Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 5

[wetcoast]

Lafleur second accident, March 1981. Performance steadily declined afterwards.

Lafleur Is Out of Hospital After Tuesday Car Crash

I guess I ask again what relevance does it have?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Yes, the standard line from stats people was that Marty's puckhandling surpressed an average of 1 shot per game. However, in the HOH Top Goaltenders project, I posted why I think that underrates his puckhandling:

"I understand the math behind the "Brodeur's puckhandling stopped about 1 shot per game more than an average goalie" - you compare the number of shots he faces vs his backups. But that just seems too low to me. Are you adjusting for the quality of competition?

Just looking at Brodeur's 4 Vezina years - he only failed to appear in 25 games between all 4 seasons.

These are the teams where his backup played the whole season, their overall spot in the standings, and offense based on goals. (Where does one find team SOG rankings?)

2003: Lightning (12, 13), Predators (23, 28), Leafs (9, 8), Leafs (9, 8), Ducks (11, 22), Sabres (26, 25), Flames (22, 27), Penguins (29, 26) Sabres (26, 25)
2004: Leafs (5, 4) , Penguins (30, 22), Capitals (29, 27), Penguins (30, 22), Capitals (29, 27), Penguins (30, 22), Thrashers (21, 13)
2007: Predators (4, 4), Bruins (23, 23), Capitals (27 , 19), Islanders (17, 12)
2008: Panthers (22, 20), Islanders (27, 29), Penguins (4, 7), Capitals (15, 9), Bruins (13, 25)

• The average team his backups faced was 20th in the standings
• The average team his backups faced was 18th in offense
• 16 of 25 (64%) of the teams his backups faced were below average in the standings
• 16 of 25 (64%) of the teams his backups faced were below average offensively

In my opinion, your estimate underestimates the effects of Brodeur's puckhandling advantage over other goalies in two ways:

1. It doesn't take into account the fact that his backups faced teams that were below average both overall and offensively
2. It doesn't take into account the puck possession and shots for created by his puckhandling. Brodeur was a vital part of "The Trap." The trapping skaters would prevent the opposition from skating the puck into the zone, leaving a dump-in the only option. When Brodeur killed the opposing dump in, he not only killed the ability of the opposition to control the puck in his own zone, he created an opportunity for his team to control the puck in the opposition zone. The Devils of the era did not have a lot of skilled goal scorers, relying instead of volume shooting to score goals. To put it statistically, a goalie who is excellent at puckhandling should improve the Corsi ratings of all the skaters on his team, especially without the trapezoid."

That project was done in 2012. Since then, we had a couple seasons of an aging Brodeur splitting time with Cory Schneider back when Schneider was good (sigh). And frankly, the difference in team territorial play was night and day.

I'm with you, Brodeur's puck handling had a bigger effect than 1 shot per game.

Don't need a math formula to figure that out.

 

[Captain Bowie]

He wasn't all that effective outside of his peak, that's already been established.

Agreed. However the part I responded to said he played well "into his late 30's".

 

[Canadiens1958]

I guess I ask again what relevance does it have?

Was explained:
Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 5

 

[Killion]

Not sure about him over Roy (personal preference) but you could do a lot worse than Marty B backstopping your team for 2 decades. As you said. Ho-hum guy. Showed up with his lunch pail, worked a lot more than others, and was better than most everyone, for a long, long time.

The older I got and the more I understood the nuances of the game the more I appreciated how big an impact Broduer had on those trap style teams. Without him, it wouldn't have worked. And even after the league went away from the clutch and grab and ultra low scoring affairs, MB still showed very well as a player which debunks the notion he was just a by-product of the defensive minded NJ team and league in general. Brodeur, IMO, was the NJ Devils in the 90's and early-mid 2000's.

They were GREAT. Started & Stopped with Marty. That Guy is a Member of the Goaltenders Fraternity of what comprises the Royal Family. Brilliant.

 

[Killion]

Not sure about him over Roy (personal preference) but you could do a lot worse than Marty B....

Listen to your GUT more. 1st instincts usually correct..... Roy was a Sensationalist. Drama Queen.... Never liked him much. Palmateer Syndrome. Sickening. Made the ordinary seem sublime.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Listen to your GUT more. 1st instincts usually correct..... Roy was a Sensationalist. Drama Queen.... Never liked him much. Palmateer Syndrome. Sickening. Made the ordinary seem sublime.

Haha, I didn't say I liked the guy's personality.

He was and still is a flaming a-hole. Top secret level clearance on that front.

But if you needed a goalie to carry your team to a Cup or hold the fort on more stacked teams there was nobody better in my estimation.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Listen to your GUT more. 1st instincts usually correct..... Roy was a Sensationalist. Drama Queen.... Never liked him much. Palmateer Syndrome. Sickening. Made the ordinary seem sublime.

Sparred(boxing) as part of his off season routine. Quickness, upper body and core strength.Made it look easy brushing aside crease crashers.

 

[wetcoast]

Agreed. However the part I responded to said he played well "into his late 30's".

I meant that they both played into their late 30's.

Neither aged particularly well past their primes, for players at this stage of the top 100.

I think it will be very interesting if either drops this round to the next one.

My guess is that Lafleur will be in the top 3 and that Fetisov misses the cut.

 

[wetcoast]

Because the era factor has come up, and when dealing with a) an era where we have few contemporary accounts, b) with vastly different rules, and c) in complete/untrustworthy/questionable statistics versus players where some people have witnessed 95% of every shift they've ever taken, the era issue is relevant.

Sorry, I could have worded my post better but for the "era" argument I meant that we shouldn't feel any extra pressure because there is no one in yet from that era.

I fully agree with the above though,I think everything should be looked at and analyzed.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I meant that they both played into their late 30's.

Neither aged particularly well past their primes, for players at this stage of the top 100.

I think it will be very interesting if either drops this round to the next one.

My guess is that Lafleur will be in the top 3 and that Fetisov misses the cut.

Fetisov adapted and had a decent late career. Lafleur never did:

Guy Lafleur Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[Killion]

My guess is that Lafleur will be in the top 3 and that Fetisov misses the cut.

Reasonable expectation Young Man. You know why yes?... and dont try to lay down any xenophobic boogie woogie.

 

[ImporterExporter]

I've long wondered. Where do those who have studied Soviet hockey @Batis (part of project) place the 70's and 80's domestic leagues compared to the NHL at the time.

I was quite glad to see Fetisov come up because I do think he's the next best Dman not ranked yet. He obviously showed very well, often, against North American players across many tournaments and didn't look out of place once he hit the NHL in his 30's. I have no doubt he belongs on the list very soon, I've just always wondered what his domestic record did for others, if anything in the grand scheme as we generally focus on Olympics, WC's, Canada Cups, etc.

 

[VanIslander]

Fetisov was an all-star at the 1990 world championships as a 31 year old, winning the Golden Stick award that year as Europe's top player (for the third time), thirteen years after his first all-star selection in 1977 as a teenage rookie sensation on the national team.

Do the scratch and sniff test: he comes up roses. He's no 6-year wonder. More like double that. Plus.

Someone should do a year by year look at his teams' performances against NHL clubs and top international teams and his individual performances and accolades in those victories. There were so many! (I'll try and free up an hour or two on a computer. This aint no smartphone task.)

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Fetisov adapted and had a decent late career. Lafleur never did:

Guy Lafleur Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

Yes, I think Fetisov's late career contributions to Detroit's two Cup wins are being overlooked. I remember him being a very solid secondary piece on that blueline.

 

[BM67]

I'm with you, Brodeur's puck handling had a bigger effect than 1 shot per game.

Don't need a math formula to figure that out.

The main problem is sample size. Even over Brodeur's entire career as a starter, one 50 shot game for Marty and one 15 shot game for a backup moves the SA/60 averages +.02 and -.03.

Brodeur vs Backups 1993-94 to 2013-14
Marty .619 W% 2.24 GAA .912 SV% 25.54 SA/60
Backups .537 W% 2.42 GAA .908 SV% 26.42 SA/60

Brodeur for whole game vs doesn't play or only plays part of game 1997-98 to 2013-14
Marty 30.00 SF/GP 25.67 SA/GP 57.89 Faceoffs/GP
Other 29.42 SF/GP 26.71 SA/GP 58.05 Faceoffs/GP

Average FO/GP for the period is about 61.5. The second lowest average after the Devils is 59.7.

 

[seventieslord]

Bolded is so important and relevant regarding that study. Puck possession doesn't happen in one zone. It generally starts in your own and Brodeur was masterful at creating possession for lesser skilled F groups (NJ compared to teams like Detroit, Colorado, Pitsburgh, even Dallas, among others)

Agree. Can we quantify this? It seems we do have the data.

 

[blogofmike]

The main problem is sample size. Even over Brodeur's entire career as a starter, one 50 shot game for Marty and one 15 shot game for a backup moves the SA/60 averages +.02 and -.03.

Brodeur vs Backups 1993-94 to 2013-14
Marty .619 W% 2.24 GAA .912 SV% 25.54 SA/60
Backups .537 W% 2.42 GAA .908 SV% 26.42 SA/60

Brodeur for whole game vs doesn't play or only plays part of game 1997-98 to 2013-14
Marty 30.00 SF/GP 25.67 SA/GP 57.89 Faceoffs/GP
Other 29.42 SF/GP 26.71 SA/GP 58.05 Faceoffs/GP

Average FO/GP for the period is about 61.5. The second lowest average after the Devils is 59.7.

But we can see that Brodeur faced only one 50-shot game in all that time. NHL.com - Stats

Among Devils goalies playing 50+ minutes, there were five non-Marty 15 SA games, but he still had 21 of those himself.

Of the 50+ Mins guys who saw 14 shots or under, Brodeur had 29 of those games, and backups had 2.

He had 13 of 14 14-shot games. All 6 13-shot games. A 4 12-shot games. All 4 11-shot games. 1 of 2 9-shot games. And the only 8-shot game.

I don't really see any significant shot suppression and I'm thoroughly unconvinced that Brodeur would move up or down a spot based on the value of his puck handling on SA. He made the occasional great long pass - but even then I don't think those things happened often enough to make him better or worse than Glenn Hall.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

How seriously did players take the touring games against the Soviets? Canada Cup - I assume everyone is bringing their A games, but the touring games seems like the type of thing that a team may not play 100%.

Don't really know. I got the impression that, in the earlier years of the "Super Series" et al, it was taken pretty seriously. The most storied games of the first visit were the December 31 1975 visit to the Forum, where the Canadiens besieged the Muscovites with 40+ shots but Tretiak kept Red Army in it to the tune of a 3-3 tie... and less than two weeks later, the Flyers controlling matters and topping their squad 4-1. Results like these were the exception, not the rule- as USSR-CSKA had a comfortable plus-record over the years.

The following quote comes from the Flyers/NHL web-site:

Although technically exhibition games, the teams approached the matches with the same sort of focus and intensity usually reserved for the Stanley Cup playoffs. (Great Moments- Flyers)

Question came up earlier as to whether there was a way to transliterate Soviet League results into NHL terms. I haven't seen an adequate one. We do, however, have the actual record of CSKA Moscow v. NHL teams in the 80s (the period of time corresponding to Fetisov's career there). The tally stands at 12W 5L 1T-- a performance rate that, at a glance, seems consistent with the sort of result you'd expect from a modern-day Presidents Trophy team.

 

[BM67]

But we can see that Brodeur faced only one 50-shot game in all that time. NHL.com - Stats

Among Devils goalies playing 50+ minutes, there were five non-Marty 15 SA games, but he still had 21 of those himself.

Of the 50+ Mins guys who saw 14 shots or under, Brodeur had 29 of those games, and backups had 2.

He had 13 of 14 14-shot games. All 6 13-shot games. A 4 12-shot games. All 4 11-shot games. 1 of 2 9-shot games. And the only 8-shot game.

I don't really see any significant shot suppression and I'm thoroughly unconvinced that Brodeur would move up or down a spot based on the value of his puck handling on SA. He made the occasional great long pass - but even then I don't think those things happened often enough to make him better or worse than Glenn Hall.

You don't see any shot suppression? Marty played 3.7 times as many games as the backups, but had 29 of 31 games with 14 or fewer shots, 50 of 57 with 15 or fewer shots, 65 of 76 with 16 or fewer shots, 92 of 106 with 17 or fewer shots, 125 of 150 with 18 or fewer shots. I see a lot more than 3.7 times as many low shot games for Brodeur.

------------

Another note about game by game data at nhl.com, manually adding a day to the end date adds the last days games that don't show up for some reason. NHL.com - Stats Note the 1492 results here, and the 1491 results in your link.

Additionally the game by game data is messed up with regard to early playoff SV% data. See Hank Bassen with 127 saves on 129 shots with 14 GA in the game by game totals.
NHL.com - Stats
NHL.com - Stats

 

[Batis]

I've long wondered. Where do those who have studied Soviet hockey @Batis (part of project) place the 70's and 80's domestic leagues compared to the NHL at the time.

I was quite glad to see Fetisov come up because I do think he's the next best Dman not ranked yet. He obviously showed very well, often, against North American players across many tournaments and didn't look out of place once he hit the NHL in his 30's. I have no doubt he belongs on the list very soon, I've just always wondered what his domestic record did for others, if anything in the grand scheme as we generally focus on Olympics, WC's, Canada Cups, etc.

My opinion on the matter has always been that the top tier of the Soviet players from the 70's and 80's compared very favourably to the top tier of NHL players of that time. When it comes to depth the NHL was always very clearly ahead though. Earlier I have done some work trying to put Sergei Makarov's statistical dominance in the Soviet League into context. I did that by looking at how the top players from the countries of the Soviet Union has compared to the top Canadian players in the modern time NHL. My conclusion based on that work is that Makarov's statistical dominance in the Soviet League when put into context puts him somewhere in the 102.2-108.3 range when it comes to 7-year VsX average. What does this mean for Fetisov? Well considering that Fetisov generally was regarded the co-best player in the Soviet Union along with Makarov throughout the 80's it should reflect well on him as well in my opinion. If I find the time to do it this week I can try to do the same analysis on Fetisov's numbers as I did on Makarov's. But TDMM has of course already shown (on page 1 in this thread) that Fetisov's offensive achiviements in the Soviet League are very impressive.

Here below I show my work and explain the method which made me reach these conclusions.

Great work. Your adjusted 7-year VsX for Makarov is very close to the range (102.2-108.3) where I estimate his score to be. If we look at how high the second highest scoring player from any of the countries which made up the Soviet Union (A Russian in every season but one) has ranked among Canadian players in the NHL-scoring race from the first season (92/93) that the majority of the top former Soviet players played in the league and had at least one year of adjustment time under their belt we can see that the second highest scoring "former Soviet" player in modern times on average has fallen somewhere between the sixth and the seventh highest scoring Canadian player. Since I consider the Soviet hockey of the 80´s to have been on a somewhat higher level than modern Russian hockey I decided that assuming that the second highest scoring Soviet on average was as good as the sixth highest scoring Canadian would be more accurate. So what I did was that I looked at how Makarovs 7-year Vs2 in the Soviet League compared to some all time great players 7-year Vs6 among Canadian players only. While I made some changes to the system I took the inspiration for doing this from this post from Seventieslord. ATD 2017 Draft Thread I

Makarovs 7-year Vs2 in the Soviet League is 123.1. And this is how some of the forwards who have cases for being in the 5-20 range all-time does when it comes to 7-year Vs6 among Canadians. (Only post-consolidation numbers for Morenz)
Mikita 124.6
Beliveau 124.5
Crosby 123.4
Richard 122.8
Hull 121.8
Lafleur 117.5
Morenz 114.9

Makarov compares very well to any of them and considering that all of these players are in the 102.2-108.3 range when it comes to 7-year VsX I think that this range is a good estimate for Makarov as well.

Yes it is definitely encouraging when different methods gives similar results and I would also agree that Makarov probably belongs closer to the top of that range for the reasons that you bring up here.

For transparency of the method here is how the second highest scoring "former Soviet" player ranked among Canadians each season from 92/93 and onwards.

92/93: 8th (P.Bure)
93/94: Tied for 4th (P.Bure)
94/95: Tied for 9th (S.Fedorov)
95/96: 6th (A.Mogilny/S.Fedorov tied)
96/97: 15th (A.Mogilny)
97/98: 8th (A.Yashin)
98/99: 10th (D.Khristich)
99/00: 7th (V.Bure)
00/01: 3rd (P.Bure)
01/02: Tied for 6th (A.Yashin)
02/03: 7th (A.Mogilny)
03/04: Tied for 10th (P.Datsyuk)
05/06: 5th (I.Kovalchuk)
06/07: Tied for 10th (P.Datsyuk)
07/08: 1st (Y.Malkin)
08/09: 1st (A.Ovechkin)
09/10: 6th (I.Kovalchuk)
10/11: Tied for 27th (I.Kovalchuk)
11/12: 4th (I.Kovalchuk)
12/13: Tied for 7th (P.Datsyuk)
13/14: 10th (Y.Malkin)
14/15: Tied for 5th (V.Tarasenko)
15/16: 4th (A.Panarin/Y.Kuznetsov tied)
16/17: 6th (V.Tarasenko)
17/18: 3rd (Y.Malkin)

The median score is 6 and if we take out the outliers (i:e the two best seasons where the second highest scoring "former Soviet" was 1st among Canadians and the two worst seasons where they ranked outside of the top 10) the average score is 6.57. Another reason for why I consider it more likely that the 2nd highest scoring Soviet is roughly equal to the 6th highest scoring Canadian rather than the 7th is that in the majority of the seasons here the "former Soviet" player had more points than the Canadian scorer who in reality was in the position that the Soviet occupied. To take an example in 95/96 Mogilny and Fedorov ranked 6th among Canadians with 107 points while the actual 6th highest scoring Canadian Gretzky was 5 points behind them with 102. In this case the 2nd highest Soviet scorer was closer to the 5th highest scoring Canadian (Kariya, 108 points) than they were to the actual 6th Canadian scorer.

 

[Canadiens1958]

You don't see any shot suppression? Marty played 3.7 times as many games as the backups, but had 29 of 31 games with 14 or fewer shots, 50 of 57 with 15 or fewer shots, 65 of 76 with 16 or fewer shots, 92 of 106 with 17 or fewer shots, 125 of 150 with 18 or fewer shots. I see a lot more than 3.7 times as many low shot games for Brodeur.

------------

Another note about game by game data at nhl.com, manually adding a day to the end date adds the last days games that don't show up for some reason. NHL.com - Stats Note the 1492 results here, and the 1491 results in your link.

Additionally the game by game data is messed up with regard to early playoff SV% data. See Hank Bassen with 127 saves on 129 shots with 14 GA in the game by game totals.
NHL.com - Stats
NHL.com - Stats

Great work. Definitely shot suppression by Martin Brodeur.

Re the data, 1960-62 playoffs does have a few minor bumps.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Based on what I saw.

Comments seen in this thread include "Esposito was terrible defensively" and "Messier was a 200 foot demon". Nothing to substantiate either. So, I just thought I'd throw in my unsubstantiated opinions. But, at least I can say I saw these guys play.

Now, granted, there were probably instances where all of the above occurred. No one has really seen guys from the 70's and 80's night in and night out (I don't think?) and concentrated on their defensive play. So I'm just tossing out my recollections.

Okay, fair enough. I'll counter with an opposite opinion based on what I saw.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I meant that they both played into their late 30's.

Neither aged particularly well past their primes, for players at this stage of the top 100.

I think it will be very interesting if either drops this round to the next one.

My guess is that Lafleur will be in the top 3 and that Fetisov misses the cut.

If you ever saw Lafleur with the Rangers and the Nordique (particularly the Rangers), you'd have been impressed at how close to "prime Guy" he still looked. He was coming out of retirement, well past his prime, and yet the same effortless skating stride, the same vision, it was all still there. The stamina was gone, however, and he couldn't handle a full workload. He was in his late 30's and was retired for four years, and was still scoring at just above a 20 goal pace for two of his last three seasons.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Yes, I think Fetisov's late career contributions to Detroit's two Cup wins are being overlooked. I remember him being a very solid secondary piece on that blueline.

Nobody is getting in based on the dregs of their career. Nothing wrong with being a good second pairing defenseman, but that ain't gettin' you voted in.