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Rank These Goat Talents by Team Success

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daver

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Apr 4, 2003
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Consider Cups/International Championships/Regular season success

Richard
Howe
Beliveau
Hull
Orr
Gretzky
Lemieux
Jagr
Crosby
Ovechkin
McDavid
 
I suppose Beliveau had the most team success in the time period in which he played...he played for a strong and deep team, and in an era when the overall talent in the league wasn't very strong or deep, and therefore the opposition was often relatively weak.

What does this tell us?
 
From 1954 to 1971, Montreal won 25% more regular season games than anyone else, almost 2.5 time the amount of playoff games as anyone else.

10 president trophy and 10 stanley cups

The median season once he became full time in 1955 for Beliveau career was a president trophy and a cup, that his hard to beat.


Some would have more diversity like Gretzky-Crosby being in an intl competition era, Crosby oceanic did really well when he was there, world junior did ok (silver and gold), Penguins 4 finals-3cups pretty much as good as it got during his era, senior team Canada did extraordinary after 2006.

Penguins as the second most regular seasons wins and the most playoff wins during his career (Bruins are virtually tie in both too, and the Caps in regular season wins before the end of the year)
 
just in a vacuum rating? or account for team strength as well.

Beliveau basically has a Cup a year, but they were almost all in a 6 team era on a team with 7 HOF'ers
 
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Staniowski said:
I suppose Beliveau had the most team success in the time period in which he played...he played for a strong and deep team, and in an era when the overall talent in the league wasn't very strong or deep, and therefore the opposition was often relatively weak.

What does this tell us?
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O6 wasn't very strong or deep? The 1960s NHL was the best professional hockey league in history.

True that the league was imbalanced, but still.
 
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I wonder how many players have been on more 118 point regular season teams than OV? Cant be many, especially if he adds a 4th season this year. Not saying that he is at the top of this group, but I'm impressed at how the Caps have been able to build 3 different strong teams around him.
 
BenchBrawl said:
O6 wasn't very strong or deep? The 1960s NHL was the best professional hockey league in history.

True that the league was imbalanced, but still.
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No, the Original 6 was certainly never strong nor deep in talent.

It had more talent than all previous eras, no doubt. But the overall talent pales in comparison to what came after.

The talent really started to pick up around the mid 1950s, just following Howe, with Beliveau, Moore, Bathgate, Delvecchio, Geoffrion, etc. And it was relatively stable for the rest of the O6.

The 1960s were pretty good overall - it was a stable league, some good defense, integrated minor league systems...but there weren't many talented players. The Habs were strong, the Leafs (who I especially like) were relatively deep for the era. But the other teams were all lacking in depth. There wasn't much offensive talent in the league.

The talent level really started to pick up in the late '60s and early '70s. Trouble was, it was distributed on a greater number of NHL teams, plus in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Sweden. Hockey was exploding in Europe, and the Canadian talent pool also improved significantly at the same time.
 
Matsun said:
I wonder how many players have been on more 118 point regular season teams than OV? Cant be many, especially if he adds a 4th season this year. Not saying that he is at the top of this group, but I'm impressed at how the Caps have been able to build 3 different strong teams around him.
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He doesn't have the best International career and the Capitals haven't had that many deep playoff runs in their history (though they did win their only Cup during the Ovechkin era), but few teams have had the regular season success the Capitals have had since the 2005 Lockout. They've won numerous division titles and three President's trophies (may add a fourth this year) and have only missed the playoffs twice since 2007.
 
daver said:
Consider Cups/International Championships/Regular season success

Richard
Howe
Beliveau
Hull
Orr
Gretzky
Lemieux
Jagr
Crosby
Ovechkin
McDavid
Click to expand...

Beliveau
Richard
Gretzky
Crosby
Orr
Howe
Lemieux
Hull
Jagr
Ovechkin
McDavid

If you factor in Canada Cups you've got to put Gretzky #3 here. I've got Beliveau #1, no question about it. Can you name another player in NHL history who was on two dynasties? Henri Richard would be the other one, but as great as Henri was, this was Beliveau's teams for sure.
 
I was going to say that Ovechkin had so much regular season team success that lower than Ovechkin maybe as an angle but.

But 91-99, Jagr was 4th in playoff games played among forward, won the Olympic goal, 2xcup, Penguins were second in wins in the regular season as well.

One other way to look at it, he is top 20 in playoff games played all-time, top 10 among forward, end of that the day that only possible if you have a lot of team success.
 
Staniowski said:
I suppose Beliveau had the most team success in the time period in which he played...he played for a strong and deep team, and in an era when the overall talent in the league wasn't very strong or deep, and therefore the opposition was often relatively weak.

What does this tell us?
Click to expand...

The habs were an 06 superpower, but so were the leafs and the wings.

Other teams had their moments, but there was consistently 3 elite teams.
 
Howe effectively played in a 3+3 League (3 always good teams, 3 always lousy teams). Detroit had a team good enough to win almost every year, I think it doesn't always get brought up enough that Howe probably should have won more Cups because it's easy to go "oh yeah, 4 Cups, that's a lot" but I think with more context it wasn't that much.
 
WarriorofTime said:
yeah, 4 Cups, that's a lot"
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Played less than a game on one of those cup win, terrible injury game 1.

More of a 3 win in 17 playoff run in 19 seasons really (if we stop counting after the 1966 playoff), winning it a bit less 1/6 of the time.

If we talk only about cups, Lemieux-Jagr winning 2 times when they did.... could have an argument over him.

Howe did lead (not co-lead) a cup winning teams in points a single time in his career, 1955 with one more point than Lindsay. Not sure about Richard, I think also once in 1958 (while it did in goals scored at least a couple of others times)
 
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Crosby2010 said:
Beliveau
Richard
Gretzky
Crosby
Orr
Howe
Lemieux
Hull
Jagr
Ovechkin
McDavid

If you factor in Canada Cups you've got to put Gretzky #3 here. I've got Beliveau #1, no question about it. Can you name another player in NHL history who was on two dynasties? Henri Richard would be the other one, but as great as Henri was, this was Beliveau's teams for sure.
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Pretty sure Howe won twice as many Cups as Orr. Obviously many more years played and Finals appearances but this thread isn't asking about the WHY.
 
WarriorofTime said:
Howe effectively played in a 3+3 League (3 always good teams, 3 always lousy teams). Detroit had a team good enough to win almost every year, I think it doesn't always get brought up enough that Howe probably should have won more Cups because it's easy to go "oh yeah, 4 Cups, that's a lot" but I think with more context it wasn't that much.
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Yeah, he could have won more Cups. He also could have won less. Four Cups is a fair number considering how his career was nestled during several Montreal dynasties. Detroit won two of those Cups in game 7 in OT.
 
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GMR said:
Pretty sure Howe won twice as many Cups as Orr. Obviously many more years played and Finals appearances but this thread isn't asking about the WHY.
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He did win two more Cups, yes. Did it in 25 years vs. Orr's 10 though. Orr also has the 1976 Canada Cup. Not that Howe wasn't a great playoff performer, but from team success alone he didn't win a Cup after 1955. That was a long time, and this was mostly a 6-team league. I have to still give the edge to Orr here, slightly.
 
Crosby2010 said:
He did win two more Cups, yes. Did it in 25 years vs. Orr's 10 though. Orr also has the 1976 Canada Cup. Not that Howe wasn't a great playoff performer, but from team success alone he didn't win a Cup after 1955. That was a long time, and this was mostly a 6-team league. I have to still give the edge to Orr here, slightly.
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The Canada Cup isn't relevant if you're going to discount the Original 6 because of lack of competition. The Canada Cup was 6 teams, with Finland/United States being overmatched. Orr played his career in the 70's where expansion teams were also frequently overmatched. Howe played in a six team league with Montreal having several dynasties and Toronto having their 60's dynasty. Yeah, there weren't many teams, but it's difficult to win more than 4 Cups in a league full of other dynasty teams with loaded rosters.

If you want to compare Ovechkin's competition versus Howe's, that's one thing, but Orr's competition wasn't much tougher IMO.
 
GMR said:
The Canada Cup isn't relevant if you're going to discount the Original 6 because of lack of competition. The Canada Cup was 6 teams, with Finland/United States being overmatched. Orr played his career in the 70's where expansion teams were also frequently overmatched. Howe played in a six team league with Montreal having several dynasties and Toronto having their 60's dynasty. Yeah, there weren't many teams, but it's difficult to win more than 4 Cups in a league full of other dynasty teams with loaded rosters.

If you want to compare Ovechkin's competition versus Howe's, that's one thing, but Orr's competition wasn't much tougher IMO.
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I don't discount it, the Red Wings had a legit dynasty with Howe. I'm just saying if we are going solely on the purpose of this thread I think you have to say Howe certainly had the opportunity to win more Cups than Orr. Definitely more time. There were anywhere from 12-18 teams during Orr's career. Both players could have won more Cups, but I think if you had to pick one to penalize more it is Howe.
 
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