Round 2, Vote 15 (HOH Top Centers)

[VMBM]

Milan Novy

My problem with him is - and has always been - that his international record does not nearly match his domestic domination. While I concur that his international highs were very high (e.g. 1976 Canada Cup), his international career was still fairly short (7-8 years while many of his contemporaries had 10-12). Also, his only All-Star nod at the World Championships (1976) was in a tournament where Vladimir Petrov didn't play and Alexander Maltsev was injured halfway through (having said that, Czechoslovakia was fairly dominant in that WC, so he might have been the All-Star center anyway).

Internationally, I think there are at least four '60s/'70s/'80s Czech forwards who had a better career:

Vladimir Martinec
Vaclav Nedomansky
Ivan Hlinka
Jiri Holik

(In Hlinka's and Holik's case, it's mostly about longevity and consistency.). I think Jiri Lala is pretty close too.

I've sometimes wondered, if his domestic play 'hurt' his international play; hasn't it been said that "he never missed a game" (in the Czechoslovak league) or something? And yet he only played few games in the 1978 and 1979 WCs, for example, when he should've been in his prime.

Having said all this, I've got no problem, if he gets on the list.

 

[MXD]

This is extremely debatable. There are several players in this round who have sustained periods of time where they were on Turgeon's level offensively. I mean, you've got an Art Ross winner, a two-time goal scoring leader, and three-time assist leader who was also 2nd in points twice, a guy who lost an Art Ross to prime Mario Lemieux, a guy with multiple 50 goal/100 point seasons....Turgeon could well be the best overall offensive player available, but it is not nearly as open-and-shut as you seem to be implying.

This is definitely a "can of worms" line of thinking, but one thing that has to bug somebody about Turgeon is that the guy was traded twice in his prime. First for a declining Kirk Muller....second for Shayne Corson. Turgeon was coming off a 96-point season and was 27 years old...Corson was aged 30 and coming off a 46-point season (which was his normal scoring output) and already had a reputation as a dressing room cancer from his previous stop in Edmonton. That paints a pretty ugly picture of contemporary opinion of Turgeon amongst league general managers.

I dont think we should use anything made by Rejean Houle as evidence of... Something.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Pierre Turgeon - Canadiens, etc

You're right, he was not a Hab the entire time. But he was better as a Hab in 1995 than as an Islander. His actual Habs numbers are 116 points in 95 games... a better average than I originally said... and 16% higher than Vincent Damphousse over those two seasons... and still, he was not as good a Hab as he was an Islander or Blue.

With the Canadiens Pierre Turgeon scored 127 points in 106 games while Vincent Damphousse scored 114 in 106 games.(12% diff?) A bit of time as linemates - Damphousse playing LW, shared some PP time as well. Slight advantage offensively to Turgeon but not as expected overall result playing together as linemates or teammates. Is slightly better offensively over a 106 game stretch than Vincent Damphousse or even over a career during different circumstances a Top 60 attribute?

Pierre Turgeon's career season with the Blues, President's, leading scorer, etc. Impressive but short of Lemaire's 1972-73 season which matched or surpassed team and individual achievements including a SC plus his longtime linemate winning the Smythe as the line dominated the playoffs.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The appropriate thread to critique or defend the VsX system is here: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1361409

By this late round, I can't see anyone changing their minds as to whether VsX is a useful shorthand for prime regular season offensive production or not, so if you don't think it's useful, just ignore the table I posted.

(If you want to explain why a specific player available this round is overrated or underrated by ANY evaluation method, including VsX, that's fine. But leave the generalized critiques to the other thread)

The VsX posts have been moved to the thread TDMM linked above, so if you're interested in continuing the conversation just click the link.

Also, you really should visit the By The Numbers forum if you haven't already! It's a great place for discussion of stats and methods. /plug

 

[Hardyvan123]

I think Stamkos and McGee have comparable peaks at this point. Heck, you may as well say comparable careers, because peak is the entire career for them. Main difference is McGee was the leader of a dynasty, Stamkos has not yet experienced much team success. Stamkos plays in an era where expecting him to spearhead a dynasty is unreasonable of course, but it still must be considered a plus for McGee I would say.

It's really a stretch here, the quality of play in the early 20th |century was really very limited and the amateur status of the game for much of the growth in Ontario in the 1890's really furthers that point. a struggle that went on for much if not all of McGee's career and one of the 2 things that really make the question of the competition level basically unfair to a guy like Stamkos.

I'm not sure about Stamkos being closer to Crosby than McGee to Bowie. I don't think any reasonable person would prefer Stamkos to Crosby on a per game basis, or say that "Stamkos is better" in a discussion about hockey players.

I could see somebody preferring McGee to Bowie from 1903-1906.

Perhaps this is possible but your next comment is the reason why bowie made our list and McGee likely won't.

I don't think the gap in per-game value is very big, Bowie just established himself as the top center well before McGee arrived on the scene, and remained so after McGee was gone.

There is of course the competition/era discount factor associated with McGee. But Crosby, Malkin, Thornton, Datsyuk, and Zetterberg (elite centers playing at an elite level for the bulk of Stamkos' career) are already on the list.

The discount factor is much higher than just 5 guys for Stamkos, heck it would need to be higher than 5 Canadian centers nevermind 3 non Canadians on that list of 5.

Only Bowie is on the list from McGee's era. Is the era difference so large that a 6th player from one era should be rated ahead of the 2nd from another (assuming of course that one feels McGee and Stamkos are very close in comparison)?

Yes the era difference is that large, McGee was probably less a star than Bain was but Bain probably wouldn't come up on a top 100 list (well maybe here a top 100 list who knows) There really is a marked difference in the quality of play and amatuer/professional in the early 1900's

Of course, you may not feel McGee is very close to Bowie, and Stamkos is indeed much closer to Crosby. If that is the case though, it's pretty much conceding that Bowie was by leaps and bounds the greatest center of the pre-NHA generation. In which case, his placement outside of the top 40 seems unreasonably low. (Mr. Bonvie mentioned this in the previous discussion).

Not so sure about Bowie being unreasonably low either as the more I read of that era the less competitive it sounds, and thus easier to dominate.

Stamkos in the last 4 years, including this seasons where he has missed alot of time is still the leading goal scorer in a fully integrated 100 plus year professional sport at a very competitive time.

The next highest goal scorer is AO and then it's a 40 goal drop down to the next Canadian guy.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=goals

I don't think that Stamkos is a top 60 guy...quite yet but I'm sure that McGee isn't, the quality of play, shortness of his career (even for his era), and missed games all are more than enough to keep him out.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Yes the era difference is that large, McGee was proably less a star than Bain was but Bain probaly wouldn't come up on a top 100 list (well maybe ehre a top 100 list who knows) There really is a marked difference in the qulity of play and amatuer/professional in the early 1900's

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what basis do you have for stating that Dan Bain of all people was a bigger star than Frank McGee?

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what basis do you have for stating that Dan Bain of all people was a bigger star than Frank McGee?

The guy who was voted Canada's top sportsman of the entire second half of the 19th century? I would imagine a case could be made, so not sure why you'd be afraid to ask.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The guy who was voted Canada's top sportsman of the entire second half of the 19th century? I would imagine a case could be made, so not sure why you'd be afraid to ask.

Bain was a multi-sport athlete, like Lionel Conacher, who won that award for the first half of the 20th century. As a hockey player, I don't see a case for Bain over McGee, but if Hardyvan has some information that I don't have, I would love to see it.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Bain was a multi-sport athlete, like Lionel Conacher, who won that award for the first half of the 20th century. As a hockey player, I don't see a case for Bain over McGee, but if Hardyvan has some information that I don't have, I would love to see it.

I just spent a few minutes poking around, and after making the regular stops, noticing that both guys were original inductees, etc, I found myself at the Manitoba Sports HoF page. I originally found it interesting that they inducted teams, and then noticed that Bain's name was stamped all over the place.

1901 Winnipeg Victorias
1911&1912 Winnipeg Victorias

Excerpts:
"...Bain scoring two goals... In the deciding game, Bain sniped two more... On January 31st, after 4 minutes of overtime, the Vics won the Stanley Cup by a score of 2-1. Bain was the hero, scoring both goals..." (I believe this was while playing with a broken nose, as the "masked man")

"...It was fitting that Dan Bain, the man who played such a prominent role in the Vics' Stanley Cups, was the Honourary President of the Vics who brought the west its first Allan Cup Championships..."

So without getting into McGee's counter-resume (quite a bit already submitted, of course), we're talking about a multiple Stanley Cup champion who played the role of captain and hero, and seems to have as much to look at on his MHL league resume as anyone else in league play around the country during the "era". It's interesting at least, considering he admittedly changed "hobbies" after a sufficient level of "achievement", so he also kind of has a "prematurely" shortened career (was Canadian trapshooting champion as early as 1903, and a figure skater with dozens of titles apparently, lol); just for really different reasons.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

It's really a stretch here, the quality of play in the early 20th |century was really very limited and the amateur status of the game for much of the growth in Ontario in the 1890's really furthers that point. a struggle that went on for much if not all of McGee's career and one of the 2 things that really make the question of the competition level basically unfair to a guy like Stamkos.

The growth of the game was significant during McGee's formative years. The sport taking off in Ontario in the 1890s would be a positive for McGee I would think when it comes to questioning competition.

Yes the era difference is that large, McGee was proably less a star than Bain was but Bain probaly wouldn't come up on a top 100 list (well maybe ehre a top 100 list who knows) There really is a marked difference in the qulity of play and amatuer/professional in the early 1900's

I'd say McGee is in the same category of Bain in terms of star power. Both were inaugural inductees into the HOF in 1945. Bain was 8 years older than McGee though, came onto the scene in the mid-1890's when the game truly was in formative stages. Bain was in fact a speed skater that came to become a hockey player after spotting an advertisement looking for players to try out for the Winnipeg Vics. It seems entirely reasonable that he would have been a better player upon retirement simply by virtue of experience, and a lot of his contemporaries were probably in the same boat. This was the generation that didn't grow up with senior organized competition to aspire to, hockey being almost entirely recreational during their formative years.

Nobody that made their mark in the 1890's ever appeared on any of the all-time all-star teams or was mentioned in the same revered tone as the generation that came immediately after them by contemporaries. I think there's solid reason to believe the game did experience a "great leap forward" when the generation that grew up with high level senior play/Stanley Cup as a part of the national consciousness came of age.

Not so sure about Bowie being unreasonably low either as the more I read of that era the less competitive it sounds, and thus easier to dominate.

Easier to dominate, no question. But if it is agreed that he was the most dominant by such a degree that no contemporary is deserving of a spot in the top 60, what more could he have really done to further his case? Bowie being the very lowest ranked player out of all those who could be considered the best of their generation is entirely defensible. But if a whole bunch of 2nd, 3rd, 4th tier players are ahead of him it would imply, at least to me, that there was at least some dispute as to Bowie's standing in his own generation, in which case Frank McGee should probably sneak into a top 60..Or, an admission that it was simply impossible for a pre-NHA era player to rank above a certain threshold no matter how dominant they may have been. And if that were the case, questions as to whether or not the list truly was all-time in nature could be raised.

I don't think that Stamkos is a top 60 guy...quite yet but I'm sure that McGee isn't, the quality of play, shortness of his career (even for his era), and missed games all are more than enough to keep him out.

I think these players are probably on an equal footing as it stands right now, with McGee's trump card being his status as the leader of a dynasty.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

okay here's my henrik sedin mega-post. before i get into it, i want to say that if i were participating in this project, i'd be surprised if i could find a space for him in my top 60. so don't take this as either a pro or a con for him, even though i love the guy and obviously he's my guy. but beyond the purposes of ranking the top 60, it seems like the discussions in these threads should also serve the purpose (as the ATD discussions do) of providing as full as possible accounts for players.

so here are my responses to truths, half-truths, and "that's-past-my-bedtime" concerning henrik sedin, coming from someone who has watched an awful lot of his games through his entire career.



playoffs they're not as bad as some indicate -- based mostly on a bad performance in the finals while he was playing with an injured back -- but he's not doug gilmour obviously. so no i don't think he's a choker, but neither is he particularly clutch. since he broke out post-lockout as a relevant player, his his playoff state line is:

68 games, 24 goals, 44 assists, 58 points (representing a 7 year prime, with one year in there where the canucks missed the playoffs)

that's almost exactly the same GP and points as getzlaf, exactly the same PPG as toews, 11th in both points and PPG (among centers). at this point in the voting, i think that's about right-- neither clutch nor choker.


since he became an elite player in 2010, his playoff stat line is:

46 games, 8 goals, 36 assists, 44 points (representing a 5 year peak)

5 year playoff peaks of post-lockout centers:

zetterberg - 82 games, 40 goals, 48 assists, 88 points ('07-'11)
crosby - 63 games, 30 goals, 55 assists, 85 points ('08-'12)
briere - 80 games, 33 goals, 51 assists, 84 points ('06-'10)
malkin - 63 games, 32 goals, 45 assists, 77 points ('08-'12)
datsyuk - 79 games, 29 goals, 47 assists, 76 points
toews - 75 games, 20 goals, 44 asists, 64 points ('09-'13)
mike richards - 77 games, 20 goals, 44 assists, 64 points ('08-'12)
giroux - 50 games, 21 goals, 34 assists, 55 points (4 years: '09-'12, missed the playoffs in '13)
thornton - 63 games, 10 goals, 45 assists, 55 points ('07-'11)
gomez - 56 games, 17 goals, 36 assists, 53 points ('06-'10-- admit it, this surprised you too)
krejci - 59 games, 20 goals, 27 assists, 47 points ('09-'13)
getzlaf - 46 games, 15 goals, 31 assists, 46 points ('07-11)
spezza - 40 games, 13 goals, 31 assists, 44 points ('06-'10)
staal - 43 games, 19 goals, 24 assists, 43 points (based on two seasons, '06 and '09)
backstrom - 50 games, 14 goals, 26 assists, 40 points ('08-'12)
kopitar - 44 games, 13 goals, 21 assists, 34 points (based on three seasons)

which if we tier the P/G averages goes,

way > PPG: crosby, malkin
within 6 of > PPG: zetterberg, briere, giroux, spezza
PPG: getzlaf, staal
within 6 of < PPG: datsyuk, gomez, sedin
within 7 of < PPG: thornton
< PPG: toews, richards, krejci, backstrom, kopitar

(the 6 point threshold is one point under PPG x 5 years + 1, kind of arbitrary but whatever; thornton should really belong where henrik and datsyuk are)

pre-lockout career almost meaningless in any all-time sense, except that he was in the league for those 4 years. he played basically 3rd line minutes at ES with 2nd PP unit icetime, and there were calls for years for crawford to give both sedins more responsibility, especially offensive responsibilities, but i don't know that that means anything; there have always in the entire history of canucks hockey been calls to give more minutes to young players who may or may not have earned them yet.

but that means, as of today, the career arc is:

4 mostly irrelevant years
1 lost lockout year
3 years as a legit 1st line center at near PPG numbers with the last two as a fringe top 25 scorer
3 year peak as a top ten scorer with one art ross and one top 5
1 year regression back to fringe top 25 near PPG scorer (finished 20th)
1 year (i.e. this season) where it's been rumored that he'd been playing injured all year


current regression i think there was the 3 year peak where he led the league in assists and contended for the art ross twice, and then there's the roughly PPG henrik sedin that he's back to. the question now seems to be whether he's fallen even from that prime henrik. hard to say, but a lot will be determined after he comes back from his current rib injury. some think he hasn't been playing at 100% since the end of the san jose series in '11, but kept soldiering on because he's the captain and a warrior. we'll see if now having the chance to heal up helps him in the long run, or whether he's a different player. but let us not forget that he was leading the league in assists and in the top 5 in scoring through the first month of this season. what that tells us about his future is debatable, and obviously it means nothing for his legacy, but the now-prevalent "henrik is finished" talk would have seemed ridiculously as recently as november.


brother several things: 1. henrik has always been the better sedin, from the day he first hit the ice in training camp to right now. 2. he won the 2010 hart trophy in part because he showed he could lead a competitive team without daniel, who was injured for 20 games that season.

some have said that henrik has the ultimate "linemate argument" as a strike against him. and yeah, obviously he did have that advantage. it's unique to him and daniel alone. but i've seen people on this and the main board say that they were impressed by henrik's series against LA in 2012, with daniel in and out of the lineup after the concussion from the duncan keith elbow, even though we got bounced in 5. and obviously he showed in 2010 that he was just fine without daniel. honestly i'm not sure what to do with that suggestion upthread that henrik's 2010 hart is the result of "bonus points" that he got from performing well without daniel. why should he showing that he's elite without his brother be a strike against his hart-worthiness that season?

but post-duncan keith-flying elbow, daniel has been pretty roundly awful since the end of the '12 regular season. henrik was always the better sedin, and the one that was more responsible for making things happen, as well as always having more of the take charge mentality, but he did have a very good linemate from '06 to '09, and an elite one in '10, '11, and most of the '12 regular season. many canucks fans will tell you that daniel's been an anchor since the concussion, doing more harm than good, and there have been many calls for daniel (who no longer shoots with any confidence or conviction) to be a playmaker for kesler and for henrik to lead his own line. tortorella has tried that out at points this season, but not consistently (and henrik did look good with santorelli in some of those brief spurts)-- more as a "message" to wake up the team than as a serious solution.


hart trophy

while i'll accept that henrik almost certainly doesn't win the art ross unless ovechkin misses those 12 games, it's hard to say that he didn't win the hart fairly. sure, it was close between him and ovechkin, but i don't think it's just my homer-glasses saying that henrik might have won the hart regardless.

do the voters really let ovechkin win three straight harts? or do they go with the breakthrough guy who isn't on the league's strongest team, without three all-star teammates having career years, who had the hot finish? see: perry over daniel sedin in 2011.

but at the end of the day, ovechkin took himself out of the lineup for 4 games that year by getting himself suspended, on top of the 8 games he missed due to injury. is post-reckless ovechkin as effective as reckless ovechkin? the seasons after '10 would seem to indicate the answer is no. and i don't think i need to say it but maybe i do: it's not like crosby wasn't healthy that year.

was henrik ever the best player in the game? no. when he peaked, crosby, ovechkin, and malkin were all better players in an absolute sense. did he ever have the best season of anyone in the league? yeah, yeah he did.

so this is not, i repeat this is not the same thing as hypothetical healthy turgeon in 2000 winning the art ross (but probably not the hart) because every relevant offensive player in the league was injured. one guy, ovechkin, was injured. one. does fedorov win the 1994 hart if mario is healthy? does lafontaine finish second in scoring in '93 if gretzky had been healthy, considering what '93 playoff gretzky looked like? '95 or '97 jagr if mario had been healthy? which is to say, some of us going a little overboard on devaluing the 2010 hart and rosses here.


scoring relative to daniel

from last round:

because of their idiosyncratic cycle game, and the fact the daniel is the shooter (or was before his duncan keith-flying elbow-concussion, anyway), in a normal situation where they are equally good, daniel will usually get slightly more points, because he touches the puck last before it goes into the net or creates a rebound much more often than henrik does. i wouldn't be surprised if henrik has led all forwards in tertiary assists every year since the lockout. so that explains daniel's lead in certain years.

henrik's lead in other years is some combination of him played more games than daniel (2010, e.g.), or because he's the better player which he always has been.

zone starts

from a previous round:

i know i'm defending my guy here, so take it with a grain of salt, but i have to clear up a huge misconception that the sedins' peak success -- which to be fair, caught us all by surprise and seemingly came out of nowhere -- was caused by alain vigneault's stupid zone starts strategy.

henrik sedin's best year (his hart/ross winning 2010 season) was before vigneault started to give him and his line heavy offensive zone starts.

here's vancouver's 2010 offensive zone starts:

DANIELSEDIN VAN 61.8
HENRIKSEDIN VAN 57.7
ALEXBURROWS VAN 56.5

http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stat...0-&c=0+1+3+5+63+67+57+58+59+60+61+62+64+65+66


and the 2010 zone starts for that year's cup winning team:

BENEAGER CHI 69.9
PATRICKKANE CHI 67.4
MARIANHOSSA CHI 62.5
PATRICKSHARP CHI 61.8
TOMASKOPECKY CHI 59.8
JONATHANTOEWS CHI 58.8
ANDREWLADD CHI 56.1
DUSTINBYFUGLIEN CHI 54.4
TROYBROUWER CHI 54.1
KRISVERSTEEG CHI 52.7
COLINFRASER CHI 41.9
JOHNMADDEN CHI 37.1


that's three blackhawk stars with equal or higher offensive zone start numbers as daniel, and all four blackhawk star forwards at higher offensive zone starts than henrik.

http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stat...0-&c=0+1+3+5+63+67+57+58+59+60+61+62+64+65+66


many canucks fans will tell you that alain vigneault's strategy, which began in the 2011 season, made henrik a less, not more, effective player, both overall and offensively. there are many reasons for this, but one big reason they kept getting shut down in the playoffs by teams with elite number 1 D pairs is because 2011 and later, you always knew when they were coming on the ice and so you always knew when to put keith-seabrook, suter-weber, chara-seidenberg, and mitchell-doughty on the ice. genius won two presidents trophies and then rewarded his team by coaching them out of home ice advantage both years and wasted what should have been henrik's playoff prime.

and then i clarified the stakes:

well the point was that in his very best offensive and all-round season, his zone starts weren't being managed. his next two seasons (71% and 78%) were managed, yes; and they weren't as good. among all forwards who played 40+ games in 2010, henrik sedin's zone starts weren't even in the top 30, which is as deep as the resource i get that stat from goes.

i repeat: 58% offensive zone starts isn't "managed zone time and faceoffs," as you say. is jonathan toews in his conn smythe year "deficient" and a "product" of coaching shenanigans and soft minutes in the way you suggest henrik is? because he had a higher offensive zone start percentage than henrik did.

and so again, my point is not to argue whether henrik is or isn't ahead of primeau. my point is if we're going to take epsilon and TDMM's question re: the similarities between primeau and sedin seriously, it would probably be best to not fall back on an untrue cliche about sedin's breakthrough as a superstar being a "product of managed zone time and faceoffs." and if you're going to criticize sedin's 200 foot game -- and go nuts, i don't mind, i'm not going to sit here and pretend he was bobby clarke -- at least base it on facts and not fiction.


and now to bring this back on the topic of discussing joe primeau, who is up for voting, and not henrik, who isn't-- even if what you said above is true (and i don't think that it is), does it really make sense to place the older player over the current player due to a "deficiency" in "present day players" when (in 2010) sedin, toews, backstrom, malkin, and crosby all had more than 55% of their shifts start in the offensive zone, with stamkos only a fraction of a percentage below 55? seems like 55%+ is just the conditions of today's game for superstar centers, no?

(note: that's all four centers who got at least one second place AST vote that year, those same four centers being also the only ones who appeared on more than five ballots; with that year's conn smythe winner and the previous season's art ross/conn smythe/1st team all-star center added for good measure. as tight and unanimous a sampling as you're going to get for top centers' zone start distribution)

again, note that while henrik may have been (as seventieslord notes below) 10th in the league in offensive zone starts among centers, here are the top six centers in the league:

6 2009-2010 Season JONATHANTOEWS CHI 58.8
8 2009-2010 Season EVGENIMALKIN PIT 58.1
9 2009-2010 Season NICKLASBACKSTROM WSH 58.0
10 2009-2010 Season HENRIKSEDIN VAN 57.7
16 2009-2010 Season SIDNEYCROSBY PIT 56.7
29 2009-2010 Season STEVENSTAMKOS T.B 54.6

seems like the zone starts were exactly where they should have been for a franchise center.

- This is a can of worms, but Sedin was given an obscene number of offensive zone starts in a few of his very best seasons. It doesn't explain 2010 on its own (he was only 10th in the league at 57.7%), but it seems his huge spike from 1.02 to 1.45 adjusted PPG had at least something to do with going from 49.9% to 57.7%. Then in 2011 and 2012, the zone starts experiment got taken to a new level, with the Sedins lapping the next highest guy by as much as that guy was ahead of 11th-40th place, and Henrik was able to stay as close to his 2010 spike as possible, having his 2nd and 3rd-best seasons. Then last season it was dialed back a bit (63.7%, 7th overall), and so was his scoring, to 1.04 adjusted PPG. This season Henrik's nowhere near the leaders in zone starts and... nowhere near the leaders in points, either. I completely realize it's arguable how strong this connection is, but there certainly appears to be some connection, and it's also common sense to an extent.

there can't be no relationship between the zone starts and the downward trend, no. but yeah, it's a lot more complicated than that. strength of teammates is one: part of the reason for so few zone starts this season is torts coming to town and deciding to give the sedins more responsibility, but also it's partly that the canucks are also terrible this year, and a lot of those defensive zone starts are because the team gets hemmed in a lot. burrows and edler have both been injured for long spells, hansen, santorelli, and kassian have all missed time. on multiple occasions, 3 top 6 defensemen have been out simultaneously. henrik's zone starts have fallen below average partly because the other lines are also not getting the puck out of their zone. so strength of teammates is a factor.

the inverse would also be true: yes the '11 and '12 zone starts were historically high; but those teams also dominated and there were more offensive zone starts to go around. again, not to say it wasn't intentional by vigneault, which of course it was, but i don't think henrik hits 71% and 78% if the team isn't clearing 110+ points. but then also note that the best sedin season is 2010, where henrik is at 57%. they drop slightly in 2011, when henrik rises to 71%. they drop again to the bottom half of the top ten (with daniel dropping to 27th, partly due to injury, partly due to regression), and that's the ridiculous 78% year.

i think the much more reasonable explanations for henrik falling from his peak production are:

1. age (i.e., peaks end)

2. the loss of christian ehrhoff, who has never been replaced

3. over-reliance on the cycle game, due to starting all of his shifts in the offensive zone. for one brief shining year, 2010, the sedins routinely scored goals on the rush. it didn't happen much previously, and it didn't happen much after. it had a lot to do with their maturation as skaters, and with ehrhoff as the only true PMD they've ever had (they've had many good, and occasionally very good offensive d-men over the years, but none moved the puck like ehrhoff did and none came close to ehrhoff's ability to skate the puck). but it seemed so silly to me; they found a new tool to fill out their arsenal and AV took it away (i.e., hard to score on the rush when almost all your shifts begin and remain in the offensive zone). another more delayed effect of the zone starts was tanking vancouver's now-historically-bad powerplay, due to everyone "figuring out" the cycle (their PP was tops in the league in 2011 and for the first half of 2012 before cratering in the second half of that year). 1 single PPP in 2013, and only 15 so far this season.


post-lockout breakthrough

it honestly makes no sense to me to correlate the new post-lockout rules with the sedins' breakthrough. their game is protecting the puck along the boards and absorbing contact. they thrive not in wide-open obstruction-free games but in tight-checking ones. it's kind of like how jagr was uniquely suited to the DPE; peak sedins also had a game best suited to that era. they find space in tight checking. that's also why they're much better at ES than on the PP-- their style is based on breaking man-on-man coverage and doesn't work nearly as well when matched up against a four man box, or three man triangle.

(sidenote: beyond henrik playing hurt, both sedins were so quiet in the 2011 finals because chara was the one defenseman who could contain them, due to his reach. the sedin cycle game is absorbing contact, then short passes back and forth to create openings. chara could grab one sedin while still getting to the stick of the other, which proved to be their kryptonite. you want to talk about a perfect storm, there was one guy in the world that could do that.)

i think it was simple maturation (the difference between being 23 and 25 years old), going home and figuring some stuff out during the lockout, and getting a lot stronger and faster. 23 year old sedins were still boys, physically; they came back men. and they came back average skaters, as opposed to the terrible skaters they had previously been, and their skating steadily continued improving up to their 2010-2012 peak.

and as for the tag of being soft, perimeter players, yeah they play on the perimeter. they absorb an enormous amount of contact on that perimeter. and no, they don't crash the net like milan lucic, and no they don't really ever hit guys. but the way some people talk, it's like henrik is craig janney. henrik played 679 consecutive games taking multiple hits to make the play every single shift. honestly, i think a lot of people don't watch the canucks play, and are going on that one clip of daniel daniel getting repeatedly punched by marchand.


okay i think i've gotten all of my henrik rants out now. i tried to be as even-handed as i could, but who knows really? anyway, as you all were.

 

[seventieslord]

the "snipe" wasn't that what you said re: scoring isn't true, though yes i will take on what you say about henrik in a little bit (though spoiler: no, i don't think henrik is a top 60 all time center). the "snipe" is that while i usually find you to be a very fair and reasonable assessor of players, you seem to be going out of your way and bending over backwards to play the "what if" game for turgeon. i mean like sundin-fan-level stuff. i would elaborate, but that has been done for me upthread by multiple other posters.

I’m not sure if you’ve read closely enough if you think I’m playing the “what if†card. I’ve always been a strong advocate of doing the only logical thing when a player has an excellent 30, 40, 50, 60 game season –

- DON’T just project it out to a full season and credit them as though they did that for 80 games
- DON’T just pretend they scored that many points in 80 games and treat the season accordingly
- DO call it exactly what it is: 30, 40, 50, 60 games of hockey played at a certain level, deserving of no more or less credit than that

Note that in the previous thread in post 71, I assessed Sedin, Turgeon, Sundin, Lafontaine and Zetterberg by the same standards: best 700 games, and best 400 games. I included 400 games both for the more prime-oriented people, and to demonstrate I’m not trying to pull a fast one by including a large sample that would only benefit the longer career players. In both cases Turgeon came out on top of that group (and he comes out ahead of the newly added guys here as well). I just want to point out again, that this only focuses on what they did when they played. No forgiveness for injuries, and no projections, not even for lockout shortened seasons.

Turgeon’s edge over Sedin does shrink from 10% to 5% when only a 400 game sample is used, but the edge is still there. I didn’t post this earlier, but even based on very small 250-ish game samples, Turgeon is ahead by 3% (342 in 263 vs 310 in 246). It’s really only in “best single season†that Sedin has him.

Turgeon? I don't know if he was an even better point producer than LaFontaine, or even spike Sedin. But he probably was somewhere in that area. He was on my list, Turgeon, but he never seemed to provide that extra dimension, whatever it is.

Spike Sedin was just barely ahead of “spike Turgeonâ€â€¦ although as I mentioned early, there was really no such thing as Spike Turgeon. 1.38, 1.30, 1.28 and 1.23 were his best adjusted PPG seasons. (Sedin’s best two are 1.45 and 1.23). As mentioned above, Sedin’s best season was better than Turgeon’s, but the advantages end there. In sustained production, Turgeon was definitely better. his balanced goals-vs-assists ratio and inferior linemates would only work in his favour in addition to that.

Re: Lafontaine, his best two were 1.43 and 1.42, but a big dropoff to 1.19 from there. Over both 700 and 400 games, Turgeon’s got him. Hard to believe, I know!

Turgeon was good in St. Louis but he wasn't the guy on that team. It had Pronger, MacInnis and an underrated Demitra. Or as a fellow poster pointed out in the recent Chris Pronger plus minus thread, the Blues went

You’re right, he wasn’t THE GUY. But offensively, he was.

(Demitra WAS underrated; however, the whole time they were both in St. Louis, he was a step below Turgeon offensively, and by a step, I mean about 10%.)

I’m getting off topic, but the main point is, as a scorer, he’s the best guy here, and that doesn’t make him an automatic choice by any means, but it should make him a better choice than other one dimensional scorers.

This is extremely debatable. There are several players in this round who have sustained periods of time where they were on Turgeon's level offensively. I mean, you've got an Art Ross winner, a two-time goal scoring leader, and three-time assist leader who was also 2nd in points twice, a guy who lost an Art Ross to prime Mario Lemieux, a guy with multiple 50 goal/100 point seasons....Turgeon could well be the best overall offensive player available, but it is not nearly as open-and-shut as you seem to be implying.

It depends what you mean by “sustainedâ€, because he’s got a better 400 and 700 game record than Sedin and Lafontaine, who you’re referring to. Among those three, Sedin has the absolute best season with 1.45 adjusted PPG, and Lafontaine has the best “best 2†with 1.43 and 1.42, but looking at three seasons or beyond, Turgeon was the one who sustained his production over the largest number of games.

This is definitely a "can of worms" line of thinking, but one thing that has to bug somebody about Turgeon is that the guy was traded twice in his prime. First for a declining Kirk Muller....second for Shayne Corson. Turgeon was coming off a 96-point season and was 27 years old...Corson was aged 30 and coming off a 46-point season (which was his normal scoring output) and already had a reputation as a dressing room cancer from his previous stop in Edmonton. That paints a pretty ugly picture of contemporary opinion of Turgeon amongst league general managers.

It does. I’m not saying he’s flawless.

These kinds of trades have always happened and still do. Corson was regarded as a warrior of a player and you sometimes have to pay with a ton of skill to get that kind of player.

It’s not like team results really point to his trading ever being a positive turning point. (I know, just the fact that they thought it would be is bad enough…)

With the Canadiens Pierre Turgeon scored 127 points in 106 games while Vincent Damphousse scored 114 in 106 games.(12% diff?) A bit of time as linemates - Damphousse playing LW, shared some PP time as well. Slight advantage offensively to Turgeon but not as expected overall result playing together as linemates or teammates. Is slightly better offensively over a 106 game stretch than Vincent Damphousse or even over a career during different circumstances a Top 60 attribute?

Pierre Turgeon's career season with the Blues, President's, leading scorer, etc. Impressive but short of Lemaire's 1972-73 season which matched or surpassed team and individual achievements including a SC plus his longtime linemate winning the Smythe as the line dominated the playoffs.

Sorry, I don’t know where you’re getting those numbers, 116 in 95 was correct.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points
A 16% difference is a fairly large difference. Damphousse doesn’t belong near this list, IMO, but the 1996 season was his most impressive season by an adjusted points standpoint, and Turgeon was nothing particularly special in montreal (compared to his NYI and STL stints) and yet he had a 16% scoring edge while they were on the same team.

So to answer your question: “Is slightly better offensively over a 106 game stretch than Vincent Damphousse or even over a career during different circumstances a Top 60 attribute?†Yes, 16% better offensively during a particularly quiet 95 game stretch than Vincent Damphousse at his very best IS a top-60 attribute.

Of course, he has other attributes that are not top-60.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

4 Top 5 finishes in NHL scoring. Every other center with more than 2 (other than Clint Smith who played during WW2) is already added.

I realize that Stamkos likely misses the list and I understand why, but he's already accomplished something of historical note.

19 years old and led the NHL in goals. And it was no accident as he got 60 at 21 to lead the league again. Unheard of in any era, let alone in today's NHL.

He'll be my #1 this round.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Overlooked

Sorry, I don’t know where you’re getting those numbers, 116 in 95 was correct.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points
A 16% difference is a fairly large difference. Damphousse doesn’t belong near this list, IMO, but the 1996 season was his most impressive season by an adjusted points standpoint, and Turgeon was nothing particularly special in montreal (compared to his NYI and STL stints) and yet he had a 16% scoring edge while they were on the same team.

So to answer your question: “Is slightly better offensively over a 106 game stretch than Vincent Damphousse or even over a career during different circumstances a Top 60 attribute?†Yes, 16% better offensively during a particularly quiet 95 game stretch than Vincent Damphousse at his very best IS a top-60 attribute.

Of course, he has other attributes that are not top-60.

Sorry but my numbers are correct. The link you post ignores the fact that the Canadiens traded Turgeon after 9 games into the 1996-97 season. My numbers account for this for both him and Damphousse. The post Turgeon trade to the Canadiens. Damphousse numbers are HSP manual culls.

Together on the Canadiens they played 15 games in 1994-95, 82 regular season 1995-96 games, 9 1996-97 games = 106.

Guess I will be more careful with your numbers and the resulting conclusions in the future as accuracy is important.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Easier to dominate, no question. But if it is agreed that he was the most dominant by such a degree that no contemporary is deserving of a spot in the top 60, what more could he have really done to further his case? Bowie being the very lowest ranked player out of all those who could be considered the best of their generation is entirely defensible. But if a whole bunch of 2nd, 3rd, 4th tier players are ahead of him it would imply, at least to me, that there was at least some dispute as to Bowie's standing in his own generation, in which case Frank McGee should probably sneak into a top 60..Or, an admission that it was simply impossible for a pre-NHA era player to rank above a certain threshold no matter how dominant they may have been. And if that were the case, questions as to whether or not the list truly was all-time in nature could be raised.

I'm the first to say that this is the problem here, the balance of a truly all time list and a balance of truly great players as well.

I used to be of the belief that there should be at least 1 dividing line for these lists, that being pre and post WW2, perhaps a pre and post professional one is needed as well.

I mentioned the 3 major points (besides the obvious competition one) that really hinders his case here above

1) A very short career, even for his time.

2) missed games, which makes a short career even shorter

3) His being blind in one eye (which does indeed go to the competition level IMO) and being such a star really gives us some insight on what the competition and game was like (or wasn't like) back then.

It doesn't take much guesswork that if say Wayne, Mario or Sid (as modern example) had lost their eye sight in one eye that there is basically zero chance they could have accomplished what they did in their respective eras.

I hate to bring up this case because it isn't a perfect analogy but we aren't going to have tony Hand in this discussion any time so either and while time separates McGee in terms of competition, place is what hinders Hand (and a lack of motivation perhaps as he showed a very small glimpse of what might have been in 3 games at age 17 for Victoria in the WHL).

McGee didn't play longer or in a more competitive era and Hand didn't pursue North American hockey so why give an allowance to one guy and not the other one?

I understand your point about being historic but it comes at a price of the more modern guy needing higher bar to get into the top 60 group.

Stamkos is the prime example here with a 5 year career and 4 of them excellent (even if the 4th year was a shortened injury one.

I think these players are probably on an equal footing as it stands right now, with McGee's trump card being his status as the leader of a dynasty

This is very hard to say as teams played basically exhibition games against various teams of non determinable talent level and competition, nevermind the ever changing rules, quality of ice (or lack of it ect.). that was prevalent during that time.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

McGee didn't play longer or in a more competitive era and Hand didn't pursue North American hockey so why give an allowance to one guy and not the other one?

I'll try to get to the rest later, but this point is absolutely ridiculous. Frank McGee played in the top league available to him. Tony Hand chose to play in a league of pitiful quality instead of pursuing a career in North America, and there is no evidence at all to suggest he would have even been an impactful NHLer. Guys who weren't good enough for the AHL went over to that British league and put up numbers in the same ballpark as Hand.

 

[Hardyvan123]

19 years old and led the NHL in goals. And it was no accident as he got 60 at 21 to lead the league again. Unheard of in any era, let alone in today's NHL.

He'll be my #1 this round.

If peak is the main criteria i can see that.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I'll try to get to the rest later, but this point is absolutely ridiculous. Frank McGee played in the top league available to him. Tony Hand chose to play in a league of pitiful quality instead of pursuing a career in North America, and there is no evidence at all to suggest he would have even been an impactful NHLer. Guys who weren't good enough for the AHL went over to that British league and put up numbers in the same ballpark as Hand.

I kind of figured this would be the response but the bottom line is saying that both guys dominated their leagues and then saying either domination was on par to what Stamkos has done in his NHL career so far is equally ridiculous for both guys.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I’m not sure if you’ve read closely enough if you think I’m playing the “what if†card.

[my editorial addition: what if we] start Henrik Sedin's career in 1987 and play out his career - does he get 9 voting points once?

- not in 88, 89, 90, 91 or 92 - he had not become a good player yet
- not in 93... 73 adjusted points were very small potatoes
- not in 94... three adjusted points fewer than Turgeon, who missed 15 games and didn't sniff the all-star teams
- not in 1995... his stats again equate to a Pierre Turgeon without goals and no more intangibles
- not in 1996... his stats equate to a lesser Turgeon with way fewer goals
- in 1997, very good chance he takes 2nd all-star team from Gretzky, who was just compiling at this point
- in 1998, he would have had some votes, but would certainly not take the 2nd all-star team from Gretzky with the second half wayne had
- in 1999, it's hard to fathom him getting a top-3 vote with Forsberg, Sakic and a career year from Yashin (all three had 18+ more adjusted points than him)
- in 2000, a weak year for centers, 85 adjusted points would not get him many votes. (that's not many less than Turgeon had in just 52 games)
- in 2001, well, that's this season and Henrik's not having a season that would earn all-star votes at any time.

now, if Turgeon didn't miss 15 games in 1994 and had 114 points, would he have had some all-star votes? almost certainly.

if he didn't miss 22 games in 1998 and had 93 points, 1st among centers (on a very successful team), would he have had some all-star votes? definitely.

If he didn't miss 30 games in 2000 and had 104 points (first in the NHL, on a very successful and defensive oriented team - 1st overall, 3rd last in total GF/GA), would he have had some all-star votes? Yes, he'd have been on the first team! I normally wouldn't say this with certainty, because I'm sure the voters would love to pick anyone else, but with the next best centers in 8th-10th in scoring, over 20 points behind him, he'd have taken it.

So yeah, if the difference between one player's all-star votes and another's is that one's career started 12 years earlier and he missed 67 very poorly timed games, I'm going to question how important all-star teams are at this point.

Turgeon was a much better producer than Sedin over their respective best 700 games, and that's a ton to judge them on without worrying about individual seasons. The gap widens if you consider goals (i.e. that one couldn't score any) and linemates.

You are free to say that Turgeon's recognition isn't congruent with his production, and it's not. And you can say that's a downside... and it is. There are legitimate reasons for it, but a few poorly timed injuries are also to blame. Now, as far as a comparion with Sedin goes, if you could legitimately say "well Sedin got more recogniton as an all-star because in addition to his points, he had XXXXXX which Turgeon didn't have", then that would be fair, too. But that's not a legitimate argument. You and I both know these guys are points and nothing else, and should be judged solely on that. Sedin does not have that "something" that Turgeon lacked, preventing him from getting shafted in all-star votes like Turgeon did. It's not much more than he had his best seasons at the right times, and Turgeon had his best seasons at the wrong times.

Put aside the situational factors that are symptomatic of so much more than their levels of play, and just look at their levels of play.

....

 

[seventieslord]

the inverse would also be true: yes the '11 and '12 zone starts were historically high; but those teams also dominated and there were more offensive zone starts to go around. again, not to say it wasn't intentional by vigneault, which of course it was, but i don't think henrik hits 71% and 78% if the team isn't clearing 110+ points. but then also note that the best sedin season is 2010, where henrik is at 57%. they drop slightly in 2011, when henrik rises to 71%. they drop again to the bottom half of the top ten (with daniel dropping to 27th, partly due to injury, partly due to regression), and that's the ridiculous 78% year.

That is a good point. I think a "team adjusted zone starts" stat would be a good thing, adjusting each team to a 50% benchmark.

That said, if we were to do that for those two seasons in questions, I can imagine the Sedins still leading the league in that stat, just maybe not so obscenely.

 

[seventieslord]

Sorry but my numbers are correct. The link you post ignores the fact that the Canadiens traded Turgeon after 9 games into the 1996-97 season. My numbers account for this for both him and Damphousse. The post Turgeon trade to the Canadiens. Damphousse numbers are HSP manual culls.

Together on the Canadiens they played 15 games in 1994-95, 82 regular season 1995-96 games, 9 1996-97 games = 106.

Guess I will be more careful with your numbers and the resulting conclusions in the future as accuracy is important.

ok. I missed 1996-97. completely forgot that Turgeon started the season there.

Anyway, point still stands. 12% is significant. Especially considering we're talking Turgeon at his worst vs. Damphousse at his best.

....

the point of that post was to show how situational all-star teams are, and why we shouldn't put too much weight into them. They are symptomatic of point scoring accomplishments, therefore, counting them as valuable is just double dipping into the points we're already considering in the cases of the players. Some accomplishments will more easily be rewarded with all-star votes in some seasons.

The main focus of my argument is on the actual points they scored - which I've always said mattered more than the all-star votes, which today simply represent "highest scoring center" - tell the real story about these offense-only players. There's no "if" associated with the actual (adjusted) point totals each player scored in the games they actually played.

 

[MXD]

My take on zone starts stats : I wouldn't even bother with it.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Vincent Damphousse

ok. I missed 1996-97. completely forgot that Turgeon started the season there.

Anyway, point still stands. 12% is significant. Especially considering we're talking Turgeon at his worst vs. Damphousse at his best.

Happens.

Damphousse post peak at the time. Best roughly 1992-96.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/d/damphvi01.html

You may make a solid longevity argument of Turgeon vs Damphouse even given Turgeon's injuries but none of the vs Damphousse or similar centers put him closer to Top 60, only further away.

 

[sr edler]

I’m getting off topic, but the main point is, as a scorer, he’s the best guy here, and that doesn’t make him an automatic choice by any means, but it should make him a better choice than other one dimensional scorers.

LaFontaine seemed to hustle a lot more than Turgeon and looked more involved & less like a perimeter player. Perhaps that's only style and what the eye see, but it's something. Perhaps that's because he [LaFontaine] felt he had to do it because he was a bit smaller and that's probably also what cut his longevity short, while Turgeon thought he could get along and do his thing on skill only without putting his nose in the dirty areas. Turgeon seems to have a bit of the Craig Janney syndrome, he put up a lot of points, even in the playoffs, but many of them felt to be put up in somewhat of a vacuum.

 

[VMBM]

If anyone wants more about Novy, here's a long ATD-style profile about him, containing quotes and a statistical comparison to Nedomansky and Martinec:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=44982271&postcount=140

Once again: their international stats in that bio are totally wrong. I don't know how often this has to be pointed out (every time, I guess), but since those stats are wrong, the analysis is bound to be somewhat wrong too.

So, if anyone is interested, here are Novy's, Nedomansky's and Martinec's REAL WC & Olympic stats (year-by-year/totals):

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=62160535&postcount=681