Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 1

[MXD]

I'm a person who's changed his outlook on strength of opposition.

There is zero doubt in my mind that the Jean Beliveau's of the world were facing much tougher comp on a weekly basis then somebody like Gretzky. Far more teams to pile on from the 70's onward.

I don't disagree here (like, at all), but...
- There were tin cans during Beliveau's career, just not many of them. Case in point : The Bruins, who were so plainly awful in the first half othe 60ies that it's actually surprising they weren't called The Ruins.
- The amount of said tin cans (AKA, expansion) late in his career helped him as far as longevity is concerned.

There has always been very bad teams throughout the history of the league.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I'm a person who's changed his outlook on strength of opposition.

There is zero doubt in my mind that the Jean Beliveau's of the world were facing much tougher comp on a weekly basis then somebody like Gretzky. Far more teams to pile on from the 70's onward.

Hence, the challenge is... how do you compare Beliveau's numbers in a far tighter, more competitive era to Gretzky's massive numbers in a more diluted era.

 

[bobholly39]

Then perhaps we should say "peak" is worth significantly more than combining some of the other categories you created (maybe all of them). You alluded to some categories being worth more than others, but not really to what extent. And if you are including "complete" game along with raw stats, I would give "peak" to Orr by a wider margin that you're giving it to Gretzky.

There is clearly still a lot of subjectivity here, especially since we're now scoring how many categories one player has over another. I think what we have here are two different paradigms/models... I give Orr more credit because of his incredible domination from the d-position, while you give Gretzky more credit for his numbers in general. We sprinkle in other factoids and points (international play, playoffs, toughness, etc.) but when you get right down to it, one of us is coming from one paradigm while another is coming from a different point of view.

Yes two different models, clearly. And it's fine to use your own model/paradigm if you prefer - but what i'm saying is it can't be limited to how "good" the player was - rather, how often a player was that good counts too. It's easier to showcase this with the way i broke it down, with peak/prime/playoffs etc. Where even if you think Orr was slightly "better" - Gretzky did it more often and at some point that seems should be enough to overtake Orr in the ranking.

If you want to argue that Orr being slightly (or more?) better than Gretzky is enough to trump how much more often Gretzky did it - please do so. But you yourself said you find the difference between the 2 in peak to be quite small, so i dont see how it would be enough to overcome the rest from Gretzky.

Also - in terms of valuing how much "peak" is worth vs prime, career, playoffs...to each his own. It looks like a very big component for Orr in particular as it's 80% of his career his peak. For most players peak is maybe 2-3 seasons in a 20 year career, so it depends. Obviously the longer your peak the better that is, as length of peak is important too. In that metric - Howe falls quite clearly behind the other 3 here.

But judging a player solely on his peak (or almost) seems dishonest to me as often it's only up to 20% of a player's total career. you have to look at the whole picture.

 

[Sentinel]

Not what was stated.

1967 was the first expansion since the 1920s. Featured players from the NHL sponsorship and one goalie era in minor hockey.

Irrelevant.

Read again. First goal dictates the tone and strategy of the game not the result as you erroneously believe.

I believe nothing of the sort.

Defines which team is being chased and which team is chasing.

Until next goal is scored, which is usually done within the same period. Unless we are talking 1950s or the DPE, first goal means little. This isn't soccer.

You can split hairs all you want, trying to bring Gretzky down and prop up Orr. The outcome will not change.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Yes two different models, clearly. And it's fine to use your own model/paradigm if you prefer - but what i'm saying is it can't be limited to how "good" the player was - rather, how often a player was that good counts too. It's easier to showcase this with the way i broke it down, with peak/prime/playoffs etc. Where even if you think Orr was slightly "better" - Gretzky did it more often and at some point that seems should be enough to overtake Orr in the ranking.

If you want to argue that Orr being slightly (or more?) better than Gretzky is enough to trump how much more often Gretzky did it - please do so. But you yourself said you find the difference between the 2 in peak to be quite small, so i dont see how it would be enough to overcome the rest from Gretzky.

Also - in terms of valuing how much "peak" is worth vs prime, career, playoffs...to each his own. It looks like a very big component for Orr in particular as it's 80% of his career his peak. For most players peak is maybe 2-3 seasons in a 20 year career, so it depends. Obviously the longer your peak the better that is, as length of peak is important too. In that metric - Howe falls quite clearly behind the other 3 here.

But judging a player solely on his peak (or almost) seems dishonest to me as often it's only up to 20% of a player's total career. you have to look at the whole picture.

For Orr, his peak lasted virtually his entire career (but now we get into longevity).
Are we going around in circles yet? If not, we're close

Who one considers at the number one spot is, in my opinion, far less likely to change than moving players around even as high as fourth or fifth. If I haven't changed minds regarding Orr as number one, fine. I'm certainly standing pat and I feel totally justified in doing so. I've said a long time ago that if anybody had Gretzky, Howe or even Lemieux at number one (although I'd love to read the comparisons favouring Lemieux over Gretzky), I won't agree but I can certainly respect it.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Not what was stated.

1967 was the first expansion since the 1920s. Featured players from the NHL sponsorship and one goalie era in minor hockey.

Read again. First goal dictates the tone and strategy of the game not the result as you erroneously believe.

Defines which team is being chased and which team is chasing.

Yes, but the result is really all that matters. There are no consolation points awarded to the team that strikes first en route to a 6-1 loss. Perhaps somebody has already compiled the data, but I would be shocked if scoring the first goal of the game correlated as strongly to eventually winning it in 1944 or 1983 as it did in 1932 or 2004.

Playoff data could paint a slightly different picture. Strategy is a bigger factor in an individual playoff game as opposed to a random regular season game. A coach would never play a back-up goalie just to "get him some playing time" or scratch his #1 defenseman due to a nagging injury, or put up with a young rookie's reckless mistakes in an elimination playoff game. But in the regular season, a bigger picture approach is generally employed. Of course, he'd never suggest that scoring the first goal didn't matter regardless of any other circumstances. But how vital it was to score it might not have been stressed to the same degree for a game in November as a playoff game in April.

Different approaches and mechanics to the regular season in different eras have to be weighed as well when comparing the 50's Montreal dynasty to the Oilers 80's dynasty, or any other dynasties. 1980s divisional alignment and playoff format lessened the importance of finishing first overall. (Or at least something did. Only 4 of 12 first overall teams won the Cup during the 1982-1993 divisional format era. 12 of 22 first overall teams won the Cup in the post-war Original Six from 1946-1967). Elite teams took nights off all the time in the 16/21 teams make the playoffs era (did they also in the 50's and 60's? I don't know). There was less incentive to keep the pedal to the floor in January and February; making sure there would still be gas in the tank for game 100 in the middle of May was a consideration. Schedules were unbalanced, sometimes very significantly. How somebody wants to treat all these factors is open to debate and discussion, but they must examined.

 

[kruezer]

I'm a person who's changed his outlook on strength of opposition.

There is zero doubt in my mind that the Jean Beliveau's of the world were facing much tougher comp on a weekly basis then somebody like Gretzky. Far more teams to pile on from the 70's onward.

My mind is bending a bit on this as well. I’m closer to putting Howe first than I’ve ever been.

My question is, I feel like I think of the O6 as one big block that had equiptable competition levels throughout (at whatever point we view the war recovery to be finished). This seems reductive though. Should I be viewing the environment of the 60s as more competitive than the 50s? Are there certain seasons of the O6 with penalty crackdowns influencing the scoring race? Etc

I need to spend some time on this before I feel I can confidently vote this round.

Also I would love someday to see stats on which players led in scoring against the top half teams in GAA each year. How to approach that considering unbalanced schedules though, I am not sure.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Since Gretzky had more than twice as many assists than goals, and 2.75 times as many assists as Beliveau , I doubt that Beliveau had more.

Expansion Oilers vs Presidents Trophy winning Flyers in 1979-80 puts the Flyers 20 wins ahead from the start.

Difference in schedules makes the eras hard to compare. Detroit played Montreal 14 times a year, while Edmonton played the Flyers 4 times or less.

Except the ratio of RS games in the eras is not the ratio of assists and goals between the players, Beliveau and Gretzky.

Oilers vs Flyers compared to Canadiens vs Red Wings, why go there? x games generates at most x first goals.

 

[Canadiens1958]

So with five other teams, obviously talent is more concentrated. But it's not necessarily spread evenly. So for every Red wings theres a Rangers team you play 18 times.

But generally, yeah. O6 was tougher comp. But I think on here we are pretty good at contextualizing the offensive numbers from the expansion era. Most dont put Gretzky scoring 200 as their reason for putting him high, but rather Gretzky outscoring his nearest competitors by xx%.

Wonky history. It is not a 1 to 18 ratio, rather 1:1.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I feel like you're completely missing the point. I'm not dismissing anything.

When I compare peak - it includes everything a player did in his peak to the other player's peak. So it includes complete game (and goal scoring, and playmaking, and other individual skills/talents). Same for the other categories. In my anlysis I'm saying that taking all of those aspects into account - I give Gretzky the edge in 4 of the categories due to the breakdowns I did in my previous post. Peak too - but i think that one is closer.

Now are you saying that Orr's defensive ability (or complete game) was enough of a difference maker to make either of his peak, prime, playoffs better overall than Gretzky's? I'd love to hear the argument of breakdown as to how if so to counter my earlier post.

Show us where you compared defensive peaks of players. Comparison is doable but hardly ever done.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Irrelevant.


I believe nothing of the sort.


Until next goal is scored, which is usually done within the same period. Unless we are talking 1950s or the DPE, first goal means little. This isn't soccer.

You can split hairs all you want, trying to bring Gretzky down and prop up Orr. The outcome will not change.

Its not about Orr vs Gretzky.

Amazingly deficient reading skills though.

 

[DannyGallivan]

There is zero doubt in my mind that the Jean Beliveau's of the world were facing much tougher comp on a weekly basis then somebody like Gretzky. Far more teams to pile on from the 70's onward.

Then I would find it interesting to read a Beliveau vs Bobby Hull thread, particularly from those who put Beliveau ahead of Hull.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

What hurts Lemieux is that he had to compete with Gretzky for a lot of his awards when Lemieux hit his peak Gretzky was still only 27 years old. This plus lemieuxs own injuries prevented him from reaching his full potential.

Three out of Lemieux six art ross trophies Gretzky was a top 3 scorer. With two of Lemieux’s wins coming with Gretzky second in scoring.

Just because Lemieux couldn’t surpass Gretzky ( large part due to injuries) doesn’t mean Howe or Orr would fare any better.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Yes, but the result is really all that matters. There are no consolation points awarded to the team that strikes first en route to a 6-1 loss. Perhaps somebody has already compiled the data, but I would be shocked if scoring the first goal of the game correlated as strongly to eventually winning it in 1944 or 1983 as it did in 1932 or 2004.

Playoff data could paint a slightly different picture. Strategy is a bigger factor in an individual playoff game as opposed to a random regular season game. A coach would never play a back-up goalie just to "get him some playing time" or scratch his #1 defenseman due to a nagging injury, or put up with a young rookie's reckless mistakes in an elimination playoff game. But in the regular season, a bigger picture approach is generally employed. Of course, he'd never suggest that scoring the first goal didn't matter regardless of any other circumstances. But how vital it was to score it might not have been stressed to the same degree for a game in November as a playoff game in April.

Different approaches and mechanics to the regular season in different eras have to be weighed as well when comparing the 50's Montreal dynasty to the Oilers 80's dynasty, or any other dynasties. 1980s divisional alignment and playoff format lessened the importance of finishing first overall. (Or at least something did. Only 4 of 12 first overall teams won the Cup during the 1982-1993 divisional format era. 12 of 22 first overall teams won the Cup in the post-war Original Six from 1946-1967). Elite teams took nights off all the time in the 16/21 teams make the playoffs era (did they also in the 50's and 60's? I don't know). There was less incentive to keep the pedal to the floor in January and February; making sure there would still be gas in the tank for game 100 in the middle of May was a consideration. Schedules were unbalanced, sometimes very significantly. How somebody wants to treat all these factors is open to debate and discussion, but they must examined.

NHL does have the data. RS

1933-34 Score first /win 0.800

NHL.com - Stats

2017-18 Score first /win 0.804

NHL.com - Stats

 

[Canadiens1958]

My mind is bending a bit on this as well. I’m closer to putting Howe first than I’ve ever been.

My question is, I feel like I think of the O6 as one big block that had equiptable competition levels throughout (at whatever point we view the war recovery to be finished). This seems reductive though. Should I be viewing the environment of the 60s as more competitive than the 50s? Are there certain seasons of the O6 with penalty crackdowns influencing the scoring race? Etc

I need to spend some time on this before I feel I can confidently vote this round.

Also I would love someday to see stats on which players led in scoring against the top half teams in GAA each year. How to approach that considering unbalanced schedules though, I am not sure.

Look at the team points race. Scoring race is a by product.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Then I would find it interesting to read a Beliveau vs Bobby Hull thread, particularly from those who put Beliveau ahead of Hull.

Except as a center Beliveau also drove his line's defensive performance. Hull as a winger except for his first two seasons did not drive his line's defensive performance.

Still Bobby Hull(111) dominated Gretzky(85) in first goal performance even though Hull played over 400 fewer NHL RS games.

NHL.com - Stats

As stated previously, many players outperformed Gretzky in regards to first goals.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Orr consistently produced results while Gretzky consistently piled on.

????

What results did Orr produce that Gretzky didn't in greater numbers?

 

[ResilientBeast]

But they were in the seasons that they won the Hart. So it would be more accurate to include them in that count.



Honestly, the case for Howe being in the top-2 works just as well as the case for him being #1. The simplest way to make that case is as follows:

1. Point out his extreme longevity, particularly how high he was in the scoring race and Hart voting in his Xth best season compared to other top-4 players:

In their respective 12th best seasons:

- Howe was 3rd in points and 3rd in Hart voting
- Gretzky was 2nd in points (and? but?) 4th in Hart voting
- Lemieux was a very good player but did not play enough to be a factor in Hart voting nor was he top-10 in scoring
- Orr was retired

In their respective 15th best seasons:

- Howe was 4th in scoring and 5th in Hart voting
- Gretzky won the scoring title without receiving a single Hart vote
- Lemieux played about 20 games
- Orr was retired

In their respective 18th best seasons:

- Howe was 5th in scoring and 7th in Hart voting
- Gretzky was "just" a PPG player in the 1994-95 lockout season
- Lemieux was retired
- Orr was retired

It's arguable that, if you know how all their careers play out, and you are selecting one player to build a dynasty and your goal is to win as many cups as possible in 25 years, you take Howe because he gives you a legitimate shot approximately 16 times, as opposed to ~9 times for Orr, ~12 for Gretzky and ~9 for Lemieux.

2. Point out that his prime is not to be discounted and is actually extremely dominant offensively:

Howe is 2nd all-time in VsX scores, whether you want to 5, 7, or 10 year samples. If you go with 10, he's about 22% behind Gretzky in that time. (if you go by their best four margins of victory in the scoring race vs. non-teammates, I get the same answer: Gretzky 22% ahead of Howe) He's not even behind Lemieux, though I'm sure if you adjust for missed games you would likely find that Lemieux was producing at a similar or better rate when he was actually playing. Gretzky outscored his nearest non-teammate by 58% n a per-game basis during his most favorable period. Howe outscored his by just 20%, but his competition was Maurice Richard, not Mike Bossy.

It's arguable that his 10-year value is "close enough" to Gretzky's, when you consider his comparative all-around play, that his seasons 11-20 bridge that gap. In those 11-20 seasons, Howe's 10-year VsX is virtually identical to that of Gretzky, yet Hart voting in those seasons seems to indicate he was seen as a considerably higher impact player than Wayne. Whether that's enough to bridge the gap depends on how wide you think that gap is. It starts at the 22% offensive edge and lessens the more you value other things.

Hmm interesting, this post gives me a lot to think about regarding Howe/Orr/Lemieux thanks

 

[Sentinel]

Its not about Orr vs Gretzky.

Amazingly deficient reading skills though.

Have you tried, maybe, not being a jerk?

 

[Captain Bowie]

NHL does have the data. RS

1933-34 Score first /win 0.800

NHL.com - Stats

2017-18 Score first /win 0.804

NHL.com - Stats

That's a terrible misunderstanding of the data you posted. Where did you get the .804 number from? Certainly not league average.

Best team last year won at .837 rate when scoring first, worst team won at .447 rate when scoring first.

 

[The Macho King]

What hurts Lemieux is that he had to compete with Gretzky for a lot of his awards when Lemieux hit his peak Gretzky was still only 27 years old. This plus lemieuxs own injuries prevented him from reaching his full potential.

Three out of Lemieux six art ross trophies Gretzky was a top 3 scorer. With two of Lemieux’s wins coming with Gretzky second in scoring.

Just because Lemieux couldn’t surpass Gretzky ( large part due to injuries) doesn’t mean Howe or Orr would fare any better.

Orr is the only peak that can compete with Gretzky (and I think he has an argument that his peak is better... in fact it's one that I'm coming around to more and more).

For the purposes of any player evaluation, peak is the most important (but not sole) criteria to me. Peak years are the years where that player had *the most* impact. So - and this is for me - peak years need to be both transcendent to be in this group, and sustained (one-two year peaks aren't going to cut it here). Orr had a six year peak that I think can reasonably be said to surpass Gretzky's 8 year peak.

(as an aside - I should note simply counting how many years one player outperformed the other is a dubious endeavor not worth much to me. It lacks all context)

Lemieux's peak doesn't reach the same heights. He might have two or three years which can approach Orr's 6 or Gretzky's 8, but with Lemieux there's always a give and take. The dude took games off. Even before his health problems, he never played a full season. Add on to that, he was a negative asset as a defender. Wayne wasn't much better in this regard, but the difference in offensive production is enough to create separation there, and Orr was flat out a fantastic defender.

Some of the arguments for Orr here have had me scratching my head, because I don't think they are very good, or put forward his best case. Orr has a great case for #1. You just have to weigh peak/prime more (which I think a good ranking *should* do), and you have to address the argument that his 6 year peak is enough. Six straight years of 100 points, six years out of 7 leading the league in +/-, and acknowledge the positional disparity with Hart voting (can you imagine a Dman winning the Art Ross and being a +80 NOT winning the Hart trophy? I mean I know Clarke is a tremendous two-way forward, but if that's not evidence of positional bias against Dmen in Hart voting I don't know what is. AND HE WAS THIRD THAT YEAR!). From 69 to 75, if Orr won the Hart every single one of those years, no one would cry foul.

So this is meandering a bit, but let me try to organize my thoughts. Peak/prime should be weighed more heavily than other criteria (longevity, international, whatever) because that is the period that the player is bringing *the most value* to their team versus the rest of the league. Orr's 6-year peak/prime is at least comparable to Gretzky's 8-year peak/prime (acknowledging that Gretzky has another 7 seasons probably of very high production that constitutes almost a second-prime). The argument for Orr at 1 states that Orr's 6 years added *so much value* as to make up for the lack of longevity, and if you weigh peak/prime as the majority of your ranking, he has a long enough and impressive enough peak to have earned #1.

I think that's a solid argument. Every single player in our top 4 had both stratospheric peaks, but they also won their championships during those peaks. Not a single one won a Cup outside of their period of dominance, so maybe that argument should be counted more.

The counter to that, however, is Howe did almost drag an otherwise mediocre Wings team to some Cups in the 60s, and Gretzky did drag a mediocre Kings team to a Cup Final in 93 (outside of both of their peaks), so while their value wasn't at peak level, they clearly could be the key cog to winning teams. Mario and Orr don't have a similar track, so maybe that's knocks against them relative to Gretzky and Howe.

So one thing - I've tried to stay away from making a qualitative assessment of their relative rankings here. I think I've stated where I come down, but in the interest of discussion I'm trying to put forward what I see as the best argument for Orr (at least the one that's closest to convincing me). Comparatively, Lemieux's inability to stay on the ice strikes me as another incidence that - since we're dealing with marginal differences between legendary players - needs to be discussed.

 

[BM67]

Except the ratio of RS games in the eras is not the ratio of assists and goals between the players, Beliveau and Gretzky.

Oilers vs Flyers compared to Canadiens vs Red Wings, why go there? x games generates at most x first goals.

Gretzky's 1G rate is about 10% of his goals. If he keeps that rate up with his assists, that's around 200 1G assists. Even if Beliveau collects them at a 20% rate, he would only be around 140 1G assists. With Gretzky playing an extra 362 games, he also has more opportunities.

You posted the stats and pointed out Montreal's +86 wins over Detroit, vs Edmonton's -2 wins compared to Philly. Montreal was +31 wins against Detroit alone, while Edmonton only played the Flyers 29 times. The Oilers weren't good enough to hammer the 2nd best team to the extent that Montreal did, but they also didn't have the opportunity.

 

[Canadiens1958]

????

What results did Orr produce that Gretzky didn't in greater numbers?

Wayne Gretzky +520, Bobby Orr +582 RS

Playoffs Gretzky +66, Orr +60.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Gretzky's 1G rate is about 10% of his goals. If he keeps that rate up with his assists, that's around 200 1G assists. Even if Beliveau collects them at a 20% rate, he would only be around 140 1G assists. With Gretzky playing an extra 362 games, he also has more opportunities.

You posted the stats and pointed out Montreal's +86 wins over Detroit, vs Edmonton's -2 wins compared to Philly. Montreal was +31 wins against Detroit alone, while Edmonton only played the Flyers 29 times. The Oilers weren't good enough to hammer the 2nd best team to the extent that Montreal did, but they also didn't have the opportunity.

So?

You have shown that Gretzky did not convert as often as Beliveau given more opportunities against weaker opponents.

 

[Canadiens1958]

That's a terrible misunderstanding of the data you posted. Where did you get the .804 number from? Certainly not league average.

Best team last year won at .837 rate when scoring first, worst team won at .447 rate when scoring first.

Not interested in averaging stats. Your issue is with the NHL.

Top of the list Nashville.