Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 6

[Captain Bowie]

Joe Sakic's Playoff OT Goals record.

1st - 0:51 into 1st OT
2nd - 4:33 into 3rd OT
3rd - 15:35 into 1st OT
4th - 0:24 into 1st OT
5th - 5:15 into 1st OT
6th - 1:54 into 1st OT
7th - 4:36 into 1st OT
8th - 11:11 into 1st OT

Don't know if this means anything to anyone. I might play with the data when I get home and see if I can make something more useful out of it. On the face of it's, it's an incredible knack for scoring an OT goal early into the extra period. I'd be interested to see:

a) His overall team playoff record
b) His Goals/60 rate for playoff OT time.

 

[overpass]

Hot take: Mike Bossy was the best goal scorer of the 1980s, not Wayne Gretzky. At least if you define goal scoring as scoring meaningful goals against good defences, not running up the score in meaningless games.

Sure, Gretzky racked up the goals in the 1980s NHL regular season when 80% of teams made the playoffs. But in the playoffs and in Canada Cups, Bossy was the better goal scorer.

NHL.com - Stats

Even in the regular season, peak Bossy scored game winning goals and first goals at a higher rate than peak Gretzky.

NHL.com - Stats

I hope the panel gives Bossy credit for his record at scoring important goals contributing to winning. He wasn’t just filling up the stat sheet.

 

[seventieslord]

It also would be silly to pretend Trottier didn't exist! Bossy wouldn't even be in consideration for this project if we did that (ie., a Gartner).

I don't know, is that really true? Is Bossy just a Mike Gartner-level talent who played with Trottier? I don't think many people actually think that.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Surprised everyone is this low on Bossy, given the number of people who viewed Ovechkin as a shoe-in last round. Bossy will enter this round towards the back of the pack for me (which is where I had Ovechkin last round).

One difference there - Ovechkin was considered among the very few most valuable players in the league on numerous occasions, as supported by Hart voting. So was Lafleur. Bossy was not (see @Hockey Outsider 's post that I'm sure is coming).

In fact, I don't think there is a single post-WW2 forward left who got significant Hart votes on quite a few occasions. That points to a pretty big gap (at least in terms of regular season peak!) after Ovechkin and Lafleur went, among wingers.

Hot take: Mike Bossy was the best goal scorer of the 1980s, not Wayne Gretzky. At least if you define goal scoring as scoring meaningful goals against good defences, not running up the score in meaningless games.

Sure, Gretzky racked up the goals in the 1980s NHL regular season when 80% of teams made the playoffs. But in the playoffs and in Canada Cups, Bossy was the better goal scorer.

NHL.com - Stats

Even in the regular season, peak Bossy scored game winning goals and first goals at a higher rate than peak Gretzky.

NHL.com - Stats

I hope the panel gives Bossy credit for his record at scoring important goals contributing to winning. He wasn’t just filling up the stat sheet.

This is a compelling argument. The counterargument is that Bossy's role was to shoot-first, while guys like Potvin and Trottier controlled the play. Whereas Gretzky was the focal point of his teams.

 

[VanIslander]

Let's look at Sakic's year-by-year playoff game-winning goal record:

• In 1996 Sakic had six playoff GWGs where no one else had more than 2.
  
• In 1998 he scored 2 playoff GWGs, but so did twelve others, behind three who scored more.
  
• In 2001 he was one of five to score 3 GWGs. No one scored more; ten scored one less.
  
• In 2004 he had 2 GWGs but so did a dozen others, seven scored more, someone had 7.

We can see,.. his 1996 playoffs were huge for game winners. His 2001 is noteworthy. Of course his 2002 Olympics is as well.

 

[MXD]

One difference there - Ovechkin was considered among the very few most valuable players in the league on numerous occasions, as supported by Hart voting. So was Lafleur. Bossy was not (see @Hockey Outsider 's post that I'm sure is coming).

In fact, I don't think there is a single post-WW2 forward left who got significant Hart votes on quite a few occasions.

... I can think of one who fits the bill, regardless of your definition of "quite a few occasions" and "significant". And he's probably not up for voting anytime soon.

EDIT : Okay, there's clearly two.
EDIT : ... Brett Hull. There's three.

So it makes Hull, Iginla and the not-named (and the player I was actually thinking about) Evgeni Malkin.

Does this mean something?

 

[Captain Bowie]

... I can think of one who fits the bill, regardless of your definition of "quite a few occasions" and "significant". And he's probably not up for voting anytime soon.

Martin St. Louis?

EDIT: Brett Hull is probably a better answer.

 

[BenchBrawl]

... I can think of one who fits the bill, regardless of your definition of "quite a few occasions" and "significant". And he's probably not up for voting anytime soon.

EDIT : Okay, there's clearly two.
EDIT : ... Brett Hull. There's three.

So it makes Hull, Iginla and the not-named (and the player I was actually thinking about) Evgeni Malkin.

Does this mean something?

Andy Bathgate

 

[Killion]

Hot take: Mike Bossy was the best goal scorer of the 1980s,

Ah... not so much. He was caught in a Vortex. Move the lines on the map to reflect reality... late 70's early 80's and I'll agree.... It does no justice to any Winger, to Mike to compare him to a once in a 100 year Center Freak-Job like Wayne Gretzky. C'mon Man.

 

[Canadiens1958]

One difference there - Ovechkin was considered among the very few most valuable players in the league on numerous occasions, as supported by Hart voting. So was Lafleur. Bossy was not (see @Hockey Outsider 's post that I'm sure is coming).

In fact, I don't think there is a single post-WW2 forward left who got significant Hart votes on quite a few occasions. That points to a pretty big gap (at least in terms of regular season peak!) after Ovechkin and Lafleur went, among wingers.



This is a compelling argument. The counterargument is that Bossy's role was to shoot-first, while guys like Potvin and Trottier controlled the play. Whereas Gretzky was the focal point of his teams.

Andy Bathgate inc. one Hart win.

 

[MXD]

Andy Bathgate

This is the one I was avoiding, considering I'm not quite sure of much actual voting he received in 57 and 62. But he does fit the bill. So that makes 4 players. None of whom are up for voting anytime soon.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Ugh, sorry for creating this tangent. Anyway... It'll be worth a mention when those guys become available...

 

[Killion]

Andy Bathgate inc. one Hart win.

Unfortunately.... Andy hobbled (bad knee, wrecked in Jr) wearing a Brace for his entire career.... peak years spent in the Purgatory of Manhattan, Rangers.... We'll never know just how good he mightve been, what he mightve accomplished.... Lost years.

 

[overg]

This video shows Makarov scoring goals or making plays against great Canadian defensemen with the NT:

That is just a fantastic video. Adding the names of his opponents certainly snaps into focus how successful Makarov could be against the ultra-elite. Probably, what . . . maybe 80+% of those players will appear on this list by the time it's done? Even some of the plays that didn't turn into goals, such as matching Coffey stride for stride (actually, that one does turn into a goal after he peels back), or dancing around Langway, are impressive as hell. And did he really abuse Robinson and Potvin that badly, or is this just a case of every successful move he put on them ended up in these clips? The move he put on Hasek reminds me of vintage Yzerman.

 

[overpass]

REPOST FROM HOH TOP CENTERS PROJECT

Joe Sakic's underrated prime

Joe Sakic has a reputation as a guy who was an elite player for a long time, but who didn't necessarily have the peak of some of these other guys. And while I agree that Sakic was an elite player for an extraordinary period of time (first top 10 finish in scoring in 1989-90; last top 10 finish in scoring in 2006-07), I think he did have a standout mid/late career peak that is incredibly underrated historically.

I think Sakic's peak is underrated for three main reasons:

1) Scoring dropped like a rock in the mid 90s, right as Sakic was entering his peak, so his raw stats don't stand out at you.

2) Sakic (like Jagr) had the bad luck of following in the footsteps of Gretzky and Lemieux, probably the two greatest offensive threats of all-time. Hockey fans got spoiled watching Gretzky and then Lemieux, and the greatest players after then just couldn't live up to the eye test. I think this most affected perceptions of Sakic (the best center to follow Gretzky/Lemieux domination) and Jagr.

3) Of Colorado's three superstars, Sakic was the quietest and least flashy.

Joe Sakic's 1995-2004 prime in statistics

Early peak
1994-95: 4th in points, 5th in points per game
1995-96: 3rd in points (behind Mario and Jagr), 5th in points per game

1996 playoffs: 18 goals (3rd all time behind Kurri and Leach), 34 points
2nd place in the playoffs (Mario Lemieux) had 27 points. 2nd best on Colorado was Valeri Kamensky with 21 points.

Injury troubles

Sakic missed 18 then 17 games in 1996-97 and 1997-98. He still had good stats (74 points in 65 games, 63 points in 64 games), but not good enough to finish top 10.

Sakic did finish with 25 points in the 1997 playoffs, however, only 1 point behind 1st place Eric Lindros, despite not making the finals.

Later career peak - Sakic's absolute peak - 1998-2004

This is the period to really focus on, and where I think Sakic is really hurt by the fact that his absolute peak corresponds almost perfectly to the deadest of the dead puck era.

1998-99: 5th in points with 96 points in 73 games. 3rd in points-per-game behind Jagr and Selanne.

1999-00: 8th in points, despite playing 60 games. 2nd in points-per-game to Jagr:

Points Per Game
1. Jaromir Jagr-PIT 1.52
2. Joe Sakic*-COL 1.35
3. Pavel Bure*-FLA 1.27
4. Pierre Turgeon-STL 1.27
5. Paul Kariya-MDA 1.16

Would Sakic have kept up his pace over a full 82 games? His performance the next season indicates he probably would have.

2000-01: Sakic was the best player in the league by a wide margin:

1. Jaromir Jagr-PIT 121
2. Joe Sakic*-COL 118
3. Patrik Elias-NJD 96
4. Martin Straka-PIT 95
Alex Kovalev-PIT 95

Sakic was 20 points ahead of Jagr around Christmastime before Mario Lemieux came out of retirement and starting boosting Jagr's stats. (Lemieux actually finished ahead of Jagr in Hart voting). In addition to his offense, Sakic had become an excellent defensive player by this point,* regularly killing penalties and being matched up against the opponent's best lines.

*he finished 2nd in Selke voting. Probably didn't deserve to finish that high, but it was a normal finish under the standards of the time (best defensive player among the league's leading scorers always got a lot of votes).

2001 playoffs: Sakic led the NHL in goals and points, while also taking on a large defensive role. He and Roy carried the Avalanche after Forsberg's spleen injury.

2001-02: Sakic followed up his 2000-01 season by being named MVP of the 2002 Olympics. All that hockey (and Colorado's new defensive system that they adopted after losing Forsberg for the season and Bourque to retirement) took a toll on Sakic, as he dropped to 5th in NHL scoring in a fairly weak year for forwards. Sakic looked somewhat tired by the time the playoffs came around

2002-03: Sakic is injured and Forsberg takes over the team. Sakic did score 58 points in 58 games, however.

2003-04: 2nd in points, 7th in points per game.

Forsberg was the better player at this point when healthy, but how many people remember that Sakic quietly tied for 2nd in NHL scoring in 2003-04?

Sakic's Selke record

All the above focuses on Sakic's offense. And while that was the best part of his game, he developed into an excellent two-way player during the second half of his career, often taking the toughest defensive assignments for Colorado and killing penalties. And unlike a lot of other players, Sakic was at his offensive best when he was also at his defensive best.

Via Hockey Outsider, Sakic was top 10 in points and Selke voting three times in his career:

1999-00: 8th in points (and 2nd in points-per-game), 10th in Selke voting
2000-01: 2nd in points (to Mario-aided Jagr), 2nd in Selke voting
2001-02: 5th in points, 9th in Selke voting

Kurri was 1st with 6 seasons in the top 10 in points and Selke voting, with Francis 2nd with 4 of each. Sakic, Gilmour, Datsyuk, and Forsberg were next best, with 3 each.

Top 10 in Scoring & Selke Voting

I don’t think Sakic was playing a matchup role in 2000-01, or really at all under Bob Hartley. Stephane Yelle was taking a lot of the tough matchups and faceoffs while Sakic played with the top two wingers (young Tanguay and Hejduk) and occasionally getting Forsberg spotted on his wing. I’m sure Sakic’s two-way play was improving but a lot of his Selke votes were stat-based votes for his plus-minus, which owed at least as much to his scoring and usage that year. He got the classic #1 centre role and minutes that year and crushed it.

It was the last 5 years of his career that Sakic really started doing the two-way heavy lifting, starting in 2002-03 when Yelle left for Calgary. Tony Granato gave the keys of the top line to Forsberg and put Sakic in the grunt role. Sakic never really stopped playing those tough minutes as Colorado kept filling out their remaining centre spots with the likes of Pierre Turgeon, Tyler Arnason, and Paul Stastny.

Speaking of those Colorado teams, I thought at the time that Sakic deserved more Hart votes for his 2006-07 season. The East was a joke that year, as everyone saw in the playoffs when a flawed Ottawa team steamrolled the East and then lay down in the Finals. Hockey-reference’s SRS metric which is adjusted for strength of schedule rated nine Western teams above the third best Eastern team that year. And yet the top 4 in Hart voting were from the East (Crosby, Luongo, Brodeur, Lecavalier). Sakic dragged a very ordinary roster to within a point of the playoffs (they would have had a good shot at home ice in the East) and scored 100 points, second in the conference that actually played defence. That season was not a high point in NHL quality of play (partially evidenced by the fact that a 37 year old centre with a lot of miles on him could have that kind of impact), but it was still a very impressive performance from Sakic.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Hot take: Mike Bossy was the best goal scorer of the 1980s, not Wayne Gretzky. At least if you define goal scoring as scoring meaningful goals against good defences, not running up the score in meaningless games.

Sure, Gretzky racked up the goals in the 1980s NHL regular season when 80% of teams made the playoffs. But in the playoffs and in Canada Cups, Bossy was the better goal scorer.

NHL.com - Stats

Even in the regular season, peak Bossy scored game winning goals and first goals at a higher rate than peak Gretzky.

NHL.com - Stats

I hope the panel gives Bossy credit for his record at scoring important goals contributing to winning. He wasn’t just filling up the stat sheet.

Nice to see you applying the archival data. Though incomplete(first goals and winning goals should be supplemented with "key goals") it is very revealing especially about the artificial values attributed to raw scoring numbers.

 

[Killion]

Nice to see you applying the archival data. Though incomplete(first goals and winning goals should be supplemented with "key goals") it is very revealing especially about the artificial values attributed to raw scoring numbers.

Context, circumstances, the anecdotal.... a lot more important than just raw numbers.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Context, circumstances, the anecdotal.... a lot more important than just raw numbers.

The old style tends to capture this better.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Hart trophy voting results (1945-2018, minimum 5% vote share)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th+	Total
Martin Brodeur			3	2	2			7
Glenn Hall			1	2	2	2		7
Bobby Clarke	3	1		1		1		6
Phil Esposito	2	2	1			1		6
Bryan Trottier	1	2	1					4
Joe Sakic	1					1	2	4
Terry Sawchuk			1	3				4
Mike Bossy			1	1				2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Sakic doesn't look great according to this metric - he won the trophy decisively in 2001, but was never again in the top five (though he was close several times - 1996, 2002 and 2004).

Bossy also looks pretty bad according to this metric (far worse than Trottier - and also worse than Potvin, for the record). For this (and other) reasons, I think Bossy is pretty clearly behind Trottier this round.

VsX results (1927-2018)

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	7YR	10YR
Phil Esposito	168.9	159.3	125.0	122.0	117.8	115.1	105.0	100.0	87.1	76.2	130.4	117.6
Joe Sakic	122.9	100.0	100.0	94.8	89.7	88.6	87.8	87.7	86.2	82.1	97.7	94.0
Mike Bossy	108.6	100.0	97.5	95.2	88.1	87.2	86.7	83.5	77.3	69.4	94.8	89.4
Bryan Trottier	115.5	112.8	91.7	87.8	87.4	80.6	79.8	76.3	71.8	68.6	93.7	87.2
Bobby Clarke	100.0	100.0	95.9	95.6	85.7	81.7	74.3	70.0	68.5	62.9	90.4	83.5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Esposito is by far the leader in VsX. I've argued previously that it probably makes sense to deflate his numbers by about 20%. Once you do that, he's in first by a small but clear margin. The question is - has he fallen enough yet?

Other than that, there's really not much separating the other four forwards. Only an 8% spread between these four (Sakic pulls away if you're looking at ten years due to his consistency).

 

[ImporterExporter]

Bossy was never the best player on his own team IMO, let alone the league, with or without 99 playing. There's a reason why he was a Hart finalist, one time.

I have a problem with career's that are much shorter than even active players in this project. Bossy had the benefit of playing "half" a career compared to most others. There is no downturn to examine. It's just peak. A partial illusion.

Ovechkin was arguably the best player in the world for multiple seasons and his main competition was Crosby, 12th place in this project. Ovechkin remains a high end goal scorer now well past age 30. Ovechkin's peak goal scoring is better than Bossy as is his longevity. Sure, Bossy is absolutely the more accomplished postseason player, but again, we're talking a 3rd wheel on an all time great dynasty. Potvin and Trottier were the linchpins for those Islander teams IMO. Potvin the OG, Trots right behind and Bossy the youngest child and one could argue the sleek sports car.

Nothing against Bossy but he's one of the easiest NR's to this point for me.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I didn't know that Bobby Clarke was named on ice assistant coach and that's why he wasn't captain for a few years in the early 80s because that was an NHL rule that he had to give up his captaincy.

Does anyone remember why Clarke lost his captaincy briefly?

 

[Captain Bowie]

VANCOUVER WINS THE STANLEY CUP!

I just had to quote this line. That is all.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Joe Sakic's Playoff OT Goals record.

1st - 0:51 into 1st OT
2nd - 4:33 into 3rd OT
3rd - 15:35 into 1st OT
4th - 0:24 into 1st OT
5th - 5:15 into 1st OT
6th - 1:54 into 1st OT
7th - 4:36 into 1st OT
8th - 11:11 into 1st OT

Don't know if this means anything to anyone. I might play with the data when I get home and see if I can make something more useful out of it. On the face of it's, it's an incredible knack for scoring an OT goal early into the extra period. I'd be interested to see:

a) His overall team playoff record
b) His Goals/60 rate for playoff OT time.

Further to this...

Joe Sakic's Overall Team Record in OT in the Playoffs: 25-19

As to the rest, does anyone know where I could find ice time breakdowns by period/OT per game? I'd like to take a crack at such a stat, but I would need to know how much playoff OT ice time he had.

 

[wetcoast]

I'm not sure what Bossy has on Cook.

I agree with 70s Cook should go in first

Playoffs is the obvious answer.

 

[wetcoast]

Agreed.

I think Bossy was the clear 3rd wheel on the Islander dynasty. Doesn't mean he's relegated to Robitaille or Hull's level because he was fantastic goal scorer and playoff performer.

But his career largely had the benefit of not being subjected to post 30's examination.

I think that there is a noticeable gap between the 3 players but that Hull was closer to Bossy than he was to Robitialle who to me is more of a compiler type of player.