The 1988-1989 NHL Season

[BigEezyE22]

Mario's NHL record 13 shorties.

My Best-Carey

Also biggest screw-job in the history of Hart Trophy voting.

 

[BigEezyE22]

I will say this; I understand why some tire of hearing about it. Lemieux was hardily the only victim of a missed goal call, it happened with some frequency back then. Thankfully such occurrences are exceedingly rare now and have been for some time. Still outside of a playoff deciding goal or the tie breaker in an Art Ross race this particular missed call is of some historical relevance. And since there actually is evidence of it I don't think it's fair to completely dismiss it or just write it off as "happenstance".

You don't have to be a Lemieux fan to at least acknowledge the NHL did a poor job of making sure it's top star(s) got their undivided attention in the past. Honestly looking back at that season it seems just down right bizarre... here there was a player who was tracking down some of the most hollowed records in the sport(in actuality that was his mistake) and yet instead of celebrating the pursuit and making sure it didn't miss anything during it, the league seemed to largely ignore it - the press releases from that time make that entirely evident, they were almost comical in their lack of detail. If there was a worse sport when it came to celebrating the historical pursuits of it's own athletes I'm not sure which one it would be. Just compare it with the home run record chases that happened in baseball soon thereafter(first 1994, then 1998 and finally 2001). The entire baseball world became completely enthralled with those pursuits and it drew a huge amount of positive attention to the sport. I'm not even a big baseball fan but it was an incredibly exciting time for the league - not withstanding the taint that came thereafter. Lemieux had none of those taints, but he seemingly did do a 'wrong' by not being personable enough and for attempting to do the unthinkable so soon after Gretzky did it. Then again the sport was also just really bad at marketing itself back then.

Fortunately for players like McDavid, Matthews and others, the hockey world is no longer as obstinate as it used to be and seems to fully appreciate the talent playing in the sport today.

Lemieux's "wrong" was being from the wrong part of Canada.

 

[Hynh]

Yes! THANK YOU for using intuitive and logical thinking.

There are some on this board who insist that Lemieux's high powerplay goal against numbers indicate that he was a horrible PK'er. When in actuality that number alone doesn't corroborate or prove anything of the sort by itself. A number which possibly could is the teams average PK efficiency verses the league average. But even IF those numbers indicate that to be the case that's relative to the league average. That doesn't matter when it comes to his ice time because all the team and the coach care about is if he's a better PK'er than his own teammates.

I'm very happy that you can use logical thinking and realize that the only way it makes any sense at all to deploy Lemieux so much on the PK - while he was scoring at peak Gretzky rates in other game time situations - is if he actually was one of the teams better PKer's. Fortunately we don't just have logic to go by there are numbers which corroborate all this.

Doing the math shows that if Lemieux was equal to exactly the team average PK'er he would've had around 5:46 of SH ice time and I estimated his powerplay ice time to be at around 8:41. I can show you exactly how I came to those figures but I'd rather not derail this thread with numbers, but I will if you request it. But those numbers were essentially derived from the number of PPO's and PPOA's the team had in Lemieux's games (455 and 456 each respectively), the number of PP goals for and PP goals against he was on the ice for relative to the team's totals and the teams PP and PK efficiency rates.

Yup that powerplay ice time is huge, but so is that SH ice time.


First off, Lemieux was playing in basically ALL of the teams powerplay opportunities. So no, his 'own coach' and 'own GM' weren't holding him back from scoring in the most advantageous situations. As with the point I was making about Sakic - It's his even strength ice time that was reduced by his increased shorthanded ice time and Lemieux scored at rates FAR higher at even strength than short handed.

Now what do YOU think is more conducive from the teams perspective?

A - Skip over using Lemieux in penalty killing situations even though he is rested enough to go out there and play, just so that he can play more at even strength where you hope he scores to get back whatever goals you give up on the PK without him. But your mainly doing it just so that he can have more opportunities to pursue an individual points record.

B - Or, use one of your best available penalty killers when he is in fact available right now to go out on the ice and be of help to prevent goals being scored against your team while your shorthanded.

Hockey is a team sport after all, Lemieux may have been quite keen on going after scoring records and titles but I'm pretty sure he didn't forget that fundamental fact. Just as the Penguins had an extremely high number of powerplay situations they also had an extremely high number of penalty killing situations that they had to deal with that season as well. Lemieux was obviously more than willing to play in a large number of those situations when he was available for them for the benefit of the team.



Lol, seriously?

My point was mostly about the lackadaisical quality of NHL officials at the time and the leagues general disinterest towards a player in pursuit of one of the greatest NHL records - not that there was some grand conspiracy against him like you are suggesting. It just strikes me as a very bizarre contrast compared to the way other leagues approached such matters. The least they could have done is have their best official's out there and make damn sure that they don't miss any obvious calls. But then again as I've noted in other threads I wasn't following hockey at the time so perhaps all of this is just par for the course for the way the NHL conducted itself in the '80. I mean one their officials even made up a blatantly false story of being physically assaulted by a coach, that's some real integrity right there.

To the first bolded I would be interested in how well this type of math lines up with the TOI of players we know. I'm sure the calculations are error-free but how well do they capture the players we know are outliers? Some interesting cases would Lemieux's PP TOI when he played in the TOI era , McDavid this year (especially the PP TOI), Sammy Pahlsson in 05-06 (most total SH TOI in the TOI era) and St. Louis in 2003-04 (led league in SH points while winning the Art Ross, actually had a higher points/60 SH than at EV).

To the second, the question is how much better does Lemieux have to be to justify trading EV TOI for SH TOI if you're having him PK "straight up" like a normal player? In certain situations I'd say that any amount is enough (among others, a PK in OT) but in others there's no sense. If you're up by 3 with 4 minutes left, let someone else handle it. Lemieux can crush the last 3 minutes of the game if you get scored on. Plus you have EN time coming up where Lemieux's hands would be even more decisive.

Personally I think the riverboat gambler theory makes more sense here because I think it almost worked. Lemieux's SH TOI was where roughly 55% of his team's PK GA were scored but only about 45% of where his team's PK negative goal differential came from. If the SHGs don't go dry in January that probably could have been down to 40% or less. It's a daring and unconvential tactic befting a rookie coach with one of the two greatest offensive weapons of all time right at the tail end of the highest scoring era in the sport. Young Lemieux is exactly the type of player to not argue when his coach sends him over the boards.

To the third, I just tire of the victim mentality Lemieux attracts so perhaps I push back a little too abrasively. The NHL has always been a poorly run organization, some players will get victimzed by it more than others. Lindros's style of play leads to him being concussed repeatedly? His fault. Orr's style of play leads to him getting his knee destroyed? The price you pay. Lemieux's style of play leads to players mugging him all night? Why is the league run this way?

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

1988... i believe that was when Jon Casey had his creepy TV interviews. Some of us shrugged it off as typical goalie weirdness. Others thought him psycho

I’d like to know more about this, what was creepy?

 

[CrosbyIsKing87]

That was a really entertaining season for sure. Offense seemed to open up league-wide, especially for the elite scorers. That was Mario's best year statistically as he finally had some good talent around him. Then you had Gretzky's first year in LA after the big trade and all the drama there. The Kings were all about scoring goals. Yzerman had a a monster season in Detroit. I don't remember a lot of great goalies that year - Roy, Fuhr, Hextall. There were still a lot of stand up goalies then as the butterfly style wasn't so popular and the equipment hadn't gotten so large yet. Also a lot of new high profile players arrived on the scene to be the faces of their franchises - Linden, Sakic, Hull, Roenick, Neely, MacInnis, Modano. Seemed like a whole second tier of teams suddenly took a step forward and were competitors all at once which made for some great rivalries. I just remember that being a really FUN season to watch. The Pittsburgh-Philly rivalry was intense as the Pens could finally challenge the Flyers. Every Edmonton-Calgary or Edmonton-LA game was explosive. But the nastiest games seemed to be the Norris - Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis all hated each other. Lots of goals and fights.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

That was a really entertaining season for sure. Offense seemed to open up league-wide, especially for the elite scorers. That was Mario's best year statistically as he finally had some good talent around him. Then you had Gretzky's first year in LA after the big trade and all the drama there. The Kings were all about scoring goals. Yzerman had a a monster season in Detroit. I don't remember a lot of great goalies that year - Roy, Fuhr, Hextall. There were still a lot of stand up goalies then as the butterfly style wasn't so popular and the equipment hadn't gotten so large yet. Also a lot of new high profile players arrived on the scene to be the faces of their franchises - Linden, Sakic, Hull, Roenick, Neely, MacInnis, Modano. Seemed like a whole second tier of teams suddenly took a step forward and were competitors all at once which made for some great rivalries. I just remember that being a really FUN season to watch. The Pittsburgh-Philly rivalry was intense as the Pens could finally challenge the Flyers. Every Edmonton-Calgary or Edmonton-LA game was explosive. But the nastiest games seemed to be the Norris - Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis all hated each other. Lots of goals and fights.

Subjectively the quality of hockey in 1989 also seemed much higher than in 1981

 

[The Panther]

That was a really entertaining season for sure. Offense seemed to open up league-wide, especially for the elite scorers. That was Mario's best year statistically as he finally had some good talent around him. Then you had Gretzky's first year in LA after the big trade and all the drama there. The Kings were all about scoring goals. Yzerman had a a monster season in Detroit. I don't remember a lot of great goalies that year - Roy, Fuhr, Hextall. There were still a lot of stand up goalies then as the butterfly style wasn't so popular and the equipment hadn't gotten so large yet. Also a lot of new high profile players arrived on the scene to be the faces of their franchises - Linden, Sakic, Hull, Roenick, Neely, MacInnis, Modano. Seemed like a whole second tier of teams suddenly took a step forward and were competitors all at once which made for some great rivalries. I just remember that being a really FUN season to watch. The Pittsburgh-Philly rivalry was intense as the Pens could finally challenge the Flyers. Every Edmonton-Calgary or Edmonton-LA game was explosive. But the nastiest games seemed to be the Norris - Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis all hated each other. Lots of goals and fights.

I love your post, but just to note that Neely and MacInnis weren't "new high profile players" in 1988-89---MacInnis was drafted in '81 and had been a regular since '83. Neely was drafted in '83, but---more to what you are probably thinking---wasn't really "high profile" until 1986-87 when he arrived in Boston.

Subjectively the quality of hockey in 1989 also seemed much higher than in 1981

This cannot be emphasized enough.

My impression is partly subjective because I started watching NHL regularly during 1986-87 and full-on from 1987-88, but whenever I see NHL from, say, 1981, it looks very different from, say, 1989.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

collectively, that rookie crop was killer in the playoffs

the calder vote getters:

1. leetch, won a conn smythe

2. linden, top five all time in game 7 pts (tied with gretzky and baldo)

3. granato, nothing special but a decent playoff performer over 80 playoff games including a finals run

4. peter sidorkiewicz, not much of a resume but once pushed the presidents trophy 1990 bruins to a one-goal game seven

5. craig janney, surprisingly productive for a soft skill guy who was scared of his own shadow — 73 pts in 69 playoff games (two finals runs) before the age of 24

6 and 7. dan marois and greg hawgood, the exceptions that prove the rule

8. joe sakic, is joe sakic

9. jiri hdrina, three cups in four years

and receiving no calder votes but on the all rookie team:

dave volek, possibly the greatest upset of all time

zarley zalapski, helped win pittsburgh two cups

other players who were rookies that year: theo fleury, kevin stevens, eric desjardins, mark tinordi, adam graves, scott young, and such a good crop of role players: mike keane, shawn chambers, randy mckay, kelly buchberger, brent gilchrist, tom fitzgerald

and guys who played playoff games that year but whose rookie eligibility carried over into the next season: roenick, brind’amour, and modano

also, john druce

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Subjectively the quality of hockey in 1989 also seemed much higher than in 1981

It most definitely was. Just watching a game from both the difference is incontrovertible. By the early 90s it was no contest

 

[CrosbyIsKing87]

I love your post, but just to note that Neely and MacInnis weren't "new high profile players" in 1988-89---MacInnis was drafted in '81 and had been a regular since '83. Neely was drafted in '83, but---more to what you are probably thinking---wasn't really "high profile" until 1986-87 when he arrived in Boston.

This cannot be emphasized enough.

My impression is partly subjective because I started watching NHL regularly during 1986-87 and full-on from 1987-88, but whenever I see NHL from, say, 1981, it looks very different from, say, 1989.

Yes, you're right. MacInnis was already an established player. I forgot how early he was drafted. Vadim sharifijanov brought up some more good names as rookies that season. Another thing about 88-89 was that all of a sudden hockey became COOL with more of the mainstream media and culture. Up to that point the NHL was a real niche sport (it still is now but much more so then). That year you started to see the NHL on magazine covers, jerseys on famous people, Gretzky's move to LA brought celebrities to the games. He was even on SNL the next year. ESPN started giving it more attention. Rob Brown dating Alissa Milano - oooh. Suddenly the cool kids were wearing NHL stuff and tuning in lol. In Pittsburgh that was the year that the Penguins graduated from an afterthought to a real attraction and started to be considered in the same way the Steelers and Pirates were. Before that they were clearly second tier with the MLS team.

 

[The Panther]

Just to say, I really enjoy threads like this where we discuss a particular season of NHL history. Great stuff!

A couple (?) years ago, I had the idea of doing a series of chronological, all-encompassing threads---one about each NHL season from expansion forward. But they kind of died on the vine, so I gave up.

(Checks.) Here they are:
SEASON in REVIEW: 1967-68
SEASON in REVIEW: 1968-69

Maybe those were too 'historical', since most us can't remember them...

 

[TheStatican]

To the first bolded I would be interested in how well this type of math lines up with the TOI of players we know. I'm sure the calculations are error-free but how well do they capture the players we know are outliers? Some interesting cases would Lemieux's PP TOI when he played in the TOI era

I've actually have done extensive work on this exact matter:

Grading a players Powerplay and Shorthanded performance

I was looking for a way to come up with an estimate of a players special team ice time, both powerplay & shorthanded in order to make comparisons between players before TOI figures were taken. As we know the NHL did not start keeping track of a player's ice time until 1997-98 but there are some...

forums.hfboards.com

Since this is getting out of the scope of this topic I'll respond more in depth there.

To the third, I just tire of the victim mentality Lemieux attracts so perhaps I push back a little too abrasively. The NHL has always been a poorly run organization, some players will get victimzed by it more than others. Lindros's style of play leads to him being concussed repeatedly? His fault. Orr's style of play leads to him getting his knee destroyed? The price you pay. Lemieux's style of play leads to players mugging him all night? Why is the league run this way?

Fair enough, I recognize it's not something worth dwelling on in any case so lets leave it at that.

 

[CHIMO]

Another cool storyline from this season: Guy Lafleur’s return… with the New York Rangers. For those who were there, how hyped up was this? From the outside looking in, I’d imagine it was a big deal.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Another cool storyline from this season: Guy Lafleur’s return… with the New York Rangers. For those who were there, how hyped up was this? From the outside looking in, I’d imagine it was a big deal.

It definitely got some attention and he did quite well for a guy his age and of his hockey generation.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

That was a really entertaining season for sure. Offense seemed to open up league-wide, especially for the elite scorers. That was Mario's best year statistically as he finally had some good talent around him. Then you had Gretzky's first year in LA after the big trade and all the drama there. The Kings were all about scoring goals. Yzerman had a a monster season in Detroit. I don't remember a lot of great goalies that year - Roy, Fuhr, Hextall. There were still a lot of stand up goalies then as the butterfly style wasn't so popular and the equipment hadn't gotten so large yet. Also a lot of new high profile players arrived on the scene to be the faces of their franchises - Linden, Sakic, Hull, Roenick, Neely, MacInnis, Modano. Seemed like a whole second tier of teams suddenly took a step forward and were competitors all at once which made for some great rivalries. I just remember that being a really FUN season to watch. The Pittsburgh-Philly rivalry was intense as the Pens could finally challenge the Flyers. Every Edmonton-Calgary or Edmonton-LA game was explosive. But the nastiest games seemed to be the Norris - Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis all hated each other. Lots of goals and fights.

They didn't call it the Chuck Norris Division for nothing.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

Was something in the water that year? A few interesting tidbits:

-This is the only season in NHL history that four players topped 150 points.
-This is the only season in NHL history where linemates topped 150 points (Gretzky and Nicholls). Side note, I love Bernie's stat line that year - 70G 80A 150P.
-Before McDavid added himself to the list last year, there were only 5 players in NHL history who topped 150 points, and 4 did it that year! (Esposito the only other one)
-Big drop off after Nicholls, as the 5th highest scorer (Rob Brown!) had 115 points.
-Two juggernauts, and the clear best two teams - Calgary and Montreal - were clearly above all the other teams, and they actually met in the finals, which is rare.
-This was the last time two Canadian teams met in the finals.


Anything else people remember that sticks out from this year? Would love some insight on this year in general, and what led to the otherworldly production at the top of the league this year. From a quick scan of goals per game, 1988-89 is a bit higher than the previous year and following year, but not materially (3.74 vs 3.71 vs 3.67).
Was it PP opportunities? Were the top scorers beating up on some bad teams? (no team stands out as historically bad that year).

Great season. Two Canadian teams in the SCF and the Patrick and Norris Divisions were entertainingly violent. The league was in a good place. It secured a massive deal with Sportschannel by outbidding ESPN, which became moot a few years later when Bettman (or Stein) orchestrated the new ESPN deal for 1992-93.

As for the offense, I think the Euro infusion of speed and skill made it more appealing to coaches. The Oilers’ dynasty also had a profound impact on coaching and tempo. The 1987 Canada Cup was one of the greatest collections of on-ice talent. Lastly, goaltending hadn’t caught up yet outside of Roy, and I think Belfour in 1991 and Hasek and Brodeur in 1994 revolutionized goaltending.

1992-93 was a similar season. Just fun all the way around (except for NYR fans lol)

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

They didn't call it the Chuck Norris Division for nothing.

detroit: kocur, kris king, gallant, 25 games of probert, 12 games of torrie robertson, the first three games of randy mckay’s career

chicago: manson, everett sanipass, bob mcgill, duane sutter, seven games of jim playfair, eight games of wayne van dorp

minnesota: mcrae, tinordi, bob rouse, added churla at the deadline, rookie link gaetz

toronto: kordic, brian curran, secord, wendel but he was injured most of the year

st louis: craig coxe, todd ewen, dave richter, momesso

oof

and this was right before peluso, grimson, kely chase, tony twist, and a very young tie domi all joined the division

 

[crobro]

Let’s not forget the first Chris Kontos show

9 goals in 11 playoff games

 

[hacksaw7]

I love your post, but just to note that Neely and MacInnis weren't "new high profile players" in 1988-89---MacInnis was drafted in '81 and had been a regular since '83. Neely was drafted in '83, but---more to what you are probably thinking---wasn't really "high profile" until 1986-87 when he arrived in Boston.

This cannot be emphasized enough.

My impression is partly subjective because I started watching NHL regularly during 1986-87 and full-on from 1987-88, but whenever I see NHL from, say, 1981, it looks very different from, say, 1989.

To me I've always thought the difference between just the 1993-1994 season and the 1995-1996 season in terms of clutching and grabbing, flow of the game, goalie equipment size is also very jarring. And that was just a few years

 

[Crosby2010]

1989 was one of those memorable years. Lots of fun storylines. Gretzky in L.A. and still playing otherworldly. Mario having perhaps his best NHL season and at least even if not surpassing Gretzky by now. Yzerman and his magic.

Some rookies coming into the NHL. Leetch had 71 points and won the Calder. Strangely enough Linden wasn't far behind him in the voting but had just 59 points as a forward. Maybe they didn't like Leetch's defense at that point? Who knows, because you figure he'd have been the runaway winner.

1989 was not a memorable draft by any means, but it was a good postseason. Calgary/Vancouver series. Philly/Montreal with the Hextall brawl. Philly over Pittsburgh, Mario's 8 point game. Gretzky knocking off the Oilers. Of course the overtime goal by Otto in Game 7 that we still debate to this day. And then there were the big seasons by everyone, especially offensively. Guys like Messier and Hawerchuk had really good years still but since they weren't anywhere near 150 points it was overlooked.

And then the Cup final featured the top two teams in the NHL. I don't think this was done again until 2001. I think anytime this happens you are always going to get a good match up and 1989 was no different. Montreal lost in 6 games but still didn't play poorly, Calgary was just better. Was definitely a season that got people excited for 1990, although in a lot of ways it was a disappointing year that followed 1989.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Some rookies coming into the NHL. Leetch had 71 points and won the Calder. Strangely enough Linden wasn't far behind him in the voting but had just 59 points as a forward. Maybe they didn't like Leetch's defense at that point? Who knows, because you figure he'd have been the runaway winner.

linden was the youngest player in the league and they made a very big deal of this, the only other guy from their draft who stuck in the league was curtis leschyshyn, who 1. was a very early birthday (sept 1969 vs linden’s april 1970), and 2. was -32.

leetch was march 1968
janney was september 1967
sakic july 1969
granato, who finished third in calder voting, was born in 1964

similar to the 1986 calder, which saw wendel clark, the heart and soul winger straight out of the draft, lose a hotly contested race to an older american college dman who handily outscored him (gary suter)