Joe Malone
I wanted to put something out on Joe Malone before the vote tomorrow. He's always been an interesting player to me, as he seems to be the most well-known of these players among people with a casual knowledge of hockey history, mainly due to his various goal records. I took a not-so-quick look around for some snippets today and will post some of the more illuminating ones here... not much structure to this, just some quotes that go beyond the fluffy ATD bio stuff.
To get it out of the way first... there's the whole Nighbor thing. Newspapers at the time picked up on Malone vs. Ottawa and the Nighbor Effect, to the point that Malone, despite not playing a similar style as Nighbor, seemed to be compared most often to him. Here's an assortment of some of the more colourful - and possibly slanted - quotes:
Ottawa Journal - 5 March 1917 said:
Joe Malone and Frank Nighbor are tied as the leading goal getters in the NHA. And there is not a cleaner pair of players on the whole circuit than Malone and Nighbor... It is an odd fact that Nighbor has been harassed and nagged all through the season, while Malone is seldom the butt for opposing players.
The answer lies here: Nighbor irritates opposing payers, not only by the skill with which he pops in goals, but by his persistence in trailing the puck, and his almost uncanny efficiency in snagging it off the other fellow's stick... Malone as a player is not of the same value as Nighbor even though by circumstances he is tied with the Pembroke boy in scoring. Malone has done his work in bursts, while Nighbor has plugged steadily. Nor is Malone the equal of Nighbor in speed or back-checking ability. But for sheer stick-wizardry, particulary close to the nets, Malone has the edge.
Ottawa Journal - 30 December 1921 said:
The forward line is a good one, consisting of Joe Malone, Nighbor's only rival, and a great little gentleman, Prodgers, the 'titian terror' Cully Wilson, and midget Geo. Carey.
Ottawa Citizen - 8 March 1923 said:
...Ottawa's “steam roller” system worked to perfection as Odie Cleghorn, Joliat, and Joe Malone, who succeeded Couture, were staggering around in their tracks. Billy Boucher was the only Canadien player who appeared to stand the gruelling pace and when the Ottawas switched their lineup and put brother Georges up on the line to cover him, Billy evidently gave up in despair... Frank Nighbor played a typical Nighbor game at centre. He had Odie Cleghorn faded and when Joe Malone came on, Nighbor just toyed with the Quebec veteran.
Ottawa Citizen - 14 January 1920 said:
Seven thousand people have already told me all about the big game so there is no need to repeat, but I'll bet very few really know how Ottawa made the wonderful Joe Malone resemble a selling plater. Well, it was this way: Did you notice how Frank Nighbor hung back near centre and also that his name figures in the goal scoring only once, which was the result of a shot from away out; and that Jack Darragh after a rush, looked around many times, only to see that Mr. Nighbor was not where he usually is? And did you hear shrieks from the Ottawa bench every time anyone rushed of: “Come back, Frankie, come back!” Well, that was it. Foxy old Petie Green just laid Nighbor in the rear and let the others do the rushing. And every time Mr. Malone got through he found a tall, dark headed man with a long stick and steel spring legs waiting to rob him of the puck. And pretty soon Joe realized what was being hung over him and his smile changed to a look of despair.
Occasionally, Quebec papers would fire back...
Quebec Chronicle - 3 February 1917 said:
Joe Malone has always been the cleanest player in the league, despite Ottawa sporting writers' continued drawing of halos around Frank Nighbor. Nighbor was penalized four times in the first series, while Malone was not ruled off once.
Obviously, nobody in this thread needs to be sold on Nighbor vs. Malone (I assume?), but it's pretty stark how easily and how often Malone was neutralized by his rival in Ottawa.
One possibly explanation, at least for a period in Malone's prime with Quebec, is a lack of size:
Quebec Chronicle - 7 January 1916 said:
The only way to stop Malone, Smith, Crawford, and Marks is to throw the body into them at every chance.
Quebec Chronicle - 14 March 1916 said:
The Bulldogs just now are about the lightest team in the league.
Quebec Chronicle - 7 January 1916 said:
Will somebody please say why sporting writers in Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, refer to Quebec as a heavy team. Harry Mummery is weighty we admit, but Harry is not the whole team... Surely no one will say that Billy Bell is lighter than Rusty Crawford or that Joe Malone is heavier than big Roberts... But Quebec is gritty and their determination makes them appear sturdy... Please look over the Quebec team next time and see others besides Harry Mummery.
Interestingly, these next two quotes, from two consecutive seasons, use the phrase 'old-time', implying that Malone wasn't quite at his peak anymore:
Quebec Chronicle - 8 January 1916 said:
Joe Malone, who appears to have regained his old-time form and skill, jumped into the lead in the race for the NHA scoring honours on Wednesday night when he notched four of the goals scored by the Bulldogs against the Wanderers.
Quebec Chronicle - 25 January 1917 said:
Joe Malone, who played one of his old-time games, charged in on top of him time and again, but he either stopped the rubber, it hit him, or missed the net.
It's made clear that Malone's later years, even going back to when he's a leading scorer in Hamilton, were hampered by his business interests outside of hockey taking up more of his time. His hesitancy to report to Hamilton after Quebec relocates there is well-covered, and by the time his years with the Tigers are over, he's involved in trade rumours to send him back to the Habs. A three-team deal where Reg Noble comes to Hamilton, Newsy Lalonde is sent to Toronto, and Malone returns to the Canadiens nearly goes through, before finally he gets sent to Montreal for Edmond Bouchard, a winger.
Sprague Cleghorn explained the problems for Malone in his first year back in Montreal, and offered a positive view of his remaining years:
Montreal Star - 6 December 1923 said:
Joe Malone, who has been one of the NHL's outstanding players on and off the ice of thirteen years, appears to be in for another good season. As all know, Joe is popular and everyone on the team is glad to see him round into good form. Malone last year was seriously handicapped when he was allowed to miss the training trip to allow him to tend to his business. He also missed all of the team's practise during the past season and the result was that those who were not conversant with these facts declared Joe's hockey playing days were over. With Hamilton two years ago Joe's managerial worries did not prevent him from finishing second scorer of the league... A man is not old at 32 and there is plenty of hockey left in Joe.
It turned out there wasn't plenty of hockey left in the Phantom, and after about a month of hockey playing strictly as a substitute, he retired.
Going backward for a minute, the feeling I get from reading about the Hamilton Tigers is that their downfall was in goaltending, followed by a lack of offensive skill around Malone, followed by tactics. Most game recaps paint a picture of Hamilton being competitive, but clearly at a lower level compared to their opponents. On a few different occasions, Pete Green subs out his entire starting forward lineup when Ottawa plays them, in preparation for their next game.
Ottawa Citizen - 10 February 1921 said:
Tigers lived up to their reputations as the most erratic team in the NHL. They were really brilliant in flashes and very bad in others... Tigers made many changes, but it is doubtful if their system in rapid fire substitutions helps the club any. Some of their men were just settled down, in fact, when the hook was applied.
Hamilton had Harry Mummery - who, in fairness, was as physiologically qualified to be a goalkeeper as any skater could hope to be - playing goal more times than I'm sure they'd have liked to admit (Mummery seemed to be the Hal Gill of his day, from what I've gathered?), while I counted one single game where Howard Lockhart is described as having played a good match. And the only skater who ever showed any offensive promise besides Malone, based on game recaps, was Mickey Roach, who was described after one game as having outplayed the Phantom. That's it.
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I don't know. My gut feeling tells me that Malone is closer to the Denneny type of player than the Nighbor/Lalonde type, but he did his work with less help than Denneny, so he should be somewhere in the middle. I know Iain Fyffe says on his site that he thinks Tommy Smith was better than Malone when they were winning Cups in Quebec, but for this I was focusing more on his NHL and late-NHA career, where he was still putting up the huge numbers but just didn't have the impact you'd like to see, based on what the papers say. On one hand, he really does seem to have been dealt a tough hand in Hamilton, but on the other, there's basically nothing to suggest that he was doing anything to help the team at that point in his career outside of his scoring, so... I don't know.
I think I'll probably have Bowie ahead of him. Just feels to me like he was the more impactful offensive player.
