Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 4

[quoipourquoi]

I agree! As I wrote in that post:



That also works both ways, e.g. Don Edwards didn't necessarily have a massively overrated season in 1977-78 just because Bob Sauve posted a career-high .911 save percentage in just 479 minutes. The next season Sauve came in at .876 in 1608 minutes. Edwards was +.017 vs league average in '78 and +.016 vs. league average in '79. I don't think it is obvious that he was overrated in 1977-78 and really good in 1978-79, just because of what Sauve did in a small sample.

Backup analysis is hard, there are a lot of variables to consider and the sample size creates some real issues. The best is probably to use an estimate that takes into account multiple seasons and some subjective tweaking based on the team's talent and style of play. My main point, again, is that you shouldn't do this for one or two goalies each season while completely ignoring the context of the rest of the league.

But when you post a table that shows a massive .063 spread between Herron and mostly Wilson that the year before would have been just a .005 gap between the same two goaltenders, I don’t know how well it communicates that specific point.

Across the 1970s, Dunc Wilson had a .882 with Vancouver, a .889 with Toronto, and a .887 with Pittsburgh. Had he stayed with Philadelphia, his original team, should we suppose that he would have matched the numbers Favell and Stephenson had in their primes that we are judging Parent against? Or would he play about the same level he did with his three main teams and make Parent look even better?

You say Parent’s 5th isn’t inappropriate, so which 4 goaltenders should have been considered better goaltenders in 1978? And are they so far above him that 1978 isn’t adequate filler for his career?

 

[seventieslord]

Lots of math being done on Bure.

Just wondering, have all of our voters seen Bure play?

I think so but I can't speak for every single person here.

The numbers are important too though. Looking dazzling is one thing but having that actually translate into goals for and against and wins and losses is another thing entirely. You are comparing him to players from other positions and forwards from other eras. I think the fact that he's even up for voting right now tell us that a lot of people are simply basing their opinion on his highlight reel. There should be more to him than that, and to any player.

 

[Professor What]

I think so but I can't speak for every single person here.

The numbers are important too though. Looking dazzling is one thing but having that actually translate into goals for and against and wins and losses is another thing entirely. You are comparing him to players from other positions and forwards from other eras. I think the fact that he's even up for voting right now tell us that a lot of people are simply basing their opinion on his highlight reel. There should be more to him than that, and to any player.

I'm high on him without the highlight reels, based on the math. As I pointed out two rounds ago, if you start him in the NHL alongside Gretzky in 1979-80 and calculate his goals based on scoring rates, he's a four-time 70+ goal scorer, a five-time 60+ goal scorer, and he gets close to 80 goals a couple of times. As far as wins and losses, I still don't think the Canucks make the run they did in 1994 without him, and he was set up to lose with the rosters he was a part of for much of his career. Bure looks good to me either way I look at him.

 

[seventieslord]

I'm high on him without the highlight reels, based on the math. As I pointed out two rounds ago, if you start him in the NHL alongside Gretzky in 1979-80 and calculate his goals based on scoring rates, he's a four-time 70+ goal scorer, a five-time 60+ goal scorer, and he gets close to 80 goals a couple of times. As far as wins and losses, I still don't think the Canucks make the run they did in 1994 without him, and he was set up to lose with the rosters he was a part of for much of his career. Bure looks good to me either way I look at him.

Ok, but that's just goals, that's not the only way to contribute to the offense.

 

[Professor What]

Ok, but that's just goals, that's not the only way to contribute to the offense.

I feel like that's downplaying it a bit. He's easily among the handful of the most elite goal scorers the game has ever seen. To say that it's "just goals" doesn't do that justice. I've also posted about his assist totals within the context of his team, and he finished first or second quite a few times, despite the fact that he played on a team where he was usually the only significant goal scorer. It really drives me crazy when dealing with a player like Bure that people want to point to the raw numbers on something like that and talk about how bad it is without ever looking at it in the context of the team the guy plays for. No, the numbers still aren't eye popping with that context, but they don't look like those of a scrub either. The man was not as one-dimensional as he's made out to be.