Gordie Howe's Extremely Weak Competition For Scoring Titles: A Comparison With Connor McDavid.
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The Panther
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Yes, I made a mistake. The comment I'd made earlier is that Howe was the leading scorer for the 10-years between 1955-56 and 1964-65, which he was.
He was also the leading scorer from 1958-59 to 1967-68. (From 1959-60 to 1968-69 he was second.)
He was also the leading scorer from 1958-59 to 1967-68. (From 1959-60 to 1968-69 he was second.)
fwiw i think the o6 is full of weird situations that make straightforward statistical analysis difficult. was howe really 20-30% better than everybody else, or had "everybody else" just not come along yet? he was probably 5-10% better than guys like beliveau, which is probably a better overall indication of his abilities. (nothing particularly odd about this i guess—same could be said for gretzky/lemieux, i.e. if they had peaked at the same time gretzky would still have won a lot of art rosses but not by such wide margins.)
also oddly underwhelming playoffs in that peak period. which he made up for later in the 60s tho without winning any cups. in fact it's sort of weird in general that the top individual playoff performers in the late o6 years (howe, hull, ullman, mikita) didn't win any cups while the leafs won 4 on depth and defence with no elite offence at all.
off topic but i think bobby hull's goalscoring dominance is another weird case because his top competitor, mahovlich, was being actively undermined by his own coach. so was hull really 40-50% better than the field or was it more like 10-20%?
also oddly underwhelming playoffs in that peak period. which he made up for later in the 60s tho without winning any cups. in fact it's sort of weird in general that the top individual playoff performers in the late o6 years (howe, hull, ullman, mikita) didn't win any cups while the leafs won 4 on depth and defence with no elite offence at all.
off topic but i think bobby hull's goalscoring dominance is another weird case because his top competitor, mahovlich, was being actively undermined by his own coach. so was hull really 40-50% better than the field or was it more like 10-20%?
Professor What
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At the point of the post you replied to with this, I decided that it wasn't worth replying to the OP on this subject anymore. The goalposts are moving, and it's all to "prove" a narrative.
Holding back Mahovlich's offense is probably one of several factors that made the '60s Leafs so successful. As you said, they had great depth and played wonderful defense (and were strong at every position), and it's probably best that they stuck to their strengths. No player dominated the team. They were a great team.
tabness
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Yeah that is the crux of the question. I think the McDavid and new NHL crew comparison muddled the main point, but I do think the main point stands.
Much has been made about Howe's dominance of the early fifties, his percentage of scoring leads and so on. How much does that have to do with his competition?
I think just looking within the fifties themselves demonstrates the point:
1950-1951 to 1953-1954
1955-1956 to 1958-1959
(Just in case it's called out, I omitted 1954-1955 because this is coming from a post before on Howe's injury that year, it flatters him to remove the season rather than run 1954-1955 to 1958-1959)
Now obviously Gordie Howe was in his late twenties in the second period. The question really is, how would early twenties Gordie look against that latter fifties peer group? Or how would Gordie's dominance look if guys like Beliveau, Bathgate, Moore, Geoffrion, and so on were in their primes in the early fifties.
Yeah, as discussed, there's no mystery to what happened in the Original 6, and everybody who studies it comes to the same conclusion: there's an improvement in talent over previous eras, there's some very good players, but the depth of talent isn't there, and therefore the stars dominate to an extent that isn't possible in a deeper pool.
Gordie Howe, for example, is obviously not coming close to top-5 scorer 20 seasons in a row if the talent was even moderately deep.
Same for Bobby Hull's goal-scoring.
MadLuke
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When you look at the 4 years prior, it is interesting to see that Richad-Lindsay ppg were exactly the same to the decimals, (0.94ppg-.95ppg)
Maybe Richard got healthier and his team better or something to explain it, but despite getting older he more dominant from 51-54 than 47-50, Howe aside, the 4 years before Lindsay-Richard were in a pack.
1. Bentley: .99
2. Lindsay: .95
3. Conacher: .94
4. Richard: .94
5. Apps: .94
6. Lach: .88
7. Abel: .86
8. Bentley: .84
9. Taylor: .82
Kennedy: .81
51-54 without Howe look like
2. Lindsay: .94
3. Richard: .94
4. Geoffrion: .79
5. Kennedy: .77
6. Lach: .75
7. Kelly: .73
8. Abel: .71
9. Bentley: .69
Heergesheimer: .69
The 47-50 group age really well into the 51-54 group
Lindsay got to play with peak Howe and maybe Richard injury calmed down ?
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but let's go through the three time periods you've mentioned.
In the first half of the 1950s, Howe won four consecutive scoring titles by either large or very large margins. He won by large margins because (or partly because) the scoring talent in the NHL was quite weak at the time. It was weak both around his age cohort and also for several birth years prior to that. The weakness, and lack of depth, of scorers born, say, in the 1920s is obvious.
So, this largely explains why he won scoring titles by such margins. Would he have won them with better offensive talent in the league? That would depend on the other talent, right? He may have won them by smaller margins or, some of them, not at all.
You asked about the 1960s....I've watched 1960s hockey quite a lot and Howe was excellent through much of the decade. He was a top scorer in the period because he was a great player, and partly because the overall talent in the league wasn't that strong, though it was certainly stronger than it was in the early '50s.
Fast forward to the 2020s....the offensive talent today is much stronger than at any time in the Original Six era, and I wouldn't expect Howe to win any scoring titles during this period.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
My takeaway is that there’s a cohort born 1926-30 which didn’t do a whole lot compared to other 5-year cohorts.
Gordie Howe was age 11-16 while Canada was fighting WWII. His peer group was in a critical development phase during a time of rationing, tight budgets, and a focus on less frivolous things than sports. Not to mention they were coming out of the Depression which changed the economic calculus of being a pro athlete. Taking a risk on sports as a career was one thing if you were a phenom like Howe, who could easily be seen as a guy who could get paid top dollar for his athletic ability. How many 12-year-olds during the war never got their hands on skates that fit, gave up on sports with dreams of going to the army some day, and ended up being extremely athletic used car salesmen?
I don’t think it’s any big coincidence that if you look at ~1940 birth years, there’s this sudden huge upturn in talent. Those kids weren’t Boomers — they were the cohort that turned 5 years old when the war ended, so they were on the spot to benefit from a sudden boom in resources devoted to amateur and pro sports. By the time they were 12, elite sports competition made sense as a passion and a career path. So you get a much stronger pool of competition.
I’m not so sure about the conclusion that Howe’s overall competition was weak, but it does seem fair to say his generational cohort was stunted. We’re already seeing the same thing with the COVID draft classes and that crisis was only a couple of years rather than six.
Gordie Howe was age 11-16 while Canada was fighting WWII. His peer group was in a critical development phase during a time of rationing, tight budgets, and a focus on less frivolous things than sports. Not to mention they were coming out of the Depression which changed the economic calculus of being a pro athlete. Taking a risk on sports as a career was one thing if you were a phenom like Howe, who could easily be seen as a guy who could get paid top dollar for his athletic ability. How many 12-year-olds during the war never got their hands on skates that fit, gave up on sports with dreams of going to the army some day, and ended up being extremely athletic used car salesmen?
I don’t think it’s any big coincidence that if you look at ~1940 birth years, there’s this sudden huge upturn in talent. Those kids weren’t Boomers — they were the cohort that turned 5 years old when the war ended, so they were on the spot to benefit from a sudden boom in resources devoted to amateur and pro sports. By the time they were 12, elite sports competition made sense as a passion and a career path. So you get a much stronger pool of competition.
I’m not so sure about the conclusion that Howe’s overall competition was weak, but it does seem fair to say his generational cohort was stunted. We’re already seeing the same thing with the COVID draft classes and that crisis was only a couple of years rather than six.
Scoring was up league-wide in the 2nd half of the '50s. That cannot be attributed to a handful of star level players, if that, joining the league.
The fact that aging stars like Lindsay and Richard were #6 and #7 in PPG in the 2nd half of the '50s points to a reasonable assessment that perhaps the early '50s was only missing 1 or 2 star level players who could have finished #2 in scoring to Howe; something that would only marginally affect his relative dominance.
A wholesale addition of great offensive players in the late '50s doesn't pass the smell test given Howe still dominated scoring from '55 to '65 along with Beliveau.
I think it is reasonable to treat his 52/53 season as somewhat of a statistical anomoly given it was on another tier from his other peak seasons.
What he has over Beliveau, Mikita and Hull is not necessarily a Wayne/Mario offensive ceiling over them but longevity at the peak level, four peak seasons that matches their one each, to go along with his longevity of prime, and longevity, period.
Matthews only plays for respect in the handshake line, those other guys played to win.
tabness
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Scoring up league wide isn't in itself a compelling reason, why was scoring higher in the late fifties and sixties as compared to the early fifties? The explanation of this is the crux of the matter.
Your third paragraph basically says it all, yes Howe was still dominant as a points scorer after the early fifties, but not even close to as dominant as he was in the early fifties, that's the point being made. Age is a factor, as is the wear and tear of a career, but chalking it up solely to that doesn't really pass the smell test.
League-wide scoring has always had ups and downs, and the elite scorers usually see the same ups and downs.
1947/48 saw twelve players with a PPG of 0.80 or better in the Top 20 scorers, two years later that number was eight as scoring dropped from 2.93 to 2.73. When the league GPG dropped to 2.40 in '53 and '54, there were five and four 0.80 PPG players respectively.
No reasonable person argues that '13/14 Crosby or '15/16 Kane would only put up 104 and 106 points if they were in their primes right now, so why do the same with Howe?
Assuming he doesn't put up more points with the rise in scoring league-wide doesn't pass the smell test.
tabness
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Ah got it, this is a Crosby thing. I think it's a good analogue actually, Crosby also has a large dominance over his peers (point per game) that I'd say is significantly a function of the weakness of his peers in the 2010s.
Professor What
Registered User
I mean, no surprise that he brings Crosby into it, but his point still stands. You don't expect someone to score the same when the scoring rate is 3.1 as when it's 2.4. You also don't expect numbers to stay the same when the number of games in a season goes up. That 1952-53 season in particular for Howe would be a monster in any era. Is it possible someone like Gretzky would outscore him? Sure. But there would be an incredibly low number of players that could do it (probably two, and Lemieux would have to be healthy), not to mention that Howe brings things to the table that those players don't. Not only is he one of the elite scorers in history, but he's more well-rounded than most (all?) of his competition.
You honestly believe that the scoring environment overall and/or for the elite scorers is static year after year? That when literally almost every elite scorer's PPG goes up or down in a season or over multiple seasons, that is not inidicative of something else other than individual performances?
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TheLegend27
Registered User
We can measure the scoring environment, and we know the adjusted PPG of Crosby’s competition still doesn’t reach the level of McDavid’s rivals. Crosby himself won an Art Ross in an easier environment than McDavid at the same age.
Crosby and McDavid 10th season:
2014–15 NHL Season:
Goals per game (GPG): ~2.66 per team
2024-2025:
Goals per game (GPG): ~3.01 per team
Adjustment factor: 3.01/2.66=1.13
Benn’s 2015 adjusted to 2024: 87*1.13= 98 points. Kucherov got 121 this year. McDavid’s 10th season competition looks much greater than Crosby’s 10th year.
Crosby 2013-2014:
Adjustment factor: 3.01/2.67=1.127
104*1.127=117 points
Crosby 2014(9th season) wouldn’t be good enough to win the Art Ross during McDavid’s 9th(2024) season, he would actually place fourth. If you’re unhappy with the adjustment, add another 10, 20 points, that still wouldn’t give him the AR. Back in 2014, he cleared the competition by quite a large margin(injuries played a factor), so we can point to a lower quality of competition probably due to Malkin’s injuries and Ovi’s change of style of play. Is winning over Getzlaf the same as winning over Drai, Mackinnon?.
Adjusted stats are obviously not perfect, but I believe that 100~ points is a nice rough estimate of how 2015 Benn would’ve preformed this season. Crosby’s main competitor, Ovechkin, couldn’t keep up his 2006-2010 level of play, and his ppg declined massively very early in Crosby’s career. This hasn’t happened to Kuch, Drai or Mackinnon so far and all three have been relatively healthy recently unlike Malkin during 2011-2016.
Crosby is a generational player, but I’m disappointed how he didn’t scoop up all awards in 2015, 2016 and 2017 considering he was healthy and was still in his prime. He should’ve won all these years.
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The OP isn't about Crosby but it seems like you agree that comparing Howe's raw point totals from the early 50's to the late 50's is misleading which was the point I was making.
And let's not get too wrapped up in league GPG as the prime metric as sometimes it is a general downtick or uptick by the elite scorers, usually associated with PP opportunities, that can influence overall league GPG.
We need to understand what the "something else" is, we need to understand why overall scoring is at different levels in different time periods.
Comparing scoring using overall scoring levels doesn't work most of the time. And comparing using dominance doesn't work either (because the quality of players you're competing against changes dramaically).
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In the 1950s, scoring is lower in the early part of the decade. Is that because defense was better and it was generally more difficult to score (than in the late '50s)? The answer is no. Just because scoring is lower, doesn't mean it's more difficult to score.
Let's compare the 1950s to the 1980s, as there are some important similarities in these decades. In both cases, there is a major influx of talent (scoring talent) unlike anything the NHL had ever seen before. Also in both cases, offense and defense both improved as the decade goes along, so the league in both the late '50s and the late '80s was stronger than early decade.
So, why then does scoring increase during the 1950s but decreases during the 1980s? This is the key to understanding.
As is always the case with scoring levels, it's a battle between offense and defense. In general, if offense wins, scoring increases. And if defense wins, scoring decreases. In the 1980s, when offense and defense are both improving, defense eventually improves more than offense, mainly because of major innovations, and great improvements in quality, in coaching. The result is scoring declines.
In the 1950s, even though, like in the '80s offense and defense both improved, the result is the opposite. Offense wins, and scoring increases. This happens partly because there is a great improvement in offensive talent and skating ability in the league, and partly because there is much smaller improvements in defense.
So, going back to Gordie Howe....he dominates scoring in the early '50s because he's competing against a very weak field. Players are generally scoring less not because it's difficult to score, but rather because talent is very low in the league....i.e. better offensive talent is always more likely to score than lesser talent.
Detroit dominates scoring in the early '50s, much like Boston in the early '70s.
I think there's very little difference in Howe's scoring between the late '50s and early '50s. The major difference that happened is the vastly improved scoring talent in the NHL in the 2nd half of the decade, led by Beliveau, Moore, Bathgate, Geoffrion, Henri Richard, but including many more. The league was a lot stronger, but Howe wasn't much different. It's just that he was no longer the best scorer.
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WarriorofTime
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League scoring is way more important unless you have reason to show circumstances unique to top 10 scorers is different than for top 50 scorers (adjust those numbers based on league since number getting prime opportunity changes based on league size). More PPO disproportionally effects guys at top but that level of top doesn’t cut off at a certain number as a wide swath get more pp ice time.
jigglysquishy
Registered User
There's a very real stylistic change between the 1945-1953 time period and the 1956 onwards and it primarily has to do with role of defenseman. While rushing defenseman have always been a thing, the role of the blueliner shifted towards a shutdown role in the 40s. The big names like Quackenbush, Stewart, Reardon, and Bouchard were all better defensively than offensively. Their general expectation was to be a bone crushing wall that contributed offensively, but whose number one priority was stopping opposing scoring. A defence first approach had enabled the Leafs into a dynasty.
Red Kelly blows this up. The general reputation from 1951 onwards is that he is the best offensive defenseman in the sport's history (many jeeringly call him an offenseman) and is an integral part of the high scoring Wings. While he's still strong defensively, he's the first post-forward pass star defenseman to be better offensively than defensively. It is as big a paradigm shift (personally, I think moreso) as Orr 15 years later. He's followed by offense first dmen like Gatsby and Pilote.
You can argue the utility of it (I think Gadsby became better when he became more responsible and certainly Harvey did), but it had a real impact on the defenseman's role.
At the same time, I think it's a fair knock on Howe that his peak coincided with the peak of the then best offensive defenseman ever.
By the time the late 50s rolled around, Kelly was older and rushed less.
Red Kelly blows this up. The general reputation from 1951 onwards is that he is the best offensive defenseman in the sport's history (many jeeringly call him an offenseman) and is an integral part of the high scoring Wings. While he's still strong defensively, he's the first post-forward pass star defenseman to be better offensively than defensively. It is as big a paradigm shift (personally, I think moreso) as Orr 15 years later. He's followed by offense first dmen like Gatsby and Pilote.
You can argue the utility of it (I think Gadsby became better when he became more responsible and certainly Harvey did), but it had a real impact on the defenseman's role.
At the same time, I think it's a fair knock on Howe that his peak coincided with the peak of the then best offensive defenseman ever.
By the time the late 50s rolled around, Kelly was older and rushed less.
