RANK! Better Career: Bourque vs Lidstrom vs Coffey vs Stevens

[Dennis Bonvie]

Nothing personal.

I just watched 3/4 of his career and felt like he got a free pass when it came to the postseason.

If you're a superstar and an MVP in the regular season, you should replicate that production in the postseason.

Bourque was a great teammate, ambassador and leader, and he was loved in Boston. I think because of that, his decline in skills were overlooked and he was given a free pass a lot of nights.

While I agree some stars deserve Mulligans, I felt Bourque should have elevated his game in the postseason.

To his credit, he had some benchmark performances but I felt after 1990 he was pretty average for his standards.

That's a lot to ask of a player that carries his team on his shoulders for the whole regular season.

When playing with a very good team as a 40 year-old, his skills still seemed to be pretty good. Good enough to be a first team all-star while playing more minutes than any other player in the league that season (playoffs included).

 

[Fugu]

Yeah, that's it. Lidstrom made Scotty Bowman.

Do you put any stock into Bowman's assessment of players?

I thought some of you might appreciate this article:

Red Wings' ageless wonder Lidstrom still special

I think Scotty Bowman's quotes stick out especially:

"Pre-expansion, nobody was as good as Doug Harvey,'' says Scotty Bowman, who coached Harvey, Larry Robinson, Coffey and Lidstrom during his unparalleled career. "Then Orr came along in '66 and changed the game. But Nick . . . look at all the trophies. He's been at the top for so long."

"As to who's the best ever . . . it's tough to rate this guy here and that guy there. I will say I don't rate anyone AHEAD of Lidstrom, though.''

http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2008/02/babcock_pushes_lidstrom_for_ha.html

Babcock pushes Lidstrom for Hart

by Ansar Khan Monday February 04, 2008, 5:04 PM


Wings coach Mike Babcock is doing some serious lobbying for Nicklas Lidstrom to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP.
Here's what he said about him after practice Monday: "I'm going to just do some lobbying here. When Schneids (Mathieu Schneider) came here, he played with Nick and had the best year he's ever had. When (Andreas) Lilja came here, he had a career year. When (Danny) Markov came here, career year. When (Brian) Rafalski comes here, he's having a career year.
"This team wins all the time. To me the best player, what he does is he makes people around him better. I don't know how you can be the best player in the league if your team isn't it. That's what the best player does.
"To me, I think he's the best player in the league. He does it right. He's the most consistent.
If you look at the top scoring defenceman in the league he's there. He's got better plus-minus than anyone else. I don't know how it cannot be him.''

 

[Sens Rule]

Nothing personal.

I just watched 3/4 of his career and felt like he got a free pass when it came to the postseason.

If you're a superstar and an MVP in the regular season, you should replicate that production in the postseason.

Bourque was a great teammate, ambassador and leader, and he was loved in Boston. I think because of that, his decline in skills were overlooked and he was given a free pass a lot of nights.

While I agree some stars deserve Mulligans, I felt Bourque should have elevated his game in the postseason.

To his credit, he had some benchmark performances but I felt after 1990 he was pretty average for his standards.

How dare he age!!!!! What was he thinking? Not being quite as good in his mid-30's as he once was! I mean he was still among the best D in the world... but not the Defacto best. He had some weaker games!!!! I demand my money back as a fan! I expected 1987-1990 Bourque to play at that level until he was 40!

 

[Hockey Outsider]

WHAT WAS SAID AND WHAT WAS PROVEN WAS...despite Lidstrom's defensive game, despite Bourque playing more in a higher scoring Era, Bourque was STILL better at keeping the puck out of his own net than Lidstrom was.
That Bourque's puck possession and ability to control a game was more effective defensively over-all than Lidstrom's defensive play was.

Here's an update of an old post that I made:

Bourque was on the ice for 2,144 GA in 1,612 games.
Lidstrom was on the ice for 1,718 GA in 1,564 games.

However, when I compared their offense, I adjusted Bourque's stats because it was easier to score in his era. To be fair, we need to adjust Bourque's stats again because it was easier to be on the ice for a goal against. (If you disagree with this, you're basically asking me to adjust Bourque's offense down without making a corresponding adjustment to his defense - in other words, you're asking me to have a double standard to make Bourque's numbers look worse than they actually are).

The NHL averaged 6.86 goals per game during Bourque career, and 5.78 during Lidstrom's. (This is a simple average for each year - not weighted by the number of games they played - both were fairly healthy so if we do a games-weighted average, the results shouldn't be materially different - if someone wants to quantify this, go for it). The league was 18.7% higher scoring on average. Bourque was on the ice for 2,144 / 1.187 = 1,806 adjusted goals against.

Bourque was on the ice for 1,806 goals against in 1,612 games = 1.12
Lidstrom was on the ice for 1,560 GA in 1,412 games = 1.10

There you go. By this metric Lidstrom is about 2% better defensively that Bourque. He was on the ice for about 2% fewer goals per game, after taking into account the fact that Lidstrom played in a lower scoring era (which helps his defensive numbers).

Going into further detail, they're exactly the same in terms of even-strength goals against: both were on the ice for 0.76 GPG. In terms of non-ES goals (which would mostly be goals allowed while on the penalty kill, but also goals allowed while their teams are on the powerplay), Bourque was on the ice for 0.36 GPG, and Lidstrom 0.34 GPG.

This suggests they're close, but there are other factors to consider:

- This doesn`t differentiate between "shutting down opponents when they're already in the defensive zone" and "keeping the the puck out of the defensive zone altogether". Although the end results are similar, I suspect that Lidstrom was better at containing opponents once they're already in the team's zone, while Bourque was better at ensuring that the puck was at the other end of the rink. (This is a personal opinion though and I don`t have any data to support it).
- On average, Lidstrom played on better teams than Bourque. This would help him achieve better results, measured by goals against.
- Lidstrom missed the 2005 season due to the lockout. I'm not sure if that would help or hurt him in this analysis (since this is an "averaging" statistic rather than an "accumulation" statistic).
- This analysis looks at the data on a per-game basis. Like GAA for goalies, you really should look at goals against on a per-minute basis, rather than per-game. This adjustment would favour Bourque, since he played more minutes per game. We only have official ice-time data for the tail end of Bourque's career (ages 38 to 40), and he played between 26 and 29.5 minutes per game during that span. We have ice time data for most of Lidstrom`s prime (ages 28 through 37) - during which time he averaged 26.5 to 29.5 minutes per game. After his prime (ages 38 to 41), he avearged 23.5 to 25.5 minutes per game. We know that Bourque, at the tail end of his career, played significantrly more than Lidstrom did at the tail end of his career, and his ice time was actually quite comparable to Lidstrom's prime. Making the reasonable assumption that Bourque played more during his prime than from ages 38 to 40, this suggests that he received more average ice time over the course of his career and, for that reason, Bourque`s results are better than this analysis suggests (how much better is open for debate).

Based on the second and fourth points, I suspect that Bourque was probably a bit better than Lidstrom at keeping the puck out of their respective teams' nets. Even if the qualitative factors are ignored, they're virtually even.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Do you put any stock into Bowman's assessment of players?




http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2008/02/babcock_pushes_lidstrom_for_ha.html

Not really.

Ever see his list of top 100 players?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Great (re)post, HO, but to be clear, those numbers are regular season only, correct?

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Are you serious, man?

There is not one noteworthy Bourque postseason accomplishment from the 91 CF all the way up to the 1999 ECSF.

Maybe his 1994 series against the Habs or the 99 Canes series. Both Opening round.

Whoop-de-doo.

1999 Sabres series: -2 in last five games of series

1998 Caps series: -2 in six games

1996 panthers series: - 4 in five games.

First two games of the devils 95 series: -6 (-5 for all five games)

Last four games of Devils 94 series: -7

Four games of 93 Sabres series: -2

Last seven games of 92 postseason: -10

Last four games of 91 CF: -5


Someone explain to me why Bourque's statistics were so different from regular season to postseason in the aforementioned years.?

Setting aside the fact that plus/minus is a nearly meaningless statistic, this is an extreme example of cherry-picking numbers. An "analysis" like this can be done for any player. Take Lidstrom, for example:

1992: -3 in seven games victory over Minnesota (1 assist)
1995: -6 in four game sweep loss to Devils in Stanley Cup finals (2 assists)
1996: -6 in 6 games against Colorado (2 goals and 1 assist - all in one game)
1999: Detroit takes 2-0 lead on Colorado, Lidstrom goes -5 as team loses 4 straight (held to 1 assist)
2000: "plus" in just one of the nine games played during the postseason, including being -4 during LA series
2001: -4 in 5 games against St. Louis (2 assists)
2006: -4 in 6 game upset loss to Edmonton (1 goal, 1 assist)
2007: -3 in 6 game loss to Anaheim (1 goal, 6 assists)

I haven't even bothered to document all the occasions where Lidstrom was -2 (as you did for Bourque on two occasions).

Any player will look bad if you cherry-pick the negative (whether it's playoff runs, specific series or individual games) - that's why it's not a useful argument.

To be perfectly clear: the numbers I posted are not intended to be used as an argument against Lidstrom. I simply posted them to show that any player (even phenomenal post-season performers) will occasionally have short stretches where their performance is weak (and I hesitate to say "performance" when a statistic as dubious as plus/minus is used).

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Great (re)post, HO, but to be clear, those numbers are regular season only, correct?

Thanks - and correct. I don't have postseason data available, but I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

Setting aside the fact that plus/minus is a nearly meaningless statistic, this is an extreme example of cherry-picking numbers. An "analysis" like this can be done for any player. Take Lidstrom, for example:

1992: -3 in seven games victory over Minnesota (1 assist)
1995: -6 in four game sweep loss to Devils in Stanley Cup finals (2 assists)
1996: -6 in 6 games against Colorado (2 goals and 1 assist - all in one game)
1999: Detroit takes 2-0 lead on Colorado, Lidstrom goes -5 as team loses 4 straight (held to 1 assist)
2000: "plus" in just one of the nine games played during the postseason, including being -4 during LA series
2001: -4 in 5 games against St. Louis (2 assists)
2006: -4 in 6 game upset loss to Edmonton (1 goal, 1 assist)
2007: -3 in 6 game loss to Anaheim (1 goal, 6 assists)

I haven't even bothered to document all the occasions where Lidstrom was -2 (as you did for Bourque on two occasions).

Any player will look bad if you cherry-pick the negative (whether it's playoff runs, specific series or individual games) - that's why it's not a useful argument.

To be perfectly clear: the numbers I posted are not intended to be used as an argument against Lidstrom. I simply posted them to show that any player (even phenomenal post-season performers) will occasionally have short stretches where their performance is weak (and I hesitate to say "performance" when a statistic as dubious as plus/minus is used).

Bourque didnt "occAsionally" have poor series. He had entire, consecutive underachieving postseasons in two significant blocks: 1984-1987 (4 seasons) and 1993-1998 (5 seasons).

In and around those years of underperformance, were 1981 and 1989 where he was shut down entirely in Norris-worthy seasons. Then you add the 1991 CF which was arguably his worst postseason series ever (think he had a hand injury) and the 1992 CF where he was also terrible (Mario missed most of that series due to Graves slash).

1993-98 were just abominations from a defensive standpoint. He was Norris finalist for four straight seasons but wasnt even close to Norris form in the postseason.

The plus-minus just reinforces video evidence.

 

[habsfanatics*]

Lids will never surpass Bourque, it's time to move on from this, Bourque wins this poll 10 out of 10 times.

 

[Dark Shadows]

Here's an update of an old post that I made:

Bourque was on the ice for 2,144 GA in 1,612 games.
Lidstrom was on the ice for 1,718 GA in 1,564 games.

However, when I compared their offense, I adjusted Bourque's stats because it was easier to score in his era. To be fair, we need to adjust Bourque's stats again because it was easier to be on the ice for a goal against. (If you disagree with this, you're basically asking me to adjust Bourque's offense down without making a corresponding adjustment to his defense - in other words, you're asking me to have a double standard to make Bourque's numbers look worse than they actually are).

The NHL averaged 6.86 goals per game during Bourque career, and 5.78 during Lidstrom's. (This is a simple average for each year - not weighted by the number of games they played - both were fairly healthy so if we do a games-weighted average, the results shouldn't be materially different - if someone wants to quantify this, go for it). The league was 18.7% higher scoring on average. Bourque was on the ice for 2,144 / 1.187 = 1,806 adjusted goals against.

Bourque was on the ice for 1,806 goals against in 1,612 games = 1.12
Lidstrom was on the ice for 1,560 GA in 1,412 games = 1.10

There you go. By this metric Lidstrom is about 2% better defensively that Bourque. He was on the ice for about 2% fewer goals per game, after taking into account the fact that Lidstrom played in a lower scoring era (which helps his defensive numbers).

Going into further detail, they're exactly the same in terms of even-strength goals against: both were on the ice for 0.76 GPG. In terms of non-ES goals (which would mostly be goals allowed while on the penalty kill, but also goals allowed while their teams are on the powerplay), Bourque was on the ice for 0.36 GPG, and Lidstrom 0.34 GPG.

This suggests they're close, but there are other factors to consider:

- This doesn`t differentiate between "shutting down opponents when they're already in the defensive zone" and "keeping the the puck out of the defensive zone altogether". Although the end results are similar, I suspect that Lidstrom was better at containing opponents once they're already in the team's zone, while Bourque was better at ensuring that the puck was at the other end of the rink. (This is a personal opinion though and I don`t have any data to support it).
- On average, Lidstrom played on better teams than Bourque. This would help him achieve better results, measured by goals against.
- Lidstrom missed the 2005 season due to the lockout. I'm not sure if that would help or hurt him in this analysis (since this is an "averaging" statistic rather than an "accumulation" statistic).
- This analysis looks at the data on a per-game basis. Like GAA for goalies, you really should look at goals against on a per-minute basis, rather than per-game. This adjustment would favour Bourque, since he played more minutes per game. We only have official ice-time data for the tail end of Bourque's career (ages 38 to 40), and he played between 26 and 29.5 minutes per game during that span. We have ice time data for most of Lidstrom`s prime (ages 28 through 37) - during which time he averaged 26.5 to 29.5 minutes per game. After his prime (ages 38 to 41), he avearged 23.5 to 25.5 minutes per game. We know that Bourque, at the tail end of his career, played significantrly more than Lidstrom did at the tail end of his career, and his ice time was actually quite comparable to Lidstrom's prime. Making the reasonable assumption that Bourque played more during his prime than from ages 38 to 40, this suggests that he received more average ice time over the course of his career and, for that reason, Bourque`s results are better than this analysis suggests (how much better is open for debate).

Based on the second and fourth points, I suspect that Bourque was probably a bit better than Lidstrom at keeping the puck out of their respective teams' nets. Even if the qualitative factors are ignored, they're virtually even.

Nice work.
Can you also show the numbers for how many goals were scored for and against their teams when they were not on the ice?

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Even strength (note 1)

Bourque: 1,985 goals for / 1.187 = 1,672 adjusted goals for = 1.04 ES goals for per game
Lidstrom = 1,633 goals for = 1.04 ES goals for per game

They're virtually even. Bourque scored a lot more ES points than Lidstrom (even when adjusted for era) but in terms of who was on the ice for more goals for, it's a draw.

Powerplay

Bourque: 1,272 goals for / 1.187 = 1,072 adjusted goals for = 0.66 PP goals for per game

Lidstrom: 1,046 goals for = 0.67 PP goals for per game

Once again, these two are virtually even.

Note 1: the same issue with goals against applies here. The NHL doesn't keep track of even strength goals, it's really even strength goals for, plus shorthanded goals for. Since SH goals for are rare events, this shouldn't skew the analysis too much.

Edit: I just realized I misread your request. I don't have team data, but I remember from a previous post (from overpass, perhaps?) that Lidstrom's team's had better results than Bourque's (which is not at all surprising). Again the numbers show that both players have virtually even results, despite the difference in team quality.

====

GWOW- this is the third time that I`ve said you`re cherry-picking data. That is not an acceptable way to compare players. You chose 1984 to 1987 but excluded 1983 and 1988, which were dominant postseasons.

During that period Bourque was 20th in the playoffs in scoring (despite being only 46th in games played). Once again I consider plus/minus to be a silly metric, but he was 20th (with 12 of the players ahead of him playing exclusively for the Oilers). During those years, Bourque led the Bruins in points and plus/minus.

Yes, Bourque had a poor plus/minus rating in the mid nineties while he played lots of minutes on a mediocre Bruins team. So did many players on that team. Adam Oates, Don Sweeney, Bob Sweeney, Ted Donato, Garry Galley all had worse plus/minus ratings per game (1990 to 1998), and none of them played as many minutes as Bourque. Plus/minus is very much a team statistic (especially in the playoffs, when you can't assume that each team plays a roughly balanced schedule). Using it as an argument against Bourque (while ignoring the identical "argument" against Lidstrom) is not a fair way to debate.

I think I've been fair and balanced when presenting the data for each player. I ask that you do the same. Selectively excluding data favourable to the player you're arguing against is not reasonable.

 

[Rhiessan71]

Here's an update of an old post that I made:

Bourque was on the ice for 2,144 GA in 1,612 games.
Lidstrom was on the ice for 1,718 GA in 1,564 games.

However, when I compared their offense, I adjusted Bourque's stats because it was easier to score in his era. To be fair, we need to adjust Bourque's stats again because it was easier to be on the ice for a goal against. (If you disagree with this, you're basically asking me to adjust Bourque's offense down without making a corresponding adjustment to his defense - in other words, you're asking me to have a double standard to make Bourque's numbers look worse than they actually are).

The NHL averaged 6.86 goals per game during Bourque career, and 5.78 during Lidstrom's. (This is a simple average for each year - not weighted by the number of games they played - both were fairly healthy so if we do a games-weighted average, the results shouldn't be materially different - if someone wants to quantify this, go for it). The league was 18.7% higher scoring on average. Bourque was on the ice for 2,144 / 1.187 = 1,806 adjusted goals against.

Bourque was on the ice for 1,806 goals against in 1,612 games = 1.12
Lidstrom was on the ice for 1,560 GA in 1,412 games = 1.10

There you go. By this metric Lidstrom is about 2% better defensively that Bourque. He was on the ice for about 2% fewer goals per game, after taking into account the fact that Lidstrom played in a lower scoring era (which helps his defensive numbers).

Going into further detail, they're exactly the same in terms of even-strength goals against: both were on the ice for 0.76 GPG. In terms of non-ES goals (which would mostly be goals allowed while on the penalty kill, but also goals allowed while their teams are on the powerplay), Bourque was on the ice for 0.36 GPG, and Lidstrom 0.34 GPG.

This suggests they're close, but there are other factors to consider:

- This doesn`t differentiate between "shutting down opponents when they're already in the defensive zone" and "keeping the the puck out of the defensive zone altogether". Although the end results are similar, I suspect that Lidstrom was better at containing opponents once they're already in the team's zone, while Bourque was better at ensuring that the puck was at the other end of the rink. (This is a personal opinion though and I don`t have any data to support it).
- On average, Lidstrom played on better teams than Bourque. This would help him achieve better results, measured by goals against.
- Lidstrom missed the 2005 season due to the lockout. I'm not sure if that would help or hurt him in this analysis (since this is an "averaging" statistic rather than an "accumulation" statistic).
- This analysis looks at the data on a per-game basis. Like GAA for goalies, you really should look at goals against on a per-minute basis, rather than per-game. This adjustment would favour Bourque, since he played more minutes per game. We only have official ice-time data for the tail end of Bourque's career (ages 38 to 40), and he played between 26 and 29.5 minutes per game during that span. We have ice time data for most of Lidstrom`s prime (ages 28 through 37) - during which time he averaged 26.5 to 29.5 minutes per game. After his prime (ages 38 to 41), he avearged 23.5 to 25.5 minutes per game. We know that Bourque, at the tail end of his career, played significantrly more than Lidstrom did at the tail end of his career, and his ice time was actually quite comparable to Lidstrom's prime. Making the reasonable assumption that Bourque played more during his prime than from ages 38 to 40, this suggests that he received more average ice time over the course of his career and, for that reason, Bourque`s results are better than this analysis suggests (how much better is open for debate).

Based on the second and fourth points, I suspect that Bourque was probably a bit better than Lidstrom at keeping the puck out of their respective teams' nets. Even if the qualitative factors are ignored, they're virtually even.

Good post.

Yeah, Bourque in his prime, based on what I remember, what was always said and from the 16 games on the NHL network I manually clocked him in, 35 mins a game is a safe conservative number with it most likely being closer to around 40 a game.

Every telecast at some point mentions the crazy amount of minutes Bourque plays or mentions the glove thing, where Bourque has 3 pairs of gloves, one for each period because of how sweaty they got.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Good post.

Yeah, Bourque in his prime, based on what I remember, what was always said and from the 16 games on the NHL network I manually clocked him in, 35 mins a game is a safe conservative number with it most likely being closer to around 40 a game.

Every telecast at some point mentions the crazy amount of minutes Bourque plays or mentions the glove thing, where Bourque has 3 pairs of gloves, one for each period because of how sweaty they got.

If Bourque played that many minutes on average, then he was clearly both better defensively and clearly worse offensively than Lidstrom, based on how many goals were scored when he was on the ice. (I doubt he played that many minutes).

Are you mainly rewatching what would be considered "big games?" I would imagine that Bourque (or any star player) would play more often in big games than in the average game.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

MOD
...

How many pages do we have to go until somebody tells my why Bourque visably underperformed defensively between the 1991 CF and his final series as a Bruin?

How about somebody explain why Bourque underperformed defensively between 1984 and 1987. These were Norris-trophy regular seasons?

Why? Why the dropoff in production?

I watched all those games and rewatched them again.

What did I see? I saw a guy who looked tired, was overused and had difficulty with his gap control and reading rushes to the outside?

I saw a guy who was overcommitting and losing puck battles, making poor pinches.

Team problem? Not the one-on-one battles he lost with alarming regularity come Spring, or the lapses in coverage. That's an individual issue.

And if Bourque was gassed come playoff time, then that's a knock on Bourque. That's an individual issue.

If he had the inner fortitude to play like an ageless lion in 2001, why couldn't he do they same when he was 10 years younger?

I rarely if ever saw Lidstrom struggle with the basic tenets of defending once he established himself as the No. 1 on Detroit, which lasted over a decade.

Sorry if I key in on Bourque. Can't erase from memory what I physically saw.

 

[Fugu]

Lids will never surpass Bourque, it's time to move on from this, Bourque wins this poll 10 out of 10 times.

Given the data, at best the two should be much closer in any unbiased voting, even if the question that is posed makes it difficult to pick anyone other than Lidstrom in a sport that is a team sport and where it's tough to remove the team aspects.

Yet the poll here has Bourque as the run away winner. Food for thought.

 

[Fugu]

I'm beginning to think that Bourque ran over GWOW's dog as a child. I'm not sure what else could explain his inexplicably irrational dismissal of Bourque's career and accomplishments.

Disagreeing with your assessment is a sign of irrationality?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Given the data, at best the two should be much closer in any unbiased voting, even if the question that is posed makes it difficult to pick anyone other than Lidstrom in a sport that is a team sport and where it's tough to remove the team aspects.

Yet the poll here has Bourque as the run away winner. Food for thought.

I think the majority of the history forum thinks that Bourque has a very small but clear advantage over Lidstrom. There are a few loud voices that claim it's a big advantage either way, but I think "Bourque but it's close" is the majority opinion here. For me, when looking at "career," it's tough to get over a 19-12 advantage in Postseason All-Star nods. There's a real legitimate case that Bourque is second to only Gordie Howe in terms of "career value."

 

[plusandminus]

(mod)

I think some people here ought to be more open-minded. If several posters here are pointing out that Bourque had weaknesses (including defensively), there is probably some validity in it. Especially if some of the persons actually watched him play in the 80s and/or 90s.

Bourque had a 20+ seasons career. Considering all the games he played, it should be easy to give links to full games (or at least longer sequences) where his great overall play is visible?
Can anyone show some of these links?

-

My post here some days ago showed that offensively Bourque and Lidstrom were about as good. (For example, both have 11 top-3 finishes in scoring among defencemen.)
When two players are about as close as they are, I think one can just consider them equal. One can argue a lot about which player was favoured or unfavoured the most. Bourque had an advantage in probably being relied on a lot offensively, while he also might have had a disadvantage (at least in road games?) where opponents focused mainly on him. On Detroit, they had other defencemen who they could rely on, which might have disfavoured Lidstrom, but there were likely also many times where Lidstrom benefitted from that situation. Difficult to know for sure.

I do think it's unfair to "punish" Lidstrom for having less competition, because opposed to Bourque he faced ALL the best players - and he was voted the very best defenceman 7 times! What else should he have to do?

Lidstrom lead all defencemen in scoring 4 times. But he didn't lead convincingly enough? I think some are being mislead by the more "extreme" numbers that occured in the 80s compared to later years. When Bourque played in the 80s, it was an uneven league where star players could "boast" their +/- and points. When Lidstrom played, it was a more "even" league and we rarely saw very high +/-, and defencemen also tended to score less points.
That's one of the reasons I posted about "scoring finishes among defencemen".


My own view is that on paper Bourque's biggest advantage is all his All Star Team nominations. That's very impressive.
But one can also look at Detroit's win percentage before and after Lidstrom played for hem. Like others have said there were many roster changes but two things were always there - Lidstrom and a very high win percentage. He was a 7(!) time Norris winner.
Considering how good Lidstrom helped making Detroit become, he might very well be ahead of Bourque in terms of "career value".

 

[Fugu]

I think the majority of the history forum thinks that Bourque has a very small but clear advantage over Lidstrom. There are a few loud voices that claim it's a big advantage either way, but I think "Bourque but it's close" is the majority opinion here. For me, when looking at "career," it's tough to get over a 19-12 advantage in Postseason All-Star nods. There's a real legitimate case that Bourque is second to only Gordie Howe in terms of "career value."

Not if you stack up Lidstrom's hardware, but these are discounted as team achievements. I have no idea how you separate that out in a team sport.

And the question wasn't about who was best, even in a qualified way, but who had the better career. You cannot discount 4 Stanley Cups with completely different Wings rosters and coaches, and the 7 Norrises. At worst, the voting should be much closer.

Edit: Reading the post above mine, I will add that seeing something this lopsided when comparing arguably two of the best to ever play the game makes it pretty easy to dismiss the poll outright. Only Orr garners that type of unquestionable superiority from most fans. An unbiased result would have them nearly equal, with some personal preference on some aspect leaning one way or the other, and these should negate each other on the whole. I think Bowman put it best when he said it's actually pretty hard to rank X or Y as better and where, but he wouldn't put anyone ahead of Lidstrom either.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

Why did the Bruins' fortunes change in 1988? Was it Bourque? Was it Neely? Was it Milbury? Moog?

The Bruins were hammered for not getting over the Habs Hump. Did Bourque play better? Did Sinden get better players? Janney and Joyce post-Calgary?

Did Boston reach all those CF during Bourque's prime because they overachived, or the Habs simply underachieved?

I lived in Boston between 1992 and 2002, and from 1988-93, my NYC cable provided WSBK-38 (no idea why) Saw every game, or at least the significant majority, but definitely all the playoff games.

Those Bruins teams were just weird but one thing that was certain: they were a respected and deep team who had the reputation of a contender every preseason.

Seems every postseason, they were a rotting structure. One swift kick and it crumbles. They pissed away so many chances to advance.

Those postseasons are the only reason I detract from Bourque's overall body of work. I don't hate the guy. I just watched him objectively.

What was his best "get-on-my-back" moment? Game 1 in 1990 SCF is popular, but they lost that game.

Like I said, I don't think Bourque had a signature postseason moment or postseason in general that can compare to what Lidstrom did in 2008 and 2009.

And I'm talking defensively.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

You can't tally ice time from watching TV at home. At least no accurately.

Each team employs 4-6 official statisticians with one main one and a bunch of team-hired interns.

They can clock ice time several ways. One team clocks just d-men and the other team clocks forwards. Or one team clocks home and the other team clocks away.

Ice time for a shift should end when a new skater touches the ice, thus making the changing player an extra/illegal skater.

That being said, I think everybody knows guys like Bourque, Leetch and Chelios played over 30 mins a game if it was a close game.

 

[Rhiessan71]

(mod)

I think some people here ought to be more open-minded. If several posters here are pointing out that Bourque had weaknesses (including defensively), there is probably some validity in it. Especially if some of the persons actually watched him play in the 80s and/or 90s.

Bourque had a 20+ seasons career. Considering all the games he played, it should be easy to give links to full games (or at least longer sequences) where his great overall play is visible?
Can anyone show some of these links?

-

My post here some days ago showed that offensively Bourque and Lidstrom were about as good. (For example, both have 11 top-3 finishes in scoring among defencemen.)
When two players are about as close as they are, I think one can just consider them equal. One can argue a lot about which player was favoured or unfavoured the most. Bourque had an advantage in probably being relied on a lot offensively, while he also might have had a disadvantage (at least in road games?) where opponents focused mainly on him. On Detroit, they had other defencemen who they could rely on, which might have disfavoured Lidstrom, but there were likely also many times where Lidstrom benefitted from that situation. Difficult to know for sure.

I do think it's unfair to "punish" Lidstrom for having less competition, because opposed to Bourque he faced ALL the best players - and he was voted the very best defenceman 7 times! What else should he have to do?

Lidstrom lead all defencemen in scoring 4 times. But he didn't lead convincingly enough? I think some are being mislead by the more "extreme" numbers that occured in the 80s compared to later years. When Bourque played in the 80s, it was an uneven league where star players could "boast" their +/- and points. When Lidstrom played, it was a more "even" league and we rarely saw very high +/-, and defencemen also tended to score less points.
That's one of the reasons I posted about "scoring finishes among defencemen".


My own view is that on paper Bourque's biggest advantage is all his All Star Team nominations. That's very impressive.
But one can also look at Detroit's win percentage before and after Lidstrom played for hem. Like others have said there were many roster changes but two things were always there - Lidstrom and a very high win percentage. He was a 7(!) time Norris winner.
Considering how good Lidstrom helped making Detroit become, he might very well be ahead of Bourque in terms of "career value".

So in your opinion it's fair to criticize Bourque for being gassed from having to play all those minutes in the regular just to get his team good enough to make it into the PO's while Lidstrom, with much, much more help, doesn't have to push his team on a nightly basis or gas himself just to make the PO's and then actually wonder why Lidstrom is "fresher" in more PO's than Bourque was.
On top of this you have Bourque facing the prospect of beating the Dynasty Isles and Oilers, the powerhouse '89 Flames, the god like Roy in '86 or the powerhouse Pens in '91 and '92 over the first 13 years of his career to get a Cup.
While at the same time, Lidstrom is not facing anything to close to that level of adversity, he is actually on one of those powerhouse teams for almost the entirety of his career.
At no time did Lidstrom ever have to face or even come close to what Bourque faced in Boston in the late 90's. The cheapness, the inept player management and just overall mess that franchise.

Like C'mon.

In Detroit, Lidstrom was set up to succeed, he was always paired with a well above average if not downright very good partner. If Detroit didn't have that partner for him, they spent money or made a trade to get one asap. He was a leader but that load was shouldered by multiple players and some of those players, like Yzerman, shouldered more of it than Lidstrom did.
Even in '08, while Lidstrom was the defacto leader had a ton of help in that regard in Dats, Zetter and a very steady partner on the backend with Rafalski. Hell even Franzen scoring goals like crazy and Draper in a pure checking role shouldered some of that load.

Bourque on the other hand succeeded despite his team situation, despite not being provided with much help, despite having very few players or partners over the 20 years in Boston to shoulder the load with him.
When at 40 freakin years old he finally finds himself in a situation that Lidstrom has enjoyed almost from day 1 of his career, Bourque instantly becomes a major cog on that stacked team that loses what is basically a 1 goal, 7 game series vs Dallas in the Conf final (this is after thrashing Lidstrom's Wing's in 5 games in the previous round with Bourque at 40 playing just as many mins as a prime Lidstrom btw).
Then goes on the next full season once again being named a 1rst team all-star and runner up to a prime Lidstrom for the Norris, ending with him finally raising the Cup over his head.

I'm sorry if I feel Bourque's 5 Norris are of greater value than Lidstrom's 7 and that I feel Lidstrom's 4 Cups had more to do with the team around him than him individually.
I throw Lidstrom's Conn in there to add to his Norris count but as Devil has pointed out in the past, the Conn is a very tricky trophy to weigh due to the fact that unless it's a goalie, you have to be on a team that gets you to the Final in the first place.

So at this point if you call it a wash or even with Lidstrom ahead then along comes 19 freakin all-star nods to 12 and for career weight, that's just insane period!

So at the end of the day I don't have a choice, it's Bourque.
Am I saying it's not close? No.
Am I saying that for me, it's a clear choice? Yes.

 

[Big Phil]

R71 and his Canadian bias is at full throttle. I swear, I've never seen anything like this!

I also want to point out that in 98 Bourque lost his all-star team a gold medal. In fact he didn't medal at all. While in 06 Lidstrom won his team a gold medal. And he was a better defenseman too.

(clears throat) 1984 and 1987 Canada Cups ring a bell? Or we can penalize a 37 year old Bourque for Canada not winning the Gold medal in 1998. Bourque sat out the 1991 and 1996 Canada/World Cup. Something I do not like about his career. However, our team wasn't as deep in 1991 without him, and we sure as heck could have used him in 1996 for all that remember Canada's defensive depth. We also lost in 1996.

Lol.

Reasons supporting Bourque:

Pens were a dynasty

Lidstrom was fortunate to have Bryan Murray as a coach

Nieds, Pronger, Chara, and Blake arent in the same class as Leetch, Macinnis, Chelios and Coffey.

Well there's that, there's the fact that he had 17 straight all-star selections and 19 in total. There is the fact that he had 3 years where he finished 7th in Norris voting and that was the only time it happened outside of the top 4. There is also the fact that Craig Janney isn't exactly Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov. Say what you want, and I am not one to say that a player was only good because they had another player that helped them, but this is just an example of Bourque. He carried those teams a lot further than they should have gone. We don't have an example of how the Bruins would have fared without Bourque because, simply put, he was there his whole career. He barely got injured. He got the Bruins to the postseason 17 straight years. If anything this helps Bourque immensely because at the time everyone knew Bourque "WAS" the Bruins and they wouldn't be where they were without him. So if you want to know why he didn't win a Cup during this time, maybe it is because he didn't have that clutch player helping him out.

Or if you want to know why people who saw Bourque and Lidstrom's career in their entirely most often take Bourque it might be because we watched them play. For this I give Bourque the edge for sure, no disrespect to Lidstrom, but few could and did control the game like him.

I'm beginning to think that Bourque ran over GWOW's dog as a child. I'm not sure what else could explain his inexplicably irrational dismissal of Bourque's career and accomplishments.

I've never really seen this either. Usually the Lidstrom supporter realizes that Bourque has one of the best careers we've ever seen and even if they take Lidstrom they pump up Lidstrom rather than finding fault with Bourque. There just isn't a lot of room there.

I'm not saying Bourque should have been immortal every postseason.

Statistically, Bourque was more mortal than Lidstrom come playoff time.

And only a stat watcher would credit Bourque for 1991. Yeah for two rounds. His play was beyond abysmal in the four straight losses to the Pens.

All the Bruins were bad. But Bourque stood out because I don't think anybody ever expected anybody to toy with him the way the Pens did, and that includes the Dynasty Oilers in 1988 and 1990.

It was the shape of things to come. Richer, May, Lindsay, Bellows.

Remember when Mario Lemieux scored that famous goal that went in between the legs of Bourque on the fly just before he roofed it on Andy Moog? This was 1992. But do you know why this is such a famous play? For starters it is a great goal, and it's Mario, but it is also popular because it was Ray Bourque who was beaten, which we all knew was no easy task to do. I am not saying that in 1991 the Pens don't win if the Bruins have a healthy Neely, but it is important to note that the Bruins and Neely were in top form in the first two games before Ulfie nailed Neely. Neely wasn't a force in the last 4 losses either. Now, I don't want to say a team with Mario, Recchi, Murphy, Barrasso, Jagr, Francis, Mullen and Stevens wouldn't have still been able to crawl back. But first, look at that lineup, and then look at the Bruins' lineup. Craig Janney, a banged up Neely, Dave Christian, Glen Wesley, Vladimir Rucizka, Ken Hodge Jr..........................see the difference?

So I think you have to take things into context here too. The Bruins every year around this time were beating a very good Habs team who had Patrick Roy. But we should blame Bourque because they didn't look very good in the two years against the Mario-led Pens? Guess what, neither did the 1992 Hawks, who had Chris Chelios. Man, this is a bit of cherrypicking. The Bruins were a very average team without Bourque and he is the reason they were contenders for as long as they were. Of course a Cup as a Bruins makes his legacy even bigger, but when looking at the context the guy was doing some good things with a suspect supporting cast. That has to count for something when you evaluate things.

 

[Rhiessan71]

You can't tally ice time from watching TV at home. At least no accurately.

Each team employs 4-6 official statisticians with one main one and a bunch of team-hired interns.

They can clock ice time several ways. One team clocks just d-men and the other team clocks forwards. Or one team clocks home and the other team clocks away.

Ice time for a shift should end when a new skater touches the ice, thus making the changing player an extra/illegal skater.

I realise that clocking a player from the tv isn't going to be 100% accurate but it's still not going to be out by more than a minute or two at the very most and we're talking about times in the 37-45 minute range so it's still a ****load no matter what.

That being said, I think everybody knows guys like Bourque, Leetch and Chelios played over 30 mins a game if it was a close game.

AND that being said, both Chelios and Leetch had a hell of a lot more help and support than Bourque did.
Chelios had Suter, Smith and Marchment sharing the load.
Leetch had Zubov, Patrick and Beukeboom.
Bourque had...?