Ovechkin just won his 9th Rocket. Does this change how you view him?

[Kyle McMahon]

You sure went to great lengths to make a bad translation when Hart votes are directly comparable.

Harts
Ovechkin: 3
Bourque: 0

Hart Finalist
Ovechkin: 5
Bourque: 2

Hart top 6
Ovechkin: 7
Bourque: 6

Hart top 10
Ovechkin: 9 (will likely be 10 after this year, and counting)
Bourque: 8

So it's crystal clear that Ovechkin's peak curb stomps Bourque's peak, and Ovechkin's prime 10 seasons are better than Bourque's prime 10 seasons. So then it's a matter of if you think Bourque's bottom 10 seasons are a big enough difference maker relative to Ovechkin's bottom 5 seasons.

Hart votes are not directly comparable at all. Voting trends change over the years, and defencemen only get considered for the award if they have a truly spectacular season. High scoring forwards will always get lots of votes even if they're largely useless at other aspects of the game. Ovechkin's Hart in 2013 might be the weakest of all time. I'd rank that below many seasons of Bourque's career (and many seasons of Ovechkin's own career as well).

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Richard's playoff goalscoring is his only tangible achievement. In every other aspect Ovy has already left him in the dust.

Nothing crazy about comparing their retirements. It was a crazy premise to begin with.

Montreal wins 5 straight Cups in Captain Maurice Richard's final 5 seasons.

Doug Harvey becomes captain when Richard retires. Beliveau is still there, as is Geoffrion, Henri Richard, Dickie Moore, Jacques Plante, Tom Johnson, J.C. Tremblay Claude Provost. Toe Blake is still the coach. So basically all they lose is The Rocket.

In the 5 year Cup winning run, the Canadiens were shutout once. They were leading Boston 3-0 in the finals when that happened.

In 1961 Montreal falls to Chicago in the first round 4-2. Montreal is shutout in the last two games.
In 1962 Montreal falls to Chicago in the first round 4-2. Montreal is shutout in game 6.
In 1963 Montreal falls to Toronto in the first round 4-1. Montreal is shutout in games 3 and 5.
In 1964 Montreal falls to Toronto in the first round 4-3. Montreal gets one goal in Game 6, shutout in Game 7.

Four first round defeats in which they get shutout in the final game.With all that talent, they seemed to be missing something.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

You sure went to great lengths to make a bad translation when Hart votes are directly comparable.

Harts
Ovechkin: 3
Bourque: 0

Hart Finalist
Ovechkin: 5
Bourque: 2

Hart top 6
Ovechkin: 7
Bourque: 6

Hart top 10
Ovechkin: 9 (will likely be 10 after this year, and counting)
Bourque: 8

So it's crystal clear that Ovechkin's peak curb stomps Bourque's peak, and Ovechkin's prime 10 seasons are better than Bourque's prime 10 seasons. So then it's a matter of if you think Bourque's bottom 10 seasons are a big enough difference maker relative to Ovechkin's bottom 5 seasons.

Hart voting does not make Ovechkin the better player in their 10 prime seasons. Hart voting puts every defenseman (even Orr) at a distinct disadvantage against forwards. If we use all-star selections Bourque has the advantage.

One thing that is crystal clear is that there are no -35 seasons in Borque's career.

 

[K Fleur]

Since Orr's knees completely gave out 45 years ago only 5 different defenseman have been nominated for the Hart Trophy, with only one winner(Pronger)

Denis Potvin
Rod Langway
Mark Howe
Ray Bourque
Chris Pronger

 

[Hockey Outsider]

You sure went to great lengths to make a bad translation when Hart votes are directly comparable.

Harts
Ovechkin: 3
Bourque: 0

Hart Finalist
Ovechkin: 5
Bourque: 2

Hart top 6
Ovechkin: 7
Bourque: 6

Hart top 10
Ovechkin: 9 (will likely be 10 after this year, and counting)
Bourque: 8

So it's crystal clear that Ovechkin's peak curb stomps Bourque's peak, and Ovechkin's prime 10 seasons are better than Bourque's prime 10 seasons. So then it's a matter of if you think Bourque's bottom 10 seasons are a big enough difference maker relative to Ovechkin's bottom 5 seasons.

The problem with this is defenseman do much worse in Hart voting compared to forwards (so a direct comparison isn't likely to be meaningful).

To illustrate, here's the Hart trophy voting results of two different players (excluding any years where they have less than three votes):

• Player A - 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 19th
• Player B - 1st, 6th, 7th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 14th

On paper they look very close. In fact their placements are nearly identical except Player B won the Hart in his best year, while player A wasn't a finalist. Player A is a defenseman and was ranked 15th on the HOH list (Lidstrom); Player B is a forward and was ranked 32nd (Sakic). It's not because of things not captured in Hart voting (ie playoff performance, international play) because they're roughly equal in these areas. Granted, Lidstrom never had a season as good as Sakic's 2001 campaign, but a defenseman finishing 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th in Hart voting is much tougher and much more impressive than a forward finishing 6th, 7th, 7th, 7th and 8th - and that's reflected in our rankings.

====
Here's another example:

• Player C - 6th, 7th, 10th, 10th
• Player D - 3rd, 5th, 5th, 6th, 9th 13th
• Player E - 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 12th, 15th

Player C is clearly the worst player here, right? He was never a Hart finalist (never even in the top five) and only earned >2 votes four times. Player D had three years in the top five in voting; and Player E was a three-time finalist with six years earning >2 votes.

It's actually a trick question. Player C is the combined results of two defensemen ranked 41st (Chelios) and MacInnis (67th). Players D and E is one forward ranked 69th (Selanne) and another who came up in the final round of voting, but never made the list (Iginla). So the 38th and ~65th best forwards on the list have Hart voting records comparable to the combined results of the 11th and 21st best defensemen.

====
Or another quick one. Everyone knows Pronger was the first defenseman since Orr to win a Hart. But he only earned >2 votes once more in his career (finishing 16th in 2004). He was ranked 59th on the HOH list (yes, he has an excellent playoff resume, not captured in regular season awards voting).

Ryan Getzlaf is a very good, underrated player. He finished 2nd, 6th, 7th and 15th. Did he have a better peak than Pronger? What about Markus Naslund (2nd, 5th, 5th, 11th)? Or Claude Giroux (3rd, 4th, 4th)? Or John Tavares (3rd, 3rd, 13th, 17th, 18th)? None of these players received a single vote in the initial (Round 1) list, which included more than 200 players. Meanwhile Pronger is in the vicinity of Malkin, Forsberg, Bathgate, and Dionne.

It's trivial to provide more examples but the point is - comparing the Hart record between forwards and defensemen is obviously misleading.

 

[wetcoast]

Montreal wins 5 straight Cups in Captain Maurice Richard's final 5 seasons.

Doug Harvey becomes captain when Richard retires. Beliveau is still there, as is Geoffrion, Henri Richard, Dickie Moore, Jacques Plante, Tom Johnson, J.C. Tremblay Claude Provost. Toe Blake is still the coach. So basically all they lose is The Rocket.

In the 5 year Cup winning run, the Canadiens were shutout once. They were leading Boston 3-0 in the finals when that happened.

In 1961 Montreal falls to Chicago in the first round 4-2. Montreal is shutout in the last two games.
In 1962 Montreal falls to Chicago in the first round 4-2. Montreal is shutout in game 6.
In 1963 Montreal falls to Toronto in the first round 4-1. Montreal is shutout in games 3 and 5.
In 1964 Montreal falls to Toronto in the first round 4-3. Montreal gets one goal in Game 6, shutout in Game 7.

Four first round defeats in which they get shutout in the final game.With all that talent, they seemed to be missing something.

I think you are mistaking a coincidence as a causal factor here.


The thing is that Richard wasn't even a factor at all in the last 2 SC runs.

In 58-59 Richard plays in only 3 of the Habs 11 post season games and puts up a donut.

In fact the Habs won that SC with Beliveau playing in only 3 games as well but his line was 3-1-4-5.

In 60-61 Richard is a very distant 7th in playoff scoring having a line of 8-1-3-4.

Also Harvey was only with the Habs for one more season at age 36 before going to the NYR.

There a lot of reasons that Richard is a great player and an icon but the Habs not winning another SC for the first 5 years after his retirement isn't a very good or strong one.

 

[wetcoast]

You sure went to great lengths to make a bad translation when Hart votes are directly comparable.

Harts
Ovechkin: 3
Bourque: 0

Hart Finalist
Ovechkin: 5
Bourque: 2

Hart top 6
Ovechkin: 7
Bourque: 6

Hart top 10
Ovechkin: 9 (will likely be 10 after this year, and counting)
Bourque: 8

So it's crystal clear that Ovechkin's peak curb stomps Bourque's peak, and Ovechkin's prime 10 seasons are better than Bourque's prime 10 seasons. So then it's a matter of if you think Bourque's bottom 10 seasons are a big enough difference maker relative to Ovechkin's bottom 5 seasons.

Others have pointed out how fruitless this comparison is but it's also extremely unlikely that Ovechkin will be top 10 in Hart voting this year for at least a couple of reasons.

1) He really had a lousy year (compared to about 30 other guys who might get Hart votes) outside of a single metric of scoring goals.

2) He is second on his team in scoring to a Dman who has never received Hart votes before, and heck his best place Norris finish is only 4th to boot.

But no doubt when he fails to be in the top 10 for Hart voting you might look at a 3rd option right?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I think you are mistaking a coincidence as a causal factor here.


The thing is that Richard wasn't even a factor at all in the last 2 SC runs.

In 58-59 Richard plays in only 3 of the Habs 11 post season games and puts up a donut.

In fact the Habs won that SC with Beliveau playing in only 3 games as well but his line was 3-1-4-5.

In 60-61 Richard is a very distant 7th in playoff scoring having a line of 8-1-3-4.

Also Harvey was only with the Habs for one more season at age 36 before going to the NYR.

There a lot of reasons that Richard is a great player and an icon but the Habs not winning another SC for the first 5 years after his retirement isn't a very good or strong one.

Richard was still their captain those final two seasons. It had to help to have the greatest legend the game had ever known simply be present. Besides, in Richard's final season the Canadiens won all 8 of their playoff games, so The Rocket didn't need to do anything special.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Hart votes are not directly comparable at all. Voting trends change over the years, and defencemen only get considered for the award if they have a truly spectacular season.

That differentiates them from forwards none at all.

High scoring forwards will always get lots of votes even if they're largely useless at other aspects of the game. Ovechkin's Hart in 2013 might be the weakest of all time. I'd rank that below many seasons of Bourque's career (and many seasons of Ovechkin's own career as well).

You are entitled to your opinion. But in real life Ovechkin was quite excellent on a pretty bad and poorly coached team that year.

The 1980s had vastly less talent than today's NHL. Chances are slim that the several players each year who were better than Bourque were better than the best player in 2013.

 

[wetcoast]

Richard was still their captain those final two seasons. It had to help to have the greatest legend the game had ever known simply be present. Besides, in Richard's final season the Canadiens won all 8 of their playoff games, so The Rocket didn't need to do anything special.

But he wasn't even on the ice for 8 of the 11 games in 58-59 and in the regular season he wasn't even a regular player playing in 42 and 51 of the Habs 70 games.

I'll stick to the quantifiable stats rather than the idea that the Habs won those SC's in part due to the "greatest legend the game had ever known" as that really doesn't mean anything tangible does it?

I mean Wayne Gretzky coached in the NHL did it help his teams at all?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Others have pointed out how fruitless this comparison is but it's also extremely unlikely that Ovechkin will be top 10 in Hart voting this year for at least a couple of reasons.

1) He really had a lousy year (compared to about 30 other guys who might get Hart votes) outside of a single metric of scoring goals.

2) He is second on his team in scoring to a Dman who has never received Hart votes before, and heck his best place Norris finish is only 4th to boot.

But no doubt when he fails to be in the top 10 for Hart voting you might look at a 3rd option right?

I don't get the point about Carlson.

He was 4th in the league in assists this season. 12th in points. Most likely the Norris Trophy winner.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

But he wasn't even on the ice for 8 of the 11 games in 58-59 and in the regular season he wasn't even a regular player playing in 42 and 51 of the Habs 70 games.

I'll stick to the quantifiable stats rather than the idea that the Habs won those SC's in part due to the "greatest legend the game had ever known" as that really doesn't mean anything tangible does it?

I mean Wayne Gretzky coached in the NHL did it help his teams at all?

Talk about bad analogies....

Gretzky was a bad coach from day one. Comparing his impact behind the bench in Phoenix to Richard's impact in the Montreal locker room is really crazy.

 

[wetcoast]

I don't get the point about Carlson.

He was 4th in the league in assists this season. 12th in points. Most likely the Norris Trophy winner.

The point was partly sarcastic as MJ likes the voting results when he likes them but doesn't when he doesn't.

Calson is at least a finalist for the Norris and might even win it this year but Ovechkin was still behind him in points.

Heck even Ovechkin's 7th place finish last year ahead of Patrick Kane and Mark Giordano was a bit of a joke.

But then again we had the excellent Gretzky/Bure example you brought up earlier Hart voting results need to be critically examined and not taken at face value.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Hart voting does not make Ovechkin the better player in their 10 prime seasons. Hart voting puts every defenseman (even Orr) at a distinct disadvantage against forwards. If we use all-star selections Bourque has the advantage.

Hart selections are already generous to Bourque because the 1980s talent pool is vastly inferior to today's NHL talent.

Defensemen - at all levels of hockey - are going to have less talent than the forward groups. The vast majority of the best talents want to be forwards. That was always the case when I was growing up, and it certainly seems validated by the hype around prospects.

 

[Theokritos]

Hart selections are already generous to Bourque because the 1980s talent pool is vastly inferior to today's NHL talent.

Based on what?

 

[wetcoast]

Hart selections are already generous to Bourque because the 1980s talent pool is vastly inferior to today's NHL talent.

What specific seasons where the hart voters really generous to Bourque?

83-84 when his team mate Rick middleton was 4th and some guy named Bossy was 6th?

Do you really want to compare all of the top 10 Hrt selections between Bourque and Ovechkin?

It's not going to end well at all.

This has shades of another no so well thought out plan when you claimed Ovechkin was better than crosby in 18-19 by combining the regular season and playoffs for that year not realizing that Crosby has by far the better playoff resume overall right?

Defensemen - at all levels of hockey - are going to have less talent than the forward groups. The vast majority of the best talents want to be forwards. That was always the case when I was growing up, and it certainly seems validated by the hype around prospects.

The prospect hype is because forward prospects are %wise more likely to pan out there is no lack of talent there.

no one said "hey Ramus, Quinn and Cale you can't cut it at forward better go play on the back end".

 

[wetcoast]

That differentiates them from forwards none at all.



You are entitled to your opinion. But in real life Ovechkin was quite excellent on a pretty bad and poorly coached team that year.

The 1980s had vastly less talent than today's NHL. Chances are slim that the several players each year who were better than Bourque were better than the best player in 2013.

No Ovechkin had the luxury of lighting up the Southeast division in an unbalanced schedule in 12-13.

Here is his breakdown against the 3 divisions that year.

Atlantic 15-7-5-12 minus 5
Northest 15-9-6-15 minus 3
Southeast 18-16-13-29 plus 10

His 12-13 Hart (which he only won by 1090-1058 over Crosby who played in 3/4 of that seasons games BTW) is extremely weak and a result more from the schedule as evidenced by his 65 point season the year before than another weak year the year after.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Based on what?

Bourque's first year in the top 10 in Hart voting was 1984, and his last was 1994. The players with the most votes during that period (excluding Bourque himself) were Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Hull, Fedorov, Gilmour, Yzerman, Roy, Langway and Fuhr. I doubt there are many people who'd agree that group of players is "vastly inferior to today's NHL talent".

 

[Midnight Judges]

Based on what?

That's a bit of a tangent. Should be a separate thread.

International participation rates are a pretty good clue though - 41.9% Canadian this season vs 77% in the 80s.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Bourque's first year in the top 10 in Hart voting was 1984, and his last was 1994. The players with the most votes during that period (excluding Bourque himself) were Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Hull, Fedorov, Gilmour, Yzerman, Roy, Langway and Fuhr. I doubt there are many people who'd agree that group of players is "vastly inferior to today's NHL talent".

This is circular logic. Your assessment of those players is almost entirely based on their placements relative to each other and the talent that existed at that time.

Except this forum makes leaps to assert that Canada with a population of 11 million people put out just as much talent as today's 36M Canada plus the hockey playing population growth in a bunch of other countries. It defies logic.

 

[Midnight Judges]

The problem with this is defenseman do much worse in Hart voting compared to forwards (so a direct comparison isn't likely to be meaningful).

To illustrate, here's the Hart trophy voting results of two different players (excluding any years where they have less than three votes):

• Player A - 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 19th
• Player B - 1st, 6th, 7th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 14th

On paper they look very close. In fact their placements are nearly identical except Player B won the Hart in his best year, while player A wasn't a finalist. Player A is a defenseman and was ranked 15th on the HOH list (Lidstrom); Player B is a forward and was ranked 32nd (Sakic). It's not because of things not captured in Hart voting (ie playoff performance, international play) because they're roughly equal in these areas. Granted, Lidstrom never had a season as good as Sakic's 2001 campaign, but a defenseman finishing 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th in Hart voting is much tougher and much more impressive than a forward finishing 6th, 7th, 7th, 7th and 8th - and that's reflected in our rankings.

====
Here's another example:

• Player C - 6th, 7th, 10th, 10th
• Player D - 3rd, 5th, 5th, 6th, 9th 13th
• Player E - 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 12th, 15th

Player C is clearly the worst player here, right? He was never a Hart finalist (never even in the top five) and only earned >2 votes four times. Player D had three years in the top five in voting; and Player E was a three-time finalist with six years earning >2 votes.

It's actually a trick question. Player C is the combined results of two defensemen ranked 41st (Chelios) and MacInnis (67th). Players D and E is one forward ranked 69th (Selanne) and another who came up in the final round of voting, but never made the list (Iginla). So the 38th and ~65th best forwards on the list have Hart voting records comparable to the combined results of the 11th and 21st best defensemen.

====
Or another quick one. Everyone knows Pronger was the first defenseman since Orr to win a Hart. But he only earned >2 votes once more in his career (finishing 16th in 2004). He was ranked 59th on the HOH list (yes, he has an excellent playoff resume, not captured in regular season awards voting).

Ryan Getzlaf is a very good, underrated player. He finished 2nd, 6th, 7th and 15th. Did he have a better peak than Pronger? What about Markus Naslund (2nd, 5th, 5th, 11th)? Or Claude Giroux (3rd, 4th, 4th)? Or John Tavares (3rd, 3rd, 13th, 17th, 18th)? None of these players received a single vote in the initial (Round 1) list, which included more than 200 players. Meanwhile Pronger is in the vicinity of Malkin, Forsberg, Bathgate, and Dionne.

It's trivial to provide more examples but the point is - comparing the Hart record between forwards and defensemen is obviously misleading.

Also circular logic. You use the results of the top 100 players project to justify the logic used by the top 100 players project.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Also circular logic. You use the results of the top 100 players project to justify the logic used by the top 100 players project.

What I'm doing is showing that HOH has consistently ranked defensemen higher than forwards with similar (or even superior) Hart voting records. That's necessary, because forwards have a much easier time earning Hart votes. If we didn't do that, the project would have been heavily biased in favour of forwards.

That's why your Ovechkin/Bourque comparison was flawed. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison. That's obvious to anybody who takes even a cursory look at the data.

This is circular logic. Your assessment of those players is almost entirely based on their placements relative to each other and the talent that existed at that time.

We're not talking about Howie Morenz here. Many (most?) of the people posting here have actually witnessed some/all of Bourque's career (and therefore his contemporaries). I can confidently state that, at a minimum, Gretzky and Lemieux were substantially better players than anybody from the past fifteen years. Is this even debatable?

The top two players of Bourque's era are clearly better than the top two players of Ovechkin's era. Even if the next five or ten players in each era are close, how does this equate to Bourque facing "vastly inferior" competition, especially since the Hart votes are usually concentrated among the top few players in a season? Maybe the 12th best player today is better than the 12th best player in 1990 - but the 12th best player in any season isn't going to win the Hart.

For the record - you were the one who compared the Hart voting results between Ovechkin and Bourque. You brought that up - not any of the HOH regulars. When it was quickly demonstrated that it was a bad argument, only then did you start arguing that Bourque's competition for the Hart was inferior. That seems suspicious - if you actually thought that was true, why would you even make the Hart trophy argument in the first place?

Except this forum makes leaps to assert that Canada with a population of 11 million people put out just as much talent as today's 36M Canada plus the hockey playing population growth in a bunch of other countries. It defies logic.

Show me where "this forum" stated that Canada with a population of 11M produced as much hockey talent as the entire world today.

For the record - Canada had a population of 11M in 1937. If we look at the HOH Top 100 list, there were seven Canadians (plus one Russian) born in the 11 year period spanning 1932 to 1942. In the 11 year period spanning 1960 to 1970, the list had 19 players (11 Canadians, 3 Americans, 2 Finns, 1 Czech, 1 Russian, and 1 Swede). So the final product actually reflects the fact that the talent pool was both larger and more diverse compared to the Great Depression / early WWII era. If HOH treated that older, much smaller talent pool as being equal, this result would be impossible.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Also circular logic. You use the results of the top 100 players project to justify the logic used by the top 100 players project.

Better circular logic than no logic at all.

 

[TheClap]

We get too obsessed with rankings.

Ovechkin is the best winger of his generation.
No comparison across eras, no comparisons to other positions.

The end.

 

[Theokritos]

Your assessment of those players is almost entirely based on their placements relative to each other and the talent that existed at that time.

So you are seriously saying that the talent pool is so much bigger today that people who have watched hockey in the 1980s and who are watching hockey today and still rate e.g. Ray Bourque higher than the top defencemen today are just fundamentally mistaken?

Except this forum makes leaps to assert that Canada with a population of 11 million people put out just as much talent as today's 36M Canada plus the hockey playing population growth in a bunch of other countries. It defies logic.

That is a very misleading figure in the context at hand (1980s NHL vs today's NHL), which is pretty rich coming from someone complaining that others "type the untruth". The population of Canada in the 1980s was much larger: 24 million in 1980 and 27 million in 1989.

As for today, the population is even larger but it is also older than it has ever been before. If we consider the number of births in Canada (as done in post #174), then the Canadian talent pool today actually looks smaller than it was in the 1980s.

Live births in Canada per decade:
1951-1961: 4,468,000
1961-1971: 4,105,000
1971-1981: 3,580,000
1981-1991: 3,805,000
1991-2001: 3,641,000

That smaller pool shrinks even more when we take into consideration that the some of the immigrant communities who add to the Canadian population hardly produce any NHL players, if any at all. (Which too has already been brought up in this thread.)

According to the 2016 Census, 1.9 million people in Canada were of South Asian descent, 1.6 of Chinese descent, 0.8 million of Filipino descent, 0.3 million of other South East Asian descent, 0.2 million of Korean descent. Those communities added up to almost 19% of the entire population back in 2016 (it should be more now) and the number of NHL players from those communities can be counted on one hand.

I guess there is on you're right about: Canada doesn't put out just as much talent today as it did back then. It puts out less talent today.

Your other argument certainly has its merit. Countries other than Canada do contribute more players to the NHL talent pool today than in the 1980s.