Gordie Howe's Extremely Weak Competition For Scoring Titles: A Comparison With Connor McDavid.

[Professor What]

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.

You do realize we're making the same point right? Getting too caught up in goals per game would be saying there's a massive difference between 2.7 and 2.8. We're talking something that 's totally dissimilar that's not going to be created by noise.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Since save % began tracking that alone does a lot of the work

 

[daver]

You do realize we're making the same point right? Getting too caught up in goals per game would be saying there's a massive difference between 2.7 and 2.8. We're talking something that 's totally dissimilar that's not going to be created by noise.

Getting too caught up in league GPG is using "adjusted stats" as a primary metric, let alone using it as a metric at all.

 

[Professor What]

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.

Getting too caught up in league GPG is using "adjusted stats" as a primary metric, let alone using it as a metric at all.

Wut?

 

[daver]

Wut?

Adjusting stats using using league GPG instead of measuring dominance vs. direct peers.

 

[tabness]

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.

I don't think the scoring rate of the league in itself tells us much at all, stats are meaningless without some sort of interpretive context. The (mostly implied) context in this case seems to suggest the earlier fifties were lower scoring than the later fifties and sixties because it was harder to score, I don't know if I buy that. @jigglysquishy's post is real instructive here as an alternative explanation to the mostly implicit "scoring lower so harder to score" point that seems to be a default.

By the way, I'm not making the same thesis that @Staniowski is regarding McDavid or the current era (I'm personally uninterested in discussion McDavid or Crosby or whoever in this topic), I'm actually looking into it with players Howe competed against for much of his career, the Bobby Hulls and Beliveaus and so on.

My thesis is simple, Gordie Howe's margin of dominance in the early fifties is due in some part to the competition he had at the time, which is possibly the weakest period after the war years of the original six. It's a bit of a perfect storm for the Red Wings to be the team of the time as well right as Howe was getting going.

I'm not even saying Howe wouldn't still win most if not all those scoring titles in the early fifties had you had Beliveau and whoever be in the primes at the time (or conversely that Howe wouldn't win most of the scoring titles he actually did had he played in the late fifties when he was in his early twenties). I think a deeper dig into Beliveau's stats also shows his powerplay reliance, and the super team thing for Howe is even stronger in the case of Beliveau. However, with Beliveau, I also do thing his super team was stacked a bit differently, which could hurt his stats for splitting the difference, given that there was a second line that was right up there with the first, Gordie Howe's Wings just had those kind of "best line" things in NHL 94 going but not as much depth going to spread the wealth.

Bobby Hull now, I could see an argument for him being on Howe's level as an offensive player and maybe take a scoring race or two from him. I personally think Bobby Hull would be more regarded akin to Howe had he not went to the WHA, I'm very impressed with Hull's talent from what I've seen.

I'm certainly not saying that Howe isn't basically era proof player (he's the best demonstrable example we have of one given his longevity) or isn't well rounded (although his defensive ability is a bit mythologized post hoc from what I've seen and read contemporaneously) or so on.

Simply that there's a bit of a perfect storm going on for him to dominate the early fifties to a degree he likely couldn't have been able to do so five years later (though of course he would still dominate to some degree, after all he did still dominate as a player in his late twenties and thirties nicely).

 

[sr edler]

The fact that there are currently several guys better scorers than Matthews shouldn't obscure the fact that he is a great scorer. And it clearly underlines how much better the offensive talents are today compared to the early '50s. Exponentially better.

He's a great goal scorer, at least in the regular season. I wouldn't say he's a great playmaker or play driver, especially not in an all-time sense. I didn't watch Lindsay play, but I doubt he was much worse than Matthews in those facets of the game. He was also a gamer, by most reasonable accounts, which Matthews really is not.

 

[daver]

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 Gadsby 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.

If Howe's peak numbers are influenced by Kelly then isn't reasonable to conclude that peak Beliveau's are influenced by Harvey and peak Hull's and Mikita's are influenced by Pilote's?

 

[daver]

I don't think the scoring rate of the league in itself tells us much at all, stats are meaningless without some sort of interpretive context. The (mostly implied) context in this case seems to suggest the earlier fifties were lower scoring than the later fifties and sixties because it was harder to score, I don't know if I buy that.

There seems to be a clear correlation between league GPG and the # of high end scorers:

In 47/48 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.93, there were 17 players (min. 40 games) that were 0.70 PPG or better and 12 players at 0.80 or better

In 48/49 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.72, there were 16 players (min. 40 games) that were 0.70 PPG or better and 7 players at 0.80 or better

In 49/50 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.73, there were 14 and 9 players

In 50/51 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.71, there were 15 and 8 players

In 51/52 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.60, there were 16 and 8 players

COMMENT: League scoring and scoring levels of the elite scorers seems to be on a downward trend after reaching unprecented levels during the war years. There is lots of U25s in the Top 10 scoring from '48 to '50.

In 52/53 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.40, there were 9 and 6 players

In 53/54 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.40, there were 9 and 4 players

COMMENT: League scoring and scoring levels of the elite scorers continue on a downward trend. Most of the elite scorers from '51 to '52 who are in their prime, see drops in their PPGs (Kennedy, Sloan, Gardiner, S. Smith). There isn't any particular statistical anomoly that explains the drop in league GPG. The Red Wings, and Howe, are not affected in 52/53 as they score as many goals as they did the year before. The Rangers and Habs score a lot less goals in 52/53.

In 54/55 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.52, there were 15 and 7 players

In 55/56 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.53, there were 16 and 8 players

In 56/57 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.69, there were 16 and 13 players

In 57/58 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.80, there were 21 and 13 players

In 58/59 - LEAGUE GPG- 2.90, there were 28 and 18 players

COMMENT: League scoring and scoring levels of the elite scorers goes up. There isn't any particular statistical anomoly that explains the rise in league GPG.

 

[jigglysquishy]

If Howe's peak numbers are influenced by Kelly then isn't reasonable to conclude that peak Beliveau's are influenced by Harvey and peak Hull's and Mikita's are influenced by Pilote's?

Of course.

It's not just getting extra help on the backend starting a play, but having less opposition in front of you.

That earlier generation were never allowed to cheat. You always had guys back, even at the detriment to the team's offense. But then you see the general trend towards cheating more. Harvey rarely does (it's his first pass and PP quarterbacking that gets him points), but Kelly does. Gadsby and Pilote cheat big time. It's just less defense to play against, especially for your top stars who are primarily going against these top pairings. The extra help obviously helps, but you are now going up against systematically weaker bluelines.

By the 70s most teams are cheating big time defensively to generate offense from the back end. Your top stars (Orr, Park, Robinson, Potvin) are good enough to compensate, but most aren't.

When comparing Howe 1955 to 1965 it is important to note he goes from having peak Red Kelly, the then greatest offensive defenseman, to Doug Barkley. Nothing against Barkley, but they are in different worlds offensively.