Round 2, Vote 10 (HOH Top Centers)

[seventieslord]

Tarheel, first off great post, and it brings up another argument for Perreault over Ratelle, one that you didn't even include in your summary: Perreault was a fixture on Team Canada for quite some time, and had a generally large role, while Ratelle only played in the 1972 Summit Series and was used as a depth player. (When talking about the Summit Series, note that Perreault was a 21 year old who had just completed his 2nd season in the NHL while Ratelle was in his prime).

Combined with the enormous advantage Perreault has in All Star records (2 2nd Teams, 3 3rd Teams vs just 1 2nd Team), and it's quite obvious to me that Perreault was more highly regarded during his career than Ratelle was.

Also again, note that 1971-72 is when Brad Park emerged as an all-time great offensive defenseman. There are also some years when Ratelle's linemate, HHOFer Rod Gilbert outscored Ratelle. Rick Martin was good, but was never really close to Perreault in scoring. Gilbert only played with Ratelle in NY, however. Again, Park came with Ratelle to Boston.

Why am I making so much of a deal of Ratelle's help compared to Perreault? It seems obvious to me that people who saw them both play thought Perreault was better. Yet Ratelle has moderate advantage in raw statistics. Once you account for the moderate advantage that Ratelle has (and I think you could argue that Brad Park alone can do that), then I really think the case for Ratelle over Perreault falls apart.

If Ratelle had a moderate statistical advantage, and was obviously better defensively, why was perreault regarded as better? I mean, maybe he was, but we also don't have to accept that as meaning he was definitively better.

Could someone do a breakdown of their all-star records? It's possible there were weak years during their careers, as well as seasons where it was practically impossible to get a top 2 vote.

 

[thom]

Billy Shoe you must be very young.Howie Meeker Yvon Pednault and many others I could name say Guy Lafleur was the best hab ever.Many publications even argue Lafleur was the best

 

[thom]

Do you know that Scotty Bowman has Serge Savard and Brad Park ahead of Larry Robinson.He was on TVA SPORTS and he talked about it he was also on ckac sports and again discussed his selection.Marcel Dionne was a me player who only cared for his own personal stats.In 1982 in Vancouver the fans were chanting goal suck goal suck-his team was losing by several goals and he would stand on center ice waiting for lose puck.My father and I could not believe it we said we dont want that player on our club even if he is very talented

 

[tarheelhockey]

Could someone do a breakdown of their all-star records? It's possible there were weak years during their careers, as well as seasons where it was practically impossible to get a top 2 vote.

I did this a little bit a few posts back. Each of them had a really strong 2AS season (Ratelle '72, Perreault '77) and the seasons in between happen to be the peak of their respective careers.

1973 - Phil Esposito 226, Bobby Clarke 133, Gil Perreault 21, Jacques Lemaire 16, Jean Ratelle 12, Rick MacLeish 12, Stan Mikita 8

On our tables, Perreault gets credit for a somewhat silly 3AS. IMO, it's better not to even award a 3AS in a situation where you have a whole pack of also-rans separated by only 10 points.

1974 - Phil Esposito 238, Bobby Clarke 134, Darryl Sittler 21, Syl Apps Jr 15, Stan Mikita 11, Walt Tkaczuk 4, Gilbert Perreault 3, Denis Hextall 3, Butch Goring 1, Don Luce 1, Marcel Dionne 1

Perreault got 3 voting points out of 432. I don't think either of them showed very well against a relatively weak cohort.

1975 - Bobby Clarke 179; Phil Esposito 155; Gil Perreault 85; Marcel Dionne 47; Pete Mahovlich 18; Jean Ratelle 1; Stan Mikita 1

Perreault had an 85-point 3AS, pretty solid. Ratelle had 1 voting point which is essentially meaningless.

1976 - Bobby Clarke 268, Gilbert Perreault 75, Pete Mahovlich 66, Pierre Larouche 31, Jean Ratelle 22, Darryl Sittler 12, Bryan Trottier 8, Garry Unger 3, Marcel Dionne 1

Perreault was 2AS, but with an incredibly weak 75 points. This is less than half the going rate for that award in a normal year. Ratelle was about 50 voting points back of him, which would be a relatively small gap in a normal voting distribution. The opposition of Mahovlich, Larouche and Sittler is nothing too impressive either.


There's a definite advantage for Perreault, but it's not very large and tends to be magnified by the normal method of listing 1-2-3AS as if they have equal value each year. The one year that he really pushed ahead of Ratelle was his legitimate 3AS in 1975.

Conclusion
As stated above, I acknowledge the gap consisting of a 3AS and some marginal differences in a couple of other years. I just don't see it as a definitive judgment by the voters that calls for an "adjustment" of Ratelle's numbers to fit this picture.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Billy Shoe you must be very young.Howie Meeker Yvon Pednault and many others I could name say Guy Lafleur was the best hab ever.Many publications even argue Lafleur was the best

Then I'd say they are wrong. Doing the most superficial analysis, here are nine forwards with unequivocally better offensive numbers, not getting into their intangibles, defensemen that are better(of which there are multiple), and goalies.

Top 10 Points

Lafleur: 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4
Gretzky: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4
Howe: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 9
Lemieux: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8
Beliveau: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9
Mikita: 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4
Hull: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9
Jagr: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9
Richard: 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Do you know that Scotty Bowman has Serge Savard and Brad Park ahead of Larry Robinson.He was on TVA SPORTS and he talked about it he was also on ckac sports and again discussed his selection.Marcel Dionne was a me player who only cared for his own personal stats.In 1982 in Vancouver the fans were chanting goal suck goal suck-his team was losing by several goals and he would stand on center ice waiting for lose puck.My father and I could not believe it we said we dont want that player on our club even if he is very talented

I was saying Dionne should be ranked worse than that, not better.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Do you know that Scotty Bowman has Serge Savard and Brad Park ahead of Larry Robinson.He was on TVA SPORTS and he talked about it he was also on ckac sports and again discussed his selection.Marcel Dionne was a me player who only cared for his own personal stats.In 1982 in Vancouver the fans were chanting goal suck goal suck-his team was losing by several goals and he would stand on center ice waiting for lose puck.My father and I could not believe it we said we dont want that player on our club even if he is very talented

Ken Dryden had Guy Lapointe as better than Robinson and Savard. When you are in the room with the guys its a whole other view point.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Hooley Smith faced one of Eddie Shore or Howie Morenz in its prime for roughly 1/3 of his games. I think this qualifies as "good competition", considering those are amongst the Top-11 players of all time.

The 90's competition, especially among centers was a lot more IMO.

Smith also has a very under welming playoff resume and is more a secondary type of player while true top dogs are still here in the mix this round.

The "he is obvious guy for 1st this round" is a major problem when one actaully looks at his resume.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I've heard some people say that about Datsyuk (or at least type it about him on the internet), but I always brushed them aside as just taking a contrarian opinion, to be honest.

When evaluating Pavel Datsyuk it's important to consider that he has spent his whole career in the stronger and more defensive conference.

I ran some numbers on the scoring rates of star forwards since 2000 against both conferences. Scoring rates against Western teams have been about 8% lower. The net effect of this is that star forwards playing an Eastern conference schedule have had about a 5% advantage on those playing a Western conference schedule.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1494673

Something to consider when rating Datsyuk and Malkin. Those VsX numbers (or any scoring numbers) should give Datsyuk a 5% boost for schedule difference even before considering defensive play.

Note that the Eastern conference was actually stronger on average (if not at the top end) for most of the 1990s, so Mike Modano did not have the same scoring disadvantage in his prime that Datsyuk did.

I think there is a legit case for Dats being as good as Zetts or Lidstrom on the 08 Red wings SC team.

His 97 points plus defensive play are arguably, and it's a really strong argument, as good as AO or Malkin that year IMO.

Dats also has one of the better playoff resumes this round but like fellow Russian Feds will probably suffer a similar fate.

 

[Hardyvan123]

We should have downgraded all the Montreal players from the mid-50s to the late 70s. They all had the advantage of not having to play against the Canadiens.

lol, not sure if you are kidding or if serious, should be very interesting to see how C1958 responds though as the 06 mythical status is still officially alive and well.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Haven't seen much, if any discussion of Russell Bowie thus far. I'm not a voter in this project, but I'll go to bat for him.

Bowie played 10 seasons. His goal finishes in those 10 seasons are as follows: 1st (5 times), 2nd (4 times), 3rd (once). Never worse than the #3 goalscorer in his entire career. And a 10 year career was fairly lengthy by turn of the century standards.

As far as league competition, the CAHL was definitely the top league through 1904 (Bowie's career spanned 1899-1908). Ottawa left midway through that season to join the FAHL, the league in which the strong Wanderers also played. Bowie won the scoring title in 1904 and 1905, though it's quite possible Frank McGee could have challenged him in those years. The CAHL was probably weaker than the FAHL in 1905. The two leagues merged to form the ECAHA in 1906. Bowie finished 2nd in the scoring derby twice, and finished 1st in 1908, his final season, after the merger.

So while it's questionable as to whether or not he'd have won all of his goal scoring titles in a fully consolidated league, there seems to be little doubt he would have at least been in contention for all of them. There were also some great players playing in the IPHL in the United States from 1905-07. But it seems unlikely based on available evidence (scoring stats in Canadian leagues before and after the IPHL folded) that many of these players would have been strong candidates to outscore Bowie during those years in question.

Marty Walsh tied Bowie for the 1908 scoring title after playing 1907 in the US. Tom Phillips was a great scorer who played for Rat Portage/Kenora from 1905-07. He finished two goals behind Bowie in 1908. Other IPHL players like Lalonde and Taylor were very early in their careers. Hod Stuart and Joe Hall were defensemen. So even if we assume the worst for 1905-07 seasons, Bowie's 1st-2nd-2nd placements should still at least be credited 3rd-5th-5th by my approximation. This still leaves him with a top season run down of:

1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 5th. This is on the same level as:

Gretzky: 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 4th, 4th, 5th, 6th.

Esposito: 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th.

Lemieux: 1st, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 7th, 7th, 9th.

Russell Bowie is arguably the greatest scoring centerman of all-time if dominance over one's peers is being used as the benchmark.

From his write-up in The Trail of the Stanley Cup, which was published in 1966:



As of yet, there are no players on the list (36 players long so far) that are representative of the pre-1910 (pre-NHA) era of hockey. I think Bowie would be a fine candidate to be the first such player. There are certainly valid talent pool questions that are asked when discussing that formative era hockey, but it does cover 17 seasons of Stanley Cup play, not an insignificant amount of time. It's just my opinion, but I think that era is certainly worthy of having at least a single player among the top 40 centers of all time.

Bowie is hard to gauge fairly and it's been pointed out that the difference in the quality of play before and after around 1910ish was very significant, perhaps Ian Fyffe could help out a bit here to present a clearer picture?

 

[Hardyvan123]

For just about post-expansion forward who was a plus player in terms of some kind of intangibles, you can find quotes from his own teammates, coach, or GM lavishing praise on him if you look hard enough. Such commentary is basically loaded with bias and is essentially worthless, once we have already established that a player had said defensive ability or intangibles.



You're not going to find evidence to suggest Ratelle was just mediocre in his own zone, because he was clearly a competent defensive player during the course of his career. But I think it's noteworthy that it required a career season for him offensive to finish top 3 in All-Star voting. 70s writers were not shy about giving recognition to actual elite defensive players like Bobby Clarke.



What about all the other players who finished ahead of Ratelle?

1977-78:



1978-79:



IMO, the evidence shows that Ratelle was a good defensive player, not a great one.

And I guess I just can't get over how much better Perreault's All-Star record was, while playing in the same era. Likewise, if Ratelle was "excellent" defensively, why wasn't he chosen to play for Canada in a defensive role after 1972?

Agree with alot of this Ratelle was decent on the defensvie side of the puck, Dats was great, Gilbert probably a notch below Jean and down in the Dale category although Stastny is closer to Dats, Jean than Gilbert and Dale IMO.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Oh, by the way...

On overselling : Please, don't. It only incites voters to tweak their rankings, either upward or downward, and tends to detract from what I'd call the « truth ». If such a thing exists.

Sadly I think this is true as often people don't or can't look at the actual argument but instead judge who posts instead.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I'm not seeing that either. Larionov, to me, was more of an average defensive player... a guy who wouldn't hurt you. I'm noticing him being talked about like a Gillmor or a datsyuk by a few people in this thread.

Sure he is a notch down from Dats and even Gilmour but he was well above average defensively when you watch him play.

 

[MXD]

The 90's competition, especially among centers was a lot more IMO.

Totally irrelevant, unless comparing Smith with Oates, Lindros.

 

[MXD]

Billy Shoe you must be very young.Howie Meeker Yvon Pednault and many others I could name say Guy Lafleur was the best hab ever.Many publications even argue Lafleur was the best

I have yet to see a Hab Top-2 that doesn't have Béliveau and Richard at the top.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Thanks for the shoutout. I guess we'll just stop including anything that a coach or GM says about a player in bios, it's totally useless. Is he a legendary defensive player? No. Was he a good two-way player that was good at faceoffs and good in his own zone? Yeah. He received some Selke support at the end of his career, which is more than what a bunch of the guys ahead of him have.

I think that ATD bios could really stand to use more discretion in the quotes that are used, including limiting (but not eliminating) the number of quotes that come from likely biased sources, yes. Anyway, Ratelle was a solid two-way player, that is true.

Do you mean the list that has Guy Lafleur as the 11th best player of all time? Or Marcel Dionne 54th? You need to look no further than the player above Perreault, and the player below him to know that that list is trash. Directly ahead of Perreault at #46 is George Hainsworth, and directly after is Max Bentley (who was voted 24th best center ever in this project) at #48. My personal favorite of the list is Frank Nighbor at #100.

There have been threads that have offered specific criticisms of the THN list. First off, here is the panel involved in making the list:

The judges who helped make the selections for this list included writers, journalists, and broadcasters (Don Cherry, John Davidson, Milt Dunnell, Stan Fischler, Dick Irvin, Brian McFarlane, Bob McKenzie, Jim Matheson, Harry Neale, Frank Orr), as well as coaches, referees, general managers, and former players (Al Arbour, Scotty Bowman, Emile Francis, Howie Meeker, Scotty Morrison, Roger Neilson, Bud Poile, Sam Pollock, Marcel Pronovost, Billy Reay, Glen Sather, Harry Sinden, Red Storey).

Some crazies on there like Stan Fischler, but for the most part, it's a whose-who of the hockey establishement, particularly the establishment of the 1960s-1980s. With that in mind, I don't think it's a coincidence that players from the 1960s or 1970s are probably a bit overrated on the list, but I think the panel is a valuable resource in looking at how the hockey establishment thought of NHLers they had seen play.

As far as I know, it was the most serious attempt by big name hockey people at creating an "All Time" list ever, or at least since the 1925 list published in MacLean's magazine.

There are basically 3 criticisms of the list:

1) No transparency in the voting process. Nobody knew what criteria the panel were using. That said, I think it's clear from the judges that there was a heavy emphasis on how the judges experienced the careers of players they saw play.

2) The panel clearly didn't do any in-depth research on players who played before they were born. Several years later, they said the relied largely on basis stats, which would explain the high ranking of Hainsworth and low ranking of Nighbor. I would not use the THN panel as any legitimate source for players who played before WW2, but I think it's a great source for how the hockey establishment thought players from the 60s, 70s, and 80s ranked in relation to each other.

3) The panel only submitted top 50 lists, and from these lists THN created a top 100. This means anyone from 51-100 on the list only got the support of a fringe minority. Even guys like Perreault and Bentley in the 40s probably only had minority support, but with a somewhat larger minority. Frankly, I think they received enough support to not be totally dismissed, like I would dismiss the bottom half of the list entirely.

I was still fairly skeptical of Perreault's placement towards the tail end of the top 50, until I saw just how well he did in All-Star voting, playing in a very competitive era (in many years Esposito and Clarke were the automatic top 2). Perreault's All-Star record tells me that his high ranking on THN's list is not just revisionist history. It's possible, of course, that even contemporary opinion of Perreault was wrong, but I am not comfortable with how nonchalant some voters are about dismissing contemporary opinion entirely.

I'm hardly a Perreault fanboy by the way; I didn't even have him on my ballot last time, though I should have him somewhere this time.

 

[seventieslord]

The 90's competition, especially among centers was a lot more IMO.

Smith also has a very under welming playoff resume and is more a secondary type of player while true top dogs are still here in the mix this round.

The "he is obvious guy for 1st this round" is a major problem when one actaully looks at his resume.

You mean like being considered one of the four most valuable players in the nhl three times?

 

[MXD]

Something I'm a bit curious about : what "worth" do you give to pre-lockout Pavel Datsyuk? ('05 lockout, that is).

Pure support player on the '02 C cup who could easily have been replaced (my take, anyways), followed by good-but-not-great seasons followed by playoffs disappointments.

I consider the 1st year useless. 2nd and 3rd adds to what I'd call his relevant longevity (if only because Datsyuk isn't only pure offense) and give him something of an asterisk as far as playoffs are concerned.

 

[seventieslord]

Something I'm a bit curious about : what "worth" do you give to pre-lockout Pavel Datsyuk? ('05 lockout, that is).

Pure support player on the '02 C cup who could easily have been replaced (my take, anyways), followed by good-but-not-great seasons followed by playoffs disappointments.

I consider the 1st year useless. 2nd and 3rd adds to what I'd call his relevant longevity (if only because Datsyuk isn't only pure offense) and give him something of an asterisk as far as playoffs are concerned.

I don't value them much at all, either. However, imo, he's now in his ninth season of being a top-10 player, so I'm not sure that matters.

 

[MXD]

I don't value them much at all, either. However, imo, he's now in his ninth season of being a top-10 player, so I'm not sure that matters.

Well... he'S not exactly the only player in this round with longevity issues.

 

[overpass]

I think TDMM has a good point in bringing up Perreault's placement on THN's list. Perreault was part of the generation that THN's voters was most qualified to evaluate and they rated him 16th among centres. This project has already voted 28 centres who had their legacy established as of the date of THN's list ahead of Perreault.

This project will of course differ from THN's panel in it's rankings, but when the gap is this large it's worth thinking about what their voters saw in Perreault and his career.

 

[overpass]

Basically all of Smith's best seasons, both in terms of scoring and awards voting, came at center. He was a natural center coming out of juniors, and was only converted to RW originally because of Frank Nighbor. Hooley was good at RW in Ottawa, but better at center, ending up in the mix for the Hart in the one season where he started the lion's share of games at the pivot with Nighbor out injured.

Then he gets traded to Montreal, and stuck on fat boy's right wing, made into essentially a glorified Wayne Cashman. The S Line got famous, but Hooley's talents were largely sacrificed to feed the always hungry Stewart.

Once Nels left Montreal, Hooley goes back to center and immediately gets back into the mix for all-star and Hart consideration, his scoring picks up, and before long he's holding the Cup. To make a long story short, Hooley was a much better center than he was a right wing. We could throw out his years on the S Line and it wouldn't affect his overall value by that much. During the years which really made his reputation, he was lined up at center, and that's mostly how we ought to evaluate him.

Does it matter that Hooley Smith's teams weren't very good defensively in his best offensive seasons? Looking at his four top-10 seasons in scoring from the 1930s when he was playing C:

1931-32 - 6th in scoring, team was 7th of 8 in GA
1932-33 - 4th in scoring, team was 8th of 9 in GA
1933-34 - 8th in scoring, team was 6th of 9 in GA
1935-36 - 4th in scoring, team wa 5th of 8 in GA

In the 1934-35 season, the Maroons were 2nd in GA and won the Stanley Cup. Hooley Smith only scored 5 goals and was not in the top 20 in points in the NHL.

Similarly, Smith was not a top scorer when on strong defensive teams like the 1920s Ottawa Senators. In the one season where he was top-10 in scoring and received Hart votes, Ottawa dropped to 4th of 6 in GA. (OK, maybe this only proves that he was no Frank Nighbor defensively.)

For all of Smith's scoring stats and defensive reputation, it doesn't appear he was ever able to be a top scorer on a strong defensive team. Delvecchio, Ratelle, Perreault, Oates, Lindros, and Datsyuk all managed to do so.

 

[MXD]

Similarly, Smith was not a top scorer when on strong defensive teams like the 1920s Ottawa Senators. In the one season where he was top-10 in scoring and received Hart votes, Ottawa dropped to 4th of 6 in GA. (OK, maybe this only proves that he was no Frank Nighbor defensively.)

Weren't they linemates that year anyways?
And wasn't it Alec Connel's rookie season, replacing Clint Benedict, while still being somewhat green and ultimately not as good as he'd eventually end up being later on?

 

[quoipourquoi]

1973 - Phil Esposito 226, Bobby Clarke 133, Gil Perreault 21, Jacques Lemaire 16, Jean Ratelle 12, Rick MacLeish 12, Stan Mikita 8

On our tables, Perreault gets credit for a somewhat silly 3AS. IMO, it's better not to even award a 3AS in a situation where you have a whole pack of also-rans separated by only 10 points.

It's important to keep in mind just how close Esposito and Clarke were from running away with every 1st and 2nd place vote on a three-man ballot and the affect this has on the remaining voting points. Esposito and Clarke, the top-two skaters in the Hart vote, took 359 voting points at Center when it was only possible for two people to have a maximum of 378 combined points. There's not a big chunk of the pie left for anyone to take.

Of course, the Center with the biggest slice (Perreault) is also the Center who picked up a 5th place finish in the Hart vote with 25 points when no other Center after Esposito, Clarke, and Perreault had more than 5 points.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

I think there is a legit case for Dats being as good as Zetts or Lidstrom on the 08 Red wings SC team.

His 97 points plus defensive play are arguably, and it's a really strong argument, as good as AO or Malkin that year IMO.

Dats also has one of the better playoff resumes this round but like fellow Russian Feds will probably suffer a similar fate.

I disagree. Datsyuk's playoff resume is below average. His PPG goes from .98 in the regular season to .74 in the playoffs. It's reasonable to expect a decline in the playoffs because of the tighter checking game, but that big of a drop is not a good sign.