Top-60 Pre-Merger Players Of All Time: Round 2, Vote 2

[ResilientBeast]

Back on the nick-names kick

"Praying Benny" for Benedict somewhat derogatory of a nickname given his tendency for flopping to save goals. How much of Benedicts success as a goalie can we consider a result of his "unorthodox" and technically "illegal" style considering the era? (I realize this is largely rhetorical).

It's all well and good, but he was clearly willing to skirt/break the rules of the time to keep the puck out of the net. Does that matter for anyone?

Like we all acknowledge the growth of goaltending equipment size through the 90s but that was largely a league wide phenomena where all goalies were afforded the same opportunity. In all the game summaries I've read Benedict stands alone in the sheer amount of mentions he gets for flopping around.

 

[Sturminator]

It's all well and good, but he was clearly willing to skirt/break the rules of the time to keep the puck out of the net. Does that matter for anyone?

Nyet.

 

[tarheelhockey]

In the 1926 Cup final the Maroons played hockey backwards. Eddie Gerard was the coach and when defenceman Dunc Munro was injured, Gerard went full mad scientist and moved star centre Nels Stewart to defence. Stewart continued to lead the attack by rushing from the back and scored 6 of 10 goals. Wings Babe Siebert and Punch Broadbent checked back hard every time, smothering opposing wings.

Their best defensive player was probably Reg Noble, who had moved back to defence before the season. Noble finished 8th in Hart voting, and the Montreal Gazette commented that Maroons fans would rank Noble up with Stewart, the Hart winner, for value to the team. After that, the physical back checking of wings Siebert and Broadbent was named as a key to their finals win. And Benedict played very well too.

To expand on this point, starting with Gerard's Maroons and working back to the Senators and beyond, prior posts here and here and here.

IMO, the key to understanding anybody on those Maroons teams is understanding the influence of Eddie Gerard.

Gerard came into the NHA as a forward, and was reasonably successful at that position for three years till he moved back to defense. During the Sens' dynasty years, when their success as a team was primarily a result of their legendary defense, he paired with Georges Boucher and Sprague Cleghorn -- both of whom also played forward when called upon. As consequence of having that much skill on the back line, the Sens could attack from all five positions, and their defensemen routinely landed near the top of the league's scoring list (to say nothing of Frank Nighbor playing the most conservative defensive game of any center while still being an offensive force). The two-way threat was nearly unbeatable.

As a coach, Gerard attracted and trained players who were capable of playing both positions. Babe Siebert, Hooley Smith, Reg Noble, Nels Stewart all played both forward and defense according to Gerard's adjustments. While this was more common at the time than later, it was still something that was noticeably practiced more by specific coaches. Boston was another organization that deliberately trained players to play at all positions, with Dit Clapper being the prize result. Also, notably, the Maroons were among the very roughest teams in the NHL during this period. That meant a lot of little injuries that required shifts in the lineup, in an era when you had very limited depth on the bench. "Utility" players had been phased out, but a guy who could jump back or forward and play out of his usual position was incredibly important to the keeping the Maroons' lineup stable.

Coming back to Stewart -- seeing Eddie Gerard stick a big towering forward on the back line to cover for an injury therefore isn't such a surprise. Even if he didn't quite have the temperament to be a permanent fixture on the defense, Stewart was a nasty piece of work and one of the biggest bodies in the league. In an era when an ordinary forward was about 160lb, Stewart had a 40lb advantage -- in today's game that's similar to having a Brent Burns or Dustin Byfuglien type player on the front line. And just as today, there's a logic to moving that guy back and letting him slam people around physically while still picking up his share of points, even if he's not a "natural" defenseman. I suspect that's where Gerard's head was when he decided to move Stewart back, especially seeing as he had enough forward depth to backfill the position with another starting-quality player. Better to have Stewart on the defense and another top-quality forward in his place, than a sub-quality defenseman and a top-quality forward sitting on the bench.

I came across an article that really illustrates how much Gerard favored flexible players, and how much he exploited roster shifts even in the middle of a game.

Context: Odie Cleghorn popularized the idea of "set" forward lines in 1925-26. Two years later, the idea had started to take hold throughout the NHL, but was not yet universal. Teams that still did basketball-style spot substitutions typically had a very clear-cut starting lineup, with bench players whose playing time might be very limited depending on who they were expected to replace. For example, there were still some games in 1927-28 where the starting defense pair played all 60 minutes and the D sub simply watched the game from the bench.

The Maroons' situation was complicated by frequent suspensions -- Hooley Smith missed the first month for an attack in the 1927 Finals, and Babe Siebert was suspended almost as soon as Smith returned. Siebert had been a fixture as the top LW up until his suspension, but his first game back he was used as a flexible sub at forward and D... which made it apparent he was actually good on defense. The following game he started at D, and that was the game reviewed below:


Montreal Gazette 1/6/1928
Manager Gerard gambled with a changed line-up and a more frequent use of relief players than has been customary in former Maroons games. Babe Siebert, playing his first game since he was suspended ten days ago, paired with Dutton on the defence. Hooley Smith went to centre and was flanked by Bill Phillips and Russell Oatman. Stewart was used to relieve at centre and left wing, and Dunc Munro, who can play both sides on the defence, was thrown into action to give blows to either Siebert or Dutton.

Gerard juggled his players with abandon. Occasionally he had Siebert off the defence and on left wing. Hooley Smith had a whirl at defence duty, besides playing centre. There were many changes and they all showed the Maroons as a combination which can be switched wholesale without materially distracting from the strength of the team on the ice.

ALL PLAYERS IN ACTION

Every player in the roster was in the game for fairly long periods and the result was a more open, dashing, aggressive style than the Maroons are accustomed to show, but above all their (sic) was always the impression that the players were trying their level best.

[skip to miscellaneous comments after the game summary]

Babe Siebert revels in this defence business and what a chance it gives him to work up steam for a meteoric flash down the ice. He drilled some vicious shots.



I think what we see in Gerard and his Maroons is an alternate evolutionary "branch" of late-1920s coaching theory. The original trunk of the tree began in the 19th Century with the concept of a fixed 6- or 7-man lineup without subs, where injuries were handled by dropping a player from both sides. That soon led to the notion of emergency subs for injuries, which in turn led to the idea of having a small number of relief players to do "utility" duty in case of fatigue. That gets us as far as the early 20s, where relief subs began to specialize and hold their own with semi-regular shifts.

When we hit roughly 1926/27/28, the tree branches in two directions: one in the Cleghorn direction where set lines provide a structured schedule of relief, the other in the Gerard direction where players are free to shift around the lineup as dictated by game conditions.

The difference between Gerard's strategy and the well-established "utility player" concept, is the frequency and strategic purpose with which Gerard switched around his subs. He had deliberately collected players who could play multiple positions, methodically tinkered with them in roles outside their "natural" position, and now he was starting to work a shell game where opposing coaches would struggle to establish checks against dangerous scorers like Smith and Siebert. In a world where critics relished the matchup between LWs and RWs at both ends of the ice, it would have been disconcerting to realize the other team's LW is now playing D and roaring up the middle of the ice against a surprised centerman.

For a very brief period, both of these concepts were in the evolutionary pool together, struggling for dominance. In hindsight we know that the set-lines concept would win out... but it's interesting to see Gerard's experimentation with an alternate theory. One can imagine a world where the set-lines theory takes longer to develop (maybe Cleghorn slips on a banana peel in 1925) and we see a very different NHL as a result of Gerard's success with "flex" players.

It was indeed "in the air" generally, especially during Gerard's early career.

In the era of only having 2-3 guys on the bench (on a good night) the ability for a player to flex between positions had heavy implications. That was especially true in the NHA era when a penalized player needed to be replaced while he was on the sideline. Those subs might be called upon to play any position, which could easily have a domino effect for the rest of the team, and so they were often spoken about with the language we use for "utility" players in baseball. That was the environment that Gerard knew as a young player.

That said, the dynasty Sens were the flag-bearers for this dynamic in the early NHL. Longer benches, non-substituted penalties, and a general trend toward specialization made position-switching more of an exception than it had been in the NHA. Yet the Sens' defensive core of Gerard, Boucher, Cleghorn were all converted forwards who could flex back and forth at a moment's notice. At the tail end of the dynasty, Clancy came in as a forward and then converted to become the best D of the group. All four of them were excellent puck-rushers. Nighbor even played the center position in a way that blurred the distinction between F and D. Those sorts of things did happen periodically on other teams, but the Sens made it their identity.

The result of that positionally-fluid culture was a 200-foot system that choked the life out of other teams. The Sens could turn on the offensive jets, establish a lead, and then play like 5 defensemen for the rest of the game. The strategy relied on two-way skillsets up and down the lineup, of which Gerard was a major component, and was profoundly different than the traditional approach of having each player operate only within his own designated space and skillset. This thread has more detail on how Gerard carried this concept into his coaching career with players like Babe Seibert, Hooley Smith, and Nels Stewart.

 

[Professor What]

Back on the nick-names kick

"Praying Benny" for Benedict somewhat derogatory of a nickname given his tendency for flopping to save goals. How much of Benedicts success as a goalie can we consider a result of his "unorthodox" and technically "illegal" style considering the era? (I realize this is largely rhetorical).

It's all well and good, but he was clearly willing to skirt/break the rules of the time to keep the puck out of the net. Does that matter for anyone?

Like we all acknowledge the growth of goaltending equipment size through the 90s but that was largely a league wide phenomena where all goalies were afforded the same opportunity. In all the game summaries I've read Benedict stands alone in the sheer amount of mentions he gets for flopping around.

If anything Benedict's antics make his historical importance greater to me. His constant "falling down" helped shape the position into what we know it to be today.

 

[ResilientBeast]

If anything Benedict's antics make his historical importance greater to me. His constant "falling down" helped shape the position into what we know it to be today.

Sure I can agree with that.

But he's effectively cheating relative to his contemporaries who didn't flop nearly as much is he not?

 

[Professor What]

Sure I can agree with that.

But he's effectively cheating relative to his contemporaries who didn't flop nearly as much is he not?

He is, yes, but isn't the historical impact of the players a big part of a project like this? It's one of the reasons that so many of us reject the time machine mentality that some people take. These are the guys that laid the foundation that everyone over the last century has built on. If it's not for them, there's nothing to build on. However it happens, I think a guy that impacts the way the game is played for the long term has to get an impact on his ranking in a project like this.

 

[ResilientBeast]

He is, yes, but isn't the historical impact of the players a big part of a project like this? It's one of the reasons that so many of us reject the time machine mentality that some people take. These are the guys that laid the foundation that everyone over the last century has built on. If it's not for them, there's nothing to build on. However it happens, I think a guy that impacts the way the game is played for the long term has to get an impact on his ranking in a project like this.

I like this mindset but this sort of thing really makes a difference for me in the ATD where we're already so far removed from the historic environment.

And not one when we're making 1-1 comparisons between peers. But I appreciate your perspective and will consider it.

Edit: Also darn this should've helped Taylor since the PCHA's passing rules the Patricks attributed to his playstyle

 

[rmartin65]

If anything Benedict's antics make his historical importance greater to me. His constant "falling down" helped shape the position into what we know it to be today.

Several goalies were criticized for flopping pre-Benedict, so I don't know if I'd credit him for revolutionizing the position.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Several goalies were criticized for flopping pre-Benedict, so I don't know if I'd credit him for revolutionizing the position.

Do any of the ones you've found get tagged quite as harshly like Benedict does?

 

[Professor What]

Several goalies were criticized for flopping pre-Benedict, so I don't know if I'd credit him for revolutionizing the position.

My understanding has been that Benedict was kind of the catalyst for the change in rules though. If I'm under a mistaken impression about that, I want to know though.

 

[ResilientBeast]

My understanding has been that Benedict was kind of the catalyst for the change in rules though. If I'm under a mistaken impression about that, I want to know though.

His wikipedia entry suggests the same though it lacks a citation

The NHL notes the rule change for the 1917-18 season

1917-18: Goalies permitted to fall to the ice to make saves. Previously a goaltender was penalized for dropping to the ice.

So I withdraw my exception as his cheating was before he really built his resume

TIL

 

[rmartin65]

I wasn't trying to make them look as bad as possible. The question was, why do the stars of the Silver Seven not warrant top-10 placements over the stars of the 1920s Sens? The answer is that, if you look up and down both lineups, the later Sens all had better careers. I don't know how else to say it.

I don't think you answered that, though; the later Sens didn't all have better careers. Yes, position by position, that argument can be made. But I can't for a second believe that all the Sens had better careers than McGee, as short as his career was, he was just held in too high esteem for me to pick the 5th (or whatever) best player on a team over him.

My issue was with the method of comparison, not the general statement that the average Senator was better than the average member of the Silver Seven.

It's not like a handful of Silver Seven players won't make this list. I'd imagine 4-5 of them make it. But in terms of having them top-10, McGee's the only one who even belongs in the conversation, and that's only if we rank him purely on his peak, excluding all other factors.

He really only had a peak, haha, that's the only reason he falls, in my opinion. But, anyway, let's move away from the Silver Seven for now.

Reading the room here, I think Denneny's on his way out of the top-10 in short order and I'm not hearing anyone boosting too hard for Boucher either. Gerard is going to be a bit closer of a case, and that's largely down to a Toews-like "intangibles" argument.

I think Gerard's case is significantly boosted by the WOWY comparison that someone (@overpass ?) posted last round, and what @BenchBrawl wrote as well.

My guess is that Malone, Lehman, probably Fredrickson make this round without too much trouble. Benedict has a good shot, and rightfully so given his proximity to Vezina and Lehman. If that plays out, there's only one spot left open, which may or may not go to another Senator. If it doesn't, that would leave us with 3 dynasty-era Sens in the top 10, which isn't a crazy proportion IMO.

I'm really interested in the Lehman/Benedict conversation. @ResilientBeast is making some compelling arguments.

I think Phillips also has a strong case for this round.

Part of Denneny's problem right now is that his peak isn't much to write home about (relative to this group of players) and a large part of his reputation staked on career totals and team accomplishments. Against this field of players, it's hard to get excited about a guy without a clear-cut run of dominant seasons.

Yep

I'm comfortable ranking the 3rd or 4th best player on the 50s Habs (take your pick of Beliveau/Harvey/Plante/Richard) much higher than any player from the late-40s Maple Leafs dynasty. That's not being dismissive of late-40s hockey, it's simply comparing players side by side and noting the gaps between them.

Thats fair, thanks for bringing that up.

To answer that last line, I regard the 20s dynasty Sens as one of the most well-assembled and well-disciplined teams of all time, playing to their potential for a long stretch of time. The big knock against them is a relative lack of Stanley Cups, to which I would answer:

- The 1917 Sens were 15-5 in the regular season, and lost the championship to Montreal by 1 goal. Montreal had an oddly up-and-down pattern where they went 7-3, then 3-7, then won the championship round. It's worth looking into the reasons behind that pattern.

- In 1919 the Sens were a .500 team in the first half, but then went 7-1 in the second half. Their regular season record against Montreal was 4-4 with a goal differential of 36-30. In the playoff they got demolished by that same Montreal team, 4-1 with a goal differential of 26-18. That's an oddly up-and-down pattern as with Montreal in 1917. What explains their hot and cold runs, and their sudden inability to compete with the Habs?

- The 1922 team finished in 1st place, but went into a season-ending skid starting 2/8 which resulted in playoff elimination by 1 goal. It's worth looking into what changed around 2/8 to cause a 12-3-0 team to suddenly go 2-5-3 to end the season.

- In similar fashion, the 1924 team finished in 1st place after a 13-4-0 start, but starting 2/13 went into a 3-6-0 skid to end the season. Again it's worth looking into what happened there.


Which is all to say, there's some curious patterning in the years surrounding that 3-Cups-in-4-years run. The question of why they didn't win more Cups is tied to other questions about why their performances experienced such wild ups and downs during those seasons.

Thanks for this, too. I read this (along with their lack of dominance in the actual Stanley Cup games) as an indication that these teams, while the best of the era, was not the same juggernaut that they are sometimes described as.

Again, though, lest my comments get misconstrued- these Sens' players absolutely belong on the list. I'm just not sold on all of them being this high up in the ranking.

 

[rmartin65]

Do any of the ones you've found get tagged quite as harshly like Benedict does?

No, definitely not. It's mostly just a mention, nothing with the same level of criticism (or even vitriol, haha).

My understanding has been that Benedict was kind of the catalyst for the change in rules though. If I'm under a mistaken impression about that, I want to know though.

I think he was the catalyst, but that doesn't make him the pioneer of it- he just took it further, I think, than the previous guys.

I also have a hard time with crediting players with breaking the rules- the fact that they cheated shouldn't go in their favor; it's like steroids right?

 

[Professor What]

No, definitely not. It's mostly just a mention, nothing with the same level of criticism (or even vitriol, haha).


I think he was the catalyst, but that doesn't make him the pioneer of it- he just took it further, I think, than the previous guys.

I also have a hard time with crediting players with breaking the rules- the fact that they cheated shouldn't go in their favor; it's like steroids right?

I don't really like the steroids comparison. Steroids didn't fundamentally change the way the game was played.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Back on the nick-names kick

"Praying Benny" for Benedict somewhat derogatory of a nickname given his tendency for flopping to save goals. How much of Benedicts success as a goalie can we consider a result of his "unorthodox" and technically "illegal" style considering the era? (I realize this is largely rhetorical).

It's all well and good, but he was clearly willing to skirt/break the rules of the time to keep the puck out of the net. Does that matter for anyone?

Like we all acknowledge the growth of goaltending equipment size through the 90s but that was largely a league wide phenomena where all goalies were afforded the same opportunity. In all the game summaries I've read Benedict stands alone in the sheer amount of mentions he gets for flopping around.

I feel like Patrick Roy actually gets a teensy bit of extra credit as an "innovator" for kind of being the guy to start pushing the boundaries when it comes to goaltender equipment.

 

[ResilientBeast]

To answer that last line, I regard the 20s dynasty Sens as one of the most well-assembled and well-disciplined teams of all time, playing to their potential for a long stretch of time. The big knock against them is a relative lack of Stanley Cups, to which I would answer:

- The 1917 Sens were 15-5 in the regular season, and lost the championship to Montreal by 1 goal. Montreal had an oddly up-and-down pattern where they went 7-3, then 3-7, then won the championship round. It's worth looking into the reasons behind that pattern.

- In 1919 the Sens were a .500 team in the first half, but then went 7-1 in the second half. Their regular season record against Montreal was 4-4 with a goal differential of 36-30. In the playoff they got demolished by that same Montreal team, 4-1 with a goal differential of 26-18. That's an oddly up-and-down pattern as with Montreal in 1917. What explains their hot and cold runs, and their sudden inability to compete with the Habs?

- The 1922 team finished in 1st place, but went into a season-ending skid starting 2/8 which resulted in playoff elimination by 1 goal. It's worth looking into what changed around 2/8 to cause a 12-3-0 team to suddenly go 2-5-3 to end the season.

- In similar fashion, the 1924 team finished in 1st place after a 13-4-0 start, but starting 2/13 went into a 3-6-0 skid to end the season. Again it's worth looking into what happened there.

So Wikipedia actually has some good summaries

For 1917, they essentially beat the pulp out of Nighbor and lost the first game. Lalonde was suspended for game 2 an they lose the series because Benedict mishandled the puck.

In the first game, held in Montreal, Bert Corbeau scored in the first to put Montreal ahead. The teams traded goals in the second period on goals by Frank Nighbor of Ottawa and Didier Pitre of Montreal. Eddie Gerard scored early in the third for Ottawa to tie the game again, but former Quebec player Tommy Smith scored 20 seconds later to put Montreal back in the lead. Montreal's Pitre and Newsy Lalonde then scored in the next three minutes to clinch the game for Montreal. Nighbor was knocked out by Smith in the second period and he remained out until the third period. He was knocked out again after Smith's goal but returned after the Canadiens had taken their three-goal lead. Nighbor was slashed across the face by Lalonde with one minute to go and was carried off for the third time.[13] It was Lalonde's second match foul of the season and he was suspended for the second match of the playoff.[14]

In the second game, held in Ottawa before 7,500 fans, Nighbor played despite the injuries of the first playoff game. Jack Darragh of Ottawa scored a power-play goal to open the scoring in the first period. Darragh broke in on a breakaway but was driven wide by Montreal's goaltender Georges Vezina. Darragh then shot the puck out front of the net off a Canadiens' player and into the net. In the second, Bert Corbeau scored to put Montreal two goals ahead on the playoff. George Boucher scored before the second period ended to bring Ottawa back within a goal. In the third, Cy Denneny replaced Eddie Gerard and from a pass by Nighbor scored on Vezina to tie the playoff. With three minutes to play, Nighbor and Darragh broke in on Vezina, who stopped the shot and passed it out to Reg Noble. Noble brought it to the Ottawa line and shot it wide of the net. Ottawa goaltender Clint Benedict then set up the puck for an Ottawa player to pick up, but it was instead taken by Montreal's Smith. Benedict attempted to clear the puck, but Smith was able to poke it into the net to put Montreal ahead again to stay on the playoff.[15]

1919 - Nighbor missed the first 3 games of the series which Ottawa all lost before winning game 4 to setup a gentleman's sweep.

1922 - Wikipedia says that Toronto built a lead and then dumped the puck to protect their lead

 

[rmartin65]

I don't really like the steroids comparison. Steroids didn't fundamentally change the way the game was played.

Steroids help athletes recover faster so they can do more work, so they can do their job better.

Flopping helped Benedict stop more pucks, so that he could do his job better.

They are both "illicit" methods to gain a competitive advantage, and I don't think that is worth celebrating (when comparing actions as players; as hockey figures, I think that argument is a little different).

 

[ResilientBeast]

Steroids help athletes recover faster so they can do more work, so they can do their job better.

Flopping helped Benedict stop more pucks, so that he could do his job better.

They are both "illicit" methods to gain a competitive advantage, and I don't think that is worth celebrating (when comparing actions as players; as hockey figures, I think that argument is a little different).

It's probably a better analogy to compare it to the use of pine tar and rosin in the MLB giving the pitchers a better grip dramatically increasing their spin rates.

Regardless yeah don't think boosting a guy for cheating is a great look.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Thanks for this, too. I read this (along with their lack of dominance in the actual Stanley Cup games) as an indication that these teams, while the best of the era, was not the same juggernaut that they are sometimes described as.

Kudos to @ResilientBeast for chasing down some of the answers. Unsurprisingly, in an environment where playoffs were extremely short and sweet, micro-level events like Nighbor being knocked out for a couple of periods can turn a whole season on its head.

Toronto breaking out a clock-killing offensive system in '22 reminds me of the 1995 Red Wings being baffled in a sweep by Lemaire's trap, or the Lightning getting blindsided by Columbus a few years ago. Those were indeed juggernaut teams, but a hockey playoff environment always leaves the window open for a twist of fate.

One other factor that could play into at least one of these seasons (1917): at that time, the playoff format pitted the First Half Champion against the Second Half Champion. Therefore, the second half of the schedule was academic to the team that was #1 at the midway point. Montreal may very well have just sandbagged it for 10 games leading to the playoff. Then, as now, they knew better than to chase meaningless regular season wins at the cost of injury and fatigue (not to mention potentially less-honorable reasons to lose games, which was common in all sports at that time). Which is to say, that Final series might not have been quite as much of an upset as it appeared, which would mitigate the shame of the Sens' playoff failure (while also mitigating their juggernaut status in the first place... was Montreal really the best team in the league the whole season?).

These same dynamics might also have been in play during the other 3 seasons... perhaps the Sens took their foot off the gas pedal and never quite got their mojo back? Notably they kept their foot on the gas in 1921, won both halves, and destroyed Toronto for the championship.

It's probably a better analogy to compare it to the use of pine tar and rosin in the MLB giving the pitchers a better grip dramatically increasing their spin rates.

Regardless yeah don't think boosting a guy for cheating is a great look.

I think it's a much closer analogy to other hockey goaltenders cheating over the ages -- Esposito sewing mesh between his pant legs, for example. Or all of the league's top scorers using illegal blades until the final few shifts of the game. The Flyers instigating fights with the other team's top players just to take them off the ice. Or players diving all the time, in all eras. It's all cheating, but it's also part of the game at some level.

What Benedict did was comparable to today's goalie who deliberately pushes the net off its pegs. If it's THAT flagrant, it'll be a penalty. If not, then it's just some gamesmanship that you have to play through and beat him.

 

[Sturminator]

Steroids help athletes recover faster so they can do more work, so they can do their job better.

Flopping helped Benedict stop more pucks, so that he could do his job better.

They are both "illicit" methods to gain a competitive advantage, and I don't think that is worth celebrating (when comparing actions as players; as hockey figures, I think that argument is a little different).

If we're going to make this sort of argument, it probably should have started when we looked at Newsy Lalonde and Sprague Cleghorn because the real "bending the rules bullshittery" of that era was being able to absolutely belt someone with your stick and not have your team end up down a man.

This will come up again when we talk about Joe Hall, and maybe some others, but I consider this a strike against players of that ilk. If part of the reason a player was good at his job was that NHL./NHA rules allowed him to violently assault other players without much hurting his team (the NHA/NHL had a "deferred penalty" system until the 1921-22 season in which penalized players sat out, but the team didn't go down a man), that diminishes the player's legacy somewhat in my eyes.

Ultimately, Lalonde and Cleghorn probably belong around where they went in anyway, but I think this is something we should consider going forward. Which players succeeded by goonery and which were the victims of it (Mickey MacKay) in a way that looks obviously f***ed up (for lack of a better descriptor) to modern eyes?

 

[ResilientBeast]

This will come up again when we talk about Joe Hall, and maybe some others, but I consider this a strike against players of that ilk. If part of the reason a player was good at his job was that NHL./NHA rules allowed him to violently assault other players without much hurting his team (the NHA/NHL had a "deferred penalty" system until the 1921-22 season in which penalized players sat out, but the team didn't go down a man), that diminishes the player's legacy somewhat in my eyes.

That doesn't sound right. From the NHL records website

1918-19: Penalty rules amended. For minor fouls, substitutes not allowed until penalized player had served three minutes. For major fouls, no substitutes for five minutes. For match fouls, no substitutes allowed for the remainder of the game.

In 21-22 the penalty time was reduced to 2 minutes from 3, but everything I'm reading says the offending player sat out and could not be replaced

 

[Sturminator]

That doesn't sound right. From the NHL records website

1918-19: Penalty rules amended. For minor fouls, substitutes not allowed until penalized player had served three minutes. For major fouls, no substitutes for five minutes. For match fouls, no substitutes allowed for the remainder of the game.

That doesn't describe what you think it does.

The penalized players had to sit out, and could not be subbed back in until they had served their time. The eastern pros didn't start playing down a man until 1921-22. I've already posted the primary source documents to this.

 

[ResilientBeast]

That doesn't describe what you think it does.

The penalized players had to sit out, and could not be subbed back in until they had served their time. The eastern pros didn't start playing down a man until 1921-22. I've already posted the primary source documents to this.

Except for cases of egregious thuggery according to BB's research, but your interpretation makes sense.

The penalty system was changed in the 1918-1919 NHA season to include shorthanded play.

In the words of Eddie Gerard on Nov 9, 1918:

"The main point is that when a player commits a deliberate foul, he goes off the ice and his team plays shorthanded for three or five minutes, according to the nature of his offence."

Ottawa Citizen - Google News Archive Search

news.google.com

Summary on Wikipedia:

 

[rmartin65]

The penalized players had to sit out, and could not be subbed back in until they had served their time. The eastern pros didn't start playing down a man until 1921-22. I've already posted the primary source documents to this.

Do you know when this rule was adopted? I know you specified eastern pros, so the AHAC and CAHL, which did force players to play shorthanded, as did the ECAHA through 1907 (which was a weird "amateur" league that allowed pros), but I'm curious as to when the switch happened.

 

[Sturminator]

Do you know when this rule was adopted? I know you specified eastern pros, so the AHAC and CAHL, which did force players to play shorthanded, as did the ECAHA through 1907 (which was a weird "amateur" league that allowed pros), but I'm curious as to when the switch happened.

Only for the NHL, in 1921-22.

It's entirely possible, indeed likely, that the rule changed multiple times across multiple leagues during that period, possibly even ping-ponging in some leagues. I have the sense that there may still be "unknown unknowns" out there (to borrow a phrase from a creep) regarding rules changes at that time.

All we can to is piece together an understanding from the information we have.