still maintains tne reputation of also being the best defensive defenseman in the business.” – Hockey News

“Along with all that, he’s a master of the pokecheck, having learned that lesson well while playing alongside Bill Quackenbush his first few yearn with the club. Although he’s not known as a hitting defender, Kelly can bodycheck when necessary. Once in a while Ivan tells him to dish out a few checks just to keep from being rusty.” – Hockey News

“He was so strong, and that was something you can’t forget. That was one of his great strengths, his strength, along with his skating. He could handle himself, and there was really nobody who could push him around because of his strength. He was the only guy who was strong enough to play against Beliveau, and he skated as well.” – Dave Keon

“Red Kelly was a unique player - versatile and talented enough to be one of the National Hockey League's best-ever defensemen early in his career and a high-scoring center at the end. The red-haired gentleman was cool and calculating on the ice and never swore, but there was no doubt about his ability to take care of himself. He had been a championship boxer at Toronto's St. Michael's College, skills the four-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy wouldn't often display during his 20-year NHL career.” – legendsofhockey

“Neither. I'll take Red Kelly.
Kelly is the best all-around performer in our league. Sure, Howe and Richard are great , but Red is not only great on defense , he can score too. He's the big reason Detroit has won five straight (regular season) championships.
When Kelly rushes up ice, it's something to see. He sparks Howe and Lindsay and the others. When we play the Wings, we go out to stop him. We feel there's a better chance of winning that way.” – Lynn Patrick when asked if Gordie Howe or Maurice Richard was the best player in the NHL.

“Leonard ‘Red’ Kelly very well might be the most underrated superstar in National Hockey League history.” – Joe Pelletier

“Without ever playing a game in the minor leagues Kelly stepped directly into the NHL in 1947-48. Before long he was establishing himself as the best defenseman in the league. He was the predecessor to Bobby Orr as the offensive defenseman in hockey as he easily outscored his fellow NHL defensemen.” – Joe Pelletier

“Yet as good as he was offensively, he was better defensively. He had an uncanny knack of reading plays and breaking them up, and he controlled the puck in his own zone adeptly. To make his defensive legend even more impressive, Kelly excelled without taking many penalties himself.” – Joe Pelletier



Quotes from HOH board members:

“Offense relative to other defensemen

Kelly: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5
Lidstrom: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5
Potvin: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5
Discussion: Kelly is the best offensive defenseman. He basically matches Lidstrom's performance despite converting to a forward 12 years into his career. If we include Kelly's career as a forward, we'd include 1961 (6th in scoring, 2nd in assists) and 1963 (13th in scoring, just 2 points out of 9th place). Lidstrom is clearly ahead of Potvin for 2nd place.
Source: Pnep

Offense relative to league

Data: here's how all three players compare, over their ten best years, relative to the league. Note I'm only including Kelly's years as a defenseman.
Kelly: 7th overall in scoring (1950-59)
Potvin: 10th overall in scoring (1975-84)
Lidstrom: 17th overall in scoring (1998-2008)
Source: hockey reference
Discussion: once again, Kelly is the best offensive defensemen. This time Potvin passes Lidstrom for second place.” – @Hockeyoutsider

“Red Kelly was better than two of his teammates currently up for voting: Lindsay and Sawchuk. First, let’s consider the evidence from hockey writers from the 1950s. The Hart trophy voters easily thought that Kelly was the Wings’ best player after Mr. Hockey. Red Kelly finished in the top three in Hart voting three times (1951, 1953, 1954). No other Wing (aside from Howe obviously) made it to the top three during the dynasty years, even once. In fact, Red Kelly alone had as many top-ten finishes as Lindsay and Sawchuk combined.

Even if you don’t think that Hart voting matters, consider this. The Detroit dynasty was able to win a Cup without Sawchuk (1950); they won without Abel (1954, 1955); they could win it even without Howe (1950). Only Kelly and Lindsay were the constants. However, the Wings had a great team in the late 1940s (including Lindsay) but couldn’t win their first Cup until Kelly emerged as an all-star defenseman in 1950. His ability to control both ends of the ice put them over the top.

Kelly’s last year as an all-star defenseman was in 1957 (when the Wings were 1st in the regular season, and Howe and Lindsay finished 1-2 in scoring). In 1958, Kelly’s first off year, the Wings dropped 18 points and 2 spots in the standings. Granted, Lindsay was gone in 1958, but the Wings only lost 22 goals for versus 50 goals against. Unless you want to make the case that Lindsay was somehow more important to the defense than Kelly, it was the loss of Kelly as an elite defenseman (and, of course, the emergence of the Canadiens), that ended the Wings’ dynasty.” – @Hockeyoutsider



Quotes from Sports Illustrated:

“On the attack, the Red Wings in general play a slam-bang, puck-hounding game, relying on manpower rather than on finesse to wear down their opponents. Their offensive sorties frequently have the advantage of a "fourth forward," the great Red Kelly, perennial All-Star defenseman and a natural play-builder, shown at right (No. 4) as he leads a rush toward the Rangers' goal. Three of the last four seasons, Kelly has ranked among the top ten scorers, the only defenseman to climb into that exalted circle.”

“With Detroit, Kelly has developed into the best defenseman in the league. An intelligent, graceful, superbly conditioned athlete, the All-Canadian Boy if there ever was one, Kelly, in the words of Fred Huber, the Wings' erudite publicity director, "can maneuver the puck with his skates better than most players can with their sticks." In an early-season game with the Bruins this year, Kelly scored three goals, the first defenseman to achieve "the hat trick" since Happy Day did it some two decades ago. In the offseason, Kelly returns to the village of Simcoe, Ontario, where his family has owned tobacco and fruit farms for four generations, and prepares himself for another hockey campaign by working in the fields, covering about 14 acres a day as he primes an average of 1,200 "sticks" of tobacco.”

“For several seasons now Harvey and Red Kelly of Detroit have been in a class of their own, a discernible cut above the other defensemen in the league. Kelly's style of play, of course, has always been an individual one. A marvelous, tireless skater, he has the energy and the speed and the maneuverability to serve not only as a stout defender but to double as a virtually cohesive part of the offense. This season " Detroit's fourth forward," as Kelly has been called for some time, was actually pressed into service as a forward. Jimmy Skinner, the Wings coach, made the move early in December, after his team had managed to win only 6 of its first 25 games and it seemed they might never get rolling. Skinner's second and third lines had not been producing at all, and he recognized that his first tactical adjustment—using his powerful first line of Howe, Reibel and Lindsay as often as they could climb over the boards—hadn't been getting him anyplace. Overwork was diminishing the H-R-L line's punch, and lack of work wasn't helping the confidence of his newly formed third line and the sluggishness of his second line. The defense had been functioning well, though. Pronovost had been playing fine hockey, Godfrey was doing all right, old Bob Goldham—he entered the NHL way back in 1941 with Toronto (can you believe it?)—was still getting around O.K.; furthermore, Larry Hillman, a very promising defenseman, could be recalled from the minors. So Skinner made his move. He switched Kelly to left wing on his first line and sent Lindsay down to juice up the second. It was a daring bit of juggling, and it worked. Almost overnight the Wings began to win at their customary clip, and until they dropped five out of those six points in that head-on series with Montreal, it looked as if they might be on their way to recapturing all of their old grinding efficiency.

As for Kelly, he was a revelation on left wing. He remained at that position for 26 games, until Pronovost was hurt and he had to be sent back to bolster the defense. Over that stretch Red scored 11 goals and assisted in 13 others, but these statistics barely intimate what an enormous amount of wing he played. One picture or, more accurately, one series of pictures remains clearly in my mind. It is Kelly back-checking with that effortless finesse of his, breaking up one enemy rush after another before they could even get started and generally creating the impression that progress up his side of the rink was virtually impossible, a road temporarily closed to traffic.”

“The Detroit Red Wings signed Kelly in 1947 at the precocious age of 19. He responded by helping them to eight championships and four Stanley Cups in 12 years. Then, in a deal that shocked the NHL, he was traded to New York near the close of the 1960 season. He had fallen into disfavor with Detroit General Manager Jack Adams, first for his frankness in facing Adams with the team's complaints ("I felt that was my duty as captain," says Kelly) and second for admitting to a newspaper reporter that Adams had urged him to play part of the previous season six days after breaking an ankle. The story created a sensation. " Adams tried to get the doctor to say the ankle wasn't broken," says Kelly, "but it was." Rather than report to last-place New York, Kelly decided to quit. Five days later, after considerable backstage maneuvering, league officials okayed a deal by which he was to report instead to Toronto, and Kelly changed his mind.

Red made his first appearance with Toronto the very next night. When his line skated onto the ice, the ex-Detroiter received a four-minute ovation that has never been matched in Maple Leaf Gardens. "Just when the applause should have died down," recalls Red, "everyone stood up."

In Detroit, Kelly had become one of the best defensemen in the league, but Punch Imlach, who is never inhibited by tradition, decided to make a center of him. In doing so, he lighted the spark that propelled a formerly floundering club to the finals of the Stanley Cup. In the semifinals Toronto met Detroit. "I never once looked up in that box where I knew Adams would be looking down at us," says Kelly softly. "I knew they'd be told to come after me, and they did, but it didn't bother me. The more they came the harder I fought. I figure it made me play better. I liked it."

Toronto liked it too. The Leafs grew even stronger the next year as Kelly fed long, daring passes to a brilliant but brooding young prodigy named Frank Mahovlich who, up to then, had failed to live up to his early promise. Under Kelly's influence Mahovlich's goal production rose from a 1960 total of 18 to 48 in 1961. Mahovlich went on to become the only big-league athlete worth an official $1 million at the auction block, but it was Kelly who was voted the team's most valuable player. One year later, Toronto finally regained that long-awaited Stanley Cup as Kelly, one of those largely responsible, set a career high of 22 goals scored and a personal low of only six minutes spent in the penalty box. "If you lose your temper while the puck's in play, you only give your opponents an easy chance to score," he says, explaining a philosophy that has long since established him as one of the cleanest players in the game.”



Notes from TDMM:

Kelly should be credited with the equivalent of 4 consecutive Norris Trophys

• He won the first ever Norris Trophy (1954) and was a unanimous First Team All Star the 3 previous years (1951, 1952, 1953).

If it weren't for Doug Harvey and playing 1/4 of 1956 as a LW due to injuries to other players, Kelly would almost certainly have had 7 consecutive Norris Trophys from 1951-1957

• 1955: Kelly was a close second to Harvey and way ahead of anyone else.
• 1956: Kelly fell behind Bill Gadsby for 2nd place in Norris and AS voting in a very close vote, but Kelly spent 1/4 of that season as a LW due to injuries to teammates. Red Burnett thought it cost him the 1st Team AS, a view supported by Hart voting. Kelly was 4th in Hart voting, Harvey 5th, and Gadsby didn't receive a single Hart vote.
• 1957: Kelly was a distant 2nd behind Harvey, and had a moderate but solid lead on #3.

Kelly was likely the best player in the world for the season of 1953-54, right in the middle of Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard's prime.

• Kelly finished a close 2nd in Hart voting to an Al Rollins (a goalie), and many people think that Rollins was being given credit for his previous season (when he lost the Hart to Gordie Howe the year Howe shattered all the records).
• Kelly was voted the best player of the year in a press poll. (At the time, the Hart Trophy really did seem to go to "most valuable," not best player).
• Note that Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe were both in their primes and finished 3rd and 4th in Hart voting respectively.

Kelly has immense career value - 12 years as a superstar defenseman, and 7 years as a key forward on a dynasty

• His forward career is sometimes underrated - he was top 10 in Hart voting twice (1962, 1967) and he played a key two-way role at center on the team that won 4 Cups.
• IMO, there is an argument that Kelly's 12 years as a defenseman alone are enough to equal Denis Potvin, then you add his time as a forward...

Offense

Kelly finished top 10 in NHL scoring 3 times as a defenseman (and once as a center), the only defenseman other than Orr and Coffey to finish top 10 in NHL scoring more than twice. Potvin and Shore are the only other ones to do it twice.