HOWIE MORENZ STUFF REPOSTED FOR FUTURE READERS
Howie Morenz
I. Easily won a 1950 Canadian Press Poll for the greatest hockey player from 1900-1950.
Howie Morenz - 27 votes
Maurice Richard - 4 votes (only 5 seasons into his career!)
Cyclone Taylor - 3 votes
Frank Nighbor - 2 votes
7 players also received 1 vote: Syl Apps, Turk Broda, Aurel Joliat, Newsy Lalonde, Milt Schmidt, Eddie Shore, Nels Stewart
Source:
Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - Google News Archive Search
The poll was conducted by "sports editors and sportscasters;" It was only 13 years since Morenz' last hockey game, so most, if not all of these voters would have seen him play. There probably something of a sympathy vote for Morenz since he died young, but still, 27 of 43 voters is a landslide.
II. He was the best offensive player in the world by a wide margin in the 5 years leading up to the forward pass, and the best offensive player in the world (by a smaller margin) in the couple of years after the forward pass.
Take a longer view - look at multiple seasons at a time to even out the hot and cold streaks. If you do this you see that Morenz was the best offensive player in the world by a wide margin in the 5 years leading up to the forward pass, and that he remained the best offensive player in the world (by a smaller margin) in the few years after the forward pass. AND he did all this while playing excellent all-round hockey
Pre forward pass prime (1924-25 to 1928-29):
Morenz was:
1st in points, with 124% of 2nd place Aurele Joilat
1st in points-per-game with 119% of 2nd place Nels Stewart
1st in goals, with 125% of 2nd place Aurele Joliat
1st in goals-per-game with 110% of 2nd place Nels Stewart
1st in assists, with 114% of 2nd place Frank Boucher
2nd in assists per game, with 79% of 2nd place Frank Boucher (who came from the WCHL when that league folded in 1926).
I'm using a 50 game minimum for all per-game numbers
Post forward pass prime (1930-31 and 1931-32)
The numbers are so crazy in 1929-30 due various rule changes that it's impossible to use in a multi-year sample like this. Unfortunately, 1932-33 seems to have been the start of Morenz's decline (he was 10th in scoring, but had been top 5 in every season between 1924-25 and 1931-32 except for his 7th place finish in the weird 1929-30). So we only get 2 full years of Morenz in his absolute prime after the forward pass and offsides rules were established.
Morenz was
1st in points with 110% of 2nd place Charlie Conacher
1st in points-per-game with 103% of 2nd place Charlie Conacher
3rd in goals with 80% of 1st place Charlie Conacher (Bill Cook was 2nd)
3rd in goals-per-game with 75% of 1st place Charlie Conacher (Bill Cook was 2nd)
3rd in assists with 70% of 1st place Joe Primeau (Conacher's center!) and 96% of 2nd place (Frank Boucher)
3rd in assists-per-game with 67% of 1st place Joe Primeau (Conacher's center) and 96% of 2nd place (Hooley Smith)
III. For just one season (1927-28), Howie Morenz approached a Gretzky level of domination
If you insist on looking at it on a season-by-season basis, look at the margins of victory. Morenz's 2nd scoring title was typical, but his 1st scoring title was by Gretzky-like margins. Based on H-R's somewhat flawed adjusted stats, they have Morenz's 1927-28 season as the best offensive season of all-time by any scorer ever, and not particularly close either:
NHL & WHA Single Season Leaders and Records for Adjusted Points | Hockey-Reference.com
1. Howie Morenz*-MTL 51
2. Aurele Joliat*-MTL 39
3. Frank Boucher*-NYR 35
George Hay*-DTC 35
5. Nels Stewart*-MTM 34
Morenz scored 23.53% more than second place, his linemate Joliat. His lead over his nearest non-teammate was 31.37%.
By comparison, here are the margins by which Gretzky and Lemieux won their scoring titles (via FissionFire in the 2008 Top 100 project):
FissionFire said:
Wayne Gretzky
1980-81: 17.68% scoring margin (164 to 135) Age: 19
1981-82: 30.66% scoring margin (212 to 147) Age: 20
1982-83: 36.73% scoring margin (196 to 124) Age: 21
1983-84: 38.54% scoring margin (205 to 126) Age: 22
1984-85: 35.10% scoring margin (208 to 135) Age: 23
1985-86: 34.42% scoring margin (212 to 141) Age: 24
1986-87: 40.98% scoring margin (183 to 108) Age: 25
1989-90: 9.15% scoring margin (142 to 129) Age: 28
1990-91: 19.63% scoring margin (163 to 131) Age: 29
1993-94: 7.69% scoring margin (130 to 120) Age: 32
Mario Lemieux
1987-88: 11.31% scoring margin (168 to 149) Age: 21
1988-89: 15.58% scoring margin (199 to 168) Age: 22
1991-92: 6.11% scoring margin (131 to 123) Age: 25
1992-93: 7.50% scoring margin (160 to 148) Age: 26
1995-96: 7.45% scoring margin (161 to 149) Age: 29
1996-97: 10.66% scoring margin (122 to 109) Age: 30
Some of Lemieux's margins would be greater if you remove Gretzky, but whatever, not the point.
By 1927-28, all the world's best talent was in the NHL and Morenz flat out dominated them. And we have evidence that Morenz was already developing his strong defensive game at this point.
IV. Morenz seemed to have developed an effective defensive game by 1927 and was excellent defensively by 1929:
All quotes contained in this 2013 bio of Howie Morenz:
https://hfboards.mandatory.com/posts/58017755/
Toe Blake called Morenz "one of the greatest backcheckers I ever saw," and Tommy Gorman said "Morenz was the fastest and greatest two-way center in the game."
Defensive forward Pit Lepine in February, 1928: "Last season Howie Morenz started to use a poke-check and at the close of the year he was getting very effective."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from March 15, 1929: "Hooley Smith and Boucher are potential candidates for the pivot, but Morenz is too fast and his ability to hurdle through a defense right into the goal mouth gives him the edge over the other candidates. Howie also can poke-check with the best and his scoring proclivities, not much better than Boucher’s, surpasses Smith."
V. Morenz "deserved" at least 3 All-Star nods before the teams became official in 1930-31.
Morenz was Hart runner up in 1924-25 behind another center.
1926-27 (From the April 4, 1927 NY Times): "With the hockey stick-swingers still briskly battling away for the Stanley Cup, several readers have thought this a golden opportunity to raise the issue of an all-star hockey team. Step up and take your pick. Almost everybody agrees that Howie Morenz of the Canadiens belongs at centre ice on any all-star combination. Beyond that, all agreements are off."
The GMs voted Morenz 1st Team All-Star in an unofficial poll in 1927-28