Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time (The Third)

[Hockey Outsider]

Okay, but what makes Keith more deserving of being in the top 100 over Niedermayer?

I'll have to find the posts from the project as this was discussed before but from what I recall, there are two main arguments:

Niedermayer was really only an elite defenseman for three seasons - 2004, 2006 and 2007 (and the 2003 playoffs, which I'll talk about below). Since he peaked late in his career, people project backwards and (mistakenly) assume he was always at that level - Sergei Zubov is another good example. Suggesting that Niedermayer would be in the Hall of Fame at the end of the 2003 regular season (when he was 29) would have been laughable; eleven years into his career, he was roughly on par with Eric Desjardins (a strong defenseman with a very good career, but clearly not a Hall of Famer). Keith isn't exactly a model of consistency himself (in terms of really strong regular seasons), but he was able to win Norris trophies five years apart and had a nine-year span where he was getting a decent amount of votes.

The second reason was Keith has a stronger playoff resume. He was the clear-cut #1 defenseman on three Stanley Cup winners and he had a strong, well-deserved Conn Smythe. Niedermayer was only the #1 defenseman on one Stanley Cup winner (2003) and he wasn't even the best defenseman on his team when he won his Smythe (2007). In fairness to Niedermayer, he was excellent in 2003 and may have been the Smythe runner-up that year, but Keith was almost certainly a Smythe contender both in 2010 and 2013.

 

[buffalowing88]

Nobody commented on my earlier post about Keith, so here it is again...

Keith's inclusion in the top 100 seems out of place considering he never finished higher than 15th in Hart voting...

Duncan Keith
2x Norris finalist, 2x Norris winner, 2x 1st Team All-Star, 1x 2nd Team All-Star, Smythe winner

Scott Niedermayer
3x Norris finalist, 1x Norris winner, 3x 1st Team All-Star, 1x 2nd Team All-Star, Smythe winner, 2x top 10 in Hart voting

Erik Karlsson
4x Norris finalist, 2x Norris winner, 4x 1st Team All-Star, 4x top 10 in Hart voting

I think Keith benefited from recency bias and being on a semi-dynasty. I personally don't think he belongs in the top-100 but it is what it is. I couldn't make a case for Karlsson being on the list and while Niedermayer gets a lot of respect, he's also one of the most overrated players of the past twenty years.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Keith also only has two Norris nominations total in his career despite being healthy in all but one season and playing for a very, very good team. It’s, um... suspect.

He was a fairly well-known quantity after 2010. A clear-cut #1 who didn’t have anyone else on defense that could possibly interfere with his ballot prospects. And with how much Chicago dominated the league in 2013 (and with Erik Karlsson injured), how does Keith let a gimme-putt season like that go with only 1 of 178 voters thinking he’s the best defenseman in the league?

In both Norris-nominated seasons, he also finished behind teammates in Hart-voting, which I think is the bigger red flag there than the actual Hart ranking. I think you could try to squint really hard to make room for him at the bottom of a ballot in 2014, but I think it’s a stretch. So we can complain about how defensemen are treated in Hart voting, but which years was Duncan Keith supposed to be a top-5 among all positions when he was rarely ever voted top-3 of his own despite being super healthy?

I don’t think there’s a selection that is going to age worse than Duncan Keith. It’s like if we took Bernie Parent’s career and said “Take a little top off the regular season.”

 

[The Macho King]

Keith is in because he has a strong argument for best playoff performer post lockout. He probably should have had the 10 Smythe, and was certainly in the discussion for the 13.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Nobody commented on my earlier post about Keith, so here it is again...

Keith's inclusion in the top 100 seems out of place considering he never finished higher than 15th in Hart voting...

Duncan Keith
2x Norris finalist, 2x Norris winner, 2x 1st Team All-Star, 1x 2nd Team All-Star, Smythe winner

Scott Niedermayer
3x Norris finalist, 1x Norris winner, 3x 1st Team All-Star, 1x 2nd Team All-Star, Smythe winner, 2x top 10 in Hart voting

Erik Karlsson
4x Norris finalist, 2x Norris winner, 4x 1st Team All-Star, 4x top 10 in Hart voting

Voted in the top 100 rankins, so I feel obligated to defend it.

Then I checked and saw I had Karlsson at 87 and Keith at 99.

So, you've got a good point.

 

[Nick Hansen]

I personally have a bigger problem with Chara being on the list. But, looking at his resume I understand that he is. Just not a player that ever really enthralled me.

 

[wetcoast]

Nobody commented on my earlier post about Keith, so here it is again...

Keith's inclusion in the top 100 seems out of place considering he never finished higher than 15th in Hart voting...

Duncan Keith
2x Norris finalist, 2x Norris winner, 2x 1st Team All-Star, 1x 2nd Team All-Star, Smythe winner

Scott Niedermayer
3x Norris finalist, 1x Norris winner, 3x 1st Team All-Star, 1x 2nd Team All-Star, Smythe winner, 2x top 10 in Hart voting

Erik Karlsson
4x Norris finalist, 2x Norris winner, 4x 1st Team All-Star, 4x top 10 in Hart voting

Hart voting is really a very poor way to gauge Dmen post expansion.

The case for Keith really is centered around 3 Conn Smythe worthy playoffs.

To me his career is a bit of a slightly less version of Scott Niedermeyer.

Both were elite skaters and excellent defenders but not really offensively elite.

 

[wetcoast]

I'll have to find the posts from the project as this was discussed before but from what I recall, there are two main arguments:

Niedermayer was really only an elite defenseman for three seasons - 2004, 2006 and 2007 (and the 2003 playoffs, which I'll talk about below). Since he peaked late in his career, people project backwards and (mistakenly) assume he was always at that level - Sergei Zubov is another good example. Suggesting that Niedermayer would be in the Hall of Fame at the end of the 2003 regular season (when he was 29) would have been laughable; eleven years into his career, he was roughly on par with Eric Desjardins (a strong defenseman with a very good career, but clearly not a Hall of Famer). Keith isn't exactly a model of consistency himself (in terms of really strong regular seasons), but he was able to win Norris trophies five years apart and had a nine-year span where he was getting a decent amount of votes.

The second reason was Keith has a stronger playoff resume. He was the clear-cut #1 defenseman on three Stanley Cup winners and he had a strong, well-deserved Conn Smythe. Niedermayer was only the #1 defenseman on one Stanley Cup winner (2003) and he wasn't even the best defenseman on his team when he won his Smythe (2007). In fairness to Niedermayer, he was excellent in 2003 and may have been the Smythe runner-up that year, but Keith was almost certainly a Smythe contender both in 2010 and 2013.

To the part in bold we can see this with other HHOF dmen as well, Serge Savard, Pilote, Gadsby, Murphy just off the top of my head.

Even in 2003 he still had had a very strong career and if someone had compared him to the average HHOF Dman, Not guys like Orr, Potvin ect... he would have probably fared quite well I would think but then again I haven't done a deep dive into it.

He had been a in 2 best on best tournaments with Canada at age 23 and 28 up until then as well as having a very good playoff resume, something the HHOF and this project both seem to value quite a bit.

 

[ted2019]

I'd argue the biggest snub among active players was McDavid

Laughable to put McDavid on an all time team when's he's played 351 games.

 

[Perennial]

Laughable to put McDavid on an all time team when's he's played 351 games.

I thought the Top 100 Players Of All-Time was about quality, not quantity...

3x 1st Team All-Star
2x Art Ross winner
2x Pearson winner
Hart winner

...all before his 23rd birthday

However many games you think he needs to play before he qualifies for this type of list is completely arbitrary...

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

No, I don’t know what to do with Connor McDavid either

It's important to note that this thought was expressed... but more than that, it's important to note WHEN that thought was first expressed. It was August 5, 2018, to-be-specific. At the time, Conor McDavid had accumulated 2½(+) professional seasons as the body-of-work subject to close review when we were making our lists.

31 people made preliminary lists based upon the extent of their knowledge in late-Summer/early fall 2018. Preliminary Lists (of 120) were wrapped up in October 2018. Three people DID find room for McDavid even that early in his pro-career. Still, 90+% of the participants passed on McDavid at that point in time. I can't speak for the motives of everyone- but I can speak for mine. What did I feel like I knew about McDavid then?! I thought:

He could end up being the Fifth-Greatest-Player-of-All-Time, OR

He's a couple of open-ice hits and/or a terrible accident away from being a gif-version of Hod Stuart.

The whole issue of how assessing active players is really a moving target is something upon which I've commented before. 40% of McDavid's NHL-career has been played AFTER our preliminary lists were created. Many of us, I'm sure, are making a mental note of "stock-up/stock-down" with active players. McDavid is at the forefront of "stock-up." Kane is definitely "stock-up." Malkin was "stock-down" in 2018-19. [I, for one, didn't see that coming.] Then, just as quickly, Geno rebounded this year. [That Malkin stock is volatile.] In the last three years, Erik Karlsson hasn't shown me much that would make me think his status has improved as a 'Top-100" candidate. His stock is down, too.

 

[daver]

I thought the Top 100 Players Of All-Time was about quality, not quantity...

3x 1st Team All-Star
2x Art Ross winner
2x Pearson winner
Hart winner

...all before his 23rd birthday

However many games you think he needs to play before he qualifies for this type of list is completely arbitrary...

If you believe this, then isn't the age that he earned those awards by also completely arbitrary? Many players have superior career resumes both in quality and quantity.

Out of curiousity, what players from 2000 onwards (post Wayne and Mario) who are in the Top 100 who you rate McDavid ahead of?

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Voted in the top 100 rankings, so I feel obligated to defend it.

Then I checked and saw I had Karlsson at 87 and Keith at 99.

So, you've got a good point.

Brian Leetch, Jiří Holeček, Eddie Gerard, and Peter St'astný...

all are players whom you ranked behind Erik Karlsson on your Prelim List.

All are also players whom you voted ahead of Erik Karlsson in our Penultimate Vote (Vote #20). [And you also gave Karlsson a deserved (to my mind) NR on that ballot.]

Therefore, I conclude that we benefitted from the discussions- and our perspectives improved on account of those discussions- which is what's supposed to happen.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Erik Karlsson hasn't shown me much that would make me think his status has improved as a 'Top-100" candidate. His stock is down, too.

Does his stock actually need to go back up? With regular seasons like 2012-2017, an Olympic tournament like 2014, and a playoff like 2017, to me, he just needs to exist.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Brian Leetch, Jiří Holeček, Eddie Gerard, and Peter St'astný...

all are players whom you ranked behind Erik Karlsson on your Prelim List.

All are also players whom you voted ahead of Erik Karlsson in our Penultimate Vote (Vote #20). [And you also gave Karlsson a deserved (to my mind) NR on that ballot.]

Therefore, I conclude that we benefitted from the discussions- and our perspectives improved on account of those discussions- which is what's supposed to happen.

Correct.

As the process continued, Karlsson lost steam.

I needed to adjust, see the errors of my ways. Indeed discussions were hugely valuable.

Current players are definitely hard to gauge, especially if they are injured or just wildly inconsistent. Karlsson still has those Norris trophies, though.

 

[Perennial]

If you believe this, then isn't the age that he earned those awards by also completely arbitrary? Many players have superior career resumes both in quality and quantity.

Out of curiousity, what players from 2000 onwards (post Wayne and Mario) who are in the Top 100 who you rate McDavid ahead of?

No, the age he earned those awards is fact, not arbitrary...

At quick glance, I'd have McDavid ahead of Keith, Kane, and St. Louis...

 

[ted2019]

I thought the Top 100 Players Of All-Time was about quality, not quantity...

3x 1st Team All-Star
2x Art Ross winner
2x Pearson winner
Hart winner

...all before his 23rd birthday

However many games you think he needs to play before he qualifies for this type of list is completely arbitrary...

So, if he had a career ending injury tomorrow, you would still consider him to be a top 100 player?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

So, if he had a career ending injury tomorrow, you would still consider him to be a top 100 player?

I would.

 

[bobholly39]

So, if he had a career ending injury tomorrow, you would still consider him to be a top 100 player?

Not tomorrow. 2 years ago. Thats when votes were submitted.

This seems to get overlooked by that poster.

 

[wetcoast]

Laughable to put McDavid on an all time team when's he's played 351 games.

Probably but at the time of the project he was only 3 seasons in and it begs the question when did Gretzky, and Mario and Orr) become a top 100 player of all time.

Playoffs aside McDavid already has a much more impressive peak/prime (right now, not 2 years ago) than Dickie Moore who was voted comfortably in the top 100.

 

[Perennial]

So, if he had a career ending injury tomorrow, you would still consider him to be a top 100 player?

Yes

In fact, if his career ended tomorrow, I'd probably consider him a top 10 player...

 

[bobholly39]

Yes

In fact, if his career ended tomorrow, I'd probably consider him a top 10 player...

Lol

I think you should probably move on from this thread at this point.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yeah, that's an untenable position...

If there's that big of an emphasis on pure skill and none on career value, that's a different list entirely...

 

[Perennial]

Lol

I think you should probably move on from this thread at this point.

Name 10 players better than McDavid...

 

[Michael Farkas]

Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, Hull, Beliveau, Harvey, Crosby, Hasek, Lidstrom, Jagr, Fetisov...?