Players on Whom Public Opinion Has Changed Drastically Since Retirement...

[Gorskyontario]

It's a team sport.

You can say that Lafontaine's stats were inflated by Mogilny who converted a lot of his passes into assists.

Ok and that's fine, and obviously Mogilny had an incredible season that year. However people are comparing him to Selanne's 76 goal season without the context of their linemates.

 

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

Maurice Richard maybe ? Not so sure where the general public is too, those with an opinion is maybe similar to the 1960 public opinion, but that one where the romance, spectacle, overtime playoff clutch moments, winning could have influenced the opinion quite a bit and die off over time.

In the early 00’s the hockey news had Rocket ranked #5 all time, I don’t think he’d even be the first hab anymore, most rankings I’ve seen have at least Harvey and Beliveau sometimes Lafleur ahead of him.

 

[MadLuke]

Not sure how teammate dependant Selanne was as a player, he was quite the line driver-playmaker-making things happen.

No Kariya in 1998, 52 goals, Kariya in 1999 all year scoring 100 pts, he has 47 of them, affected his assist total obviously. But Housley/Olausson/Numminen-Zhamnov that maybe good enough for him to score goals nearly has much as he will outside an Gretzky-Lemieux situation.

 

[mrhockey193195]

Hasek-Roy-Brodeur to me would be analogous to Gretzky-Lemieux ... Ron Francis, or something.

I think we should give Brodeur more credit than that. Maybe Gretzky-Lemieux-Messier. There's no question that Brodeur is a top-10 goalie of all time, and likely top-5. There's also (in my mind) no question that he's behind Hasek & Roy.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Ok and that's fine, and obviously Mogilny had an incredible season that year. However people are comparing him to Selanne's 76 goal season without the context of their linemates.

I won’t argue Lafontaine wasn’t better than whatever Selänne had to work with, but besides Housley, he had Zhamnov, Tkachuk, Steen, Olausson and Numminen as major contributors to his production: that’s pretty solid. And Darrin Shannon, whoever that was.

Here’s a curiosity of unknown significance but I noticed Selänne never even once beat one of the post-season all-stars Belfour or Barrasso that season, nor did he score against Roy. Mogilny also didn’t score against Barrasso, but he netted four times on Roy and once on Belfour.

Edit: I’m aware Mogilny would have had more opportunities to score on Roy and Barrasso, just thinking out loud about the quality of competition.

 

[Frank Cannon PI]

I won’t argue Lafontaine wasn’t better than whatever Selänne had to work with, but besides Housley, he had Zhamnov, Tkachuk, Steen, Olausson and Numminen as major contributors to his production: that’s pretty solid. And Darrin Shannon, whoever that was.

Here’s a curiosity of unknown significance but I noticed Selänne never even once beat one of the post-season all-stars Belfour or Barrasso that season, nor did he score against Roy. Mogilny also didn’t score against Barrasso, but he netted four times on Roy and once on Belfour.

Edit: I’m aware Mogilny would have had more opportunities to score on Roy and Barrasso, just thinking out loud about the quality of competition.

Selanne's rookie season certainly meant more to Winnipeg, than what Moligny's 1992-93 meant for Buffalo.

I'm a huge Selanne fan - I grew up a Jets fan - but I don't think Moligny took a backseat to Selanne that year. It was never lost on me that Mogilny played 7 less games that year, and most definitely would have passed him in points in 1992-93 (no question really).

Mogilny's skill set complimented LaFontaine's style of play as good as anyone could have, and I'm not sure that Selanne would have been able to replicate his production playing with LaFontaine; though the power play with LaFontaine and Hawerchuk would have been interesting. I've said this before - and recently - but LaFontaine gets almost all of the credit in that marriage, but they both played equal parts IMO. It's not like LaFontaine had a reputation of lifting up guys to their highest level of play, in the years leading up to playing with Mogilny.

At the same time, Housley was absolutely perfect with his stretch passes to Selanne, who had explosive speed his rookie season. Not to say Selanne wasn't fast in subsequent seasons, but his speed was never quite the same as it was in his inaugural season. Housley suited Selanne's style of play better than anyone else that he played with (Paul Kariya included). I was thinking who would have been better playing with Gretzky or Lemieux, Mogilny or Selanne? And I think it's Selanne, even though I believe Mogilny had a greater all-around skillset. But in the case of playing with LaFontaine, Mogilny (IMO) would perform the best out of the guys that played in the league at that time.

I never found that Numminen had much chemistry with Selanne. One would assume that they'd be best friends on the team, but I don't think that was the case.

I really liked Darrin Shannon. It's one of Mike Smith's best trades.

 

[MXD]

1992-1993 perhaps?

Tied for most goals amongst wingers (and in the NHL as a whole)
Best GPG in the league and best PPG for wingers.

That's not being the best winger in the World. That's a spike season.

 

[reckoning]

The first all-time lists I can remember was in The Hockey News in the summer of 1983 as part of their Top Ten issue. It was a ranking of the top 10 in various categories, mostly among current players at the time, but a few all-time lists as well.

It says it was a poll of over 150 past and present players, coaches, GM's, writers and broadcasters, but no more details than that.

Top 10 Goalies
1. Terry Sawchuk
2. Glenn Hall
3. Bernie Parent
4. Ken Dryden
5. Jacques Plante
6. Johnny Bower
7. Tony Esposito
8. Gerry Cheevers
9. Bill Durnan
10. Turk Broda

The big three O6 goalies were before my time, but it seemed growing up in the 70s and learning more about hockey history in the 80s, that Sawchuk was considered the best. Now it's not so certain, Plante finished ahead if Sawchuk in the last HOH Goalies list. But in 1983 Sawchuk had been firmly entrenched at #1 on the all-time wins and shutouts lists for some time. Now that other recent goalies had surpassed his numbers, that doesn't have an effect on observers.

Bernie Parent is much higher than he would be today. I guess those back-to-back Conn Smythe's were still fresh in everyone's mind.

But the big change is Gerry Cheevers. He didn't even make the most recent top 50 goalies list. He was actually rated lower than several of his contemporaries from his era like Worsley, Vachon and Smith.


Top 10 All-Time Defencemen
1. Bobby Orr
2. Doug Harvey
3. Tim Horton
4. Eddie Shore
5. Red Kelly
6. Denis Potvin
7. Larry Robinson
8. Pierre Pilote
9. Harry Howell
10. Brad Park

Horton and Howell are the ones who have dropped the most. On HOHs top 60 defencemen list, Horton was #17 and Howell didn't make the list. All I can come up with is that maybe it's because they were primarily defensive defencemen. Those types of players usually come up short at awards time, so their trophy cases are on the light side. But many of the voters at the time would have seen them play over the course of their carers and considered them to be the best defensively.


Top 10 All-Time Forwards
1. Gordie Howe
2. Jean Beliveau
3. Wayne Gretzky
4. Bobby Hull
5. Maurice Richard
6. Phil Esposito
7. Stan Mikita
8. Guy Lafleur
9. Marcel Dionne
10. Mike Bossy

It was mentioned earlier that Espositos stature has dropped significantly, but I don't think it has. He was never considered equivalent to Howe or Hull. Most people felt his high points totals were helped by peaking in the expansion era when scoring was starting to take off. Excluding recent players, there's only four forwards higher than him on the last HOH list who aren't here. Two are Mikita and Lafleur, just ahead of him on HOH, just behind him on this one. The other two are Morenz and Nighbor, but I view that as the board here giving proper consideration to the earlier eras.

It bothers me that these THN lists only have one pre-Original 6 player on them. It would be the equivalent of somebody making an all-time list today and only having one player before 1980 on it. Recency bias and dismissing anything that happened before you started watching hockey is not a new phenomenon.

The big drop on this list is Marcel Dionne. Today he would not stand a chance at getting rated ahead of Clarke, Trottier or Bossy. His playoff record gets a lot of flak today, but at the time the perception was that he was unfortunate to be stuck on bad teams.

 

[MadLuke]

That's not being the best winger in the World. That's a spike season.

But before Jagr and after Hull, that title was a bit open, but I would say simply too much to name one, there was no one walking around with the best winger in the world belt in 1993....

 

[The Panther]

The first all-time lists I can remember was in The Hockey News in the summer of 1983 as part of their Top Ten issue. It was a ranking of the top 10 in various categories, mostly among current players at the time, but a few all-time lists as well.

It says it was a poll of over 150 past and present players, coaches, GM's, writers and broadcasters, but no more details than that.

Top 10 Goalies
1. Terry Sawchuk
2. Glenn Hall
3. Bernie Parent
4. Ken Dryden
5. Jacques Plante
6. Johnny Bower
7. Tony Esposito
8. Gerry Cheevers
9. Bill Durnan
10. Turk Broda

The big three O6 goalies were before my time, but it seemed growing up in the 70s and learning more about hockey history in the 80s, that Sawchuk was considered the best. Now it's not so certain, Plante finished ahead if Sawchuk in the last HOH Goalies list. But in 1983 Sawchuk had been firmly entrenched at #1 on the all-time wins and shutouts lists for some time. Now that other recent goalies had surpassed his numbers, that doesn't have an effect on observers.

Bernie Parent is much higher than he would be today. I guess those back-to-back Conn Smythe's were still fresh in everyone's mind.

But the big change is Gerry Cheevers. He didn't even make the most recent top 50 goalies list. He was actually rated lower than several of his contemporaries from his era like Worsley, Vachon and Smith.


Top 10 All-Time Defencemen
1. Bobby Orr
2. Doug Harvey
3. Tim Horton
4. Eddie Shore
5. Red Kelly
6. Denis Potvin
7. Larry Robinson
8. Pierre Pilote
9. Harry Howell
10. Brad Park

Horton and Howell are the ones who have dropped the most. On HOHs top 60 defencemen list, Horton was #17 and Howell didn't make the list. All I can come up with is that maybe it's because they were primarily defensive defencemen. Those types of players usually come up short at awards time, so their trophy cases are on the light side. But many of the voters at the time would have seen them play over the course of their carers and considered them to be the best defensively.


Top 10 All-Time Forwards
1. Gordie Howe
2. Jean Beliveau
3. Wayne Gretzky
4. Bobby Hull
5. Maurice Richard
6. Phil Esposito
7. Stan Mikita
8. Guy Lafleur
9. Marcel Dionne
10. Mike Bossy

It was mentioned earlier that Espositos stature has dropped significantly, but I don't think it has. He was never considered equivalent to Howe or Hull. Most people felt his high points totals were helped by peaking in the expansion era when scoring was starting to take off. Excluding recent players, there's only four forwards higher than him on the last HOH list who aren't here. Two are Mikita and Lafleur, just ahead of him on HOH, just behind him on this one. The other two are Morenz and Nighbor, but I view that as the board here giving proper consideration to the earlier eras.

It bothers me that these THN lists only have one pre-Original 6 player on them. It would be the equivalent of somebody making an all-time list today and only having one player before 1980 on it. Recency bias and dismissing anything that happened before you started watching hockey is not a new phenomenon.

The big drop on this list is Marcel Dionne. Today he would not stand a chance at getting rated ahead of Clarke, Trottier or Bossy. His playoff record gets a lot of flak today, but at the time the perception was that he was unfortunate to be stuck on bad teams.

These lists are really interesting. The thing that gives me pause with these, however, is that the poll description suggests they were asking "present players", which I think would tend to skew this a lot. In 1983, most players were in their teens and twenties, and the farthest back any player (except maybe Brad Park) could remember was about 1964. I wonder if that is why the result has Tim Horton above Eddie Shore, for example. (Would be interesting to know how many "present players" were polled from the total.)

Just like today, if they polled players on the greatest defencemen of all time, and the oldest person asked was, say, Connor McDavid (age 28), how many are going to think of Red Kelly or Denis Potvin or Pierre Pilote, let alone Eddie Shore? Today's players' memories go back to about 2008.

It's also interesting that Gretzky is already listed 3rd among forwards, and this is before he'd ever won the Stanley Cup (or Canada Cup). A year later, Stan Fischler (Mr. 'Anti-Oilers') published his Hockey's 100 book (right after the Oilers' first Cup), and he ranked Gretzky 10th, which drew considerable flack at the time. Oddly, it seems like in 1983, when championships were "easier" to get (smaller League), the coaches / GMs / players considered championships less important in a player's all-time ranking than most fans do today (now that it's much harder to win).

 

[wetcoast]

Ive made the point before that the worst thing to happen to Esposito's reputation wasn't Orr, it was Gretzky.

Esposito went out and shattered season records for goals and points by 30% and set monster records for a timeframe (first to score 1000 pts in a 10 year span, etc).

What hurt him was how quickly his records were erased. A few years after he's done Gretzky comes along and shatters them all again. He didnt get the benefit of his records standing for a few decades so that people could wax poetic about them, build up the legend of them, etc. He wasn't the gold standard long enough to become part of lore, things like 76 goals and 152 points didnt get enough time as the bar the way Howe's and Gretzky's records did. That's how his historical place has dropped so much IMO

I think the worst thing to happen to Espositio was himself and the older guy he was traded for in Ratelle.

he is just one of those polarizing players like Coffey, EK65 and Jagr to some extent.

Came here to say Firsov at least in North American context and Nieds here on these boards but in different directions.

 

[Crosby2010]

The first all-time lists I can remember was in The Hockey News in the summer of 1983 as part of their Top Ten issue. It was a ranking of the top 10 in various categories, mostly among current players at the time, but a few all-time lists as well.

It says it was a poll of over 150 past and present players, coaches, GM's, writers and broadcasters, but no more details than that.

Top 10 Goalies
1. Terry Sawchuk
2. Glenn Hall
3. Bernie Parent
4. Ken Dryden
5. Jacques Plante
6. Johnny Bower
7. Tony Esposito
8. Gerry Cheevers
9. Bill Durnan
10. Turk Broda

Wow, even back then Broda was underrated. I think you can flirt with him being a top 10 goalie today let alone the list made in 1983.

In the early 00’s the hockey news had Rocket ranked #5 all time, I don’t think he’d even be the first hab anymore, most rankings I’ve seen have at least Harvey and Beliveau sometimes Lafleur ahead of him.

Beliveau, Richard and Harvey all were ranked high in the THN list in 1998. Richard was #5 all-time. Personally I take Beliveau, and there are some who would argue Harvey, but either way all three are close to one another. But no way is Lafleur ahead of any of them. His last great year he was 28. Didn't do much in his 30s to move the needle. As far as clutch scoring, while Lafleur was money in the bank in those 4 Cup years and even in 1975, he didn't do much in the playoffs outside of that. I would say in 1980 with Montreal losing it just goes to show you how much they missed Lafleur since he was injured, but he simply doesn't have the staying power of the Rocket.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

These lists are really interesting. The thing that gives me pause with these, however, is that the poll description suggests they were asking "present players", which I think would tend to skew this a lot. In 1983, most players were in their teens and twenties, and the farthest back any player (except maybe Brad Park) could remember was about 1964. I wonder if that is why the result has Tim Horton above Eddie Shore, for example. (Would be interesting to know how many "present players" were polled from the total.)

Just like today, if they polled players on the greatest defencemen of all time, and the oldest person asked was, say, Connor McDavid (age 28), how many are going to think of Red Kelly or Denis Potvin or Pierre Pilote, let alone Eddie Shore? Today's players' memories go back to about 2008.

It's also interesting that Gretzky is already listed 3rd among forwards, and this is before he'd ever won the Stanley Cup (or Canada Cup). A year later, Stan Fischler (Mr. 'Anti-Oilers') published his Hockey's 100 book (right after the Oilers' first Cup), and he ranked Gretzky 10th, which drew considerable flack at the time. Oddly, it seems like in 1983, when championships were "easier" to get (smaller League), the coaches / GMs / players considered championships less important in a player's all-time ranking than most fans do today (now that it's much harder to win).

I wouldn't say it was easier to win championships in 1983.

In the 8 seasons from 1976-1983 only two different teams won the Cup.

 

[carjackmalone]

I think the worst thing to happen to Espositio was himself and the older guy he was traded for in Ratelle.

he is just one of those polarizing players like Coffey, EK65 and Jagr to some extent.

Came here to say Firsov at least in North American context and Nieds here on these boards but in different directions.

How would of Phil Esposito legacy stood if he never was GM in New York and morphed into Trader Phil?

 

[wetcoast]

How would of Phil Esposito legacy stood if he never was GM in New York and morphed into Trader Phil?

I can separate the player from the management side so it has zero impact for me.

For me Phil is Mario lite in that his overall impact is lesser than his video game stats would indicate but others don't agree and I get that.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

if we count from mario’s first retirement, it might be him

a long self-quote—

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ok here's mario's all time reputation, as i remember it. i think my caveat here is there is some truth to the suggestion by the pittsburgh fan in the other thread that we often don't quite acknowledge the magnitude of what we're watching in the moment, so we can be slow to declare a guy among the highest echelon of players, even if retroactively it's easier to see that by xxx year he was one of the greats.​

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after the '91 cup, zero people considered mario in the league of orr, gretzky, howe, or richard. yes that was an unbelievable playoff run and yes it was the second highest playoff scoring total of all time, but he didn't crack two points/game. gretzky cracked 2.25 points/game in three cup runs, and did it two other times in shorter runs. mario just happened to need more games to win the cup. but also, it was just his first cup and we'd just seen gretzky win four in five years and before that lafleur win four in a row.​

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but most importantly, his scoring pace in the two regular seasons after 1989 were way off a 200 point pace. "just" a 160-odd point pace for mario was not going to move the needle. there were questions about whether 199 was a career year spike, not a level he actually could sustain. again, remember that the world had just seen gretzky put together a six year run of 212, 196, 205, 208, and 215 points.​

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after the '92 cup, people were talking dynasty and now it was on the table that mario could be in the greatest of the great level. operative word is could. it was on the table, he hadn't gotten there yet. his scoring pace in those playoffs was bananas and he showed that he could score at roughly the level of gretzky's second or third best playoff run. on the other hand, he missed most of the series against the presidents trophy winners and his team won anyway, so that left a question mark.​

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going into the '93 playoffs, i think people were close on mario entering the highest level. part of that was the excitement and dramatic finish of him coming back from cancer to reclaim the scoring race. and part of it was he was legitimately scoring at a peak gretzky pace. 92 goals and 213 points over 80 games.​

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but then they were eliminated and there was no dynasty. if he'd won that cup, i think that would have sealed it for a lot of people, he was one of the big boys. but he didn't, and then he was mostly gone for two years. in all that time, between the islanders loss and the '96 season, i don't remember anyone suggesting that mario's body of work could be spoken in the same breath as orr, gretzky, or howe. you have to remember that he'd played ten seasons in the league and had only been to the playoffs five times. his resume felt extremely incomplete.​

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then '96 happens and there's excitement again that he could resume this greatest of the greats career. jordan's comeback happening at the same time gave people a natural parallel, and the jordan hype, with space jam and the 72 win season, was at an all time high.​

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and then he didn't hold that level, or even close, in the '97 season and excitement waned. then he was gone and you kind of looked at his career and were like, okay well that was weird right? this is a guy who came in as potentially the greatest ever and there were several times when it looked like he could take a real shot at it, but there were so many stops and starts and so many disappointments where he fell off (again, fell off is relative to the consistency of gretzky scoring 200 five out of six years, or bobby orr's six straight 100 point seasons—to this day, surpassed only by gretzky). i think just based on bonkers scoring a lot of people had him number four but i don't think it would have crossed too many people's minds to say "big four."​

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that changed in a big way when he came back the second time. part of it was the game needed him, because it was boring af. all the mario negativity was forgotten when he came back because we (and i'm including myself, as a career-long mario non-fan) realized how much we missed him, though that was exaggerated somewhat by the total dearth of anything to care about in december of 2000. jagr dying alive, lindros is over, bure, kariya, selanne, and forsberg all outside of the top 30 in scoring. look at the top ten on the day before mario came back—34 year old luc robitaille is 4th in the league, 36 year old brett hull and post-vancouver messier are tied for 9th. donald audette, who i literally didn't know was still in the league anymore until he caught on with atlanta, was 7th in scoring. but when we watched mario and the rejuvenated jagr, watching hockey was fun again. it really was a breath of fresh air.​

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two things basically saved the NHL from total extinction that year: mario's comeback and ray bourque winning the cup. if those two things hadn't happened, we probably would have seen a tape delayed 2002 finals. this was capped off by the olympics the next year, which also played a big part in keeping the NHL just barely on the right side of total annihilation and oblivion.​

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in retrospect, none of those second comeback accomplishments really should have added anything to mario's all time legacy, at least relative to orr, gretzky, and howe. but they absolutely did. 2002 team canada captain mario was like the old man jagr that we suddenly liked and admired, but multiplied by a hundred. mario comes back to save team, mario brings the gold medal back to canada, smiles and good vibes all around. and if you think about it, in those years he did save the league too, which is a big check mark for his legacy, even if he had tens of millions of dollars he also needed to save from vanishing into thin air.​

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and here we are.​

but a lot of other stuff in the thread this is quoted from is relevant to this thread