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

[vadim sharifijanov]

Due to severe depression, I'm stepping away from the board at least for now.

look fwd to seeing you here again when you feel up to it

 

[tarheelhockey]

He isn’t even eligible yet.

I have no idea where that came from... must've been thoughts bleeding over from some other "best defenseman" poll because I had him tied to Doughty and Karlsson.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Hedman scored as many goals in Game 1 against Boston these past playoffs as Quackenbush had in 80 playoff games across 11 different seasons.

When they went to the Finals in 1945, Flash Hollett had 7 points to Quackenbush’s 2. In 1948, it was pre-prime Kelly with 5 and Stewart with 4 to Quackenbush’s 2. In 1949, pre-prime Kelly and Stewart and Quackenbush all had 2. In 1953, it depends on our mileage on Jack McIntyre whether Quackenbush was a top-scoring defenseman on a Finalist (I believe him to be a Winger here), and even then, Quackenbush is 6th among all defensemen in points-per-game, trailing at least one defenseman from every other playoff team.

In Tampa’s deep runs in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2020, Hedman had double the points of the Lightning’s 2nd highest scoring defenseman all four playoff runs.

I don’t see him as a Hedman.

This all points to one basic issue, which is that Quackenbush didn't find much success in the playoffs.

I would really like to know why that was. I'm sure he didn't just pack up his bags and say "see ya in training camp" after the regular season ended. He was specifically known for his consistency and reliability. Clearly something was going on during those playoff runs which have really become the big mark against him, but I don't think we've come very close to identifying what exactly we're talking about here.

Extremely superficial analysis based on numbers alone:

- In 1945, the Wings picked up Earl Seibert at midseason. Based on their scoring it certainly looks like the Wings used Hollett and Seibert for PP/offensive shifts while using Quackenbush in defensive situations. That makes sense without being any slight to Quackenbush. Edit: if anything, it's a pretty strong compliment to a 22-year-old defenseman, particularly from a coach like Jack Adams who was notoriously hard to please.

- In 1946, the Wings scored only 10 goals in 5 playoff games. Not a single one of those goals was scored by a D, on a team with two good offensive D (Quack and Hollett). Superficially, that has vibes of possibly moving extra forwards onto the PP. Jack Adams was old enough to have done that in an earlier era.

- 1947, same thing. Wings score 14 goals in 5 games, none of them by a D. That's now 24 goals in 10 games over 2 seasons without having any production from the blue line... that feels odd.

- 1948, Red Kelly joins the team. Unsurprisingly the D starts scoring again. Kelly was 2nd on the team in playoff goals, plus Stewart and Reise chipped in. 6 goals from the D, none from Quack. Again this hints that maybe he was being shifted to a more defensive role for playoff purposes. Certainly at this point a 4-year trend of his suddenly declining in the playoff hints at that as a possible explanation.

- 1949, he finally scores again! All 4 of the regular D score exactly one goal. This isn't very enlightening about player usage.

After that he left Detroit for Boston, where the playoff dynamics were even less favorable. No need to walk through the seasons individually, but funny enough -- in the 5 years Quack played there, no Bruin defenseman ever scored more than 1 playoff goal. As an entire group, they only scored 4 in 4 playoff seasons. That's weird, and worth investigating.

I mean basically we have two possibilities here:
1) A guy who was clearly a top 3-5 offensive defenseman for close to a decade would arrive at the playoffs every single year and just... stop?

2) Something was going on other than individual performances.

In any case, outside of those 80 games (and the 2-3 week stretches they represent) he was pretty clearly one of the top offensive defensemen in the league. If we look at him uncharitably and take option #1, we still have to acknowledge that he was still an extremely valuable regular season contributor.

 

[Vilica]

The big objection, as always, is that his best seasons came at a time when the field of competition was pretty weak. That is certainly true of the mid-40s, which I tend not to even count. It's somewhat true of the late 40s. WWII effects were over by '48, but it's pretty easy to see that the crop of D during those years was just not up to the standards of later generations. But the early to mid 50s? Kelly/Harvey/Seibert? That's real competition and Quackenbush showed pretty consistent #1D type offensive skill, unlike a Slavin.

What I'm getting at is: we have a guy who, when surrounded by a competitive non-dynasty team, clearly showed as an elite offensive force while also being probably the best pure defender in the league. Again, it's not a stretch to say he may have been the best 200-foot player in the game for a window of time. When placed on a bad team in an extremely competitive period, he was never any lower than the ~4th best overall D in the game.

This sounds a hell of a lot like Hedman to me.

Here's the thing with using raw point totals in a small league, Quackenbush keeps up but only because there's not really that much competition. Here's a table I just threw together, comparing him to both Slavin and Hedman using P% instead. We know there are issues with comparing defensive scoring across eras, but let's look at the numbers first.

	Quackenbush			Slavin
	GF/G	Points	P%	GF/G	Points	P%
43-44	4.280	18	0.084	2.390	20	0.102	15-16
44-45	4.360	21	0.096	2.585	34	0.160	16-17
45-46	2.920	22	0.151	2.744	30	0.133	17-18
46-47	3.167	22	0.116	2.963	31	0.128	18-19
47-48	3.117	22	0.118	3.191	36	0.166	19-20
48-49	3.250	23	0.118
49-50	2.829	25	0.126
50-51	2.543	29	0.163	Hedman
51-52	2.314	19	0.117	2.732	47	0.210	15-16
52-53	2.171	18	0.118	2.805	72	0.313	16-17
53-54	2.529	17	0.096	3.537	63	0.217	17-18
54-55	2.414	22	0.130	3.890	54	0.169	18-19
55-56	2.100	25	0.170	3.471	55	0.226	19-20

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Quackenbush pretty consistently around ~12%, Slavin probably a smidge higher, but a pretty fair comparison, especially given both have around the same amount of PP points. Hedman on a different level, but also involved a lot more on the PP. To be certain, we also know that defensemen are much more involved in the offense now than they were back then, but Quackenbush did lead the Bruins in PP points for D for most of his years, so it isn't like he didn't have opportunity. Ignoring Slavin's first year, his finishes in points amongst defensemen are t45, 57th, t49 and t25. That's not to say a modern version of Quackenbush wouldn't be able to beat that, but saying "finished between 10-20th for 5 consecutive years" has much less impact than "3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd" that his actual peak was.

The thing I keep coming back to with Quackenbush is that the Red Wings discarded him and Jack Stewart, two stalwarts of their defense with league-wide accolades, in consecutive years and you would not notice their absence in the team's GF/GA stats. Not to turn this into a referendum on Red Kelly, but he shows up in 47-48 and the Red Wings +39 GD is the lowest it'd be for the next decade. The disastrous trade of Hall+Lindsay signaled the end of Detroit's window after 56-57, and Kelly struggled a bit afterwards, but then he's traded to Toronto, moved to center, and the 3 subsequent seasons the Leafs are +58, +52, and +41. You can't ascribe all of that jump to Kelly, but that's the sort of impact I just don't see when I look at Quackenbush. The type of player I see when I look at him is like a Matt Niskanen or an Alex Edler, both good players who played for a long time for a lot of good teams, but guys who are more high-end #2s rather than absolute #1s.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Current thoughts, subject to change

1. Roy Worters - combines a strong peak (easily the most decorated goaltender of the late 1920s) and excellent longevity as an impact player (10 straight seasons top 3 goalie all-star voting). I find his playoff record at least a little less problematic than that of Tony Esposito - added just last round - due to lack of opportunity.

2. Toe Blake - seems the best mix of being above average in everything among the forwards this round. Offense, defense, physical play, playoffs, regular season, not really elite at anything, but just very good at everything.

3. Doug Gilmour - short spectacular peak with lots of value as a good player outside of it. Gets a big playoff boost. Really shouldn't fall this far behind Fedorov, who has a similar "on paper resume."

4. Bill Quackenbush - he's been punished for lack of team success enough. Easily the best regular season record among defensemen not yet added. Called the best defensive defenseman of his time; that's still something even in a relatively weak era. His respectable offense and all-round game makes him the best defenseman this round. There's a reason he ended up tied with Mark Howe on our defensemen project.

5. Jiri Holecek - I've seen enough in these threads to be convinced he was a bigger impact player than Vasiliev. Better than Tretiak in the 1970s, but without Tretiak's long prime (plus Tretiak was arguably at his best in the early 1980s).

6. Johnny Bower - this is a lot higher than I had him before, and I might still drop him a spot or two. It boils down to this - if you focus heavily on a per-game stat like save percentage, he should be at or near the top of your list. If you focus heavily on seasonal accomplishments, like All-Star voting, he should be near the bottom. I tend to focus more heavily the value of goalies who maintain their level of play over more games - as I think I said when Lundqvist was available, there is something to be said for a goalie who can be counted on to always be there playing well, even if he doesn't quite hit the level of per-game excellence that another may have. Regular season only, I'd still probably have him lower on the list, but he gets a big and deserving playoff boost .

7. Busher Jackson - straight up, the best offensive player available this round, by a little bit over Stastny.

8. Valeri Vasiliev - I might still drop him if I decide I want a bigger gap between Holecek and him. One thing in favor of Vasiliev - historical significance as the first Soviet defender who could consistently get the puck out of his own zone against Canada.

9. Serge Savard - Two big advantages over Langway - longevity as an impact player, and playoffs. IMO, that overcomes what seems to be a more impactful regular season peak for Langway.

10. Peter Stastny - 2nd best offensive player available this round, missed what could have been an elite season while stuck in CSSR.

The bottom of my list is more fluid. Datsyuk has the best chance of the rest at making it into my top 10. I probably underrated Francis a bit on my initial list, but I still think this is a bit on the early side for him.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I mean basically we have two possibilities here:
1) A guy who was clearly a top 3-5 offensive defenseman for close to a decade would arrive at the playoffs every single year and just... stop?

2) Something was going on other than individual performances.

In any case, outside of those 80 games (and the 2-3 week stretches they represent) he was pretty clearly one of the top offensive defensemen in the league. If we look at him uncharitably and take option #1, we still have to acknowledge that he was still an extremely valuable regular season contributor.

I don’t know that #1 can be ruled out; Quackenbush wouldn’t be the first player we’ve ranked that is a disappointing playoff performer. But if he were to be ranked here, he might be the first one we didn’t appropriately punish for their performances in pressure games in their prime.

Dionne, Thornton, Esposito... these guys took a hit.

Consider the two players who we just ranked: Doughty is a 4-time Norris nominee in a strong era. Karlsson is a 4-time 1st Team All-Star in that same era. Having Quackenbush up with them would possibly have merit in a strict look at regular season performance (but I probably wouldn’t go that far once degree of competition is factored in), but wouldn’t make sense to me if consideration is given to those three players’ respective play in pressure games.

His playoffs feel like Datsyuk’s but without a redemptive arc, and I don’t know that we’re hurting for players this round who have comparable regular season records but don’t leave a question mark for their playoffs (Bower, Blake, Gilmour, Stastny, Bure). Worters, maybe, but his regular seasons were even better. Holecek and Savard and Parent and Francis under pressure were fantastic, so that may bridge some perceived gaps too.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I don’t know that #1 can be ruled out; Quackenbush wouldn’t be the first player we’ve ranked that is a disappointing playoff performer. But if he were to be ranked here, he might be the first one we didn’t appropriately punish for their performances in pressure games in their prime.

Dionne, Thornton, Esposito... these guys took a hit.

Consider the two players who we just ranked: Doughty is a 4-time Norris nominee in a strong era. Karlsson is a 4-time 1st Team All-Star in that same era. Having Quackenbush up with them would possibly have merit in a strict look at regular season performance (but I probably wouldn’t go that far once degree of competition is factored in), but wouldn’t make sense to me if consideration is given to those three players’ respective play in pressure games.

His playoffs feel like Datsyuk’s but without a redemptive arc, and I don’t know that we’re hurting for players this round who have comparable regular season records but don’t leave a question mark for their playoffs (Bower, Blake, Gilmour, Stastny, Bure). Worters, maybe, but his regular seasons were even better. Holecek and Savard and Parent and Francis under pressure were fantastic, so that may bridge some perceived gaps too.

Quackenbush's regular season awards record is a little bit better than Doughty's,. (Karlsson is kind of irrelevant to this comparison, as he's had such an unusual career arc so far).

 

[Batis]

I decided to take a closer look at Holecek's prime by breaking that 70/71-77/78 time frame down in 3-year periods and looking at the cumulative Czechoslovak golden stick voting shares of each 3-year period. It turns out that Holecek finished top-3 in voting shares during every single one of those 3-year periods. Considering that Holecek's prime pretty much perfectly covers the strongest period in Czechoslovakian hockey history this is very impressive and finishing top-3 in voting shares during 6 consecutive 3-year periods is something that not even Vladimir Martinec managed to achieve during the 70's. Yes that is a rather arbitrary stat considering that Martinec had many more top-2 finishes but still I would say that Holecek's consistency throughout his prime is very impressive. Sure he may have had a weaker tournament here and there but when looking at the whole picture he was consistently performing at a high level throughout his prime as evident by the voting shares here below.

70/71-72/73
1. Frantisek Pospisil 39.9
2. Vaclav Nedomansky 29.4
3. Jiri Holecek 26.8
4. Jiri Holik 26.6
5. Vladimir Martinec 22.2

71/72-73/74
1. Jiri Holik 34.8
2. Vladimir Martinec 33.0
3. Jiri Holecek 32.1
4. Frantisek Pospisil 28.2
5. Vaclav Nedomansky 24.5

72/73-74/75
1. Jiri Holik 34.6
2. Vladimir Martinec 34.1
3. Jiri Holecek 31.2
4. Frantisek Pospisil 18.6
5. Bohuslav Stastny 17.4

73/74-75/76
1. Jiri Holecek 37.4
2. Vladimir Martinec 35.1
3. Jiri Holik 26.0
4. Ivan Hlinka 22.2
5. Milan Novy 17.7

74/75-76/77
1. Milan Novy 32.1
2. Vladimir Martinec 31.8
3. Jiri Holecek 26.7
4. Ivan Hlinka 24.2
5. Frantisek Pospisil 23.9

75/76-77/78
1. Ivan Hlinka 35.4
2. Milan Novy 33.6
3. Jiri Holecek 33.4
4. Vladimir Martinec 29.8
5. Frantisek Pospisil 24.7

Holecek's best 3-year period when it comes to voting shares was in 73/74-75/76 where he had a clear advantage over Martinec. Considering that Martinec had slightly stronger voting finishes than Holecek (1, 1, 3 versus 1, 2, 2) I think that both have a case for being the top Czechoslovakian player of this time frame though. What I find interesting about this specific 3-year period is that Holecek and Martinec in my opinion also have strong cases for being the two best European players of that time frame considering that both of them had an advantage over the two best Soviet players Vladislav Tretiak and Valeri Kharlamov on the international stage. So I definitely do think that a case can be made for Holecek being the Best European player of that 3-year period or at least the co-best player along with Martinec. Here you have some of the main achievements of those four players during the 73/74-75/76 time frame so you can judge for yourself.

Jiri Holecek:
1st in Czechoslovak golden stick voting shares with these voting finishes 1, 2, 2
2 WHC Directorate Best Goaltender awards and 1 WHC All-Star team selection

Vladimir Martinec:
2nd in Czechoslovak golden stick voting shares with these voting finishes 1, 1, 3
1 WHC Directorate Best Forward award and 3 WHC All-Star team selections

Vladislav Tretiak:
1st in Soviet player of the year voting shares with these voting finishes 1, 1, 1
1 WHC Directorate Best Goaltender award and 1 WHC All-Star team selection

Valeri Kharlamov:
2nd in Soviet player of the year voting shares with these voting finishes 2, 2, 5
1 WHC All-Star team selection

No matter if Holecek was the Best European player of that 3-year period or not it is in my opinion very clear that he had a impressive peak.

As a side note and speaking about impressive peaks I have to say that doing this breakdown made me appreciate Jiri Holik even more than I have before. He may never have won the award but he certainly got plenty of voting support at his peak during the mid 70's.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Current thoughts, subject to change

1. Roy Worters - combines a strong peak (easily the most decorated goaltender of the late 1920s) and excellent longevity as an impact player (10 straight seasons top 3 goalie all-star voting). I find his playoff record at least a little less problematic than that of Tony Esposito - added just last round - due to lack of opportunity.

2. Toe Blake - seems the best mix of being above average in everything among the forwards this round. Offense, defense, physical play, playoffs, regular season, not really elite at anything, but just very good at everything.

3. Doug Gilmour - short spectacular peak with lots of value as a good player outside of it. Gets a big playoff boost. Really shouldn't fall this far behind Fedorov, who has a similar "on paper resume."

4. Bill Quackenbush - he's been punished for lack of team success enough. Easily the best regular season record among defensemen not yet added. Called the best defensive defenseman of his time; that's still something even in a relatively weak era. His respectable offense and all-round game makes him the best defenseman this round. There's a reason he ended up tied with Mark Howe on our defensemen project.

5. Jiri Holecek - I've seen enough in these threads to be convinced he was a bigger impact player than Vasiliev. Better than Tretiak in the 1970s, but without Tretiak's long prime (plus Tretiak was arguably at his best in the early 1980s).

6. Johnny Bower - this is a lot higher than I had him before, and I might still drop him a spot or two. It boils down to this - if you focus heavily on a per-game stat like save percentage, he should be at or near the top of your list. If you focus heavily on seasonal accomplishments, like All-Star voting, he should be near the bottom. I tend to focus more heavily the value of goalies who maintain their level of play over more games - as I think I said when Lundqvist was available, there is something to be said for a goalie who can be counted on to always be there playing well, even if he doesn't quite hit the level of per-game excellence that another may have. Regular season only, I'd still probably have him lower on the list, but he gets a bigger playoff boost this round than anyone with the possible.

7. Busher Jackson - straight up, the best offensive player available this round, by a little bit over Stastny.

8. Valeri Vasiliev - I might still drop him if I decide I want a bigger gap between Holecek and him. One thing in favor of Vasiliev - historical significance as the first Soviet defender who could consistently get the puck out of his own zone against Canada.

9. Serge Savard - Two big advantages over Langway - longevity as an impact player, and playoffs. IMO, that overcomes what seems to be a more impactful regular season peak for Langway.

10. Peter Stastny - 2nd best offensive player available this round, missed what could have been an elite season while stuck in CSSR.

The bottom of my list is more fluid. Datsyuk has the best chance of the rest at making it into my top 10. I probably underrated Francis a bit on my initial list, but I still think this is a bit on the early side for him.

Pavel Bure is the best offensive player available this round.

Johnny Bower is overdue.

Like where you have Holecek & Gilmour.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I spent a bit of time today trying to find articles from Quackenbush's career to get some commentary about his performance in the playoffs. Was he a warrior stuck on underachieving teams (ie Fleury from 1993 to 1995), or would it have required a "high-powered telescope to detect his presence”?*

Unfortunately I haven't found a single article or quote that tells me anything about how Quackenbush performed in the playoffs. Has anyone seen anything concrete?

* This was an actual quote from a Toronto Star article re Marcel Dionne's performance in the 1978 playoffs.

 

[ted2019]

look fwd to seeing you here again when you feel up to it

Hopefully soon. I knew something was wrong when I started to lose interest doing the ATD and then losing interest doing this project.

 

[buffalowing88]

Due to severe depression, I'm stepping away from the board at least for now.

I really enjoyed battling opinions with you in the preliminary discussions. I have had terrible anxiety and have to work in an extremely extroverted environment and I thought it just magically went away during Covid because I could work from home more often.

Turns out it was just manifesting in depressive behaviors.

There's a road out. It probably doesn't mean much, because I don't know your personal experience, but this crap can be addressed. It may seem otherwise. I've stayed in bed all day more recently than I care to admit and abandoned this thread lately because of it.

But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Take care of yourself and do your thing, we're all going through some crap in one way or another. You're gonna have to come back to at least poke a hole in my arguments before we get to the end of this thing!

 

[quoipourquoi]

I've stayed in bed all day more recently than I care to admit and abandoned this thread lately because of it.

I assumed you had sold stock in GameStop and were off picking out which island you wanted.

 

[bobholly39]

Current thoughts, subject to change

1. Roy Worters - combines a strong peak (easily the most decorated goaltender of the late 1920s) and excellent longevity as an impact player (10 straight seasons top 3 goalie all-star voting). I find his playoff record at least a little less problematic than that of Tony Esposito - added just last round - due to lack of opportunity.

2. Toe Blake - seems the best mix of being above average in everything among the forwards this round. Offense, defense, physical play, playoffs, regular season, not really elite at anything, but just very good at everything.

3. Doug Gilmour - short spectacular peak with lots of value as a good player outside of it. Gets a big playoff boost. Really shouldn't fall this far behind Fedorov, who has a similar "on paper resume."

4. Bill Quackenbush - he's been punished for lack of team success enough. Easily the best regular season record among defensemen not yet added. Called the best defensive defenseman of his time; that's still something even in a relatively weak era. His respectable offense and all-round game makes him the best defenseman this round. There's a reason he ended up tied with Mark Howe on our defensemen project.

5. Jiri Holecek - I've seen enough in these threads to be convinced he was a bigger impact player than Vasiliev. Better than Tretiak in the 1970s, but without Tretiak's long prime (plus Tretiak was arguably at his best in the early 1980s).

6. Johnny Bower - this is a lot higher than I had him before, and I might still drop him a spot or two. It boils down to this - if you focus heavily on a per-game stat like save percentage, he should be at or near the top of your list. If you focus heavily on seasonal accomplishments, like All-Star voting, he should be near the bottom. I tend to focus more heavily the value of goalies who maintain their level of play over more games - as I think I said when Lundqvist was available, there is something to be said for a goalie who can be counted on to always be there playing well, even if he doesn't quite hit the level of per-game excellence that another may have. Regular season only, I'd still probably have him lower on the list, but he gets a big and deserving playoff boost .

7. Busher Jackson - straight up, the best offensive player available this round, by a little bit over Stastny.

8. Valeri Vasiliev - I might still drop him if I decide I want a bigger gap between Holecek and him. One thing in favor of Vasiliev - historical significance as the first Soviet defender who could consistently get the puck out of his own zone against Canada.

9. Serge Savard - Two big advantages over Langway - longevity as an impact player, and playoffs. IMO, that overcomes what seems to be a more impactful regular season peak for Langway.

10. Peter Stastny - 2nd best offensive player available this round, missed what could have been an elite season while stuck in CSSR.

The bottom of my list is more fluid. Datsyuk has the best chance of the rest at making it into my top 10. I probably underrated Francis a bit on my initial list, but I still think this is a bit on the early side for him.

Ron Francis has played 523 more career games (regular season only, playoff makes it more) than Busher Jackson's and Toe Blake's combined totals. He scored just shy of 800 more career points than their 2 totals combined. I find it really hard to overlook the massive edge in longevity when comparing across eras, in this forward to forward comparison. I don't think it's wrong to give bonus points to modern players who played for many more seasons, even if this was rarer in past eras.

Francis was a consistent high performing forward in the league for 23 seasons. He had great offense and great defense. I think we're being too dismissive of his longevity to be honest.

Gimour's longevity case is also important and worth considering in a similar light - but not quite as much as Francis.

 

[quoipourquoi]

And it’s not like Francis is just longevity guy either. Usually you win a Conn Smythe for stuff like this. Not just the goals, but the dirty work to get the chances.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

And it’s not like Francis is just longevity guy either. Usually you win a Conn Smythe for stuff like this. Not just the goals, but the dirty work to get the chances.

Francis was one of the very best at tip-ins.

 

[blogofmike]

And it’s not like Francis is just longevity guy either. Usually you win a Conn Smythe for stuff like this. Not just the goals, but the dirty work to get the chances.

Francis stepped up big once Lemieux was injured.

He had a few good runs or big moments in his playoff career, but oddly enough was mostly quiet offensively.

Peter Stastny outscored Francis as late as the 1991 Devils-Pens series, and was far more likely to deliver post-season scoring. Aside from the Pens eventually winning, was Stastny’s 1982 series against Boston that pushed Quebec to the conference finals any less impressive a showing than Francis had against the 92 Rangers?

Heck an old Stastny still managed 10 points in 7 games against the same 92 Rangers and might have helped New Jersey beat New York for once, if it wasn’t for that turnstile Scott Stevens (-5) and sieve Marty Brodeur (0-1, .800 save percentage).

Peter Statsny’s Nords never went to the Finals, but I’m less inclined to blame the guy who posted a 24-57-81, +3 over 64 playoff games where his team was 28-36.

 

[Professor What]

The good thing about Francis is that he didn't have to be piling up numbers to be contributing. Sure, he did that at times, but even when he wasn't leading the league in assists, you always knew that he was providing strong defense and always working hard. I don't think you can do much better on an offense-defense balance.

 

[tarheelhockey]

This all points to one basic issue, which is that Quackenbush didn't find much success in the playoffs.

I would really like to know why that was. I'm sure he didn't just pack up his bags and say "see ya in training camp" after the regular season ended. He was specifically known for his consistency and reliability. Clearly something was going on during those playoff runs which have really become the big mark against him, but I don't think we've come very close to identifying what exactly we're talking about here.

Extremely superficial analysis based on numbers alone:

- In 1945, the Wings picked up Earl Seibert at midseason. Based on their scoring it certainly looks like the Wings used Hollett and Seibert for PP/offensive shifts while using Quackenbush in defensive situations. That makes sense without being any slight to Quackenbush. Edit: if anything, it's a pretty strong compliment to a 22-year-old defenseman, particularly from a coach like Jack Adams who was notoriously hard to please.

- In 1946, the Wings scored only 10 goals in 5 playoff games. Not a single one of those goals was scored by a D, on a team with two good offensive D (Quack and Hollett). Superficially, that has vibes of possibly moving extra forwards onto the PP. Jack Adams was old enough to have done that in an earlier era.

- 1947, same thing. Wings score 14 goals in 5 games, none of them by a D. That's now 24 goals in 10 games over 2 seasons without having any production from the blue line... that feels odd.

- 1948, Red Kelly joins the team. Unsurprisingly the D starts scoring again. Kelly was 2nd on the team in playoff goals, plus Stewart and Reise chipped in. 6 goals from the D, none from Quack. Again this hints that maybe he was being shifted to a more defensive role for playoff purposes. Certainly at this point a 4-year trend of his suddenly declining in the playoff hints at that as a possible explanation.

- 1949, he finally scores again! All 4 of the regular D score exactly one goal. This isn't very enlightening about player usage.

After that he left Detroit for Boston, where the playoff dynamics were even less favorable. No need to walk through the seasons individually, but funny enough -- in the 5 years Quack played there, no Bruin defenseman ever scored more than 1 playoff goal. As an entire group, they only scored 4 in 4 playoff seasons. That's weird, and worth investigating.

I mean basically we have two possibilities here:
1) A guy who was clearly a top 3-5 offensive defenseman for close to a decade would arrive at the playoffs every single year and just... stop?

2) Something was going on other than individual performances.

In any case, outside of those 80 games (and the 2-3 week stretches they represent) he was pretty clearly one of the top offensive defensemen in the league. If we look at him uncharitably and take option #1, we still have to acknowledge that he was still an extremely valuable regular season contributor.

Unfortunately I haven't found a single article or quote that tells me anything about how Quackenbush performed in the playoffs. Has anyone seen anything concrete?

It really is remarkable how little is said about Quackenbush in the playoffs by contemporary sources. Nothing positive or negative... just nothing at all. It's like his presence was just assumed.

One tiny little scrap of evidence I just found after making another pass at the newspaper archive, and related to my superficial analysis quoted above:

When Quackenbush broke a ~40 game playoff goal scoring drought in 1949, both teams were playing a man short (4v4). That may just be a coincidence but hints at the possibility of a connection to his playoff deployment being different from the regular season.

Funny enough, the report for that game is the only one I've seen where Quackenbush gets either kudos or criticism from a reporter in a playoff game (he was called a "standout" along with Red Kelly). That's the power of scoring a single goal as opposed to playing years of clean positional defense.

I'll keep digging.

The type of player I see when I look at him is like a Matt Niskanen or an Alex Edler, both good players who played for a long time for a lot of good teams, but guys who are more high-end #2s rather than absolute #1s.

I can get on board with arguments to the effect that Quackenbush was a higher- or lower-end player than his numbers make it appear.

But just to be clear -- he was absolutely not a #2 type. When he was only 23, the Detroit writers awarded him their team MVP trophy over a 28-year-old Jack Stewart. In the article on his 1949 Lady Byng win, the Montreal Gazette (not the Detroit press) called him the best defenseman in the game. That was coming off three consecutive postseason AS wins. Frank Boucher called him a "$100,000 player" which is like calling him a $10,000,000 player today. We can infer that he was, in fact, the best defenseman in the game until Kelly's breakout the following season and Harvey's two years later.

I've seen a couple of references to his being given close to 60 minutes a game in Boston (for specific games, not every night). That's in the 1950s, long after 60-minute defensemen stopped being anything like a norm. He pulled a 2nd place Hart vote in '51, presumably from a Boston writer who was acknowledging how hard that team leaned on him.

Even with the lack of clear detail on his performances, we have every reason to believe that he was a #1 for basically his entire career, and that he was a very highly respected player at both ends of the ice the entire time.

 

[quoipourquoi]

But just to be clear -- he was absolutely not a #2 type. When he was only 23, the Detroit writers awarded him their team MVP trophy over a 28-year-old Jack Stewart.

Are we looking at 1946 or 1947 here? They seemed to be 23/28 in 1946 when Stewart was 5th in Hart voting, but I am finding reference for the team MVP in 1947 when Stewart and Quackenbush had identical All-Star votes (2-2-1 - again with the caveat that voters were casting 1-1-2-2-3-3 ballots and couldn’t differentiate between being 3rd or 4th best).

I think there’s a good case Detroit had two #1s - at least in the years when Stewart wasn’t in the war.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Are we looking at 1946 or 1947 here? They seemed to be 23/28 in 1946 when Stewart was 5th in Hart voting, but I am finding reference for the team MVP in 1947 when Stewart and Quackenbush had identical All-Star votes (2-2-1 - again with the caveat that voters were casting 1-1-2-2-3-3 ballots and couldn’t differentiate between being 3rd or 4th best).

I think there’s a good case Detroit had two #1s - at least in the years when Stewart wasn’t in the war.

The one I saw was in the Detroit Free Press on March 17 1946. (technically he was 24 by then, being a March 2 birthday). So it sounds like a win in 46 and a tie in 47.

I agree, he and Stewart were both #1s. Ironically, Quackenbush eventually fell victim to Detroit being too stacked on D when Kelly came into the picture. With solid depth building up behind the trio, someone had to go. The choice to make it Quackenbush is the reason we're talking about him now... if they had dealt Stewart instead, Quack would have been around for the Red Wings semi-dynasty and his story would look very different. Alas.

 

[blogofmike]

Tried looking up Quackenbush footage. Not much here.



There is an English clip here too:

#11 Quackenbush is barely visible in the clips. Bad thing offensively, but probably good thing defensively since I guess it means he’s less likely to fall down or have some winger Rocket right past him.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Going into the weekend, with some marinating still ahead of me, here's how I see this group:

(alpha order)

Top tier
Toe Blake
Johnny Bower
Doug Gilmour
Jiri Holocek
Roy Worters

High-middle tier
Bill Quackenbush
Serve Savard
Valeri Vasiliev

Low-middle tier
Pavel Bure
Ron Francis
Busher Jackson
Peter Stastny

Too early
Pavel Datsyuk
Rod Langway
Bernie Parent


This thread sold me on Bower. He has his weak points, but I feel more confident now than I did a week ago that he's #4 in the late O6 generation, which is a fiercely competitive era similar to the 90s. Once I made the leap that he's in a Belfour-like role for that era, it was a lot easier to see him as worthy of being inducted now.

Holocek and Worters just feel good compared to the group below them.

I'm not very high on Blake or Gilmour, but I can't see them lasting much longer. We're getting into a space where they're going to start being compared to guys who are clearly weaker.

That Quack/Savard/Vasiliev trio is very intriguing... I wish we had more time to do a deep analysis on them and Langway. Four guys whose impact is hard to quantify, but who were clearly among the best "impact" D of their eras. I hold Langway a little lower mainly because I think he was noticeably less of an elite star within his generation, especially if you do a thought experiment where he doesn't win two questionable Norrises to massively boost his legacy.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Ron Francis has played 523 more career games (regular season only, playoff makes it more) than Busher Jackson's and Toe Blake's combined totals. He scored just shy of 800 more career points than their 2 totals combined. I find it really hard to overlook the massive edge in longevity when comparing across eras, in this forward to forward comparison. I don't think it's wrong to give bonus points to modern players who played for many more seasons, even if this was rarer in past eras.

Francis was a consistent high performing forward in the league for 23 seasons. He had great offense and great defense. I think we're being too dismissive of his longevity to be honest.

I guess that depends on how you evaluate longevity. You seem to be an accomplishments guy who cares less about era advantages, which is fine, but just to give the opposite side of the argument, I think players who have era advantages should get zero extra credit for it, and for that reason I'm not sure that Francis actually has that much of an era-adjusted longevity advantage at all over someone like Busher Jackson.

Just as a quick and dirty comparison, for example, Jackson retired 6th in career games played, while Francis retired 3rd. Obviously schedule length affects relative rankings, it's easier to rank higher in the early eras, and back then some star players played portions of their career in other leagues, but that is just one starting data point.

It seems like Busher Jackson retired young at the age of 33, but in context that was a pretty long career. In 1941-42, the last full NHL season before the war exodus started, Jackson was 31, yet there was only one forward in the NHL older than him with more than 20 games played. There were a few older players who would come out of retirement as war replacements, but the post-WWII NHL was also not a league for old men:

Oldest skater in the league with at least 20 GP:
1946: 38 (Dit Clapper 30 GP), next oldest 35
1947: 34 (Toe Blake)
1948: 35 (Toe Blake)
1949: 34
1950: 33
1951: 35

At the other end of his career, Busher Jackson was a standout in terms of his performance at a young age. I went through from 1919-20 to 1939-40 and found all the seasons by players aged 21 or younger, using a benchmark of 20 points from 1920-29 and 30 points from 1930-40 (based on scoring levels). Here are the results:

Busher Jackson, 1932: 53 pts, age 21
Milt Schmidt, 1940: 52 pts, age 21
Charlie Conacher, 1931: 43 pts, age 21
Andy Blair, 1929: 27 pts (41 adjusted), age 20
Hec Kilrea, 1928: 23 pts (35 adjusted), age 20
Aurele Joliat, 1923: 23 pts (35 adjusted, age 21
King Clancy, 1925: 22 pts (33 adjusted), age 21
Milt Schmidt, 1939: 32 pts, age 20
Busher Jackson, 1931: 31 pts, age 20

So what more exactly could be expected out of Jackson in terms of longevity? If he's one of the best performing young players of his era and one of the oldest players in the league when he retires, isn't that all you can expect? And isn't that kind of the same thing as Ron Francis, actually?

Francis was literally the perfect age to maximize career points and games played. His age 18 season was 1981-82, the best time ever to be a teenage scorer in the NHL:

Seasons with 80+ pts, age 20 or younger:
1968-1981: 4 times, 2 by teenagers
1982-1985: 14 times, 7 by teenagers
1986-1990: 9 times, 2 by teenagers
1991-2004: 4 times, 0 by teenagers

Nearly all the elite players who were born in the early '60s had long careers, because the NHL was relatively weak in the early '80s, expansion created more jobs through the '90s and early '00s, and the massive increase in salaries incentivized sticking around. In Francis' final season in 2003-04, he was one of eight skaters age 40 or older with at least 40 GP.

Francis deserves credit for his consistency, and he may even have been relatively better in his last few seasons than many players with long careers from other eras. But if you take era into account, I definitely don't think he's just an automatic pick over someone like Jackson, even if you highly value longevity.

 

[sr edler]

Jackson did win an Art Ross and finished runner up another time.

So did Jamie Benn. And Näslund (Markus) had a row of three seasons there where he finished top 3 in scoring every year, almost squeezing out Rosses left & right, it felt like. And Henrik Sedin was a 2 time consecutive 1st team all-star at center against prime Crosby & Stamkos. And Daniel Sedin won an Art Ross & a Pearson. And none of these players are up for vote yet, and probably won't come up for a while too (I suspect). I still hold out that we shouldn't paper watch too much.