Best Two-Way Seasons Since 1967 Expansion Polls Series Results

[DitchMarner]

This was the theme:

Vote for the best overall combination of offense and defense.

Note: These are not necessarily the best overall seasons since '67. If Gretzky has a 200+ point season where his contributions are 90-95% offensive and 5-10% defensive, his season can be better in terms of net impact than any seasons listed as options. However, the spirit of these polls is to vote for the best combination of offense and defense from forwards and to consider seasons where offensive and defensive contributions are both very high.


Here are your results:


#1. Sergei Fedorov 1994 (33.3%)
#2. Bobby Clarke 1975 (47.1%)
#3. Bobby Clarke 1976 (70.6%)
#4. Sergei Fedorov 1996 (beat Joe Sakic 2001 in a run-off)
#5. Joe Sakic 2001 (50%)
#6. Bryan Trottier 1979 (50%)
#7. Doug Gilmour 1993 (beat Pavel Datsyuk 2009 in a run-off)
#8. Pavel Datsyuk 2009 (beat Kopitar 2018 in a run-off)
#9. Anze Kopitar 2018 (27.3%)
#10. Pavel Datsyuk 2008 (54.5%)

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[DitchMarner]

I think the results are pretty solid in terms of accuracy and realism. It's not just a bunch of Datsyuk and Fedorov seasons with some Matthews and Crosby and a couple of older seasons thrown in (as some might expect from a mainboards topic). There's good representation of different time periods (Clarke and Trottier for the 70s, Fedorov and Gilmour for the 90s, Sakic and Datsyuk for the 2000s). If anything, you can argue recent times are a little underrepresented, with only Kopitar 2018 making the winning list from the last decade and a half. Then again, I guess guys like Bergeron, Toews, Kopitar and Barkov don't quite have the offense of some of the winners, and guys like Matthews and Crosby don't have the defense of Clarke, Fedorov and Trottier. There's no season from the 1980s on the final list, but that decade isn't renowned for great two-way play, either.