Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 3

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Statistically, Jacques Plante was the best playoff goalie to play before the 4 round playoffs, and it isn't close.

I posted this table in the 2012 HOH Top Goalies project, so it hasn't been updated since then. But it doesn't need to be to show just how good Plante is compared to his peers.

_______________________________

REPOST FROM HOH TOP GOALIES PROJECT:

Goals versus threshold (GVT) is a stat that basically tries to show how many goals a player creates or prevents relative to an average player. For goalies, it is mostly composed of save percentage and minutes played. Some of the criticisms of save percentage are still there, but GVT removes one of them - it is a cumulative stat, is not an averaging stat like save %.

In other words, if save % is like points-per-game for goalies, GVT is like points.

Here are the career playoff GVT leaders among goalies:

1. Patrick Roy 119.3
2. Ed Belfour 71.2
3. Billy Smith 59.5
4. Ken Dryden 57.4
5. Martin Brodeur 56.9 (as of 2011, my guess is 2012 bumped him to #3)
6. Dominik Hasek 56.3
7. Jacques Plante 49.4
8. Curtis Joseph 42.6
9. Grant Fuhr 33.6
10. Johnny Bower 31.3
11. Bernie Parent 31.1
12. Tom Barrasso 25.7
13. Chris Osgood 25.1
14. Tony Esposito 24.2
15. J.S Giguere 24.0
16. Olaf Kolzig 23.8
17. Felix Potvin 22.7
18. Mike Richter 22.0
_______
Glenn Hall 13.8
Terry Sawchuk -3.8

Like playoff wins, playoff GVT tends to favor goalies who played post-expansion, when there were more rounds. Jacques Plante is literally the only pre-expansion goalie with a GVT value higher than 20, and his is almost 50! edit- ahem, Johnny Bower would probably count as pre-expansion. I would imagine that @Doctor No 's variation of the stat (goals above replacement" would show the same thing.

GVT is only available starting in 1950-51, so one of Sawchuk's best years was cut off. But still..

FWIW, Plante also led all pre-expansion goalies in playoff wins by a healthy margin.

Edited post to make note of Johnny Bower, Plante's closest competiton (though I strongly suspect Toronto was overcounting shots at the time).

 

[The Macho King]

Totally irrelevant. You often read about how goalies are a "different breed", especially back then. You have the angry/depressed Sawchuk, the pseudo-bulimic Hall, the narcissist Roy, Mr. Public Disturbance Belfour...

naw, being a flake is mild.

Agree with this. Goalies are weird. That's why they're goalies.

I would think if there were any other overlapping players for which there was a strong media lean towards one of those players specifically and seemingly no suggestion of a strong sentiment (...or even a passive one) of the inverse other than this very forum, we, as historians, would address it.

I don't think the sentiment is explicit, but I think that it is absolutely pervasive. The lack of Harts for Dmen from Shore to Orr would suggest that, as well as the lack of Harts from Orr to present (outside of Pronger in a particularly weak year). AND I think you can look at the fact that Orr only won 3 Harts, sometimes losing to his own teammate despite universal acknowledgement that Orr was both the better and more important player *to that very team*, as further evidence of bias against Dmen.

Point totals are easy to quantify. Defense isn't. And media members who vote on the awards (and write those lists) often aren't particularly good at analyzing the game. I mean - doesn't Nick Kypreos get to vote for the Hart? But without resorting to that - I just generally don't like giving too much deference to media (absent other available sources) to rank players. I don't find it particularly informative.

And frankly - if we're going down that road - Messier gets a good bit of credit for two-way play. He never won the Selke. Never really came close. Are we overrating his defensive contributions here?

Also you kind of referenced this earlier, and I didn't address it - Messier's violence isn't a mark in his favor or a mark against him in my mind. He's a part of his time. I certainly won't knock Bobby Clarke for that when he comes up either, FWIW.

 

[BM67]

Anyone knows/is aware of tangible drawback that can be directly linked to Plante being something of a flake? I keep seeing things on this but I can't exactly point to anything specific as a result. I mean, that's arguably why he was traded to the New York Rangers, but I don't think that's quite the type of consequence we should bother with.

I think his asthma played a role. Blake complained in a quote somewhere that he never knew if Plante was going to play, but he always played. He was known for staying in a different hotel because of his asthma as well.

I wouldn't bet against salary being a big part of his trade as well. Read the Dickie Moore spotlight here about why he retired from Montreal. Legends of Hockey - Spotlight - One on One with Dickie Moore

 

[tony d]

My thoughts on this weeks players:

Alex Ovechkin: For my money the 2nd best Left Winger ever, also at his peak the best player since the lockout.
Denis Potvin: The first of the Islanders big 3 up for inclusion on this list. Looking at the other defenseman here I think I'd rank him last.
Dominik Hasek: 2nd best goalie ever. The best went last week in the vote. Can Hasek make it 2 weeks in a row for a goalie on this list?
Eddie Shore: Not as big on Shore as others are but noone should discount what he did in his career.
Howie Morenz: The real debate this week could be over the 3 centres on this week's list. Morenz was the game's first superstar, what does that mean for his inclusion on this list? We'll see.
Jacques Plante: 11 names here and as good as Plante was he might be the name I leave off. Guy was such a good goalie but I don't think that's enough to get him voted in here.
Jaromir Jagr: For a long time Jagr was the best in the game, he was still playing some great hockey up until a few yrs. ago.
Mark Messier: Messier got overshadowed a bit in Edmonton by Gretzky but he was still good in his own right, when he got to be the man in Edmonton in the late 80's and in New York from 1991-1997 he excelled.
Nicklas Lidstrom: Another thing to watch this week in the vote is where this guy goes. I have him between Shore and Potvin but am interesting to see where you guys will place him.
Ray Bourque: The 3rd best defenseman ever, I think he'll rank high this week.
Sidney Crosby: I don't buy into the whole Crosby's top 5 all time already status that I've seen floated around but the guy's's a legend. Top 10 might be pushing it for him but I'm comfortable with his being 11-15 on the final list.
Stan Mikita: Mikita seems to be losing steam on a lot of all time lists as of late but for me he's still among the game's all time greats. In fact I still place him before Crosby and after Morenz.

I'll vote tomorrow, will be interesting to see the final results.

 

[BenchBrawl]

The rest of this looks like just arbitrarily saying "this defenseman did this, that forward did that, and I think that what the forward did was more impressive" - I realize we should be trying to do cross-position comparisons, but it just seems really arbitrary and to be honest, has a lot of pro-forward, anti-defense bias baked right into it. I'm not saying it's a deliberate ploy or agenda, I'm saying that it's so pervasive in the hockey world (in terms of published lists and voting on awards that are multi-positional) that you can't help but be influenced by it.

So again, just curious, is anyone out there really thinking Messier over Bourque now? I want to see if this is worth more than the ten minutes I just spent.

I didn't find it arbitrary, he assumed Messier was a "defenseman" then checked what year he would beat everyone not named Bourque.That gives him 5 to 7 Norris.It's an interesting thought experiment, though incomplete without the full career.Bourque didn't compete with Messier for Norris votes, so it's fair that "Messier the defenseman" shouldn't compete with Bourque neither.

Whether there's a pro-forward (or anti-defense) bias depends on the accuracy of each season's comparison.If it's true that Messier was better than those defensemen, then there's no pro-forward bias.If they're wrong, then there is.

It's also possible that having no pro-forward bias is in reality a pro-defenseman bias, if forwards happened to be more talented or disproportionately superior as hockey players, for example if most of the best talent in the minors end up playing forward.In that case seeing them as equal would boost defensemen.Not saying this is so, but it's a possibility.And even in that case you could still get great defensemen, i.e. "best talent in the minors" that somehow ended up on the blueline.In that case the "best talent" would be facing a much weaker league for "the Norris game", and would be able to rack up the Norris vote by just playing in his comfort zone, repeating oneself a bit like Ovechkin has been doing for his goalscoring.Thinking that forwards and defensemen are automatically equal is also a bias, albeit a more hidden one.Then if we used his Norris votes to compare him to forwards, who are playing a different game in a tougher league against other forwards, the defenseman would have an advantage.

As for me personally, I'm leaning toward Messier > Bourque, but that's mostly based on playoffs (and star power, but not a word to anyone), so it's not relevant to QPQ's post.My long-term impression is that both belong in the same tier of players, and I still think it's reasonable to consider them more or less dead even as overall hockey players.I had them back-to-back in my Round 1 list IIRC, and I'd be fine with something like that.

 

[The Macho King]

General statement -

I'm pretty close on my vote order, but now I'm getting worried about Shore's playoffs. Someone posted earlier (@overpass here) a game-by-game breakdown of Shore in the playoffs. And it don't look good.

How do we reconcile that? The guy had a high propensity to take penalties and didn't score a whole lot (although D). In a lot of those articles, he seems more like a liability. I dinged Hasek pretty hard last round from my initial list because I found that rather than being merely meh in the playoffs, by sitting out he was an actively negative contributor. Is Shore and his lack of discipline (even for the time) that different? While Morenz doesn't have a stellar resume, it seems that while at times he may have been ineffective he wasn't a net negative.

I initially had Shore going third this vote. Now I'm wondering if he goes top 5 at all.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I voted.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I’m trying to clean up as much as I can but I’m on a cellphone. Everyone chill.

I've been staying out of the cleanup, but feel free to delegate to me if you want to take advantage of the fact that I'm at a desk.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I initially had Shore going third this vote. Now I'm wondering if he goes top 5 at all.

In the spirit of transparency, Shore ended up sixth on my list for this round.

 

[Doctor No]

He had a high peak, consistency, and longevity like no other. (Plante's quality of competition played a big part in his post expansion SV%, but he still put up very good playoff numbers, and his RS numbers truly are incredible.)

For what it's worth, during the 94.4% save percentage season, Plante's average opponent was 0.43 goals/game below average, and the average shooter had a shooting percentage 6% lower than league average (both pretty large numbers especially given his total sample size wasn't that small). 66% of his minutes were played at home, which helped with the schedule favorability.

But yes, records are generally set in favorable conditions.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Here's where I'm at:

1/2/3: Bourque/Crosby/Hasek. I have flopped these three around the top spot multiple times, Bourque sitting there currently.
4/5/6: Morenz/Jagr/Ovechkin. Had Jagr there most of the week, but flipped Morenz ahead just recently. Jagr should be ahead of Ovechkin, but more than 1 spot feels wrong.
7/8: Lidstrom/Potvin. Very close, but Lidstrom's prime length trumps Potvins peak for me.
9: Shore
10/11/12: Plante/Mikita/Messier. Better suited for next round's discussions.

 

[overpass]

General statement -

I'm pretty close on my vote order, but now I'm getting worried about Shore's playoffs. Someone posted earlier (@overpass here) a game-by-game breakdown of Shore in the playoffs. And it don't look good.

How do we reconcile that? The guy had a high propensity to take penalties and didn't score a whole lot (although D). In a lot of those articles, he seems more like a liability. I dinged Hasek pretty hard last round from my initial list because I found that rather than being merely meh in the playoffs, by sitting out he was an actively negative contributor. Is Shore and his lack of discipline (even for the time) that different? While Morenz doesn't have a stellar resume, it seems that while at times he may have been ineffective he wasn't a net negative.

I initially had Shore going third this vote. Now I'm wondering if he goes top 5 at all.

That's a fair reading of the playoff information on Shore. I would suggest considering the fact that Shore was very heavily relied on and sometimes overworked by a Boston team that lacked depth, especially during his peak seasons of 1932 to 1936.

From an earlier post of mine on Shore:
Hockey Needs Its Hard Harrys – Dink Carroll, Macleans, March 1 1937
You might have expected the Toronto players to retaliate against Eddie Shore. But it can be taken for granted that the attitude adopted by Connie Smythe and Dick Irvin, manager and coach respectively of the Leafs, was that of the entire Toronto team. Both these men made it more than plain that, above everything else, they wanted to protect the Boston player. They said that Shore was the hardest worked player in the whole league, and thought it was a wonder he hadn’t cracked wide-open long before he did, They held the Boston management responsible for not providing adequate substitution for their great star.

Now it's also possible that Boston's reliance on Shore helped him win those Hart trophies. So a deeper Boston team may have meant more playoff success and fewer individual trophies for Shore. On the other hand, Shore still won the Hart trophy in 1937-38 and finished 5th in voting in 1938-39 when in his mid-30s and on much deeper and stronger Boston teams.

 

[quoipourquoi]

The THN top 60 since 67 explicitly deferred to the 1998 THN list for players whose careers ended before 1998 and did not reorder them. I’m not sure it’s an independent source for Messier over Bourque. While in theory both played after 1998 and the list author could have moved Bourque over Messier, both had the vast majority of their accomplishments by 1998 and he was probably reluctant to overrule the 1998 consensus.

Given that Mike Bossy leapfrogged Denis Potvin in 2007 from 1998, I don't know that this is necessarily true. At any rate, it would also be unusual for three other players to surpass Ray Bourque on the 2007 list but not Mark Messier, especially if the listmakers were "probably reluctant to overrule" Messier over Bourque.

If Patrick Roy, for instance, surpassed Ray Bourque in 2007 from 1998, why wouldn't he have also surpassed Mark Messier unless I believe the listmakers believe Mark Messier to still be better than Ray Bourque?

 

[Theokritos]

players that are metaphysical

I've heard of players that are physical, but players that are metaphysical? I still have a lot to learn about hockey.

 

[pappyline]

Haven't had much time to look at this of late as I am travellng but I am leaning toward this:

1. Morenz
2.Shore
3.Hasek
4. Bourque
5. Plante/Mikita

 

[Canadiens1958]

I think his asthma played a role. Blake complained in a quote somewhere that he never knew if Plante was going to play, but he always played. He was known for staying in a different hotel because of his asthma as well.

I wouldn't bet against salary being a big part of his trade as well. Read the Dickie Moore spotlight here about why he retired from Montreal. Legends of Hockey - Spotlight - One on One with Dickie Moore

October 31, 1957 Plante's asthma gives junior goalie a chance:

The Montreal Gazette - Recherche d'archives de Google Actualités

Canadiens stayed at the Royal York across the street from Union Station.
Aggrevated Plante's asthma condition.

 

[MXD]

Totally irrelevant. You often read about how goalies are a "different breed", especially back then. You have the angry/depressed Sawchuk, the pseudo-bulimic Hall, the narcissist Roy, Mr. Public Disturbance Belfour...

naw, being a flake is mild.

Of course. I mean.... Sawchuck, Hall, Roy and Belfour's legacies are already tarnished due to these (if they indeed were). Plante was just.. different.

I think his asthma played a role. Blake complained in a quote somewhere that he never knew if Plante was going to play, but he always played. He was known for staying in a different hotel because of his asthma as well.

I wouldn't bet against salary being a big part of his trade as well. Read the Dickie Moore spotlight here about why he retired from Montreal. Legends of Hockey - Spotlight - One on One with Dickie Moore

Plante didn't appear to put himself out of games due to his asthma, and I'm of course not blaming him for possibly wanting to leave Montreal for money purposes (the same way didn't held against Doug Harvey his union-related activities).

 

[quoipourquoi]

I think I grasp your argument, and I'm not saying you're wrong (at least not by an objective measure - I clearly disagree but your position is certainly defensible).

Cool. That's all I really ask: consideration and disagreement is totally fine, and people are totally free to address as much or as little as they want.

Just - all of you - try to remain as respectful as possible throughout the process, and don't make claims about what each other is or is not doing.

For the record, I was PMed to bring up the Bourque/Messier stuff from the Prelim thread, just like I was PMed last round to make a case for Patrick Roy. I'm the cover band on-stage trying to take requests, but if any of you don't think someone is addressing you respectfully, don't think you have to play their song. It seems like we got some increasing agitation but not every quoted post needs a reply, and certainly not every quoted post needs an equal or escalated verbal push back.

Because ultimately, I can't have you guys fighting each other in this here saloon. Don't take the list too seriously. It's supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be educational, it's supposed to challenge what you think you know rather than be an exhibition of what you do.

I don't think their peaks and primes are particularly close personally - I think Bourque's is superior.

*smashes bottle*

Hold me back!

 

[Nick Hansen]

I've heard of players that are physical, but players that are metaphysical? I still have a lot to learn about hockey.

Stardust could potentially make for a metaphysical experience, I guess.

*tongue in cheek, relax!*

 

[Captain Bowie]

Haven't had much time to look at this of late as I am travellng but I am leaning toward this:

1. Morenz
2.Shore
3.Hasek
4. Bourque
5. Plante/Mikita

I'm curious to the argument of Mikita over all of the modern era forwards available. While his peak is certainly impressive, it is at worst right there alongside all 3 of those guys. He adds a lot of good, but not spectacular (for this early in the least anyways) seasons in his 30's. I don't think anything he did after the age of 35 moves the needle much at this point, same as any of Jagr's seasons after his return from the KHL. Obviously neither have Crosby or Ovechkin, so they all seem to be on even ground there.

By my count,
Jagr has probably 10-12 relevant prime seasons beween 92-07.
Mikita has probably 9-11 between 62-75.
Ovechkin and Crosby I'd probably say 11 each from 06-18.

So their peaks and primes could be considered around the same level, Crosby easily has the best playoff resume of the bunch, both him and Crosby are the more rounded offensive threats, Ovechkin is by far the best goal scorer of the bunch (and of his era), I don't see that extra thing that puts Mikita ahead of the others.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

There's so many eligible players it gets hard to keep track

Mid-week impressions

Howie Morenz is still my #1 largely based on star power.

Sidney Crosby, Jacques Plante and Eddie Shore hanging around the upper echelons of my list.

Mark Messier was my wildcard, and he's picking up steam.He has the star power, the playoffs, the leadership, the complete game.Longevity is a bonus.A great power vs. power center, can face anyone in a playoff series and have a good chance of victory.Definitely prefer Messier over Mikita; hesitate to push him over Crosby or Morenz, but I'd love to, especially over Crosby.Speaking of which, I'm around 87% sure Messier should be ranked over Bourque.

Among the rest I prefer Denis Potvin, but I'm not going against the wind with that one, I'm driving straight into an F5 tornado with debris and cows flying all around me.

I'm not sure this is true for Messier.

He was probably a better defensive player as a winger. At center, for most of his career, he really floated quite a bit on the defensive end. He could pick his spots when defending. But he was on the ice for a ton of "goals against" in his career. 2nd only to Gretzky. Considering defensemen make up 19 of the top 25 in goals against, I think its telling that Gretzky and Messier are 1 & 2. Of course Gretzky is also number one in on the ice for "goals for" (by a ton). But Messier is only 10th in that category. Bourque, by the way, is 3rd all-time in goals against, but also 2nd in goals for.

 

[ImporterExporter]

We talk about longevity in the regular season often but not much in regards to the playoffs. Obviously one has to remember that not all players had the same opportunities or played on the same caliber teams, but Mark Messier's dominance and consistency there is hard to ignore.

He ranges from good to mostly great and sometimes elite between the ages 22 and 33. He has 1 Smythe but could have easily been awarded it in 88 (if not for Gretzky), 90 (led Oilers in assists and points) or with the Rangers in 94 where he lost out to Leetch.

Just a hellova winner any way you slice it.

 

[Nick Hansen]

He ranges from good to mostly great and sometimes elite between the ages 22 and 33. He has 1 Smythe but could have easily been awarded it in 88 (if not for Gretzky), 90 (led Oilers in assists and points) or with the Rangers in 94 where he lost out to Leetch.

Just a hellova winner any way you slice it.

I find the fact that Leetch won in '94 to be a testament to how truly great of a playoff he had. I mean, Messier with his big reputation literally promised a win in the next game and delivered big-time on it.

Today Messier would've won the Smythe on it alone, I almost feel like.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Compared to Kevin Morrison and two others who beat Dave Schultz badly in the MMJHL this is true. But no one mentioned is eligible.

I liked this just because someone else knows who Kevin Morrison was.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I think its telling that Gretzky and Messier are 1 & 2.

10 of the top-11 in total GA played in that ~1980 through ~2000 window and the other was Salming. I think, if anything, it tells us Gretzky and Messier played a lot in the highest-scoring era. 2183 GA in 1756 GP from a player who ate up a lot of minutes (22+ as a 38-year-old).