Thanks for putting all of this together, Crease. Looking great so far.
Apologies I'm coming to this party late. Been a busy week at work. After reading through parts of the discussion, here are my thoughts so far:
I had the same issue Chief mentioned. I mean, right off the bat, if a guy wins a Cup now it is a lot harder to win it against 1 in 30 odds than 1 in 6 odds. Same is true of winning awards, AS selections, top 10 finishes, etc - the larger the pool the more people vying for things.
I think you're right in that it is true that in a lot of ways it is harder to win a Cup now than it was when guys like Boucher played the game - primarily because of how much more grueling the playoffs have become with 4 rounds, 7 game series, and the physical attrition that the players go through. But I don't think you can really think about it as 1 in 30 odds now vs. 1 in 6 odds then. All teams are not and were not created equal – and they do not all have the same "chance" at winning the cup in today's NHL - nor did they in the days long past. I think it is certainly a bigger challenge in today’s NHL – but I don’t think it is 5 times harder because there are 5 times more teams in the league.
That kind of thinking may work when looking at the limited competition for awards / top-10 scoring finishes / etc; but I'm not so sure it accurately represents the varying difficulty / degree of competition between then and now for winning a championship.
We’ll start with simple numbers. 3rd all time for Rangers in points, 2nd all time in goals, 3rd in assists and 6th all time in games played. Just those stats put you near the top. Now, numbers don’t mean anything, Messier has the 2nd most all time and he’s not the 2nd best player, but what they show is that in a Rangers sweater he played for a long time and played at a very high level.
5 ppg seasons (and another 2 where he was 1pt under) 2 seasons with 40+ goals and another 4 with 30+. His 100+ points season earned him the Pearson and his career Ranger ppg is below only Mess and Espo from this top 10 list (and then only barely). Yeah he isn’t right at the top of point scorers every season, but can you take points of him for playing in an era that saw the likes of Orr, Mikita, Clarke and Lemaire dominate the competition? Even with those greats he was top 10 in league scoring 5 times (6 if you include the trade year).
This certainly makes his resume look impressive. But just looking at the surface #s isn’t a convincing argument for me. In my mind, you have to consider the eras the players played in as well (not to mention in my overall ratings, I’m heavily weighting playoff performance, which is just going to knock Ratelle down a few pegs, despite his great overall career).
To expand some more on what Greg was saying in response to these #s – and provide specifics – the reason these aren’t convincing to me are two fold:
1. The players played in very different eras in which the competition was different, the game was played differently, and scoring rates (for many reasons) were higher or lower. Of the three players, Ratelle played during the highest scoring era of the NHL. During his time with the Rangers, the average number of goals scored per game hovered between 5.75 gpg and 6.75 gpg. Boucher played in one of the lowest scoring eras of the NHL – with goals per game hovering between 2.9 gpg and 5 gpg. In Messier’s first stint with the Rangers, average scoring hovered between 5.75 gpg and 7 gpg; in his second stint it was around 5.25 gpg. This info can be found here:
http://www.quanthockey.com/TS/TS_GoalsPerGame.php
2. Ratelle put up these numbers and set these franchise records in about 15 seasons with the Rangers. Boucher had 13 seasons with the Rangers (and seasons almost half the length of Ratelle’s era). Messier had 10 seasons with the Rangers.
His playoffs aren't great, but a PPG of 0.64 isn't terrible, especially when that period was dominated by the Habs and Bruins running over the Rangers on their way to multiple cups.
While those Habs and Bruins were certainly dominant teams, I don’t know that I’m convinced that this is enough to look past his teams’ disappointing inability to get over the hump and win it all.
Not to mention that Boucher’s Rangers weren’t exactly competing against bad teams - or dominating the league. They faced some absolutely dominant Habs, Bruins, Leafs, Hawks, and even toward the end of his career – Red Wings – teams.
Messier’s Rangers faced very good Penguins and Devils teams. And toward the end of his first stint, Flyers.
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One thing to consider, that I don’t think has been discussed, when trying to determine how to rank Colville and Watson – who had very similar careers – is their linemates.
As best I can tell, Watson’s linemates for a good portion of his time with the Rangers were Lynn Patrick and Bryan Hextall. Colville’s were his brother, Mac Colville, and Alex Shibicky.
Both of Watson’s linemates are hall of famers who were big scorers for their eras (around 0.75 ppg for both of them). Neither of Colville’s were hall of famers and hovered between 0.5 and 0.6 ppg. The fact that Colville was able to put up the #s he did with what seems like significantly weaker linemates says something to me.
Of course, you could make the argument that Watson made his linemates better (in which case, it would be travesty that he isn’t in the HHOF and Colville is); but based on what I’ve read, it seems like Colville was considered the heart of his line. This is just one reason why I’ve got Colville ahead of Watson.
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Unfortunately, I have to run now, so I can’t get into this as much as I’d like. Apologies if I missed this - and if I did, disregard this (I skimmed the last page) - but I’m curious what peoples’ rationales are for placing Tkaczuk ahead of guys like Espo/O’Connor/Raleigh/Smith.
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My preliminary top 5 is:
Boucher
Messier
Ratelle
Colville
Watson
