Did Howie Morenz have the best offensive single season ever?

[MadLuke]

if you multiply assist by 3 I feel Boucher get maybe more points than Morenz for the 3 season talked about.

For the specific season Multiplying the assist here do that just because Joliat was more goal heavy has a number 2.

Morenz outscore the number 7 of that season 51 to 28 a nice 82% lead, multiply assist by 3 and now it is 87 to 56, 55% lead.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

For those who are stat-minded, I’m curious whether VsX could be converted into a “points” format for the sake of intuitive understanding? Like could you create a baseline for what 1 universal-point is worth, then apply that VsX percentage and express the result as an adjusted point?

[Digression]-

Sure- why NOT have a go at converting VsX to season point-totals?

VsX normalizes a typical 2nd place scorer (with exceptions, most of which were noted previously) at a value of 100- and the inequality of any scorer to that season's value is then measured,

So how can we translate VsX into more modern numbers? If you take the previous 10 season's benchmarks, then weight the 2020-2021 season as if it were a full season, the 10 year total would be 995.

One can convert the VsX score to points in a typical season from the last 10 years merely by letting .05 (5%) of air-pressure out of the VsX number. For most Art Ross seasons, the difference will be minus one VsX point, For the truly historic seasons, the difference will be closer to minus two VsX points.

 

[Vilica]

Guys, look how few assists were awarded in this table. For the Canadiens in 28-29 there were only 0.56 assists given per goal. For the Oilers the year Drai won the Art Ross, there were 1.71 assists per goal. That’s 3x as many assists.

Yes, Morenz and his peers were all playing by the same rules, but look what happens when you multiply assists by 3:

I've never actually bought this argument for the older players (pre-1930s) because of the other contributing factors to their scoring - limited rosters and 50+ minutes of TOI.

Take Joe Malone's 17-18 season:

Pts Rank	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	Avg VsX
1	Joe Malone	17-18	MTL	20	44	4	48	115	105	1.095	0.383	0.417	104.28

If you convert that to last year's scoring level, a league average of 258, that is the equivalent of 108 goals, 10 assists, 118 points, which is obviously an absurd line. However, in terms of P%, that season is completely in line with this one 100 years later.

Pts Rank	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	Avg VsX
4	David Pastrnak	19-20	BOS	70	48	47	95	227	208	1.091	0.211	0.419	104.19

That converts to 60+58=118 in 22-23, which is likely around what Joe Malone's season would've looked like in a modern context. 38% of his team's goals gets reduced down to 21%, and replaced with assists.

By my metric, Morenz's season slots just above McDavid's 22-23, and below Gretzky's 86-87 as the 9th best ever season, though it isn't really near either of them - the ~6.7 total gap (3.5 above, 3.2 below) is the largest gap in the entire database. By the time you make it past the top 1% of seasons, total gaps basically never reach 1. His year in last year's scoring would be 101+55=156, which again is absurd in the G/A ratio, but 156/153 in point totals is about what we should be expecting in comparison to McDavid's year.

Pts Rank	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	Avg VsX
1	Wayne Gretzky	86-87	EDM	79	62	121	183	372	294	1.265	0.167	0.492	141.99
1	Howie Morenz	27-28	MTL	43	33	18	51	116	84	1.381	0.284	0.440	138.50
1	Connor McDavid	22-23	EDM	82	64	89	153	325	258	1.260	0.197	0.471	135.28

The Morenz season is a bit different, but also the same. Morenz got points on 44% of Montreal's goals, around the same as many other elite years, but his 28% of goals is matched by like just 2-3 modern seasons. However, the biggest outlier is that the Habs scored 38% more goals than league average. That's what turns it into an outlier season. If you reduced their goals to league average, Morenz's season becomes 24+13=37, or nearly the exact year both Boucher and Hay had that season. In terms of finagling with my metric, messing with league average is the aspect I've worked most on, P% really hasn't changed in 100 years (G% has to an extent, but as mentioned above that's mostly a function of the expansion of rosters and the reduction of forward TOI).

 

[SML2]

I'm not going to toot my own horn here, but I scored 13 goals in a floor hockey game in gym class when I was in 8th grade. That's over a 1000 goal season if you carry that pace over an 82 game season, and I bet the competition was similar to whatever was on the ice in 1927. So with the adjusted stats, I am ready to go on the Hockey Mount Rushmore alongside the greats of the game. I'd like to thank my parents, the kids in my gym class who never held a hockey stick before, and my gym teacher Mr. Pedlow for not stopping the game and giving us a basketball when it became clear there was one kid who loved hockey and a whole room full of others who did not.

 

[Victorias]

I've never actually bought this argument for the older players (pre-1930s) because of the other contributing factors to their scoring - limited rosters and 50+ minutes of TOI.

Take Joe Malone's 17-18 season:

Pts Rank	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	Avg VsX
1	Joe Malone	17-18	MTL	20	44	4	48	115	105	1.095	0.383	0.417	104.28

If you convert that to last year's scoring level, a league average of 258, that is the equivalent of 108 goals, 10 assists, 118 points, which is obviously an absurd line. However, in terms of P%, that season is completely in line with this one 100 years later.

Pts Rank	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	Avg VsX
4	David Pastrnak	19-20	BOS	70	48	47	95	227	208	1.091	0.211	0.419	104.19

That converts to 60+58=118 in 22-23, which is likely around what Joe Malone's season would've looked like in a modern context. 38% of his team's goals gets reduced down to 21%, and replaced with assists.

By my metric, Morenz's season slots just above McDavid's 22-23, and below Gretzky's 86-87 as the 9th best ever season, though it isn't really near either of them - the ~6.7 total gap (3.5 above, 3.2 below) is the largest gap in the entire database. By the time you make it past the top 1% of seasons, total gaps basically never reach 1. His year in last year's scoring would be 101+55=156, which again is absurd in the G/A ratio, but 156/153 in point totals is about what we should be expecting in comparison to McDavid's year.

Pts Rank	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	Avg VsX
1	Wayne Gretzky	86-87	EDM	79	62	121	183	372	294	1.265	0.167	0.492	141.99
1	Howie Morenz	27-28	MTL	43	33	18	51	116	84	1.381	0.284	0.440	138.50
1	Connor McDavid	22-23	EDM	82	64	89	153	325	258	1.260	0.197	0.471	135.28

The Morenz season is a bit different, but also the same. Morenz got points on 44% of Montreal's goals, around the same as many other elite years, but his 28% of goals is matched by like just 2-3 modern seasons. However, the biggest outlier is that the Habs scored 38% more goals than league average. That's what turns it into an outlier season. If you reduced their goals to league average, Morenz's season becomes 24+13=37, or nearly the exact year both Boucher and Hay had that season. In terms of finagling with my metric, messing with league average is the aspect I've worked most on, P% really hasn't changed in 100 years (G% has to an extent, but as mentioned above that's mostly a function of the expansion of rosters and the reduction of forward TOI).

if you multiply assist by 3 I feel Boucher get maybe more points than Morenz for the 3 season talked about.

For the specific season Multiplying the assist here do that just because Joliat was more goal heavy has a number 2.

Morenz outscore the number 7 of that season 51 to 28 a nice 82% lead, multiply assist by 3 and now it is 87 to 56, 55% lead.

I don’t really see what roster size or ice time has to do with how points were awarded. Those may affect G and P % but I didn’t refer to either of those things. Meanwhile, Montreal scoring way more than league average is partly (or largely) due to Morenz, so he shouldn’t be penalized by having his team’s output normalized.

Indeed, the gap depends on how assist-reliant a player is. That’s the point. The VsX scores for Gretzky would be significantly lower if he played in an environment in which only 0.56 assists were given per goal. So how can you compare VsX between Morenz and Gretzky? You can’t. And it’s unreasonable to use such a measure authoritatively across massively different eras.

 

[Vilica]

I don’t really see what roster size or ice time has to do with how points were awarded. Those may affect G and P % but I didn’t refer to either of those things. Meanwhile, Montreal scoring way more than league average is partly (or largely) due to Morenz, so he shouldn’t be penalized by having his team’s output normalized.

Indeed, the gap depends on how assist-reliant a player is. That’s the point. The VsX scores for Gretzky would be significantly lower if he played in an environment in which only 0.56 assists were given per goal. So how can you compare VsX between Morenz and Gretzky? You can’t. And it’s unreasonable to use such a measure authoritatively across massively different eras.

The point I was making was that the undercounting of assists in this era is washed out completely by the fact that even in 27-28, hockey was largely still 1 line of forwards against another line of forwards. None of the Habs forwards beyond their first three had any substantial point totals, it was just Morenz, Joliat and Gagne out there for 50 minutes every game, with the other 3-4 forwards just being occasional substitutes.

If you're adding all those extra "theoretical" assists to Morenz, you end up with him getting points on like 75% of Habs goals, which would not occur if he played in the modern era. Likewise, you send Gretzky back to 27-28, and he trades a whole bunch of assists for goals because he's lost all his teammates and gained 30 minutes of ice-time, and ends up being involved in about the same 75% of goals (whether or not he gets credit for them with assists). The G/A ratio is mostly unknowable for the conversion, but the P% is the same regardless of era.

Here's a table of Morenz's 10 season prime, ignoring his last 4 years, using his P% to convert to a modern league.

Rank	Name	Year	Points	Year	New Points	New Rank
11	Howie Morenz	23-24	16	05-06	62.00	72
4	Howie Morenz	24-25	39	06-07	103.42	5
6	Howie Morenz	25-26	26	07-08	69.86	38
3	Howie Morenz	26-27	32	08-09	85.09	12
1	Howie Morenz	27-28	51	09-10	137.82	1
3	Howie Morenz	28-29	27	10-11	94.50	4
7	Howie Morenz	29-30	53	11-12	88.06	4
1	Howie Morenz	30-31	51	12-13	61.69	1
3	Howie Morenz	31-32	49	13-14	89.43	2
9	Howie Morenz	32-33	36	14-15	72.00	14

That sums to a 863.87 point total, 2nd in the NHL over that time period, right between Ovechkin at 895 and Crosby at 853. This data does support Morenz' greatness, and 138 points in 09-10 is a huge gap to 2nd place.

 

[tinyzombies]

It is a lot of contemporary testimony (maybe more than stats for that era), some people saw Morentz play and Richard-Beliveau-Howe and compared them

Morenz domination of his era does not show that much stats wise, 27-32 Morenz outscored Bill Cook and Stewart by less than 10% goal wise, 13% and 16% pts wise for Cook/Boucher, only 10 pts in the playoff during that time, significantly below them. While clear, it is not particularly vast, single Rocket, 2 art ross

That not really where his legendary status come from and would be around Stamkos peak-prime wise if we go 100% statistical without adjusting for quality of competition for the eras I feel like (prime Stamkos outscored Canadian in the nhl by 23%, less success pts wise to compensate and also add really unimpressive playoff stats....)

Morenz had broken ribs for the first or second Cup and still went end-to-end and came back and played defense every rush. E.v.e.r.y. r.u.s.h. he was getting hit. By the time Howe, or Rocket, arrived that type of player was extinct. Also, have you ever seen Morenz's twig? It was literally a twig. And you'd probably get more ankle support today with duct tape, and look at the speed test numbers he put off, even if they were a bit off. One of the oldsters said he skated like Orr "without the maneuverability".

Howe could fly too. If Howe was in the Morenz role going end-to-end each rush that would be epic, but Howe was one to pace himself. Not much pacing going on with Morenz unless his D recovered the puck and he was reloading - all the way back to his own goal lol. Howe rushing against Shore/Hitchman would have been a bloodbath.

Lets say you give Morenz the skates Perreault used. Then you have Perreault coming down on Hitchman/Shore every time. Orr said he couldn't handle Perreault on the rush, so...

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

​

What do you think?

I think you’re hilarious. Got everyone arguing adjusted stats over a pretty absurd take that took ya like 10 seconds to produce, well done!

Can’t believe there were people before this doubting that Morenz was the greatest ever. This newfangled Gretzky argument is hogwash.

 

[TheStatican]

What do you think?

Aside from the issues of HR's adjustment formula the problem with Morenz 27-28 season is that its simply not large enough of a sample size to even out the discrepancies in his scoring rates throughout the season and boy did he ever have some MAJOR ONES.

More than HALF of his points - 51% came in just 12 of his games(28%), specifically during two 6-game hot streaks:
- 14 points in a 6-game outburst in January and
- 12 points in a late season 6-game stretch in March
He had just 25 points in his remaining 31 games.

To give you an idea of exactly how disproportional that is, it would akin to Lemieux scoring 100 points in just 21 of games (28%) in 88-89. As it was, Mario's best stretch was 67 in 21 and if broken up into two separate streaks: 74 in 21(40 in 11 & 34 in 10). Those scoring rates are, 3.52ppg in 21gm vs 2.27ppg in 55gm, a 1.55 to 1 ratio

So who was the REAL Morenz that season? The one who averaged 2.17ppg in 12 games or the one who scored at a rate of just 0.86 ppg in 31 games? A very large 2.52 to 1 difference in scoring rates. Considering the latter stretch was two and a half times a longer I would say the chances are that was closer the real Howie Morenz, a fact further substantiated by how he never came close to putting up 190 adjusted points again.