Round 2, Vote 14 (HOH Top Centers)

[seventieslord]

Jacques Lemaire played twelve NHL regular seasons.

For the stretch between dynasties 1969-70 thru 1974-75 he was the Canadiens leading scorer during the six season stretch:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points

During the length of his 12 year NHL career he was 6th overall in NHL RS season scoring while leading the Canadiens:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points

Yet you would like us to believe Jacques Lemaire was not important. Only players who outscored him and Bobby Clarke were full time or partial three rotation centers. Lemaire and Clarke looking at either window were the only four line rotation players. Mikita was about 1/2 as the Hawks changed.

Could you please illustrate where in hockey history, a player who leads his team in scoring over a stretch of twelve seasons is not important. Better yet, 6th in NHL scoring over a twelve regular season stretch is not good, important or contributing especially when the team as a benefit of his contributions happens to win 12 SCs?

Wow. I'm not really sure how you managed to read "not as important as Dryden, lafleur,Robinson, savard or Lapointe" as "not important"...

and seventies, i know you're not seriously suggesting that lemaire is in a category with burrows or hartnell or downie (downie???). but let's be real and at least use ron francis as the example here.

Well, the truth is, I don't know if Francis actually caused Jagr to score more points. And I've read studies that showed just how much skilled players improve their scoring rate when the glue guy is playing with them. The point was not at all about the relative skill level (or difference between the skills of the star and support guy) but simply the benefit of having a guy whose role it is to do the "little things".

 

[Canadiens1958]

No Adjustments

OK, I suppose the point you’re trying to make is that some sort of adjustment should be made to Lemaire’s points relative to the other players’ points. Please elaborate on why and how much.



It’s true that centers tend to score more than LWs. However, centers tend to be the better players to begin with, and that explains a lot of it. However, I think that it’s true that the same player playing entirely LW is going to see somewhat lower scoring stats than in a season where they play entirely center. That said, the difference is not extremely meaningful if referring to a player who spent perhaps 15% of his time at LW and the rest at center.

Has anyone attempted to quantify and demonstrate the points “spike†caused by playing center? I’m not denying that the correlation is not there, but it does not appear to be large. It would be an important thing to know for the wingers project, as some players with seasons at center could get overvalued in comparisons against strict wingers.



I don’t think anyone is debating that a lesser skilled, “utility†player can have a positive impact on an offensive superstar. In fact, recent studies have proven that “glue guys†like Burrows, Hartnell and Downie have made their more talented linemates better when on the ice with them than without. But the fact remains that players like this do pick up a large surplus of points by virtue of being on the ice with more talented players, and Lemaire is no exception to this. In determining his offensive value, some attention has to be given to who his linemates are. That said, he comes out at the bottom of my offensive analysis even before making such a consideration.



Of course I agree that playoff performance is an important consideration. However, looking at whether a player’s production rose or fell in the playoffs is not always the litmus test for this. Some eras saw an across-the-board drop in scoring from the regular season that was more drastic than others. One era even featured a rise in scoring. Some playoff eras were more imbalanced than others. And dynasty players tended to play a ton of winning games (in which their team, and by extension, they, tended to score more). Although Lemaire was a strong playoff performer, comparing his playoff to RS ratio to these other players on its own doesn’t prove that he was better in this regard, and especially not that he was “better enough†to make up for the large regular season gap.

(by the way, Brind’Amour dropped 13% from the regular season to the playoffs (not 20%), which is pretty strong for the era, and played the majority of his playoff games on an underdog team against stronger teams than he typically played in the regular season)



It’s not close. Zetterberg was a 9% better offensive producer with less talented linemates, better defensively, even more versatile, and just as strong in the playoffs – with a smythe.

No adjustments are necessary for a player who was 6th in overall NHL scoring during his 12 season career - posted previously. Just appreciation - something that posters are desperately trying to deny him by ignoring facts and data.

Henrik Zetterberg is an interesting comparison to Jacques Lemaire. Some honours - Smythe is impressive but offensively, unlike Lemaire he is not next tier below the greats - Esposito, Orr, etc. Low teens overall during his career, topped by the likes of Dany Heatley and Brad Richards:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points

Not as impressive as Lemaire.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Important

Wow. I'm not really sure how you managed to read "not as important as Dryden, lafleur,Robinson, savard or Lapointe" as "not important"...

Did not want to get into your little game of driving the discussion outside the topic, to other positions and between team mates. Just made the point that Jacques Lemaire defined his own importance to the team and did not have to answer to a contrived position like yours.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Aside from Forsberg, that group playing with Sakic is hardly better than what Sundin had.

Man I love these comps, your $100 is hardly worth more than my two $25's

put a poll , anywhere, on the line mates and age their respective ages and tell me that it's not a real landslide for Sakic's guys?

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

but that said, i do disagree with ohashi that sundin came into the league "like an offensive house on fire." he came in pretty good. tied with ken hodge jr. in point in his rookie year, 16 behind what modano put up at the same age the previous year, 7 behind roenick's rookie total. kevin todd bested sundin's rookie numbers the year after. sundin cracks the top 20 in scoring once before '97 (11th in '93, when he rode that really great hot streak).

i think the sundin that belongs in the top 60 is the sundin of '97 to '08. that guy was money in the bank, and yes a prototypical center for his era. but i think pre '97 sundin was a lot like modano of the same years-- pretty one-dimensional and good, sometimes very good, but not great at that one dimension.

Pretty good one dimension, I'd say. In the freest flowing offensive year in NHL history, Sundin managed to actually score more points than a healthy and slightly older Sakic (even surpassed Sakic's career high to that point) on the same team (at ES and SH, but they tied in PP points). His first 4 seasons with Quebec rank right up there offensively with the best opening 4 seasons of anyone in the history of 80+ game seasons (top 25 all time for points, and top 50 all time for PPG among those on that list - and yes, that's Jagr you see at #51).

I mean, pardon the slight exaggeration with the "house on fire" bit, but come on. He started off even better than advertised as a 1st overall pick, and the first European-born 1st overall ever.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Jacques Lemaire

i'm assuming that no one is giving lemaire any extra points for his coaching career, and rightfully so because that fall well outside of reasonable expectations for a center. but i'm curious-- and i haven't followed this thread closely so i may have missed this discussion-- but what about lemaire's leadership and did he act as a mentor, maybe even quasi-coach, during the late 70s dynasty? i have no idea and have never heard any suggestions that would indicate this, but i wouldn't be surprised if it were true. can anyone chime in here? (C1958, i'm looking in your direction)

Leadership and mentor. Lemaire had the ability to execute and set the center template from the first shift. Leadership by example.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Yes, that's the basic starting point. You're supposed to be able to pick up the ball from there and grab the concept of how that trickles down depending on the depth/support on your team - especially if measuring in terms of time spans like "season", "prime", or longer.



Unremarkable... Best player playing against the best competition, with little/no support cast (particularly relative to the guys he's actually being compared to in this project), at age 37. What's to be impressed about, right?

Little to no supporting cast would surely help Sundin to be the best player on his team in certain categories. I mean, am I supposed to be surprised that Sundin has better Corsi ratios or whatever the stats were than his worse teammates?

Well, I guess I'm with the other guys voicing the opinion here that yes, your eyes failed. Wait, that's not exactly what you said, was it. I still maintain that you should have been hearing alarm bells if you read your own reasoning there.

Alarm bells should be going off if I were arguing that players like Doug Weight should rank ahead of Sundin or even close to him in a project like this. If anything, the fact that Sundin - a player largely rated on his regular season offensive contributions - consistently finished right around the same level of scoring as those types of players for years at a time is something that should raise alarm bells in the other direction.

Yes, I brought it up. After a great many other things. Predictably you're trying to direct attention to it instead of literally everything else, which I'd just expect you to accept as "submitted" at this point (like everything else), but like I predicted this is turning out to not be the case. I don't share your tunnel vision on the importance of this aspect, but then again I think he earned just about every contract dollar he ever got (let alone for the period of the DPE, which I would say he easily earned).

So what you're saying is I should not have responded at all to your comment regarding Sundin's salary as a means of determining how great a player he was?

I really have no idea what you're talking about in regards to "tunnel vision". I've introduced and responded to numerous talking points regarding Sundin throughout this thread. I would say the discussion has been extremely thorough, constructive, and respectful. I'm sorry you feel differently.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Pretty good one dimension, I'd say. In the freest flowing offensive year in NHL history, Sundin managed to actually score more points than a healthy and slightly older Sakic (even surpassed Sakic's career high to that point) on the same team (at ES and SH, but they tied in PP points). His first 4 seasons with Quebec rank right up there offensively with the best opening 4 seasons of anyone in the history of 80+ game seasons (top 25 all time for points, and top 50 all time for PPG among those on that list - and yes, that's Jagr you see at #51).

I mean, pardon the slight exaggeration with the "house on fire" bit, but come on. He started off even better than advertised as a 1st overall pick, and the first European-born 1st overall ever.

we'll have to agree to disagree on "better than advertised," because that's not what i remember people saying about sundin in quebec.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

this always takes place players come up have to displace the current ones, you have shed zero light on the feeder systems of the time. I don't know much about them but the impression I get, from limited reading and I will investigate more, is that hockey under the highest levels was more akin to shinny than training and an organized thing. the actual numbers of players playing at a certain level and above over time hasn't been stagnant yet this insistence that all eras be treated the same (or pretty much the same ) continues which is ridiculous in any fair assessment of players through out time.

Just to be clear, and fair to the voting participants of this project, has anybody besides myself really pushed this line of thinking? Keeping in mind that I am not a member of the project, and have not contributed beyond some periphery discussion in a few of the voting threads.

TDMM has repeatedly posted breakdowns of what era the elected players have come from, and modern players become ever more prevalent as you move through the historical timeline of the game. It would seem the voting trends have gone exactly as you have proposed - the more recently a player played, the more likely he is to appear on the list.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I’ve voted.

I’m still puzzled by the fact that Lemaire gets any sort of support this high in the process. He was a very good player who could make this list if it went further down, but top-60 is an indefensible stretch.

As anyone who has paid attention to my arguments can tell, I try to be very cognizant of a player’s offensive and defensive worth. I think that ranking all centers by offensive value is a good starting point, followed by adjustments (some quite major) for defensive value and other considerations.

Lemaire’s offensive value is so far below the other players in this round, that he has to be a Keon-level stud defensively to really be in the consideration. However, the evidence to support him being anywhere near this level is just not there.

For starters, let’s quantify how much behind the field he is offensively. Recall when I showed how some modern centers scored based on adjusted points earlier in this thread. Turgeon, Sundin, Lafontaine, Sedin and Zetterberg posted between 1.06 and 1.18 adjusted points per game in their best 700 game periods. Lemaire’s output by the same method? 0.96. He’s 9% below the least of those players offensively (Stamkos and Roenick are both also in that range), and even below the likes of Nieuwendyk and Brind’Amour (0.98, 0.97), who have much longer careers, similar team-based positives (eras considered), and in Brind’Amour’s case, real substantiation for elite level defensive play. Every modern player mentioned above also had less dominant linemates than Lemaire tended to have during his career (this varies from player to player, of course).

So, what evidence do we have for Lemaire’s defensive ability to get him up towards the top of his class?

- No selke votes (the award existed for his last few seasons but he retired in his prime)
- No mentions in coach’s polls for best checker, faceoff man, smartest, defensive player, penalty killer, etc, to demonstrate that he was among the best in the league at anything
- Just 51 PPGA in his 12-year career, meaning he was not a regular penalty killer (aside from two seasons)
- No mentions of two-way or defensive play in any of the nine Complete Handbooks of Pro Hockey in which he appears (1972-1980)
- Occasional biographical mentions of him being a good two-way player

It seems that, while Lemaire was obviously not deficient defensively, the media doesn’t even seem to remember him as any better a defensive player than they remember a guy like Joe Nieuwendyk. And he would have to be much better than that defensively to make up the offensive edge Nieuwendyk (and all the rest of these mentioned names) has on him.

the thing that really stands out about Lemaire is

1) His playoff scoring through out his entire career, sure he was on good teams but man his resume is very impressive.

2) His ES scoring , or rather lack of reliance on the PP. Here I will use one of your favorite metrics, but i'm sure you will agree that it shows the point rather well.

He is 6th in points and 5th in goals (3rd in ES goals over this time period) and a disntant 8th in PP goals.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points

For his career Lemaire had exactly 89 PP goals and 124 PP assists (sadly HR doesn't track PP assists or points in the sorting section.

 

[seventieslord]

No adjustments are necessary for a player who was 6th in overall NHL scoring during his 12 season career - posted previously. Just appreciation - something that posters are desperately trying to deny him by ignoring facts and data.

So now you’re using Hardyvan metrics to prove a player’s greatness?
For the record, yes, Lemaire was 6th in points over his career span. (We know how flawed this metric is, but whatever…) – also note that he had just 63% as many points as the #1 guy, 82% as much #2 and 95% as much as #3.
In points per game over this time, Lemaire was 20th, with a rate of 67%, 69% and 72% as much as the #1, 2 and 3 guys (from the top-100 scorers)
Zetterberg by the same metrics:
Points: 13th (78%, 82%, 91%)
PPG: 19th (67%, 78%, 79%)
Zetterberg did this in a league where all the best players were present and there was no one who could have theoretically placed ahead of him in points or PPG had they been in the NHL. However, nearly a dozen non-NHL players were potentially/arguably higher scorers (either absolute or per-game) than Lemaire during his career.
And like I said, Zetterberg’s actual rate of production compared to the league average was 9% higher than Lemaire’s, with less linemate influence.

Did not want to get into your little game of driving the discussion outside the topic, to other positions and between team mates. Just made the point that Jacques Lemaire defined his own importance to the team and did not have to answer to a contrived position like yours.

so the question of how valuable a first line center is, is completely off the table then? They’re all equally important?
See, the way I saw it, sometimes your goalie is more important than your first line center, sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes the first line wingers are more valuable, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes you have a more valuable #1, #2 or #3 defenseman. Sometimes you have all of the above. If the “first line center on a dynasty†point is to be used as a feather in his cap, our enthusiasm for this must be curbed by the fact that this doesn’t mean the same thing for Lemaire that it may mean for some other players.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

we'll have to agree to disagree on "better than advertised," because that's not what i remember people saying about sundin in quebec.

Well, as a season ticket holder of Quebec's farm team at the time, I can assure you that starting off as an 18 year old who finished 2nd to Sakic in scoring, followed by a jump to over 70 points in his second season, followed surprisingly by surpassing Joe Sakic's career high in a Nordiques jersey by almost 10 points the year after that, was pretty universally well-received. I still have a stick signed by Tony Hrkac, btw, who was the 3rd highest scoring Nordique in Sundin's rookie year, lol.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Little to no supporting cast would surely help Sundin to be the best player on his team in certain categories. I mean, am I supposed to be surprised that Sundin has better Corsi ratios or whatever the stats were than his worse teammates?

Alarm bells should be going off if I were arguing that players like Doug Weight should rank ahead of Sundin or even close to him in a project like this. If anything, the fact that Sundin - a player largely rated on his regular season offensive contributions - consistently finished right around the same level of scoring as those types of players for years at a time is something that should raise alarm bells in the other direction.

So what you're saying is I should not have responded at all to your comment regarding Sundin's salary as a means of determining how great a player he was?

I really have no idea what you're talking about in regards to "tunnel vision". I've introduced and responded to numerous talking points regarding Sundin throughout this thread. I would say the discussion has been extremely thorough, constructive, and respectful. I'm sorry you feel differently.

I guess it could be summed up at this point, in an effort to make it more clear. He produced like an absolute top player by virtue of not only his aggregate totals and scoring rate, but also our understanding of comparable "scoring environments". He was recognized as an absolute top player by virtue of his 1st ballot induction into the HoF. Furthermore, he was paid as an absolute top player.

Now, if you want to raise the issue that he was overpaid - and who knows, after a lengthy examination of how a non-cap market influenced salaries and competitiveness across all the other players' situations that come up for comparison, we may even find some instances in which you're technically correct, and then have to reconcile by how much and how much it matters - then I submit that as an example of tunnel vision on an entirely defendable aspect that will nonetheless bring you no closer to reconciling your evaluation of Sundin vs those who are disagreeing with you in this discussion.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Just to be clear, and fair to the voting participants of this project, has anybody besides myself really pushed this line of thinking? Keeping in mind that I am not a member of the project, and have not contributed beyond some periphery discussion in a few of the voting threads.

TDMM has repeatedly posted breakdowns of what era the elected players have come from, and modern players become ever more prevalent as you move through the historical timeline of the game. It would seem the voting trends have gone exactly as you have proposed - the more recently a player played, the more likely he is to appear on the list.

It's the elephant that is constantly in the room, came up during or after the Dman project and one very respected guy even came out and said that he did indeed treat eras as basically the same (paraphrasing here as I don't have the exact quote handy)..

It's also the silence on the subject that speaks volumes as well, sure their is some lip service to it but very few people here ever discuss their voting criteria or the process they use to vote.

It's a bit like the HHOF and not in a good way either.

the thing is, is one even shares the best are always the best line, one would expect a lot more modern guys on these lists, basically because of the obvious elite talent produced post expansion by non Canadian countries, never mind the huge explosion in talent (both in numbers and quality form provinces like BC and the maritimes).

 

[Kyle McMahon]

So now you’re using Hardyvan metrics to prove a player’s greatness?
For the record, yes, Lemaire was 6th in points over his career span. (We know how flawed this metric is, but whatever…) – also note that he had just 63% as many points as the #1 guy, 82% as much #2 and 95% as much as #3.
In points per game over this time, Lemaire was 20th, with a rate of 67%, 69% and 72% as much as the #1, 2 and 3 guys (from the top-100 scorers)
Zetterberg by the same metrics:
Points: 13th (78%, 82%, 91%)
PPG: 19th (67%, 78%, 79%)
Zetterberg did this in a league where all the best players were present and there was no one who could have theoretically placed ahead of him in points or PPG had they been in the NHL. However, nearly a dozen non-NHL players were potentially/arguably higher scorers (either absolute or per-game) than Lemaire during his career.
And like I said, Zetterberg’s actual rate of production compared to the league average was 9% higher than Lemaire’s, with less linemate influence.



so the question of how valuable a first line center is, is completely off the table then? They’re all equally important?
See, the way I saw it, sometimes your goalie is more important than your first line center, sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes the first line wingers are more valuable, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes you have a more valuable #1, #2 or #3 defenseman. Sometimes you have all of the above. If the “first line center on a dynasty†point is to be used as a feather in his cap, our enthusiasm for this must be curbed by the fact that this doesn’t mean the same thing for Lemaire that it may mean for some other players.

Yes, I hope this wasn't the impression I gave. Of course nobody would compare a Lemaire to a Gretzky, Beliveau, Trottier, Clarke...but all the other #1 C on multi-Cup teams (meaning a core group of the same players who won multiple Cups in short time span) are on the list already, besides those exceptional cases I pointed out. Keon, Kennedy, Abel, Fedorov (#1/#2 with Yzerman), Barry, Lach, Cowley (#1/#2 with Schmidt)..they're all there. Keeping the #1 C of arguably the best dynasty of them all off the list would look a tad strange to this observer, even if Lemaire could indeed be argued as the "worst" of the group.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

It's the elephant that is constantly in the room, came up during or after the Dman project and one very respected guy even came out and said that he did indeed treat eras as basically the same (paraphrasing here as I don't have the exact quote handy)..

It's also the silence on the subject that speaks volumes as well, sure their is some lip service to it but very few people here ever discuss their voting criteria or the process they use to vote.

It's a bit like the HHOF and not in a good way either.

the thing is, is one even shares the best are always the best line, one would expect a lot more modern guys on these lists, basically because of the obvious elite talent produced post expansion by non Canadian countries, never mind the huge explosion in talent (both in numbers and quality form provinces like BC and the maritimes).

Speaking of "silence," I noticed you didn't respond to my post where I stated that you were putting your foot down and saying "no more players who played before 1980!"

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Yes, I hope this wasn't the impression I gave. Of course nobody would compare a Lemaire to a Gretzky, Beliveau, Trottier, Clarke...but all the other #1 C on multi-Cup teams (meaning a core group of the same players who won multiple Cups in short time span) are on the list already, besides those exceptional cases I pointed out. Keon, Kennedy, Abel, Fedorov (#1/#2 with Yzerman), Barry, Lach, Cowley (#1/#2 with Schmidt)..they're all there. Keeping the #1 C of arguably the best dynasty of them all off the list would look a tad strange to this observer, even if Lemaire could indeed be argued as the "worst" of the group.

The Shutt/Lafleur line was called the "Donut Line" because they didn't have a regular center. I don't think it's out of the ordinary to be missing the #1 center from a particular dynasty if center was the least strong part of the team. We didn't have the #1 defenseman from the 40s Leafs dynasty (Jimmy Thomson) on our defensemen list.

And if NJ had won game 7 in 2001... 3 Cups in 4 years would probably be considered a dynasty in the modern era, and we sure as hell wouldn't have any of the centers from that team.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Oh, and can we stop with the Sundin lovefest? The last page was totally painful to read and kindof became an argument AGAINST Sundin.

Almost 60 posts later and I can assure you that the next round won't be allowed to turn into all-Sundin-all-the-time if he's still available.

Voted, and I just want to say I greatly enjoyed the work that Sturminator and TDMM put into researching and analyzing the early players this round. The Lemaire articles were also a fun and informative read.

Thank you. Nice to see that at least one other person is interested in reading about players he didn't see play, rather than just bickering about players from the last 20 years.

 

[Hardyvan123]

So now you’re using Hardyvan metrics to prove a player’s greatness?
For the record, yes, Lemaire was 6th in points over his career span. (We know how flawed this metric is, but whatever…)

Exactly how is it flawed?

It's a metric that show 1 thing and 1 thing only, how many points did player X score compared to his peers in his career?

Every metric shows something and not something else.

Use some common judgment here it takes a really really good player to place top 3,5 heck even 10 in any scoring category against his peers (be it in a season or a career) and like usual it comes with the caveat that the more metrics one uses the better and more clear picture one can get of any player.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Hypotheticals and Background Noise

So now you’re using Hardyvan metrics to prove a player’s greatness?
For the record, yes, Lemaire was 6th in points over his career span. (We know how flawed this metric is, but whatever…) – also note that he had just 63% as many points as the #1 guy, 82% as much #2 and 95% as much as #3.
In points per game over this time, Lemaire was 20th, with a rate of 67%, 69% and 72% as much as the #1, 2 and 3 guys (from the top-100 scorers)
Zetterberg by the same metrics:
Points: 13th (78%, 82%, 91%)
PPG: 19th (67%, 78%, 79%)
Zetterberg did this in a league where all the best players were present and there was no one who could have theoretically placed ahead of him in points or PPG had they been in the NHL. However, nearly a dozen non-NHL players were potentially/arguably higher scorers (either absolute or per-game) than Lemaire during his career.
And like I said, Zetterberg’s actual rate of production compared to the league average was 9% higher than Lemaire’s, with less linemate influence.



so the question of how valuable a first line center is, is completely off the table then? They’re all equally important?
See, the way I saw it, sometimes your goalie is more important than your first line center, sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes the first line wingers are more valuable, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes you have a more valuable #1, #2 or #3 defenseman. Sometimes you have all of the above. If the “first line center on a dynasty†point is to be used as a feather in his cap, our enthusiasm for this must be curbed by the fact that this doesn’t mean the same thing for Lemaire that it may mean for some other players.

So now the comparisons include hypotheticals and background noise, yet fail to include playoff PPG ratings. Not exactly a balanced presentation.

Back to the #1 center question. It is still on the table. Jacques Lemaire playing mainly center - which you do not deny, led the team in scoring over that stretch. This is the expectation from a #1 center which he fulfilled in a fashion that further placed him 6th overall in league scoring as well. Granted certain seasons other centers may have scored more - happens. Yet over a twelve year stretch Jacques Lemaire easily contributed as a #1 center offensively for app eight seasons and brought near elite defense for all twelve seasons.

This is not the case for Henrik Zetterberg. Pavel Datsyuk, ranked, has outperformed Henrik Zetterberg as the #1 center with the Wings. Data posted earlier. Plus Zetterberg does play with Datsyuk at times.

Looking at contemporaries, Jacques Lemaire compares favourably with elected centers - Esposito, Mikita, Ratelle,Clarke, better in many regards to Perreault, vastly superior to Sittler.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Exactly how is it flawed?

It's a metric that show 1 thing and 1 thing only, how many points did player X score compared to his peers in his career?

Every metric shows something and not something else.

Use some common judgment here it takes a really really good player to place top 3,5 heck even 10 in any scoring category against his peers (be it in a season or a career) and like usual it comes with the caveat that the more metrics one uses the better and more clear picture one can get of any player.

The only point of that "metric" is to pump up whichever player you are using it for, since very few players will share the exact career span of the player you are looking at.

This has been explained many times already.

When OJ was looking at "total points during the dead puck era among centers," at least he was defining his terms by era, not by the career of the player he wanted to pump.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Speaking of "silence," I noticed you didn't respond to my post where I stated that you were putting your foot down and saying "no more players who played before 1980!"

I've been working a lot and must have missed that post, or possibly been distracted,if you repost I will gladly respond to any comments.

Now that you mention it 4 of my top 8 this round were pre 1980, going from memory anyways.

Context is always key, if for some reason there was a fully integrated NHL in the 1900's and then in 68 some countries stopped playing hockey altogether I would be the "anti modern guy" no doubt eh?

 

[Kyle McMahon]

I guess it could be summed up at this point, in an effort to make it more clear. He produced like an absolute top player by virtue of not only his aggregate totals and scoring rate, but also our understanding of comparable "scoring environments". He was recognized as an absolute top player by virtue of his 1st ballot induction into the HoF. Furthermore, he was paid as an absolute top player.

Nobody has denied Sundin typically produced point totals indicative of a top player. My contention for quite some time is that he is overrated by point totals. As in, there are players with consistently worse point totals that I would rather have on my team in a typical season - Joe Nieuwendyk and Rod Brind'Amour are two examples I threw out.

For what it's worth, Nieuwendyk got into the HOF on his 2nd year of eligibility. And at the time of Sundin's first-ballot induction, I was in staunch disagreement that he was worthy of the honor. Another centerman who I see as having a Sundin-like career was Bernie Federko, who waited a full decade for enshrinement. Federko playing in a very anonymous market and Sundin having Toronto hype of his side possibly partially explaining the considerable difference.

Now, if you want to raise the issue that he was overpaid - and who knows, after a lengthy examination of how a non-cap market influenced salaries and competitiveness across all the other players' situations that come up for comparison, we may even find some instances in which you're technically correct, and then have to reconcile by how much and how much it matters - then I submit that as an example of tunnel vision on an entirely defendable aspect that will nonetheless bring you no closer to reconciling your evaluation of Sundin vs those who are disagreeing with you in this discussion.

I don't want to raise the issue of Sundin being overpaid, I find judging a player based on what he got paid to be entirely irrelevant. But you brought it up, and I responded accordingly. I think we can let that topic die.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Almost 60 posts later and I can assure you that the next round won't be allowed to turn into all-Sundin-all-the-time if he's still available.

If someone else thinks they detect a player that is getting "left behind" at any stage, for whatever reason(s), I'd expect them to be as vocal and willing to publicly submit whatever they think they have and do whatever they can to try and support it. People with votes already have their methods and are only going to take out of it all what they want/need to anyway.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Here's a chart of the number of players in the top 52 by career span, with a trend line added. Note: I've used the career start & end dates in TDMM's master listing of the players but I haven't attempted to verify the numbers.

If I was asked to draw a curve that represents the total talent in the hockey world over time, it would probably look a lot like this (though with a more pronounced dip during the World War II era). The big exception is that the line would have a small dip after the mid nineties (instead of plummeting, as it does in that chart) but that can be explained because the list will generally concentrate on players with at least 5-10 years' experience. If the list were re-done in another decade, I'm sure that many players currently active would appear on the list (perhaps Stamkos, Getzlaf, Toews, etc) after they've had a chance to cement their legacies, bumping up the number of top 60 centres currently active.

If the best players in each era were being treated as equals, the chart would not show such a large increase in the 1960s, peaking in the 1990s. That large increase is exactly what I would have expected given that it coincided with 1) the NHL rapidly expanding in size, allowing many veterans who otherwise would have had to retire at a younger age continue to take on scoring-line or depth roles and 2) the rapid emergence of elite European talent.