Project time!

[Professor What]

I can agree with Friday.

 

[Vilica]

I got my votes in, ranking everything even though there's a few I wouldn't participate in.

I do have a question for people, about an updated sample. Using goaltenders as an example, the season cutoff for that project was 2011-12. So all the NHL goalie-seasons from 1917-18 through 2011-12 comprises a sample of X (and it doesn't really matter what sort of games played cutoff you use). Now, we have the new goalie-seasons between 2012-13 and 2023-24, comprising a sample of Y. Holding the games played constant between both samples, what percentage do people think that new sample Y comprises of the full sample X+Y?

 

[jigglysquishy]

I got my votes in, ranking everything even though there's a few I wouldn't participate in.

I do have a question for people, about an updated sample. Using goaltenders as an example, the season cutoff for that project was 2011-12. So all the NHL goalie-seasons from 1917-18 through 2011-12 comprises a sample of X (and it doesn't really matter what sort of games played cutoff you use). Now, we have the new goalie-seasons between 2012-13 and 2023-24, comprising a sample of Y. Holding the games played constant between both samples, what percentage do people think that new sample Y comprises of the full sample X+Y?

I know your theory on player seasons, but Y will comprise less than 10% of the list.

Lundqvist will rise
Thomas will drop

Price, Vasilevsky, and Hellebucyk will all be on the list and likely do well. Quick likely gets on too.

But we will have a pre merger goalie go top 10. And at least two more pre war goalies go top 20. And should have representation from every decade 1890s to 2020s.

 

[Professor What]

Lundqvist will rise
Thomas will drop

Price, Vasilevsky, and Hellebucyk will all be on the list and likely do well. Quick likely gets on too.

Quick will be interesting to me. I find him grossly overrated by some, but those same people would think I have him grossly underrated. I just don't see a lot of meat on the bone outside of 2011-12. I mean, yeah, when he was good, he was elite, but how often was he truly good?

Man, I'm looking forward to those discussions.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I'm going to try to send in my votes tonight, and if not tonight, then tomorrow (I realize that's past the deadline - hopefully that's okay, but understandable if it isn't). If they're not in by tomorrow night I realistically won't have time as I'm out of town the following two weeks.

(edit - I realize I haven't even updated most of my standard end of year threads - ie Hart and Norris trophy shares, all-time playoff results, etc - what a crazy year it's been).

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Please consider this my vote:

1. Hall of Fame (specifically, top HoF-eligible people not currently in the HHoF).
2. Position lists:
a) Defensemen
b) Goaltenders
c) Wingers
d) Centers
3. Best Peak/Prime/Season:
a) Season
b) Prime
c) Peak
4. Re-do top 100/200 list [split the difference- 150].
5. Builders
6. Teams
7. Fill in awards
(note- there is a Retro-Selke list out there... and a couple of Retro-Smythe lists. Re-doing especially the latter might be all right).
8. Women's list
9. Subset lists
10. Coaches. We really are pretty ignorant about this one. I thought that maybe I could learn something by looking to find coaches who outperformed their teams' Pythagoreans-- but upon reflection, I'm not convinced we end up at a sound destination if we start travelling down that road.

I'd likely seek to participate in the event of 1, 2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, 4, and 6. It'd be a coin-flip for 2d, 3b, 3c, and 5. Don't think I'd invest the time for 7-8-9-10.

 

[rmartin65]

I'm excited to move on to the next stage of the project today/tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who participated in this thread and voted, and big thanks are due to @seventieslord for tallying the votes!

 

[Professor What]

I hope we got a good number of votes.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Not sure if it's too late but I sent in my votes. I tried to balance two considerations - how much new ground is being covered, and how likely are we to get good levels of participation.

 

[Professor What]

Not sure if it's too late but I sent in my votes. I tried to balance two considerations - how much new ground is being covered, and how likely are we to get good levels of participation.

Well, I'm guessing you probably did get your vote in on time. I hope you will find time to participate. I think you're a valuable poster around here.

 

[seventieslord]

Results of the vote. We had 17 in total, including the late submission from HockeyOutsider and the one posted in this thread by ChiTownPhilly. In case anyone is wondering, VanIslander did not vote, of course.

Redo Positional Lists

8​

10​

8​

10​

10​

9​

9​

10​

5​

9​

5​

10​

10​

8​

6​

2​

9​

138​

Fill in old awards/all-stars

9​

2​

9​

9​

9​

6​

8​

1​

10​

5​

8​

5​

8​

4​

10​

4​

4​

111​

Redo 100/200/ update to 300

7​

5​

2​

1​

6​

3​

10​

8​

4​

6​

4​

9​

9​

5​

7​

1​

7​

94​

Teams

5​

7​

1​

3​

3​

7​

5​

5​

8​

7​

7​

6​

3​

9​

3​

9​

5​

93​

HOH HOF

6​

1​

3​

8​

7​

2​

6​

7​

9​

4​

10​

4​

6​

1​

4​

3​

10​

91​

Peaks/Primes/Seasons

4​

3​

6​

4​

2​

4​

4​

6​

6​

10​

2​

8​

4​

10​

1​

6​

8​

88​

Builders

1​

6​

10​

5​

4​

8​

3​

4​

7​

2​

6​

1​

2​

3​

9​

10​

6​

87​

Coaches

2​

4​

4​

6​

5​

10​

2​

3​

3​

3​

9​

7​

7​

7​

5​

5​

1​

83​

Subset lists

3​

8​

5​

7​

1​

5​

7​

9​

1​

8​

1​

3​

5​

6​

2​

7​

2​

80​

Women's List

10​

9​

7​

2​

8​

1​

1​

2​

2​

1​

3​

2​

1​

2​

8​

8​

3​

70​

The numbers, as you can tell, are "number of points received", not "placement on list", so a 10 means the idea was rated 1st on the list and 1 means 10th.

Redoing a positional list came out a clear winner, with a 27-point cushion over the next option - filling in old awards and all-stars. That option was 17 points ahead of the next, which is a lot, but also, just one point per ballot. Women came out last by a 10-point margin. And then there is the mushy middle, where 3rd place and 9th came out separated by just 14 points - fewer than one per ballot. 9th is nearly as close to 3rd as it is to 10th, while 8th actually is!

And, though the women's project lags behind them, it's not really by all that much. Give it a year, different people voting, another year of coverage of the PWHA, and it probably joins the pack.

We have a clear 2nd most popular option but from there, you add/remove a couple voters, a couple others have a change of heart/interest and these results can look drastically different.

But for the near future it looks like positional lists rule the day. My concern: did we just lock ourselves in for the next 4 years at the exclusion of everything else? It just feels like next year we'll just say "well, we did goalies, now it's time for defensemen", and so on. Is that what y'all voted on? or was your vote really just to choose what we do this year?

 

[jigglysquishy]

Well I'm okay revisiting in a year. Just because it's goalies this year, I don't feel we are 100% locked in to defensemen in 25-26, even if it's likely.

Who were the other beautiful people that voted highly on a women's list? I can see I was the only one that had it first.

 

[Professor What]

But for the near future it looks like positional lists rule the day. My concern: did we just lock ourselves in for the next 4 years at the exclusion of everything else? It just feels like next year we'll just say "well, we did goalies, now it's time for defensemen", and so on. Is that what y'all voted on? or was your vote really just to choose what we do this year?

I think that is a question, which is why I tried to lay it out that way when describing the options for the vote. I think it could go either way.

Who were the other beautiful people that voted highly on a women's list? I can see I was the only one that had it first.

I had it third. My top 2 went top 2.

Also, I guess we need to now decide which list we're going to take on. I know there's been a lot of goalie discussion, but do we want to do another ranked ballot to determine it officially?

 

[rmartin65]

Thanks for tallying and posting, @seventieslord . As for the two questions at hand-

1) I don’t think this vote necessarily locks us in for the next 4 years. If we do this list and we don’t get good discussion/new information and debate, then there is a very good chance that I’d campaign hard to do something else next project, based on that experience.

2) I think we should have another vote to decide which position list we address. By age of list defensemen should be up, but I personally think we should do the goalie list first, and I know others agree. That said, I won’t put up an argument if the project admins decide to just make a call and we go with that.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I think the only real options for positions are goalies and defensemen. I'm not picky either way.

 

[Professor What]

So, how are administrators going to be chosen? I know that both I and @Dr John Carlson have volunteered. The offer is still good on my end for sure.

As for which project to do, here's what I think personally:

Defensemen is the oldest, and thus most "out of date", but there are some guys (Makar, Fox, Hughes) that promise to make some big moves in the next few years. I think there would be some movement, but there's clearly a lot more to come barring disaster.

The goalie list seems to be regarded as the "weakest" list from some comments that I've been reading recently, and I do think it might see the most shuffling. I have to say that I'm particularly interested in seeing how some of the pre-merger guys might move, and other than Hellebuyck, I'm not sure I see that many guys that I think are likely to make big moves in the upcoming years, so this may be a chance to cement something for a while.

Centers would involve the single player that's going to make the biggest move, that of course, being McDavid. That would spark some conversation early on, but I'm not sure that it's enough to make me press for that position right now.

I think there's the least reason to do wingers right now. I just don't think it would see as many significant changes as the others, though I'd be interested in hearing arguments to the contrary, of course.

 

[ImporterExporter]

The trend in voting certifies what I've been saying.

If it does not involve players, it will never be examined on this board. The reason? Math. Most of the main posters here are numbers geeks (no offense intended, i find it fascinating to be completely honest, even if my understanding pales in comparison).

These projects are largely (at least post consolidation) centered around numbers. There are defined algorithms that certain people have come up with that makes it "easier" to quantify analysis and reach a conclusion.

It's "easier" to say player A had a VsX of X and player B was lower by 6.7 points so player A is a greater offensive performer over a certain threshold of time.

We see it with advanced studies that move the raw counting stats to adjusted based on numerous factors, those factors generally being numeric in nature.

@ChiTownPhilly post, coupled with overpasses weeks ago, pretty much summed up why these projects will never venture away from the players. We could redo lists 10 times over the next century and never move to other arenas.

And why?

Because there is no known mathematical avenue to explore beyond raw counting stats. There is no VsX for coaches. There is no adjusted save %. There are no real awards given to coaches beyond COTY and that particular counting stat only reaches so far back in hockey history.

Basically, with little to no math, there apparently cannot be any real consensus or analysis done to obtain legitimate results (ie, ranking people 1 through whatever). I find that to be a ridiculously narrow mindset. The idea that we can't come to a respectable conclusion for non-players is so foreign to me.

Sure, analyzing builders and coaches and teams would certainly require more focus and a deeper look into the breach, but to me, at this point of my life, seems to be the only real path worth taking as far as learning and expanding my own personal knowledge of this great sport.

I seek challenge and continuing down the same paths over and over again, is not that.

 

[rmartin65]

The trend in voting certifies what I've been saying.

If it does not involve players, it will never be examined on this board. The reason? Math. Most of the main posters here are numbers geeks (no offense intended, i find it fascinating to be completely honest, even if my understanding pales in comparison).

These projects are largely (at least post consolidation) centered around numbers. There are defined algorithms that certain people have come up with that makes it "easier" to quantify analysis and reach a conclusion.

It's "easier" to say player A had a VsX of X and player B was lower by 6.7 points so player A is a greater offensive performer over a certain threshold of time.

We see it with advanced studies that move the raw counting stats to adjusted based on numerous factors, those factors generally being numeric in nature.

@ChiTownPhilly post, coupled with overpasses weeks ago, pretty much summed up why these projects will never venture away from the players. We could redo lists 10 times over the next century and never move to other arenas.

And why?

Because there is no known mathematical avenue to explore beyond raw counting stats. There is no VsX for coaches. There is no adjusted save %. There are no real awards given to coaches beyond COTY and that particular counting stat only reaches so far back in hockey history.

Basically, with little to no math, there apparently cannot be any real consensus or analysis done to obtain legitimate results (ie, ranking people 1 through whatever). I find that to be a ridiculously narrow mindset. The idea that we can't come to a respectable conclusion for non-players is so foreign to me.

Sure, analyzing builders and coaches and teams would certainly require more focus and a deeper look into the breach, but to me, at this point of my life, seems to be the only real path worth taking as far as learning and expanding my own personal knowledge of this great sport.

I seek challenge and continuing down the same paths over and over again, is not that.

I guess this could be accurate for some, but I think you are overlooking a couple several less conspiracy-driven reasons why people don't want to do coaching-

1) Coaching doesn't interest (most) fans as much as players do. I don't buy a ticket to watch Mike Sullivan coach, I pay to watch Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. That isn't to say coaching isn't important to hockey- it definitely plays a large role in teams winning and losing. But a coach simply doesn't capture the fans attention like the players on the ice do. And at the end of the day, we are all just fans here.

2) Ranking coaches seems more challenging than players, and challenging doesn't always equal fun. As I mentioned above, this is a hobby for all of us. My base-level knowledge for coaches throughout history is pretty low in comparison to players. Do I want to spend the hours and hours (and hours and hours and hours and hours) it would take to get a somewhat decent idea of who is who over the last 140 years and rank them? Not really, not right now at least. With players I already have a good baseline, and I imagine a lot of others feel the same.

Finally, I think you are also discounting the fact that a lot of the coaching project would still be numbers driven. Wins, Cups, PO appearances, team record changes pre/post-coach, etc. There are a lot of numbers there, and I'm guessing that a coaches project would be citing these numbers heavily, just as much as the player projects talk about goals/assists/points.

I'd (probably) participate in an eventual coaches project, for the record. But I don't think you are characterizing the opposition to it fairly here.

 

[Michael Farkas]

If we don't challenge ourselves with not just settling for numbers-based arguments for players, we have no chance of making a good or interesting non-players list in the first place...

Goalies have the least reliable numbers, so it's a good chance to figure out how to think critically...

 

[seventieslord]

My opinion is that we should do goalies first. The reason is, I think that list will age better than any other that we do right now. Think of the active goaltenders who are going to make the list. I think for the most part they've achieved everything significant that they're going to achieve. Quick, Vasi, Bob, Fleury... Hellebuyck is still writing his story, but he's the only one. (And I realize that's a controversial thing to say about Vasi but whatever, come at me bro).

With defensemen, we have Makar, fox and Josi screaming up the all-time list right now. (McAvoy? Hedman? heiskanen? Ekblad? Power? Hughes?) With centers, there's a murderers row of McD, Leon, AM34 and Mac moving fast. Wingers too... Kuch, Pasta, Panarin, even Marner. And Rantanen.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I think we do coaches at some point. Life is too long to not do it eventually.

But I don't watch hockey for coaches. I didn't dream of being a coach as a kid. I didn't buy a suit and wear it to the game so I could look like Bowman.

 

[rmartin65]

So, how are administrators going to be chosen? I know that both I and @Dr John Carlson have volunteered. The offer is still good on my end for sure.

As far as I am concerned, you and @Dr John Carlson are the admins since you volunteered. I don't see any reason to put that up for any kind of debate or vote. If another person wants to volunteer to help out they can obviously be added, but there is no point in debating something that doesn't seem to be controversial in the first place.

 

[Professor What]

That being the case, I want to invite anyone that has worked as an admin in the past to touch base with any advice. I want to do it as well as possible and I'm not above gleaning from experience.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Sure, analyzing builders and coaches and teams would certainly require more focus and a deeper look into the breach, but to me, at this point of my life, seems to be the only real path worth taking as far as learning and expanding my own personal knowledge of this great sport.

I seek challenge and continuing down the same paths over and over again, is not that.

I had builders as my number one option, and coaches/teams somewhere near the bottom, so I'm in half-agreement with this, but only half.

For me the problem is this - with players, they make an on-ice impact and thus can be measured using on-ice metrics (this can be numbers, film, newspaper reports, etc.). Builders have an off-ice impact and thus can be measured using off-ice metrics (outside the box stuff... rule changes, league growth, player base growth, technological advancements, just to list a few of potentially many). Coaches are in a weird gray area where they make an on-ice impact that can't really be properly measured by on-ice metrics because there's too many variables that just aren't available for us to examine. We can look through ATD bios and see what each man did for his team, but how do you measure and compare that against others? Using numbers like wins and Cups doesn't do much for me, because is it the coach or is it the players? You'd need film to make that call, but that's where things start to come undone when there's so little of it for the first half of hockey history. And when you do have the film, can you trust that you're analyzing it correctly?

So, I totally agree on seeking out a challenge but I don't think coaches would be a meaningful challenge. Builders would be IMO, and a women's project definitely would be. I don't know if we have enough info to do a women's project at the moment though which is why I had it around the middle of my ballot.

Anyway, since the positional lists won, I agree that goalies should come first. I think there's a greater chance you learn more about the defensemen playing in front of a goalie in a goalie project than you learn about the goalies playing behind the defensemen in a defensemen project, so the goalie project ought to come first - I don't know if that makes sense in text but it does in my head.

My offer to run the project also still stands, so if @Professor What wants to work together then that's totally fine with me. I agree that a rundown from a previous admin on the backend work would be needed.

 

[sr edler]

Most coaching is pretty tangible and for the eye to see. Systems, personnel usage, how you react to various types of adversity, match up skills, et cetera.

Probably more so than hocus-pocus mind games going on in the locker room.

And conversely, I don't think you can always read everything in a player by just watching him play, as a lot of the time there's someone else (a coach) telling said player what to do and deciding on his usage.

As in all working relationships with bosses and seniority involved there are also grayscales or nuances. Mark Messier for instance, late career old-man Vancouver and (second stint) New York version, was essentially coaching himself and giving himself ridiculous ice time not very well deserved.