For the record, I just checked THN's annual yearbook rankings, and Hedman was 11th among D-men following the 2014 season, and 4th following 2015 and 2016. As a Norris finalist, he's a very strong bet to be 4th once again (a non-finalist with an even stronger track record/reputation, like Doughty or Keith will place ahead of him, and probably rightly so). Calling him a "top-10 defenseman for the last 4 seasons" probably underrates him.
(for the record, I'm only stating the mainstream opinion here and not my own personal one - I'm a little harder on Hedman, partially because his coaches don't seem to give him "elite #1 D" icetime for whatever reason)
Fair enough, I guess I didn't really chose my words carefully enough there. Hedman's peak is clearly above Jonsson and Persson, definltely, but I still require longevity unless that peak is absurd (like Karlsson's). I wouldn't require 8 years of top-10 to put him on the all-time Swedish team, but I do think he needs to play more. I'd definitely still put Calle Johansson ahead of him at the moment based on consistent, long-term play.
And that's fair about Johansson, because for most of the period between 1991 and 2003, he was a #1-2 defenseman. He doesn't have Hedman's peak, but he's put up more very good seasons.
But Jonsson and Persson? Forget the league, you wouldn't even get universal agreement that they were top-4
on their own teams during their careers.
I value longevity too, but like I said, Persson has played 73 NHL games more than Hedman at this point. You can't mean his post-NHL time in Sweden's tier 3 league, can you? Or his time in the top league as a 19-22 year old?
Jonsson at least has some interesting seasons in Sweden before and after the NHL, but do we know anything about them other than his GP-G-A-Pts? Was he considered one of the best few players there? All-star teams? Awards? He did spend his very best years in the NHL and at his very best, he was a #5-6 ES defenseman who got PP time.
I don't bring these two up just to nitpick about Hedman/Samuelsson, though. He's only one guy. There's Ohlund, Johnsson, Norstrom, Jonsson too. All heavily relied on by their teams and for much longer, too. Nitpicking would be bringing up Olausson, Kjell Samuelsson, Hjalmarsson, Kronwall, Ragnarsson and Edler. Those guys could go either way.
Interesting. I'll take a look at this when I get a chance. I assume 98-06 correlates very well with the actual records?
Those are the actual numbers for those seasons. But yes, they've been tested against seasons with actual known results in order to tweak and ensure accuracy in older seasons.
