Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 3

[Professor What]

I'm definitely of the opinion that Quackenbush and Vasiliev need to be placed in this round. I feel the same way about Blake. Among the goalies, I'm highest on Holocek, and he's in my top five, as is Bure, though, of course, his placement on anyone's list is going to be controversial with someone else. I'm not exactly sure of the ranking of those five, but as of now, that is my top five. The rest is very much up in the air.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'm definitely of the opinion that Quackenbush and Vasiliev need to be placed in this round. I feel the same way about Blake. Among the goalies, I'm highest on Holocek, and he's in my top five, as is Bure, though, of course, his placement on anyone's list is going to be controversial with someone else. I'm not exactly sure of the ranking of those five, but as of now, that is my top five. The rest is very much up in the air.

Can't see how Bower doesn't get in here.

Should be the Three Bs.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'm very high on him. He was definitely a defensive guy, and so he wasn't going to put up huge numbers, but in domestic play, he was somewhat hampered by being a member of Dynamo Moscow instead of CSKA Moscow, like so many other members of the Soviet National Team. But when he got to international play, there was something of an uptick for him. But, regardless of numbers, he was an eight-time Soviet all-star, a five-time world championship all-star, a five-time domestic best defenseman, and a three-time best defenseman in the world championships. He was pretty unusual among the Soviet players for his physicality. To quote @seventieslord from this article, "Before the emergence of Slava Fetisov, Vasiliev was the Soviet Union’s top defenseman, and it wasn’t close." Or, here's what Sergei Gonchar said about him in this article: "He was a mean player, one of those guys who always stood up for his teammates. Very tough guy. I have a lot of respect for that guy. He wasn't scared of anyone." A heart attack couldn't even sideline him in 1978, when he played for and won the 1978 world championship, shortly after suffering one. In fact, he even scored three goals and three assists in that tournament, well above his typical offensive production. I think that epitomizes the toughness Gonchar spoke about. He certainly had guts. We've got three defensive defensemen on the board in this round, and as I stated before, Vasiliev is my top pick of the three. I'm much harder pressed to find the argument against him than the argument for him.

Thanks for this.

 

[Professor What]

Can't see how Bower doesn't get in here.

Should be the Three Bs.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over Bower going in here. His not being in my top five right now has more to do with the guys that are in it than anything negative on Bower. And, honestly, while I prefer Holocek, it's not really by that much.

 

[Batis]

Langway played in the 1981, 1984 and 1987 Canada Cups for the U.S. In 1984, he was the first American player to be named to a Canada Cup post-tourney first All-Star team.

One thing that has impressed me with Langway's performances on the international stage is the way he defended against the Soviets in one-on-one situations. Especially his ability to not lose his defensive positioning even in situations when it at first looked like he had a hard time dealing with the opponents skating and dekes. Here are some examples of this.

First we have a clip from the 1981 Canada Cup where Langway is up against one of the best Soviet stickhandlers of the 80's in Andrei Khomutov. At first Langway seems to be struggling to keep up but he still manages to keep Khomutov to the outside and at the end separates him from the puck.



This clip is from the 1984 Canada Cup where Langway finds himself in the very difficult situation of facing Sergei Makarov one-against-one on the rush. Again it looks like Langway is about to get beaten but he manages to stay in position, play the body and Makarov ends up behind the net instead of in a more dangerous scoring position.



Here is a clip from the 1987 Rendezvous where Langway again is up against Makarov on the rush. This time Makarov does not try to beat Langway one-on-one and instead just gains entry into the offensive zone and finds Fetisov in a scoring position in the middle. Even if this ends up being a great scoring chance for the Soviets I really don't think that much of the fault for that should fall on Langway as he kept Makarov to the outside and then tried to put some pressure on him when he was looking for the pass.



Obviously the sample size is small but based on the eye-test I would say that Langway did a better job of defending in one-on-one situations against the Soviets than most defencemen that I have seen including some top-10 defencemen of all time like Potvin, Robinson and Bourque. To me the key to this was Langway's patience as he in those situations often seems to have focused on staying in position rather than actively trying to steal the puck from the fast and skilled wingers that was coming at him. Then when he got the chance to do so he played the body.

With all this said I am not sure if I will rank Langway in my top 10 this vote but I would definitely say that his performances on the international stage is a point in his favour.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Can't see how Bower doesn't get in here.

Should be the Three Bs.

All-Star Voting

[TABLE="class: brtb_item_table"][TBODY][TR][TD][/TD]
[TD]1st[/TD][TD]2nd[/TD][TD]3rd[/TD][TD]4th[/TD][TD]5th[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]1993[/TD][TD]Selanne[/TD][TD]Mogilny[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Tocchet[/TD][TD]Recchi[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]1994[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Neely[/TD][TD]Hull[/TD][TD]Recchi[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]1998[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][TD]Selanne[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Bondra[/TD][TD]Palffy[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2000[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Nolan[/TD][TD]Recchi[/TD][TD]Amonte[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2001[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Kovalev[/TD][TD]Palffy[/TD][TD]Guerin[/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]

Certainly a case that the value for what Bure was doing in his best years is going understated. He was losing to Hart nominees (Jagr x3, Selanne in 1998) and 76-goal scorers (Selanne, Mogilny).

I suppose the question would be how much did he differentiate himself from the players who finished behind him?

In 1993, Recchi had a statline of 53-70-123 and was the Flyers’ leading scorer by 37 points. Tocchet was 48-61-109 on the Penguins. Bure narrowly edged them out in voting by appearing on 46% of the 5-3-1 ballots, and his margin might have been bigger had one of the voters not considered him a LW.

in 1994, Neely hit 50 in 44 but missed time. Recchi’s numbers dropped from the impressive 1993 totals (which could have realistically been held against him at that time) but he actually rose to 5th in scoring. Jagr wasn’t Jagr yet, but Hull was still a 57-goal scorer. Bure’s margin was massive.

In 1998, Bondra tied for the lead in goals while Palffy’s 87 points ranked 5th in the league behind Jagr, Forsberg, Gretzky, and Bure.

In 2000, the top-4 RWs all ranked in the top-6 in Hart voting. Recchi was 3rd in scoring behind Jagr and Bure while Nolan and Amonte were 2nd and 3rd in goals behind Bure.

In 2001, Kovalev finished 4th in scoring (and was probably Pittsburgh’s best player until Lemieux’s return). Palffy also ranked 9th.


The competition in 1993, 1998, and 2000 (3, 3, 2) is really strong, and while 2001 (2) is not diverse, finishing above Kovalev isn’t nothing. We could argue that voters wouldn’t want two Penguins at RW, but Bure still doubled him in voting points despite Kovalev appearing on over half the ballots. 1994 (1) might have been easier in that Neely didn’t play a full year, but Hull and Recchi did and were great.

And while he doesn’t have the retro Conn Smythe of the other two Bs (Blake and Bower), his 1994 playoff was obviously at the level of a Conn Smythe playoff.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

If we're putting a lot of stock into winger All-Star positions:

Busher Jackson = 4 times 1st Team All Star, 1 time 2nd Team All Star
Pavel Bure = 1 time 1st Team All Star, 2 times 2nd Team All Star, 2 times "3rd Team" All-Star

(Edit: And Toe Blake = 3 times 1st Team All Star, 2 times 2nd Team All Star, 2 times "3rd Team" All-Star)

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

in 1994, Neely hit 50 in 44 but missed time. Recchi’s numbers dropped from the impressive 1993 totals (which could have realistically been held against him at that time) but he actually rose to 5th in scoring. Jagr wasn’t Jagr yet, but Hull was still a 57-goal scorer. Bure’s margin was massive.

the '93/'94 effect is interesting

recchi and oates both falling by double digits in raw points, but recchi rising in points and oates staying the same.

and then bure basically not falling at all after an already brilliant '93 season.

roenick (even), bure (-3), hull (-4), francis (-7), and sakic (-13) were the only players in the '93 top 20 in scoring who didn't drop by at least fifteen points the next season. i believe recchi's -16 was the next on that list. oates was on pace for -20, and in seven fewer games was an even -30.

 

[sr edler]

the '93/'94 effect is interesting

recchi and oates both falling by double digits in raw points, but recchi rising in points and oates staying the same.

and then bure basically not falling at all after an already brilliant '93 season.

roenick (even), bure (-3), hull (-4), francis (-7), and sakic (-13) were the only players in the '93 top 20 in scoring who didn't drop by at least fifteen points the next season. i believe recchi's -16 was the next on that list. oates was on pace for -20, and in seven fewer games was an even -30.

Bure played 7 or 8 games less in 93–94 than in 92–93 so he wasn't falling or dropping at all there, he had a better PPG.

 

[sr edler]

If we're putting a lot of stock into winger All-Star positions:

Busher Jackson = 4 times 1st Team All Star, 1 time 2nd Team All Star
Pavel Bure = 1 time 1st Team All Star, 2 times 2nd Team All Star, 2 times "3rd Team" All-Star

(Edit: And Toe Blake = 3 times 1st Team All Star, 2 times 2nd Team All Star, 2 times "3rd Team" All-Star)

Are you claiming Busher Jackson would have won 1st all-star selections against peak Jagr? Or what's the point with just listing number of selections like this? Didn't Markus Näslund win 3 1st all-star selections in a row? Also, Busher Jackson played on a line with two HHOFers Conacher & Primeau, whereas Bure played with guys like Murray Craven, Anatoli Semenov & Viktor Kozlov.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Are you claiming Busher Jackson would have won 1st all-star selections against peak Jagr? Or what's the point with just listing number of selections like this? Didn't Markus Näslund win 3 all-star selections in a row? Also, Busher Jackson played on a line with two HHOFers Conacher & Primeau, whereas Bure played with guys like Murray Craven, Anatoli Semenov & Viktor Kozlov.

No disrespect to Sweeney Schriner here, but I do think the bolded needs some emphasis.

I didn’t post Pavel Bure’s All-Star record because I thought people have never heard of Hockey-Reference or Wikipedia or this forum and didn’t know it was 1, 2, 2, 3, 3 but instead to show what 1, 2, 2, 3, 3 means in the years it was achieved.

A 2nd Team selection above a RW who finished 3rd in league scoring (2000) may actually be more difficult to achieve than a 1st place finish above, say, Stewart and Harmon and Reardon and Egan (1949).

Bure was a Pearson finalist in 1998, so I’d like to think we can dig deeper than saying he finished 3rd in All-Star voting and defining him by that when being better than 52-goal Bondra might be a higher threshold than being better than Jimmy Thomson and Leo Reise.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Are you claiming Busher Jackson would have won 1st all-star selections against peak Jagr?

I doubt he would win any against peak Jagr (Bure didn't win any over peak Jagr either), but I don't see why beating Selanne a couple times would be out of the question. Jackson did win an Art Ross and finished runner up another time. Selanne was a good player but he wasn't exactly some unbeatable great.

Or what's the point with just listing number of selections like this? Didn't Markus Näslund win 3 1st all-star selections in a row?

I prefer not to look at winger all-star nods at all - I prefer to compare wingers to all the forwards in the league via offensive stats (VsX, top 10 finishes) or Hart Trophy finishes (Bure does have a single 3rd place finish over Jackson which... is something). But I was responding to a post about RW all-star voting.

Also, Busher Jackson played on a line with two HHOFers Conacher & Primeau, whereas Bure played with guys like Murray Craven, Anatoli Semenov & Viktor Kozlov.

I assume the writers who voted for the All-Star teams were aware of this.

 

[sr edler]

I prefer not to look at winger all-star nods at all - I prefer to compare wingers to all the forwards in the league via offensive stats (VsX, top 10 finishes) or Hart Trophy finishes (Bure does have a single 3rd place finish over Jackson which... is something). But I was responding to a post about RW all-star voting.

VsX and Hart finishes needs contextualizing too, the latter both in-season & out-season. VsX says Francis was a better scorer than Bure (if I understand it correctly) which he wasn't (he was just more durable), and Hart voting (which can be highly narrative driven, as it's conducted by journalists) says Adam Graves was more valuable to the Rangers than Bure to the Canucks in 94 when Bure mangled the league from January in (leading the whole league in scoring).

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

All-Star Voting

[TABLE="class: brtb_item_table"][TBODY][TR][TD][/TD]
[TD]1st[/TD][TD]2nd[/TD][TD]3rd[/TD][TD]4th[/TD][TD]5th[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]1993[/TD][TD]Selanne[/TD][TD]Mogilny[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Tocchet[/TD][TD]Recchi[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]1994[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Neely[/TD][TD]Hull[/TD][TD]Recchi[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]1998[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][TD]Selanne[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Bondra[/TD][TD]Palffy[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2000[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Nolan[/TD][TD]Recchi[/TD][TD]Amonte[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]2001[/TD][TD]Jagr[/TD][TD]Bure[/TD][TD]Kovalev[/TD][TD]Palffy[/TD][TD]Guerin[/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]
Certainly a case that the value for what Bure was doing in his best years is going understated. He was losing to Hart nominees (Jagr x3, Selanne in 1998) and 76-goal scorers (Selanne, Mogilny).

I suppose the question would be how much did he differentiate himself from the players who finished behind him?

In 1993, Recchi had a statline of 53-70-123 and was the Flyers’ leading scorer by 37 points. Tocchet was 48-61-109 on the Penguins. Bure narrowly edged them out in voting by appearing on 46% of the 5-3-1 ballots, and his margin might have been bigger had one of the voters not considered him a LW.

in 1994, Neely hit 50 in 44 but missed time. Recchi’s numbers dropped from the impressive 1993 totals (which could have realistically been held against him at that time) but he actually rose to 5th in scoring. Jagr wasn’t Jagr yet, but Hull was still a 57-goal scorer. Bure’s margin was massive.

In 1998, Bondra tied for the lead in goals while Palffy’s 87 points ranked 5th in the league behind Jagr, Forsberg, Gretzky, and Bure.

In 2000, the top-4 RWs all ranked in the top-6 in Hart voting. Recchi was 3rd in scoring behind Jagr and Bure while Nolan and Amonte were 2nd and 3rd in goals behind Bure.

In 2001, Kovalev finished 4th in scoring (and was probably Pittsburgh’s best player until Lemieux’s return). Palffy also ranked 9th.


The competition in 1993, 1998, and 2000 (3, 3, 2) is really strong, and while 2001 (2) is not diverse, finishing above Kovalev isn’t nothing. We could argue that voters wouldn’t want two Penguins at RW, but Bure still doubled him in voting points despite Kovalev appearing on over half the ballots. 1994 (1) might have been easier in that Neely didn’t play a full year, but Hull and Recchi did and were great.

And while he doesn’t have the retro Conn Smythe of the other two Bs (Blake and Bower), his 1994 playoff was obviously at the level of a Conn Smythe playoff.

Might also mention Bure led the league in short-handed goals in 1993 with 7 and again in 1998 with 6.

 

[quoipourquoi]

VsX and Hart finishes needs contextualizing too, the latter both in-season & out-season. VsX says Francis was a better scorer than Bure (if I understand it correctly) which he wasn't (he was just more durable), and Hart voting (which can be highly narrative driven, as it's conducted by journalists) says Adam Graves was more valuable to the Rangers than Bure to the Canucks in 94 when Bure mangled the league from January in (leading the whole league in scoring).

Yeah, I don’t know why anyone would vote for Pavel Bure for the 1998 Hart Trophy (they didn’t) but I also don’t know why I should necessarily care that they wouldn’t either.

Jaromir Jagr finished 2nd for the Hart Trophy. Teemu Selanne finished 3rd for the Hart Trophy. Peter Bondra finished 6th for the Hart Trophy.

If we know Pavel Bure is assessed to be better than Peter Bondra and worse than Teemu Selanne, we can kind of figure out how he was regarded. If we ignore All-Star voting, we lose some pretty vital information there just because the narrative wasn’t right for him under the definition of the Hart Trophy.

 

[Professor What]

If you want to talk apples and oranges, that's all-star balloting and the Hart. To me, Norris ballots are of a similar nature to all-star ballots in what they represent. So, I look at Rod Langway in his two Norris years, and I think his winning them was wrong, simply because I don't think he was the best defenseman in the league. However, I look at his strong performance in Hart balloting, and I think that makes a heck of a lot of sense, because he was of vital importance to the Capitals. So, he didn't have to be the best at his position in my eyes to potentially be the most valuable. By the same token, there's no reason to think that Bure should necessarily have to be viewed as the most valuable right wing to his team to get a first team all-star selection. Though, when you look at how far he outpaced his entire team offensively in some years, it's hard to think that he wouldn't have fared better in some seasons if making the playoffs didn't seem to be so important to many voters.

I'll go one step further with that. In the context of what we're doing, I actually see a little more value in an all-star type comparison than in a Hart-style one. The reason for that is that when I look at the all-star balloting and determine whether I agree with it or not, I'm taking the level of the team into consideration, just like TDMM said he assumed that voters took Jackson's linemates into consideration. Thus, there's a team aspect built in, and it's one that helps demonstrate how strong the player's contributions were in comparison to the league as a whole, rather than simply to his team.

 

[Theokritos]

Busher Jackson = 4 times 1st Team All Star, 1 time 2nd Team All Star
Pavel Bure = 1 time 1st Team All Star, 2 times 2nd Team All Star, 2 times "3rd Team" All-Star

Talent-pool estimates are a notoriously contested topic, but I always thought removing the non-Canadian competitors of e.g. 90s players would be a fair thing to do. In the case of Pavel Bure, that would give him five 1st team All-star berths.

 

[Vilica]

You don't even have to look at Bure's near all-star seasons to show the depth of competition. Let's look at two seasons - Busher Jackson's 33-34 season, 20+18=38 in 38 games, and Bure's 91-92 rookie year 34+26=60 in 65 games. Let me also state up front that looking at Busher's competition, him receiving the AS-1 nod for that season is largely the correct decision. However, if you break down the years into their component parts, you'll find out some things. First, Busher's year:

GF/G	Team GP	Team GF	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	G%	P%	Year
3.842	38	146	38	20	18	38	0.137	0.260	33-34

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Removing the games Busher missed to get an accurate G%/P% number, we see that the Leafs scored about 3.85 goals a game, and Jackson had a fairly ordinary season - similar seasons in the O6 include Jim McFadden's 52-53, Johnny Peirson's 49-50, and Andy Bathgate's 54-55. Those are all fine productive seasons, but they aren't really great ones. Now, we bring in Bure's rookie year:

GF/G	Team GP	Team GF	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-	Shots	G%	P%
3.492	65	227	65	34	26	60	0	268	0.150	0.264

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The first thing to note is that Pavel missed 17 of 82 games compared to Busher's 10 of 48, so they both played just under 80% of the games. The second thing is that Busher's team actually scored more goals than Pavel's team, because that Leafs team was ~50% above league average in scoring compared to the Canucks ~2.5%. The third thing is that when you compare the seasons, Pavel is marginally higher in both G% and P%, but not to any significant extent. But while Busher received his AS-1 nod, Pavel received exactly 3 3rd place votes and finished t12 in voting. He did win the Calder, but otherwise was unrewarded.

This can also cut the other way, as if you compare Busher's 32-33 season to Bure's 93-94 season. On the surface, 48 games, 27+17=44 isn't much compared to 76 games, 60+47=107, but when you look at G%/P%, Jackson's 32-33 numbers of 0.227/0.370 are very similar to Bure's 0.215/0.384. For whatever reason, the Leafs' scoring crashed that year, whereas the Canucks scored a similar amount of goals.

On the other hand, instead of comparing similar G%/P% seasons, you can compare similar scoring level seasons. In 32-33, the Leafs scored 119 goals in 48 games, or 2.479 per game, and in 00-01, the Panthers scored 200 goals in 82 games, or 2.439 per game. However, Bure's 59+33=92 season equates to 0.295/0.460 compared to Busher's 0.227/0.370.

I am curious, though, in how my analysis compares to VsX, because I can see aggregate scores for both Jackson and Bure, but not their individual season scores. If someone better versed in extracting those numbers could provide them for Jackson's 32-33 and 33-34 seasons, as well as Bure's 91-92, 93-94 and 00-01 seasons, I think it'd be interesting if VsX sees these seasons as similarly as I do.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Talent-pool estimates are a notoriously contested topic, but I always thought removing the non-Canadian competitors of e.g. 90s players would be a fair thing to do. In the case of Pavel Bure, that would give him five 1st team All-star berths.

Seems like an awful way to look at it if you're going to separate the three forward positions.

Who was the best Canadian RW competing during that time? Weren't most of the best Canadian forwards playing center in a way that wasn't true at all prior to expansion?

Why not look at how they rank among all forwards?

 

[Vilica]

I meant to try to calculate the VsX scores myself before posting, but posted before I did.

Given benchmarks of 44 for 32-33 and 43 for 33-34, and 116, 120 and 96 for 91-92, 93-94 and 00-01, it seems Jackson's two seasons are 100 and 88, while Bure's 3 seasons are 51, 89, and 96. I think those numbers are correct.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Talent-pool estimates are a notoriously contested topic, but I always thought removing the non-Canadian competitors of e.g. 90s players would be a fair thing to do. In the case of Pavel Bure, that would give him five 1st team All-star berths.

And it’s not as though Canadian talent at RW was weak in all of those years either, with Tocchet and Recchi in 1993, Neely and Hull(ish) and Recchi in 1994, and Nolan and Recchi in 2000.

1998 and 2001 were less great (Fleury is probably the best both years) but with Bure being a Pearson nominee in 1998 and the Rocket Richard winner in 2001, we can probably place some confidence in how he would fare in balloting regardless.

If Neely (1994) and Fleury (2001) were healthy, maybe they are the better players in those years, but it might be weird to go down that rabbit hole with Bure of all people.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Seems like an awful way to look at it if you're going to separate the three forward positions.

Who was the best Canadian RW competing during that time? Weren't most of the best Canadian forwards playing center in a way that wasn't true at all prior to expansion?

Why not look at how they rank among all forwards?

So a two-time Art Ross winner (1998, 2000) with four goal-scoring titles (1994, 1998, 2000, 2001)? That would have to be up there with Bower’s six save percentage titles in terms of resumes that probably belong in the last project.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

So a two-time Art Ross winner (1998, 2000) with four goal-scoring titles (1994, 1998, 2000, 2001)? That would have to be up there with Bower’s six save percentage titles in terms of resumes that probably belong in the last project.

Yes, if you are going to semi-arbitrarily remove non-Canadians from the rankings, this would be a better way to do it.

Though if the goal is to equalize competition by removing non-Canadians, you really should do the same with Gretzky/Lemieux, all of which would give Doug Gilmour 2 consecutive Hart Trophies in 1993 and 1994 (or a Hart + runner up to Vanbiesbrouck if we are allowed to keep Americans). Datsyuk would then have 2 runner-up finishes in the scoring race just from removing Europeans. The point of this is that if we're going to use a method that makes Bure look better, the same method should be used for ALL the modern players, not just him.

Personally, I think that's going a little too far, and that percentile-based systems like VsX do a good job of taking into account the increased level of competition in modern times, without going too far. But I get that reasonable people could disagree.

 

[ted2019]

Langway also came with Engblom, Jarvis, and a new coach who had actually already improved the team a little the year before. Young Scott Stevens showed up too. The turnaround wasn’t ALL him. But looking at what people were saying, and how he played, he does deserve his rep. Just like the Americans weren’t all Worters, but it seems he stood out.

But I haven’t really seen any indication that Quackenbush was a guy who could impact a game like Langway - who also didn’t participate much in the offence - or any of the others available this round. I don’t know, maybe there’s a ton of value in NEVER going to the box as a top defender? But I’d also have Karlsson over Gadsby, so what do I know?

You really can't count Engblom as he only played 79 games for Washington before getting shipped out again. I have it as
Langway (by a large margin and probably the person who should get the most credit in reigning in a hothead Stevens)
Stevens
Jarvis/coach

 

[quoipourquoi]

Yes, if you are going to semi-arbitrarily remove non-Canadians from the rankings, this would be a better way to do it.

Though if the goal is to equalize competition by removing non-Canadians, you really should do the same with Gretzky/Lemieux, all of which would give Doug Gilmour 2 consecutive Hart Trophies in 1993 and 1994 (or a Hart + runner up to Vanbiesbrouck if we are allowed to keep Americans). Datsyuk would then have 2 runner-up finishes in the scoring race just from removing Europeans. The point of this is that if we're going to use a method that makes Bure look better, the same method should be used for ALL the modern players, not just him.

Personally, I think that's going a little too far, and that percentile-based systems like VsX do a good job of taking into account the increased level of competition in modern times, without going to far. But I get that reasonable people could disagree.

A 7-year or a 10-year VsX locks us into a comparison that depends on a player having a healthy 7/10 in his prime (not a given in many eras, including the DPE). When we’re 110 players deep, we’re running into careers that have high highs but other deficiencies for which VsX absolutely sucks at accounting. Injured players and VsX is a double whammy - we think less of the player because they have lower GP and we think less of the player because VsX treats them as worse offensively than they were.

As for the other point, of course the same would need to be applied to the others. I’ve even pointed out Gilmour’s Hart resume in this thread as one especially of note considering the size of the league he achieved it.

We’re covering 15 damn players. Just because I gave you context for several of them doesn’t mean there doesn’t need to be context applied to several more.

Is there another one with six save percentage titles? Is there another player who placed ahead of all Canadians in two scoring races and four goal-scoring races? No. So I’m not sure Datsyuk ascending from two 4th place finishes to two 2nd place finishes invalidates what I said about two of the three Bs @Dennis Bonvie referenced.