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Scotty Bowman's Top 100 Canadian Players

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Well, this should put an end to "[coach/player] says that [player] is the best of all time, so that trumps anyone else's analysis" type of posts. We can just call it Bowmaning.

Also, Taco, you might be interested to know that this project focuses on Canadian players only. FYI!
 
Epsilon said:
thom is putting the argument from authority fallacy on full display in this thread.

As far as Garrett's list is concerned: can we all not agree at this point that Scott Niedermayer is easily the most overrated player in hockey history from the perspective of the media?
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sure he is over rated by some but also downplayed by other, especially here.

In an apples versus apples comp (Nieds compared to his Canadian Dman peers over his career) his is 1st in points, all the while playing a pretty decent defensive game.

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

In the playoffs against all his Canadian peers he is 11th overall in scoring and 2nd for Dmen behind Pronger and ahead of Larry Murphy.

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

He also plays for 4 SC teams in a 26-30 team league and has an important major role on each team.

Like I said over rated by some but also under rated and not given proper context by many others.
 
Hardyvan123 said:
Okay give your list here then.

Trevor is 77th in goals, 67th in points and has very good intangibles as well.

Pretty decent player in the playoffs too, some might not have him in their top 100 but he is not out of place there.
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i'm a big defender of linden, but i just don't see it.

we'll pretend for now that every canadian forward with fewer points than linden is worse than him, and that every canadian forward with more points than him is better. i just checked hockey-reference, that makes linden 70th all-time in points by a canadian forward.

now surely you would accept that there have been 30 canadian defensemen and goalies that were greater than linden, right?

now add all the many generations of players who played before the 70+ game season, or who were elite but had truncated careers, or who didn't peak during a high scoring era, or who are still playing. i mean, the five players directly below linden on the points list are lindros, cournoyer, dean prentice, MSL, and ted lindsay. i guess you could maybe make a case for prentice (which would be a huge stretch), but linden is absolutely and unequivocally not as great as the other four. keep going down the list: jacques lemaire, claude lemieux, cam neely, and that's not even getting into stone cold all time greats like morenz, lalonde, cyclone taylor, frank boucher...

on the other hand, i see a few -- but very few -- guys above linden on the all-time canadian forwards points list that linden was greater than.
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
i'm a big defender of linden, but i just don't see it.

we'll pretend for now that every canadian forward with fewer points than linden is worse than him, and that every canadian forward with more points than him is better. i just checked hockey-reference, that makes linden 70th all-time in points by a canadian forward.

now surely you would accept that there have been 30 canadian defensemen and goalies that were greater than linden, right?

now add all the many generations of players who played before the 70+ game season, or who were elite but had truncated careers, or who didn't peak during a high scoring era, or who are still playing. i mean, the five players directly below linden on the points list are lindros, cournoyer, dean prentice, MSL, and ted lindsay. i guess you could maybe make a case for prentice (which would be a huge stretch), but linden is absolutely and unequivocally not as great as the other four. keep going down the list: jacques lemaire, claude lemieux, cam neely, and that's not even getting into stone cold all time greats like morenz, lalonde, cyclone taylor, frank boucher...

on the other hand, i see a few -- but very few -- guys above linden on the all-time canadian forwards points list that linden was greater than.
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I only see a few as well that are obvious but like I said throw in the playoffs and his strong two way play and leadership his name wouldn't stick out near the end of the top 100.
 
Hardyvan123 said:
I only see a few as well that are obvious but like I said throw in the playoffs and his strong two way play and leadership his name wouldn't stick out near the end of the top 100.
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There are times where I definitely appreciate you playing devil's advocate with respect to popular opinion, but in this thread it seems you are going out of your way to defend absurd players.
 
Epsilon said:
There are times where I definitely appreciate you playing devil's advocate with respect to popular opinion, but in this thread it seems you are going out of your way to defend absurd players.
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Maybe it's a case of being to close to the forest to see the trees here but Linden was an extremely good player here in Vancouver and throwing in the intangibles that I mentioned I have no problem with him being in the mix for the top 100 Canadians of all time.

Linden is one of those guys who played on poor teams but was much more than his stats.


That being said his career took a big hit sideways after being traded from Vancouver, from which he never fully recovered.

Even when he came back it was more of a role player but those 1st 9 seasons in Vancouver leads me to believe that if I was in a draft of only all time Canadians I would want Trevor on my team if he was there when I was picking 100.

I can see why people would have him out if they remember him largely largely from his play outside of Vancouver which was uninspiring.

Or was it the apples to apples Nieds that was absurd?

He sure got killed in the top 60 Dman project IMO as the Canadian to Canadian comp was largely ignored.

But that is a whole other story.
 
Hardyvan123 said:
I only see a few as well that are obvious but like I said throw in the playoffs and his strong two way play and leadership his name wouldn't stick out near the end of the top 100.
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There are 223 Canadians in the Hockey Hall of Fame and I've never seen anyone vouch for Linden's induction.
 
Dennis Bonvie said:
Give me 97 Canadian players and I'll bet there will be a good argument for Daughty being a bettter player than someone on that list.
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Sprague Cleghorn
Harry Cameron
Doug Wilson
George Boucher
Craig Hartsburg
Paul Reinhart
Keith Duncan
James Patrick
....and this is just the defensemen. I'm sure you could pick holes in every one of these guys but come on, there's nothing wrong with Daughty, I actually like the guy and think he could be a great one but after 4 years he's a top 100 of all Canadian players?

Call it the Tony Conigliaro Syndrome.....a massively great start to an MLB career and then he's injured enough to take away his best skills. He compensated greatly, guessing on pitches because he says he pretty much was using only one eye to see, plus he had better lineups that he played with so they couldn't pitch around him anymore. He could've been one of the best players of his era, maybe more.....now he's lucky he's even remembered by anybody outside of Boston. He was 22 yrs old when he got hit in the eye with a baseball, all but gone by 25.

Speculation: Daughty blows out a knee....where does he rank? Seriously, in the top 100 of all-time Canadian players? Ridiculous.
 
BubbaBoot said:
Sprague Cleghorn
Harry Cameron
Doug Wilson
George Boucher
Craig Hartsburg
Paul Reinhart
Keith Duncan
James Patrick
....and this is just the defensemen. I'm sure you could pick holes in every one of these guys but come on, there's nothing wrong with Daughty, I actually like the guy and think he could be a great one but after 4 years he's a top 100 of all Canadian players?

Call it the Tony Conigliaro Syndrome.....a massively great start to an MLB career and then he's injured enough to take away his best skills. He compensated greatly, guessing on pitches because he says he pretty much was using only one eye to see, plus he had better lineups that he played with so they couldn't pitch around him anymore. He could've been one of the best players of his era, maybe more.....now he's lucky he's even remembered by anybody outside of Boston. He was 22 yrs old when he got hit in the eye with a baseball, all but gone by 25.

Speculation: Daughty blows out a knee....where does he rank? Seriously, in the top 100 of all-time Canadian players? Ridiculous.
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Lets try to remember the content of this ranking.

This is Scotty Bowman's list, not HOH voters. Best hockey players, period. Career is irrelevant (see Sidney Crosby at 15).

As for Tony C., if you asked Johnny Pesky (before he passed) or Ted Williams or Jim Lonborg to name the best 100 hitters, I could see them putting Conigliaro at 98 (or better).
 
unknown33 said:
There are 223 Canadians in the Hockey Hall of Fame and I've never seen anyone vouch for Linden's induction.
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see this is the problem with lists.

There are many of those 223 (that list) that aren't as good as Linden.

then we have the criteria here and in the extreme example of the sticky of all eras being treated equally.

Then I have my list and you have yours with individual quirks.

Lindens 1st 9 years in Vancouver puts him on my top 100 list, if I had to run a team from scratch anytime anywhere, call me biased and i will say that that's my personal list, not my History section list as there are 2 different criteria at work.

All that being said of course Linden isn't a HHOF, but not all of your 223 really deserve to be there either IMO as there are 2 different metrics at work.
 
Hardyvan123 said:
Okay give your list here then.

Trevor is 77th in goals, 67th in points and has very good intangibles as well.

Pretty decent player in the playoffs too, some might not have him in their top 100 but he is not out of place there.
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Trevor Linden is the Ryan Smyth of Vancouver. The Canucks version of Wendel Clark.

Popular player, good player but NOT great and definitely NOT top 100.

I don't post my lists anymore; I simply do not have the time or desire to carry on with the resulting debate that comes from people who have not done the research.

Also, the fact that there are 223 Canadians in the Hall of Fame is a great point. Linden is nowhere close.
 
BubbaBoot said:
Sprague Cleghorn
Harry Cameron
Doug Wilson
George Boucher
Craig Hartsburg
Paul Reinhart
Keith Duncan
James Patrick
....and this is just the defensemen. I'm sure you could pick holes in every one of these guys but come on, there's nothing wrong with Daughty, I actually like the guy and think he could be a great one but after 4 years he's a top 100 of all Canadian players?

Call it the Tony Conigliaro Syndrome.....a massively great start to an MLB career and then he's injured enough to take away his best skills. He compensated greatly, guessing on pitches because he says he pretty much was using only one eye to see, plus he had better lineups that he played with so they couldn't pitch around him anymore. He could've been one of the best players of his era, maybe more.....now he's lucky he's even remembered by anybody outside of Boston. He was 22 yrs old when he got hit in the eye with a baseball, all but gone by 25.

Speculation: Daughty blows out a knee....where does he rank? Seriously, in the top 100 of all-time Canadian players? Ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Tony was a power guy, had an okay batting eye but not a great one.

Doughty has a much better start to his career and his playoff performances have been excellent.

All that being said it is weird to see him on any top 100 list already.

Who knows maybe Scotty did the list during the playoff run.
 
Taco MacArthur said:
More than half? In other words, you're saying that the average Canadian Hall-of-Famer is worse than Linden?
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No not more than half but also it would be more if we go outside the sticky criteria here as many of the early players had stars sure but many just happened to be around when hockey was just emerging.

Look I'm not saying that Linden is a HHOF guy but rather that he makes my personal list and doesn't look out of place on that list IMO.

A big hard working two way player is very desirable.

If he had the fortune of playing on multiple SC teams and was the same player there would be much less debate about this.

I'm not going to go all "he must be on the top 100 lis"t or anything, heck he might not even be on some guys top 200 list, it's just my impression of him as a player and he was much more than his stats.
 
Hardyvan123 said:
No not more than half but also it would be more if we go outside the sticky criteria here as many of the early players had stars sure but many just happened to be around when hockey was just emerging.
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Yes, more than half.

For Trevor Linden to be one of the 100 best Canadian hockey players of all time, then he must necessarily be better than more than half of currently-inducted Canadian hall of famers.

It's not something that you can argue (although something tells me that you'll try anyhow) - it's arithmetic.
 
Taco MacArthur said:
Yes, more than half.

For Trevor Linden to be one of the 100 best Canadian hockey players of all time, then he must necessarily be better than more than half of currently-inducted Canadian hall of famers.

It's not something that you can argue (although something tells me that you'll try anyhow) - it's arithmetic.
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So the HHOF is the definitive list of the best 223 Canadian of all time now?

I understand the math and I also stated that it's my personal list.

Some of the early guys in the Hall are there because of chronological luck.

I'm not dissing the sticky here, this is in context with Scotty's list which had no bearing to what we do here and neither does the HHOF for that matter.

Are all 223 Canadian in the HHOF truly the "best of all time"?

To me it's pretty simple the answer is no, they are the guys (all 223 of them) that are on the HHOF list which is different than Scotty's list or mine or yours.

This is relevant due to Scottys list and others in the magazine not being subject to our sticky.

Different parameters will end up with different lists.
 
Hardyvan123 said:
So the HHOF is the definitive list of the best 223 Canadian of all time now?
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Okay, I'm going to spell this out very slowly.

If Linden isn't better than at least half of the 223 Canadian players in the hall of fame, then there are at least 111 Canadian players better than he is.

Therefore, he can't be in the top 100 of the "best Canadian players" list.

Do you understand?
 
I have it at home...

If anything, an extremely knowledgeable guy whose list haven't been posted so far is Red Fisher.

Too bad Fisher refused to rank any player who retired before 54-55, and, thus, seems to have miffed on a few players who played a chunk of their career prior to that year (namely, Red Kelly 79th...).

I'll post it tonight.
 
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