NHL Playoff VsX, 1918-2016

[MXD]

Jagr has been on Stanley Cup quality teams. OV has been the best on a team that hasn't even made the Finals once.

Put him with a Malkin and Letang (two guys on the list) and he would've had more success.

Seriously, the narrative that AO was on bad teams needs to stop...

Not many other players had the opportunity to play for for the 1st (twice), the 2nd and the 4th RS team. Well, other than Backstrom.

 

[bobholly39]

Seriously, the narrative that AO was on bad teams needs to stop...

Not many other players had the opportunity to play for for the 1st (twice), the 2nd and the 4th RS team. Well, other than Backstrom.

You're probably right. But still - this particular analysis would hurt Ovechkin because he played less games than probably anyone else on the list, having never made it past round 2. I'd assume almost everyone else in their top 5 playoff runs have at least 1 or 2 cup finals, and some more.

 

[MXD]

You're probably right. But still - this particular analysis would hurt Ovechkin because he played less games than probably anyone else on the list, having never made it past round 2. I'd assume almost everyone else in their top 5 playoff runs have at least 1 or 2 cup finals, and some more.

As it should.
Otherwise, it penalizes other players who played more games (by not accounting for things they actually did).

But my point was mostly that AO wasn't the bad teams the way, say, Andy Bathgate was on bad teams.

 

[bobholly39]

As it should.
Otherwise, it penalizes other players who played more games (by not accounting for things they actually did).

But my point was mostly that AO wasn't the bad teams the way, say, Andy Bathgate was on bad teams.

I mean - AO absolutely should be hurt by not going past round 2 in an overall playoff ranking.

But as far as I understand VsX is about comparing offense levels against peers and if that's what ur trying to do AO isn't necessarily that bad. It gets tricky with players who had way more team success and played more games and probably hurts AO quite a bit.

 

[MXD]

I mean - AO absolutely should be hurt by not going past round 2 in an overall playoff ranking.

But as far as I understand VsX is about comparing offense levels against peers and if that's what ur trying to do AO isn't necessarily that bad. It gets tricky with players who had way more team success and played more games and probably hurts AO quite a bit.

Again ... as it should. I can't exactly see why a mental adjustment would've to be made for... say, Anze Kopitar, who led his team, demonstrably worse than the Capitals, to the Stanley Cup Finals. Twice.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Again ... as it should. I can't exactly see why a mental adjustment would've to be made for... say, Anze Kopitar, who led his team, demonstrably worse than the Capitals, to the Stanley Cup Finals. Twice.

On the other hand, it rewards players on teams who lose 3 games every round, because players on teams who sweep have fewer games to run up their raw totals.

 

[MXD]

On the other hand, it rewards players on teams who lose 3 games every round, because players on teams who sweep have fewer games to run up their raw totals.

You're right.

On the other hand, I think we figured by now that all those VxS rankings need some context. Sure, a team winning the Cup in 18 games mean its players will play less games than.. say, the finalist who bowed out in 27 games (but chances are, you don't win the Cup in 18 games without some absolutely incredible individual performances, too). Gretzky being an obvious example, but there are others.

Hell, here's even an example from the O-6 : Ted Kennedy, 47-48. Sure, he might have had more points if the Leafs had won the Cup in 13 games instead of 9. But Kennedy producing like a madman is a reason why they didn't play that many games, and it's not like anyone would be omitting his 47-48 heroics when assessing Kennedy's legacy. Or at least I hope so.

Personally, I'm just happy 70ies came up with this. It's better than simply not having such a table.

 

[seventieslord]

Are there examples of players who frequently won shorter series who would look a lot better if they hadn't? (Keep in mind that you score about half as much in losses).

I'd just take it for what it is - it's cruel and unforgiving, and deliberately so. It's meant to show which players piled up a lot of good playoff runs, and the fact that a player who never once got to round 3 still manages to get to 168th demonstrates that there's more than one way to have a "good playoff run" - but winning absolutely helps. Pierre Turgeon even found his way to the bottom end of the list! (Mats Sundin and Henrik Sedin even missed out, as did Dale Hawerchuk)

Not every player is going to look good by every stat. Not even Gretzky. The top of the list, unsurprisingly, reads like a who's who of players with multiple memorable playoff runs and a history of not only winning lots, but being the reasons their teams won.

 

[MXD]

Are there examples of players who frequently won shorter series who would look a lot better if they hadn't? (Keep in mind that you score about half as much in losses).

Well, the 56-to-60 Habs played...
10, 10, 10, 11 and 8 games en route to the Stanley Cup. That doesn't affect them very much, since four of the players of those teams are in the Top-12 (though, in fairness, Maurice Richard isn't up there because of these seasons).

I guess Henri Richard could've looked better had they won in 12 games instead of 8 in 1960, but does it really matter, and is he producing at a 1.5PPG clip if they don't win in 8 games?

In the same wave, Doug Gilmour is a good example of the contrary (86,93 and 94) : Ended up losing in the 3rd round while being the best scorer of his team every time, sometimes by ridiculous margins. There are very good reasons to believe that Gilmour was the reason why his team played lots of playoffs games to begin with instead of... say, 3 or 4. Consquently, I see absolutely no reason to discredit him because he played a lots of games for a guy who bowed out in the 3rd round.

 

[seventieslord]

Highest scoring three players not typically talked about as top-100 all-time in this section/in the ATD:

Cournoyer, Malkin, Kane.

But with the latter two, it's just a matter of time/readjusting perspectives if they've perhaps quietly already gotten there.

Leaving Cournoyer as quite the outlier as far as playoff production goes. He's incredibly far ahead of his relatively unimpressive regular season record.

 

[steve141]

- I bet you thought Paul Coffey would come out #1 among defensemen here.

Who would have thought Coffey would be essentially tied with Lidstrom offensively in a comparison over their five best playoffs? I'm not sure what to make of that.

 

[VanIslander]

Leaving Cournoyer as quite the outlier as far as playoff production goes. He's incredibly far ahead of his relatively unimpressive regular season record.

History books repeatedly refer to his playoff heroics.

I drafted him in the ATD before and his regular season record was repeatedly thrown in my face, even in the playoffs thread, in the face of playoff game descriptions he had had.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Comparables

A recent conversation on this board got me thinking about a simple way to get a summary of a player's peak offensive contributions in the playoffs. We already have something like that for the regular season, of course - VsX - so I thought it might be helpful to whip up something similar for the NHL playoffs.

The methodology was the same - I just took the 2nd leading playoff scorer every season and used them as the benchmark, comparing the point totals of every player to that benchmark and expressing it as a percentage. In roughly a dozen of the past 99 seasons, I used the 3rd place scorer as he was still a significant degree behind 2nd (who deserved credit for distancing himself from the pack).

The downfalls to this system are obvious - first, in the pre-merger seasons of 1918-1926 it uses some extremely small samples (though this didn't affect much as very few players from this time made the cutoff). Also, I'm sure you can guess that, unlike regular season VsX (which is on an even GP playing field), it is hugely advantageous to be in the playoffs more often and to advance more often. But that's why they all play the game, isn't it?

One advantage to using "best 5 seasons" is that it stops a player from just "compiling" their way to a good score. You have to have at least one great playoff run to be able to make this cutoff and a handful of good ones.

So, here are the most prolific playoff scorers of all-time, based on their five best playoff runs from a point scoring perspective:

Not sold, especially when you have eras like the post consolidation to O6 with a combination of total goals, mixed bag of 3/5/7 games series and other similar situations.

Even in the post 1967 expansion era you have various quirks - 1976-79 Canadiens never had to play a preliminary round series so that is 8 minimum pad the stats games removed from the opportunity column. Also not having to face the Canadiens during the preliminary round skews the stats for opposing players.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Highest scoring three players not typically talked about as top-100 all-time in this section/in the ATD:

Cournoyer, Malkin, Kane.

But with the latter two, it's just a matter of time/readjusting perspectives if they've perhaps quietly already gotten there.

Leaving Cournoyer as quite the outlier as far as playoff production goes. He's incredibly far ahead of his relatively unimpressive regular season record.

Malkin and Kane should sooner or later be included in a Top 100 greatest players of all-time no? Malkin at least is almost a certainty based on his combination of great peak (especially if he keeps it up this year), being the 2nd best playoff forward of his generation and being generally underrated in the years where he missed 10-20 games due to injuries.His PPG scores in those years are still strong, consistantly in the Top 5-15.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Who would have thought Coffey would be essentially tied with Lidstrom offensively in a comparison over their five best playoffs? I'm not sure what to make of that.

Honestly, as good as Lidstrom was, it should be a bit of a red flag.

 

[threetimer*]

Jagr has been on Stanley Cup quality teams.

19 and 20.

At 20, he recorded his career best PS stats.

If I understand the math behind this, his third, fourth and fifth best years dumped in this cauldron were the ones where he played 12, 11 and 10 games.

Total number of games played during those five best years would make the stat a bit more meaningful, or would it.

 

[MXD]

19 and 20.

At 20, he recorded his career best PS stats.

If I understand the math behind this, his third, fourth and fifth best years dumped in this cauldron were the ones where he played 12, 11 and 10 games.

Total number of games played during those five best years would make the stat a bit more meaningful, or would it.

It's a "relative" numbers table.
In other words, it's according to his best seasons relative to his peers, and not "his" best seasons.

That means I'd be extremely surprised if '91 was even considered. Without really looking, I suspect that the "counted" years were five of '92, '95, '96, '00, '07 and '08, with PROBABLY '07 being left out.

His "best" year, table-wise, would almost certainly be '96.

 

[MXD]

Honestly, as good as Lidstrom was, it should be a bit of a red flag.

Depends. If Gretzky was considered an outlier, and thus not counted... Not really. With Gretzky not being an outlier, Coffey "gains" nearly a full 20 points... Even if Gretzky obviously had a huge effect on Coffey's production for that season.

I don't know exactly which choices 70ies made, so I can't speak for him.

I think the biggest thing in the table is how close Tremblay is to these two. He's not *very* close, mind you, but consider that, amongst his five years, there's AT LEAST two that are Pre-Orr (and possibly three), not to mention bolting to the WHA.

 

[threetimer*]

It's a "relative" numbers table.
In other words, it's according to his best seasons relative to his peers, and not "his" best seasons.

That means I'd be extremely surprised if '91 was even considered. Without really looking, I suspect that the "counted" years were five of '92, '95, '96, '00, '07 and '08, with PROBABLY '07 being left out.

His "best" year, table-wise, would almost certainly be '96.

Huh?

Not including total number of games played during those five peak years doesn't make much sense anyway.

Whether those peak years have been selected based on highest total or relative numbers is sorta irrelevant as in most cases, a player's best five years in total numbers will also be the best years relative to their peers.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Who would have thought Coffey would be essentially tied with Lidstrom offensively in a comparison over their five best playoffs? I'm not sure what to make of that.

Six-time finalist, but never played 20+ GP in a single run. That hurts him.

 

[MXD]

Six-time finalist, but never played 20+ GP in a single run. That hurts him.

Then again, it's a chicken-or-egg dilemma. Coffey playing that few games can at least partially be explained by its own performance.

 

[threetimer*]

Six-time finalist, but never played 20+ GP in a single run. That hurts him.

What hurts him is the fact he played alongside the highest scoring gang of all time. Had the Oilers' runs lasted a couple of games longer, he would still have got beaten by similar numbers / ratios anyways, at least by that one of his own teammates.

No?

 

[MXD]

What hurts him is the fact he played alongside the highest scoring gang of all time. Had the Oilers' runs lasted a couple of games longer, he would still have got beaten by similar numbers / ratios anyways, at least by that one of his own teammates.

No?

...And then again, there's no way Coffey puts up similar numbers if he's lining up with, say, the Flyers instead.

 

[threetimer*]

Then again, it's a chicken-or-egg dilemma. Coffey playing that few games can at least partially be explained by its own performance.

Huh? You mean he played so well it never took too long to grab the cup thus he cost himself a chance to pile up more points?

If that's even the minor one of the shortcomings of this stat, this stat is just a... stat.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Six-time finalist, but never played 20+ GP in a single run. That hurts him.

Those Oilers teams didn't need 20 games to win a Stanley Cup. That's how good Gretzky, Coffey, Messier, Kurri, and the criminally underrated playoff performer Anderson were in the playoffs. If anything that's something in his favour.