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NYR Top 10 Centers of All-Time (Gauging interest in potential project)

Crease

Crease

Chief Justice of the HFNYR Court
Jul 12, 2004
24,760
27,696
What I would like to do is gauge the interest of posters on this forum in doing a Franchise Top 10 of All-Time project for each position (C, LW, RW, D, G), starting with Centers. The HOH forum has done versions of this project that encompass both NHL and non-NHL players from all eras. It is incredibly educating and always churns out interesting discussion and debate about the history of the sport. If there is enough interest, I think we can do one for our beloved franchise. I would be happy to serve as admin for the project.

The way it typically works is like this:

Phase I: Preliminary Discussion
In this phase, any poster can participate in the discussion. Any former or current Rangers center may be discussed. The purpose of the thread is to nominate and discuss the merits of player XYZ being included in the top 10 of all-time. Simple comparisons between players are permitted, but more detailed comparisons will wait until Phase 3 (Round 2 of Voting).

Phase 2: Round 1 of Voting
In this phase, after preliminary discussion, participants will submit a list of 20 former or current Rangers centers, ranked 1-20. All eras must be considered. Points will be awarded to players based on ranking. For example, each time a player is ranked 1st, they get 20 points. 2nd gets 19 points, 20th gets 1 point. An aggregate list of 15 centers will be generated based on the 15 centers with the highest aggregate point total.

Phase 3: Round 2 of Voting
In this phase, the top 8 centers from the aggregate list will be presented in a thread. Detailed debate and discussion will be allowed for a certain number of days before participants submit a ranking of top 5 centers among those 8. The remaining 3 centers from the first thread along with the next highest ranked 5 centers from the aggregate list will be presented in a second thread, where the debate continues. After a certain number of days, participants submit their votes for spots 6-10 on the all-time list.

I am very open to other suggestions as well. Thoughts?
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This thread will not serve as Phase I. This thread is simply to gauge if there is enough interest to open a thread for Phase I. Also this thread serves as a brainstorming session so that we can come to a consensus regarding the rules and procedures for the project.
 
Crease said:
This thread will not serve as Phase I. This thread is simply to gauge if there is enough interest to open a thread for Phase I. Also this thread serves as a brainstorming session so that we can come to a consensus regarding the rules and procedures for the project.
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Oh I see. Count me in, whether Brad Richards is allowed in the discussion or not :laugh:
 
Definitely a concept for our old timers around here when it comes to NYR centers. I've seen the likes of an old Messier, Nylander, Drury, Richards, Gomez and Stepan etc.

Yeesh. :laugh:
 
Of course. We are with you. Did something similar with a team-of-the-decade of the 2000's recently. (Not sure where the thread went, but regardless.)

I'd help out, if needed.
 
Posters old and young alike can make strong contributions to the project. It's not necessary to have seen a player in order rank him though it certainly helps. Strong research skills are most important. I think the average age for the Top 40 Goaltenders project on the HoH forum was around 30 with several voters in their mid to early 20s.
 
Crease said:
Posters old and young alike can make strong contributions to the project. It's not necessary to have seen a player in order rank him though it certainly helps. Strong research skills are most important. I think the average age for the Top 40 Goaltenders project on the HoH forum was around 30 with several voters in their mid to early 20s.
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I think if you haven't seen Frank Boucher in his prime, you shouldn't be a part of this.
 
If it knocks down some of these "player discussions" im in. Is it just me or since we started using titles a lot more of these "discussions" have popped up.
 
Frank Boucher is the greatest. I don't understand why his number isn't retired. Without him, we would only have 1 Stanley Cup.
 
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I'd love to do this.

Wouldn't hurt for me to learn my Rangers History.

Would there be specific requirements for a player to be an option? (years in New York?)
 
Count me in - limited time but will contribute what I can.

Rule proposals:

- Some sort of threshold for GP or seasons with the club to be allowed to be considered in the ranking. For instance: A guy like Pat LaFontaine. I loved him when he was here, but he only played one season with us (and only about 65 games during that season). Do we consider him, or no? I'd say no - but would be open to arguments either way.

- Only the player's play/time with the Rangers can be considered in the ranking. For instance, if we consider whole careers (i.e. when players played for other teams), Gretzky is easily the best player to ever play for the Rangers, but wouldn't necessarily be #1 on the list if we only consider his tenure with the team (not a knock against Gretz - he played pretty damn well with us for that point in his career).
 
Great idea. I would definitely participate. Gonna be tough to consider player from way back when though, I'm sure there aren't a lot of us on here well versed in the 1930s rangers.
 
Richter Scale said:
Count me in - limited time but will contribute what I can.

Rule proposals:

- Some sort of threshold for GP or seasons with the club to be allowed to be considered in the ranking. For instance: A guy like Pat LaFontaine. I loved him when he was here, but he only played one season with us (and only about 65 games during that season). Do we consider him, or no? I'd say no - but would be open to arguments either way.

- Only the player's play/time with the Rangers can be considered in the ranking. For instance, if we consider whole careers (i.e. when players played for other teams), Gretzky is easily the best player to ever play for the Rangers, but wouldn't necessarily be #1 on the list if we only consider his tenure with the team (not a knock against Gretz - he played pretty damn well with us for that point in his career).
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I think these two go hand-in-hand. We should only consider the player's time with the Rangers when ranking them. We want it to be All-Time Rangers and not All-Time Players Who Happened to Play for the Rangers.

So given that, the length of a player's tenure with the Rangers will be a factor in each player's ranking. The question then becomes, do we want to exclude certain players automatically due to too little games played for the Rangers? And where do we set that arbitrary line? I'm open to suggestions.

Panfork said:
Great idea. I would definitely participate. Gonna be tough to consider player from way back when though, I'm sure there aren't a lot of us on here well versed in the 1930s rangers.
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There is no scientific approach. Everyone has their own formula. Peak, prime, individual accomplishments, team accomplishments are the usual factors considered. Regular season performance vs playoff performance is also weighted differently by each voter. When comparing players from different eras, I think it's important to consider relative dominance. There are other approaches as well. I do want to emphasize that participants are expected to consider players from all eras. We're going to respect our history here. ;) This project is probably not for those who have experienced the "epiphany" and come to the conclusion that all players today are better than all players in history and make implications that guys like Jean Ratelle wouldn't be able to crack the Rangers roster today.

This project is as much about being educated as it is about educating others. The earliest memories I have of the Rangers are the 91/92 team. I'm particularly looking forward to learning more about those great 70's teams.
 
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Definitely interested. Wouldn't vote because I only started watching post-lockout, but I'd love to see input on some of the lesser know Rangers from the Original 6 era.
 
Glad to see a lot of interest here. We definitely have enough folks to proceed with the preliminary discussion of Rangers centers. A few questions before I set it up:

  • Preliminary Discussion Length: Do you think 2 weeks of preliminary discussion is sufficient or should we allow more time before partipants submit their Round 1 list?
  • Round 1 List Size: If the goal is to produce a top 10 list, does it make sense to produce a Round 1 list of 20 players? Or would a number like 15 suffice?
  • Quality Assurance: Should Round 1 lists be subject to evaluation by a volunteer or volunteers in order to ensure that the participant followed the spirit of the project? If yes, the submitter of a questionable list would be allowed an opportunity to justify their choices as well as correct any incidental errors and re-submit before we proceed to Round 2 voting.
  • Player Eligibility: Do we want to omit players who played less than X number of games or Y number of seasons with the Rangers? Or allow participants to factor that in to their rankings themselves? As of right now any player who spent a significant portion of their Rangers career at the center position would be eligible. Players would be judged based only on their hockey accomplishments as a Ranger. Accomplishments at his secondary position could be taken into account by participants at their own discretion.
 
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Yeah I'd absolutely love to do this. Great idea, Crease.

As others have mentioned, we need clear criteria for who is eligible. Like would people be voting for Pat LaFontaine? Because that would be silly. If we can agree to some reasonable eligibility restrictions, this will be really fun. You could make it that only guys who spent the equivalent of five full seasons, based on season length in their era, would be eligible. Something like that.

It will also be a good exercise in getting some of the youngins' to interact in a constructive way with the old timers. ;)
 
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