The 5th best player ever is a goalie.

[daver]

Here you are comparing Howe to Crosby Jagr and McDavid which I would agree with. I just don't agree with the notion he was anywhere close to Gretzky Lemieux and Orr.

He fits into the space between those five players, IMO. He was the clear best of his era while Crosby, Jagr and McDavid were not. That has meaning.

This is not to say he isn't gettable in terms of offensive peak (and maybe he will gotten by McDavid) and by PPG metrics, Crosby is right there with him at his peak and for his career but he has unprecedented longevity, playoff success, all around play to add to his offensive peak/prime.

Also, I would reduce the domination by Wayne/Mario and Orr by a bit.

At the end of the day, Howe stood out from his competition in a way that was closer to how Wayne and Mario vs. how Jagr, McDavid and Crosby stood out from their competition.

We have no idea how any of those players would do if they were born at different times.

 

[Overrated]

He fits into the space between those five players, IMO. He was the clear best of his era while Crosby, Jagr and McDavid were not. That has meaning.

This is not to say he isn't gettable in terms of offensive peak (and maybe he will gotten by McDavid) and by PPG metrics, Crosby is right there with him at his peak and for his career but he has unprecedented longevity, playoff success, all around play to add to his offensive peak/prime.

Also, I would reduce the domination by Wayne/Mario and Orr by a bit.

At the end of the day, Howe stood out from his competition in a way that was closer to how Wayne and Mario vs. how Jagr, McDavid and Crosby stood out from their competition.

We have no idea how any of those players would do if they were born at different times.

The league and the game was significantly smaller though and that is not an assumption. Now if we assume that in general the league grew with the size of the player pool it makes no sense to compare any given player to the 2nd highest scorer but rather to the mean.

Once you compare the guys to the average forward who has also played the vast majority of games things look different (and neither Mario nor Wayne did even play all of the games in the season in my example unlike Gordie).

Minimum 62/70 & minimum 70/80 games played

Howe 52/53 - 95 points, 2.71x above the mean
Gretzky 83/84 - 205 points, 3.72x above the mean
Lemieux 88/89 - 199 points, 3.69x above the mean

The difference is absolutely staggering.

 

[daver]

The league and the game was significantly smaller though and that is not an assumption. Now if we assume that in general the league grew with the size of the player pool it makes no sense to compare any given player to the 2nd highest scorer but rather to the mean.

It makes more sense to compare to a decent size sample of their direct peers (e.g. the other 1st line forwards/Top 6 forwards).

 

[Overrated]

It makes more sense to compare to a decent size sample of their direct peers (e.g. the other 1st line forwards/Top 6 forwards).

Why would it make more sense to compare to the best 6 forwards? When people adjust scoring they also adjust on a average goals per game basis and not on a average goals scored by the best 6 players basis. I know it's a popular way to do it this way on this forum but it honestly makes absolutely no sense.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I don't think Howe ever reached a level offensively as Lemieux did it 1989/1993 or Gretzky did 1982/1983/1984/1985/1986/1987.

But something like Howe 1953 offensively comparable/better to Lemieux 1996? I think that fits better.

The Lemieux challenge is he only reached those eye popping/game breaking/comedy level offense twice over a full(ish) season.

That Howe spent ~1952-1965 as the best defensive winger in the world AND put up all-time offense is the game changer. And has unparalleled longevity.

I rank Howe above Lemieux. But I also acknowledge that Lemieux at his very best was a better offensive player than Howe.

 

[Overrated]

I don't think Howe ever reached a level offensively as Lemieux did it 1989/1993 or Gretzky did 1982/1983/1984/1985/1986/1987.

But something like Howe 1953 offensively comparable/better to Lemieux 1996? I think that fits better.

The Lemieux challenge is he only reached those eye popping/game breaking/comedy level offense twice over a full(ish) season.

That Howe spent ~1952-1965 as the best defensive winger in the world AND put up all-time offense is the game changer. And has unparalleled longevity.

I rank Howe above Lemieux. But I also acknowledge that Lemieux at his very best was a better offensive player than Howe.

You mean the 95/96 season? Lemieux slowed down by then and hugely benefited by playing power plays with prime Jagr but purely statistically? He dominated even more than ever before. The guys who did the whole adjusted thing ranked this season above every season of either Gretzky or Lemieux. I mean look at the top ten, every player is a legend and in the case of Jagr, Forsberg and Selanne the best forward ever from their respective countries...

 

[daver]

Why would it make more sense to compare to the best 6 forwards? When people adjust scoring they also adjust on a average goals per game basis and not on a average goals scored by the best 6 players basis. I know it's a popular way to do it this way on this forum but it honestly makes absolutely no sense.

This is almost accepted by all HOH forum members as being flawed to the point of uselessness. Comparing using relative dominance using to the Top 10/20 scorers makes more sense as it is peer to peer (i,e, the elite offensive talent in the league, not 3rd/4th line players).

League GPG has been affected by league trends towards balanced scoring and when PPs are, or are not, being called.

 

[Overrated]

This is almost accepted by all HOH forum members as being flawed to the point of uselessness. Comparing using relative dominance using to the Top 10/20 scorers makes more sense as it is peer to peer (i,e, the elite offensive talent in the league, not 3rd/4th line players).

League GPG has been affected by league trends towards balanced scoring and when PPs are, or are not, being called.

Is it though? People mention how certain eras are low scoring and others are high scoring all the time and use that to support their arguments. I think it is relevant. On the other hand it's pretty obvious that the 6 team league wasn't just smaller in the business side of things but also smaller in terms of the talent pool. I think we both would agree that the size of the Canadian talent pool didn't peak in the early 50s not to mention all of these other nations which eventually became competitive enough to have most of their elite talent drafted.

The logical conclusion is thus that the 6th best player in 1953 was significantly worse than the 6th best player today. That is like being the 6th best student in a small classroom. Way less impressive than being the 6th best student in large school. The 10th best player in a 150 man league is a lower percentile player than the 10th best player in a 1000 man league. Simple mathematics.

If the 10th best player today is equal to the 10th best player in 1950 then by your logic the 150th best player in 1950 (worst player in the NHL) is equal to the 150th player today (better than 85% of NHLers). That surely makes no sense does it?

 

[Michael Farkas]

*easy button* attempt...again.

None of this is my argument, but I don't know why anyone in this instance would go, "well, if you think the 5th best player is the 5th best player, then automatically the 150th best = 150th best of that era" It's both a leap and not totally relevant, potentially.

What if the 6th best student in a small classroom is a classroom full of the best students in the world? And the larger classroom is just any kids in that age group?

If I was really interested to know the answer, I'd be evaluating each "6th kid" on merit instead of guessing about the quality of the classroom just purely based on the randomness of how many chairs are available to that room...

 

[Overrated]

*easy button* attempt...again.

None of this is my argument, but I don't know why anyone in this instance would go, "well, if you think the 5th best player is the 5th best player, then automatically the 150th best = 150th best of that era" It's both a leap and not totally relevant, potentially.

What if the 6th best student in a small classroom is a classroom full of the best students in the world? And the larger classroom is just any kids in that age group?

If I was really interested to know the answer, I'd be evaluating each "6th kid" on merit instead of guessing about the quality of the classroom just purely based on the randomness of how many chairs are available to that room...

Not sure if this is directed towards me (though likely is despite none of what I write goes against what you just did) but I am the one completely rejecting this idea of comparing players to the so called "elite offensive talent" which in reality amounts to some random arbitrarily chosen top6 or top10 or top20 player. Such an argument was made up specifically to prop up players from the old eras and wasn't reached through any deductive reasoning as it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Rather ironic your post was liked by the same people who use these arguments to prop up Howe and others.

In fact if we were to evaluate each player in a vacuum Howe would end up even worse off. Jiggly wrote Howe in 53/54 dominated his peers comparably to better(!) than Lemieux in 95/96 as an argument in favor of Howe being at least equal to Mario. The 10th most scoring player in 53/54 was Fleming MacKell while in 95/96 it was Sergei Fedorov who let's not kid ourselves, was better than the second best player in 53/54 Ted Lindsay.

 

[daver]

Is it though? People mention how certain eras are low scoring and others are high scoring all the time and use that to support their arguments. I think it is relevant. On the other hand it's pretty obvious that the 6 team league wasn't just smaller in the business side of things but also smaller in terms of the talent pool. I think we both would agree that the size of the Canadian talent pool didn't peak in the early 50s not to mention all of these other nations which eventually became competitive enough to have most of their elite talent drafted.

Not by serious posters on the HOH.

 

[daver]

If the 10th best player today is equal to the 10th best player in 1950 then by your logic the 150th best player in 1950 (worst player in the NHL) is equal to the 150th player today (better than 85% of NHLers). That surely makes no sense does it?

Never said it was.

The 5th best scorer in the current era, generally speaking, is statistically similar to the 3rd best scorer in the O6 in a season.

The 10th best scorer in the current era, generally speaking, is statistically similar to the 5th best scorer in the O6.

What this means is a player like Crosby has been closer to the leading scorer than Hull and Beliveau were despite similar scoring and PPG finishes.

Crosby's career PPG dominance is closer to Howe's than it is to Hull's and Beliveau's.

 

[Overrated]

Never said it was.

The 5th best scorer in the current era, generally speaking, is statistically similar to the 3rd best scorer in the O6 in a season.

The 10th best scorer in the current era, generally speaking, is statistically similar to the 5th best scorer in the O6.

Why would 5th best player today be on average equal to the 3rd best player in 1950? Why not 6th or 10th or 25th? You are just throwing out random numbers.

 

[wetcoast]

*easy button* attempt...again.

None of this is my argument, but I don't know why anyone in this instance would go, "well, if you think the 5th best player is the 5th best player, then automatically the 150th best = 150th best of that era" It's both a leap and not totally relevant, potentially.

I agree that using that idea doesn't make any sense but to some degree using 5th, 10, 15th does probably mean something in different eras.

What if the 6th best student in a small classroom is a classroom full of the best students in the world? And the larger classroom is just any kids in that age group?

That's a great idea but we know that we aren't just talking about any kids but rather elite NHLers in that second sample which includes the future small classroom that comes from the 6kids in the original classroom thought.

While there is no mathematical solution to the problem in equating the size of the talent pool, both overall and in the elite section of the pool, it's pretty clear that both the size and quality of the talent pool has generally been on an upward climb over time.

If I was really interested to know the answer, I'd be evaluating each "6th kid" on merit instead of guessing about the quality of the classroom just purely based on the randomness of how many chairs are available to that room...

Once again we could probably test the classroom samples but we can't really test the NHL sample as it's hugely subjective.

 

[daver]

Why would 5th best player today be on average equal to the 3rd best player in 1950? Why not 6th or 10th or 25th? You are just throwing out random numbers.

From1946 to 1966, the 3rd place scorer, on average, finished at the same % behind the leader as the 5th place scorer did from 2000 to 2020,

The 5th place scorer, on average, finished at the same % behind the leader as the 10th place scorer did from 2000 to 2020,

I.e. Howe's Top 5 scoring finishes translates to Top 10 in the current era.

 

[daver]

While there is no mathematical solution to the problem in equating the size of the talent pool, both overall and in the elite section of the pool, it's pretty clear that both the size and quality of the talent pool has generally been on an upward climb over time.

And the league has, generally, expanded over time to reflect this expansion of talent.

The complete uncertainty over how any player would perform in another era trumps an automatic claim that statistically similar players can be separated due to the era they played in

 

[Overrated]

And the league has, generally, expanded over time to reflect this expansion of talent.

The complete uncertainty over how any player would perform in another era trumps an automatic claim that statistically similar players can be separated due to the era they played in

If the league size in general reflects the expansion of talent then quite clearly the 3rd best player out of 150 (98th percentile) should be equal to a 98th percentile player out of a 1000 which would be 20th.

Your two points - saying that the 3rd best player is equal to the 5th best player today and saying the league talent depth reflects the expansions - completely contradict each other.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

You mean the 95/96 season? Lemieux slowed down by then and hugely benefited by playing power plays with prime Jagr but purely statistically? He dominated even more than ever before. The guys who did the whole adjusted thing ranked this season above every season of either Gretzky or Lemieux. I mean look at the top ten, every player is a legend and in the case of Jagr, Forsberg and Selanne the best forward ever from their respective countries...

View attachment 794340

One issue that I have with Lemieux's 1996 campaign - he sat out the majority of the team's back-to-back games. And, for the games on consecutive days when he did play, his production was noticeably lower (granted, that's a small sample size). I think Lemieux's 2.30 PPG needs to be deflated a bit, because he wouldn't have been able to sustain it had he played a full season. (It was still a very impressive year, of course - but pretty clearly not at the same level as 1989 or 1993, or perhaps even 1988).

 

[Michael Farkas]

In fact if we were to evaluate each player in a vacuum Howe would end up even worse off.

Worse off than what?

 

[Michael Farkas]

it's pretty clear that both the size and quality of the talent pool has generally been on an upward climb over time.

Is it? I'm not saying that it's not, but on what grounds have we made this determination? Just the NHL? Is this a worldview? Every position is improving? It goes up fairly linearly? It doesn't dip...?

That sounds awfully tidy...no?

This isn't meant to be as terse as the tone makes it sound, it's intended to be conversational...

 

[Overrated]

Worse off than what?

As in that the talent pool very likely grew more than the number of teams. Meaning the average NHLer is very likely better today than the average NHLer in the year 1950.

 

[Michael Farkas]

As in that the talent pool very likely grew more than the number of teams. Meaning the average NHLer is very likely better today than the average NHLer in the year 1950.

The average NHLer has no impact on a proper talent evaluation of Howe, right? That was the context of the comment. Not these goofball attempts to try to put everyone in a basket. It was "evaluate each player in a vacuum" and your response to that is the "average NHLer was [this]" - which you don't know either, I presume.

 

[Overrated]

The average NHLer has no impact on a proper talent evaluation of Howe, right? That was the context of the comment. Not these goofball attempts to try to put everyone in a basket. It was "evaluate each player in a vacuum" and your response to that is the "average NHLer was [this]" - which you don't know either, I presume.

We spoke about Howe's domination against peers vs Gretzky/Lemieux's respective domination against their peers. I used the scoring against the average forward who has played the majority of games in a season (roughly 90% or more). That is in order to get rid of the players who played a low amount of games in a season which interestingly was a huge amount of players in the 1980s. The other guy used a completely arbitrary vs 6th 10th 20th best player not at all accounting for the size of the league.

I think domination against one's peers can be used to evaluate the talent of a player. Of course the size of the talent pool matters way more but since it is way more difficult to assess and since the NHL's talent pool did evolve at least partially together with the size of the league the domination against one's peers in the NHL can be used.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Is it? I'm not saying that it's not, but on what grounds have we made this determination? Just the NHL? Is this a worldview? Every position is improving? It goes up fairly linearly? It doesn't dip...?

That sounds awfully tidy...no?

This isn't meant to be as terse as the tone makes it sound, it's intended to be conversational...

To be honest I think the exclusivity that has creeped into hockey in the past few decades is likely pushing us to a place where the talent pool is distinctly worse for raw numbers than decades ago.

I have no idea why people keep claiming that the global talent pool is so much better now. If you’re from a well to do family in Canada or the USA and/or the son of a former player, things look pretty good for your chances these days.

We’ve beaten the topic to death on these boards and I just don’t see this great expanding talent pool besides the US picking up a lot of slack since 2000 say.

 

[wetcoast]

Is it? I'm not saying that it's not, but on what grounds have we made this determination? Just the NHL? Is this a worldview? Every position is improving? It goes up fairly linearly? It doesn't dip...?

It's a general sense it's not linear and things ebb and flow.

Everyone talks about how great the 06 era was but at the end was it really all that great for Dmen right before Orr exploded onto the scene, then we had somewhat of a dip in the late 20th century due in part to everyone chasing the next Lindros and the rules and coaching in hockey to skate and grind and not promote skill.

That sounds awfully tidy...no?

This isn't meant to be as terse as the tone makes it sound, it's intended to be conversational...

No it's not tidy it ebbs and flows but unless one thinks that Ontario isn't producing great hockey players any more or the other 4 traditional provinces and that we haven't seen great players from non traditional hockey streams then one hasn't been paying attention.

At the end of the day it is subjective but the reality is that we see sports evolve right before out eyes with woman's soccer and woman's hockey as well.

But who knows maybe it hasn't grown and the current leader in goals that was born in Arizona was there in the 06 era as well just like the 2 superstars from Nova scotia in the league right now, where were they in the previous eras?

Then add in the US, Europe, British Columbia ect.... but when solid evidence gets presented to indicate the direction we get posts like this.

To be honest I think the exclusivity that has creeped into hockey in the past few decades is likely pushing us to a place where the talent pool is distinctly worse for raw numbers than decades ago.

I have no idea why people keep claiming that the global talent pool is so much better now. If you’re from a well to do family in Canada or the USA and/or the son of a former player, things look pretty good for your chances these days.

We’ve beaten the topic to death on these boards and I just don’t see this great expanding talent pool besides the US picking up a lot of slack since 2000 say.