Just out of curiosity, because i value your hockey related input a lot, why wouldn't you pick Harvey over Chelios?
Thanks
Choosing an all-time team in any sport is a very tricky and inexact exercise. Are we basing it on their being the ‘best of their era’ approach or is the limiting/qualifying factor of these players respective era’s being ignored? By any objective metrics the athletes of today are bigger, faster and stronger than their counter parts of a century or even half-century ago. Athletes of today can run, jump and swim faster and higher than their predecessors. World records in sport and individual achievement are being broken every day.
In hockey, does anyone really believe that Aurele Joliat, who was a major star of his era (the 1920-1930s) and who was 5’ 7” and weighed 136 pounds during his playing career, could play in the NHL today? Or that the great Joe Malone, another major star in the 1920’s, who was never required to play more than 24 games a season in his NHL career, could even make an AHL team, let alone star in the NHL?
When I wrote that Robinson would be my first choice to play on the top pairing of all-time Canadiens ‘ dream team, I was speaking about assembling a team composed of players at the peak of their careers, regardless of their respective eras, who could compete today against other dream teams similarly composed. That would necessarily mean there would be very few of our old heroes on such a team. The vast majority of players prior to the 1970s simply were too small and too slow to compete against the more modern players. Similarly, you wouldn’t want the 1952 Rams to play against the 2024 Kansas City Chiefs. It wouldn’t be pretty. Frankly, any good college team today could beat a 1950s NFL team.
In my opinion players like Robinson, Cournoyer, Lafleur, Gainey etc. at their peak, could play and win today and probably would do so in thirty years from now. But the list of such transferable talent is very short. As for Harvey, I’m probably one of the few posters here who can say they saw this great defenceman play in person for the Canadiens in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s (before he was traded to the Rangers) and the somewhat sorry spectacle of a very diminished Harvey play for the St. Louis Blues in the 1967/1968 season. Heck, I’m old enough to remember shopping at Harvey’s Sport Store in Snowdon. The store was run by Harvey’s brother.
Harvey was a unique player as he largely broke the mold of the type of game/role defencemen were expected to play. He brought an offensive dynamic to the Canadiens’ game particularly on the power play. People have to remember how the game of hockey evolved. Kids in the 20s through the 60s when they first started playing the game were divided into 3 groups: the best skaters, the next best skaters and the non-skaters. The best skaters became the forwards, the weaker skaters became defencemen and the non-skaters were the goalies. This unwritten selection process did not deviate much and was largely adopted, without much argument or creativity, in higher levels of hockey. The best athletes were always forwards. Then came Orr, and the rest is history.
Harvey was different, he brought a level of creativity and positional strength that allowed him to be a main cog in the Canadiens’ dynastic teams of the 1950s. Harvey's unique level of play allowed him to win seven Norris Trophy’s over his long career. But Harvey was not a great skater. He had little speed and used vision, anticipation, positional awareness and puck skills to be effective. His limitations in skating speed would have almost certainly precluded him from excelling in today’s NHL as he did in his era, the 1950s.
Harvey, who passed away in 1989, was a tragic figure who apparently battled bi-polarity and alcoholism in his later life and endured the enmity of the NHL owners for his work supporting players’ right. He was a Hall of Famer and a great player on many levels. He was a warrior. He was a leader. He was a Canadien.
