Top-60 Pre-Merger Players Of All Time: Round 2, Vote 3

[seventieslord]

Procedure

• You will be presented with ~15 players based on their ranking in the Round 1 aggregate list
• Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias
• You will submit ten names in a ranked order, #1 through #10, without ties via PM to @seventieslord & @rmartin65
• Use the same private message thread every week rather than starting a new PM
• Results of this vote will be posted after each voting cycle, but the individual ballots themselves will remain secret until the completion of this project
• The top-5 players will be added to The List (unless a very large break exists at the spot between 4&5 or 5&6, OR to correct for the previous week's irregular number of added players)
• Lists of players eligible for voting will grow as the project continues

Eligible Voters

• Ballots from voters who have submitted an approved Round 1 ranking of 80 players (which was used to shape the aggregate list) will have their votes tabulated in the History of Hockey ranking
• @seventieslord , @Professor What , @nabby12 , @tarheelhockey , @Black Gold Extractor , @ResilientBeast , @Dr John Carlson , @Dreakmur , @jigglysquishy , @Johnny Engine , @rmartin65 , @TheDevilMadeMe , @overpass , @Habsfan18 , @BenchBrawl , @ImporterExporter

Guidelines

• Respect each other. No horseplay or sophistry!
• Stay on topic and don't get caught up in talking about non-eligible players
• Participate, but retain an open mind throughout the discussion
• Do not speculate who cast any particular ballot. Do not make judgments about the mindset of whoever cast that particular ballot. All individual ballots will be revealed at the end of the project.

House Rules

• Any attempts to derail a discussion thread with disrespect to old-time hockey (or older-than-old-time hockey) will be met with frontier justice
• We encourage interpositional discussion (forward vs. defenseman vs. goaltender) as opposed to the safer and somewhat redundant intrapositional debates
• Take a drink when someone mentions the number of hockey registrations in a given era
• Finish your drink when someone mentions that goaltenders cannot be compared to skaters

The actual voting period will open up on Friday, February 17th at midnight and continue through Sunday, February 19th at 8:59pm. Eastern time zone. I will release the results of the vote on Monday, February 20th.


Vote 2 Candidates

• Babe Dye
• Cy Denneny
• Didier Pitre
• Duke Keats
• Frank Foyston
• Frank Fredrickson
• Frank McGee
• Georges Boucher
• Hap Holmes
• Harry Cameron
• Hod Stuart
• Hugh Lehman
• Lester Patrick
• Mickey MacKay
• Moose Johnson

- since we added four to the final list last round, our preference would have been to add one more than that - five - to discussion this week. But, since 5th and 6th were exactly tied on the aggregate list, we added both of them. we'll correct for this next week.

- This is your first of what will be at least three reminders: Use the same PM thread you started for Vote 1, to send all votes going forward.

Click to read more...

 

[Sturminator]

I guess there's no way to get Jack Walker's name on the list this round.

He belongs in the present discussion, but eh...no process is perfect.

 

[seventieslord]

Seventies' VsX equivalents for current forwards:

player	3y	5y	7y	10y
Dye	103	97	89	66
Denneny	99	98	96	88
Fredrickson	101	95	88	72
MacKay	93	88	80	73
Keats	94​	90​	87​	81​
Foyston	89​	83​	76​	67​
Pitre	97​	87​	78​	70​
McGee	80​	58​	41​	29​

McGee seems so out of place on this list. One would hope to see him stand up pretty well in 3y and 5y before falling off due to a crazy short career. But he's not stacking up even in the comparisons most advantageous to him.

His case is going to have to rely heavily on "it's time to represent Bowie's generation some more before we add the 8th NHA era player", and his crazy playoff scoring stats, which came against terrible opposition (still, it was him running up the score, not Alf Smith, not Harry Westwick, etc)

Keats has surprisingly strong consistency over a 10 year period, exceeded only by Denneny, who's now in a class by himself as a scorer.

I like Keats over Foyston on the surface; and over MacKay too, possibly. MacKay has a lot of defensive ability to make up for the offensive difference, but is Foyston at that level?

Pitre came up way too early in projects like the wingers project (and I think, the top-200 players too?) and always looked weak in his field, but here, he looks quote alright. Not really deficient as a scorer, plus he played a little D (right?), which means fewer chances at high scoring numbers to pump up the 7y and 10y scores.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'm looking forward to comparing Frank McGee and Hod Stuart. I have a feeling I had McGee too low on my initial list.

Looking forward to a big MacKay vs Fredrickson vs Duke Keats showdown. The next best centers out west after Taylor. All 3 had immense star power and brought more than just offense. I had the three of them back to back on my initial list, and all quite high. Edit: Might as well talk about Foyston too, but I feel like he was just a little bit less of a star.

Hugh Lehman is very close to being a lock for #1 on my list. He needs to be very close to Clint Benedict.

Georges Boucher is my top choice among the post-WW1 defensemen here.

 

[Pominville Knows]

Looking forward to someone trying to put Holmes vs. a now bolstered Lehman to the test.
Fruitless or not.

 

[seventieslord]

Was Keats a defensive player at all or just a really surly goal scoring center like Lalonde?

 

[jigglysquishy]

Looking forward to someone trying to put Holmes vs. a now bolstered Lehman to the test.
Fruitless or not.

Denneny, Lehman, Stuart, and Fredrickson seem like my top four (in some order) starting out. But I agree the comparison is needed.

I look forward to Denneny vs Boucher for 4th best regular Senator. Denneny's name stood time more, but that's largely from being a goal scorer. The contemporary reports on Boucher's defense makes it interesting.

McGee is the hardest player to rank so far. We will likely only get 2 more guys with harder career arcs. He's arguably the shortest career in the history of the sport to peak as a contender for best player in the world. The retrospective lists have him every bit as good as Bowie at his best.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

The top of my ballot, as of right now, looks very defenseman-friendly.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Was Keats a defensive player at all or just a really surly goal scoring center like Lalonde?

Keats was voted 1st Team WHL All-Star for 1925-26, despite being outscored 36-29 by Dick Irvin. The Morning Leader said "What turned the balance in favor of the Edmonton bad man was his back-checking ability. He is a two-way man, while Dickenson has a tendency toward a one-way ticket. Irvin is a better shot than the Duke and a better stick-handler, but Keats himself is far from being a slouch on the attack; he is an ideal pivot man, plays his position to perfection and knows all there is to know about combination. And his vigorous back-checking adds all kinds of strength to his team."

ATD 2012 Bios Thread (as complete as possible: pic, quotes, stats, sources, etc)

LW Al Secord 273 G, 222 A, 495 Pts in 766 GP 6th in Goals, 1983 Played in 1982 and 1983 All-Star Game Legends of Hockey After spending two and a half-mediocre seasons with the Bruins he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks where his career took off. His first full season with the...

forums.hfboards.com

That being said, my impression of Keats is that he was a good, not great, defensive player. It doesn't take much of a backchecker to be much better at it than Dick Irvin was! Keats was of course mega-physical.

Overall, Keats was the 1st Team All-Star in the WCHL for all 6 seasons of its existence (1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926)

 

[seventieslord]

The reason we have such large voting fields is so that some players may build up some vote momentum to place well ahead of where they ranked in the round 1 list. Frank Mcgee, at first glance, looks like he can be that guy, if for no other reason than we need to acknowledge and respect his generation of stars, and he and Stuart are the logical next guys for that era. But I need to become more of a believer in his case.

 

[Habsfan18]

Frank McGee is a guy I’ve always considered very difficult to get a read on in terms of just how good he was, even moreso if we’re ranking him relative to other players of the early eras. I’m going to be honest and admit I almost didn’t even have him on my initial list of 80 when I was first putting it together, before realizing that’s probably crazy and I was certainly underrating him. Hard to get a read on, but probably better than a lot of the names I had ahead of him. I was just focusing more on other players and he’s player I just had a lot of difficulty with. He ended up settling into a slot in the mid 30’s on my final list, but I’m still admittedly unsure of where he should place here.

I’m looking forward to doing some more research on him over the next little while, time permitted, and I look forward to reading everyone’s thoughts on him.

 

[Professor What]

So, I probably had McGee too low on my list (certainly did, judging by his coming up now), but it still feels early for him to me. Definitely a case of peak over longevity. But is that really enough?

I've got a feeling that Lehman is my #1 on this one. I'm surprised he and Benedict weren't closer on the last vote. (I had them one spot apart, for the record.)

 

[jigglysquishy]

The term star power comes up a lot. Is McGee arguably number one for all pre Morenz players?

He might be the only player that is a somewhat known name amongst fans today. Or Malone with his goal record.

I'm not arguing for him to go this round or next. But he has insane name value.

 

[Habsfan18]

One thing with Frank McGee, and this goes without saying, but we literally have what…40 total games to go on in his entire career?

 

[rmartin65]

I'll gladly make a case for McGee this week, time permitting (which means probably Wednesday), if no one beats me to it. The cliff notes is that he is one of the last players (along with Stuart) in this project that were ever in discussion for the best player in the world, and I would argue that his case is stronger than Stuart's. I've gone over every Senior game McGee played (I think), and I believe that the impact he had on the game is one of the most impressive that I can recall for the pre-consolidation era. He scored, he created plays, he was physical, he forechecked, he really did have the ability to do it all (and he did). He was talked about for several years before he made his Senior debut (I think he would have been 16 at the first mention), so he wasn't just a flash in the pan- he was a highly regarded player even before he joined the big leagues, and then was a dynamite player for the 4 seasons he played before walking away from the game (and he even considered walking away the season before. This wasn't a player who couldn't hack it anymore or was injured- he just had other priorities.

In every year he played, his team won the Stanley Cup- that's incredible. The year before he played, no Cup (though the year before that they did win the CAHL championship). The year after he retired, no Cup. You can measure the beginning and end of the Silver Seven dynasty by his career, and I think that is very telling. And it wasn't like he was a secondary piece on those teams, a read through the primary sources and it is very easy to tell that he was The Man of those teams.

Now, the obvious downside is career length- it's short for a star player of the era. If he debuted 5-10 years earlier I'd argue differently, but by the 1900s, the stars were playing a bit longer.

What really surprises me is the VsX that @seventieslord posted- I would have bet good money that his 3 year score would be much better. Without knowing the ins-and-outs of how seventies made the formula, I'll argue that McGee is hurt by Ottawa HC pulling out of the CAHL in 1904, playing only half the season- that'll put a dent in the score for that year. He also never played a full season- each game missed in an 8 or 10 game season represents a huge loss in scoring potential, and he missed multiple games in most of the few seasons he played.

One thing with Frank McGee, and this goes without saying, but we literally have what…40 total games to go on in his entire career?

Hey, it's 45 Senior level games!

Yeah, it's not a lot. However, for those of you that heavily value playoff games- he played 22 of those (20 SC challenges, 2 playoff games), which is actually a pretty good number for that era (for any career length). Tom Phillips, whose aura appears to be in large part based on SC games, was a ringer who played for multiple front runners and didn't get to that total.

 

[Professor What]

The term star power comes up a lot. Is McGee arguably number one for all pre Morenz players?

He might be the only player that is a somewhat known name amongst fans today. Or Malone with his goal record.

I'm not arguing for him to go this round or next. But he has insane name value.

How much of that name power comes from one 14-goal game and his war record though? I'm certainly not faulting the latter, though I think the first is kind of inflated in hockey lore, considering the opponent.

 

[rmartin65]

I'm not arguing for him to go this round or next. But he has insane name value.

No worries, I'll do the arguing for him, haha.

How much of that name power comes from one 14-goal game and his war record though? I'm certainly not faulting the latter, though I think the first is kind of inflated in hockey lore, considering the opponent.

He's also got the whole "played with one eye", "played on a dynasty", and "died in WWI" thing working for his legacy.

It's kind of like what we talked about with Taylor, right? The myth/legend almost writes itself, which makes it harder for us to get a good read some 100+ years later.

 

[Professor What]

He's also got the whole "played with one eye", "played on a dynasty", and "died in WWI" thing working for his legacy.

It's kind of like what we talked about with Taylor, right? The myth/legend almost writes itself, which makes it harder for us to get a good read some 100+ years later.

I mean, on one hand, I get that, but on the other, is it really the same thing? If McGee had had anything resembling a normal career length for the time, he and Taylor would be considered contemporaries, and Taylor played for about four times as long. There's a lot more substance to back up one legend than there is the other. Note that I'm not trying to cast doubt on McGee's peak (other than getting too carried away with a 14-goal game), but four years... it's kind of brutal....

 

[jigglysquishy]

McGee is only 2 years older than Taylor, who was elite for a dozen seasons. He's 2 years younger than Bowie, who has about 9 elite seasons.

He's 10 months older than Pitre, and Pitre retired 15 years after McGee.

Even in the context of his era, it is an incredibly short career.

 

[rmartin65]

Moving away from McGee for a bit, some other discussions I'd be very interested in reading-

As someone said up-thread, I'm definitely interested to see the Fredrickson/Keats/Foyston/MacKay discussion. I have Fredrickson solidly in front, but the other two are more difficult for me. I know @Sturminator has some good insight into Foyston, so I'm looking forward to that.

Again, as someone mentioned up-thread- Holmes vs Lehman. I'm disappointed we don't get to add Benedict into this discussion, but there is nothing we can do about that now.

In addition to going to bat for McGee, I'm going to try to carve out some time for Patrick/Johnson/Pitre- 3 guys who starred at both forward and defense, and who saw time on each coasts (Pitre very briefly, admittedly).

Is now when we let the two Senators players (Denneny and Boucher) in? I'm not sure, but I feel a lot better about adding one of them here than I did last round.

Cameron is the guy who looks like he doesn't belong to me, but I'm always happy to read cases to the contrary.

 

[Professor What]

Moving away from McGee for a bit, some other discussions I'd be very interested in reading-

As someone said up-thread, I'm definitely interested to see the Fredrickson/Keats/Foyston/MacKay discussion. I have Fredrickson solidly in front, but the other two are more difficult for me. I know @Sturminator has some good insight into Foyston, so I'm looking forward to that.

Again, as someone mentioned up-thread- Holmes vs Lehman. I'm disappointed we don't get to add Benedict into this discussion, but there is nothing we can do about that now.

In addition to going to bat for McGee, I'm going to try to carve out some time for Patrick/Johnson/Pitre- 3 guys who starred at both forward and defense, and who saw time on each coasts (Pitre very briefly, admittedly).

Is now when we let the two Senators players (Denneny and Boucher) in? I'm not sure, but I feel a lot better about adding one of them here than I did last round.

Cameron is the guy who looks like he doesn't belong to me, but I'm always happy to read cases to the contrary.

My initial assessment has Fredrickson top 5. I also feel like it's probably time for at least Denneny to place from the Senators teams.

As for Holmes, if someone does a good job making him feel comparable to Lehman, that might get him in for me in this round. I have him kind of middle of the pack initially.

And yeah, I'm not ready for Cameron either, barring an extremely compelling case.

 

[Sturminator]

How much of that name power comes from one 14-goal game and his war record though? I'm certainly not faulting the latter, though I think the first is kind of inflated in hockey lore, considering the opponent.

McGee also played with an "animal rhythm", so they say, and may have skated around with a parrot on his shoulder.

 

[rmartin65]

McGee also played with an "animal rhythm", so they say, and may have skated around with a parrot on his shoulder.

It went well with his eye patch and silver.

 

[Sturminator]

Moving away from McGee for a bit, some other discussions I'd be very interested in reading-

As someone said up-thread, I'm definitely interested to see the Fredrickson/Keats/Foyston/MacKay discussion. I have Fredrickson solidly in front, but the other two are more difficult for me. I know @Sturminator has some good insight into Foyston, so I'm looking forward to that.

Again, as someone mentioned up-thread- Holmes vs Lehman. I'm disappointed we don't get to add Benedict into this discussion, but there is nothing we can do about that now.

In addition to going to bat for McGee, I'm going to try to carve out some time for Patrick/Johnson/Pitre- 3 guys who starred at both forward and defense, and who saw time on each coasts (Pitre very briefly, admittedly).

Is now when we let the two Senators players (Denneny and Boucher) in? I'm not sure, but I feel a lot better about adding one of them here than I did last round.

Cameron is the guy who looks like he doesn't belong to me, but I'm always happy to read cases to the contrary.

Full disclosure: Frank Foyston is my ATD "first love", and I'm not certain I can be entirely objective about his career.

BB and I are working on an account of the 1920 Cup Finals, which Seattle lost very narrowly to the Sens (game 5 tied going into the 3rd period). I believe it will be timely for this vote, but I promise nothing.

aside: it's worth considering just how close those Sens teams came to not winning a couple of Cups. They squeaked by Seattle in 1920 and then beat MacKay/Lehman's Vancouver team the next year, also in game 5, but this time the margin was a legendary bad goal given up to Jack Darragh by Ol' Eagle Eyes.

The perceived dominance of those Sens teams is actually just a bit superficial when this is taken into account, and I think the thin margins should point us to the conclusion that the coast league and NHL were closer to parity than it might appear at first blush.

Back to Foyston...I've already given my take, which is that he had a Fedorov-like career. Foyston's regular season peak is very high (1917 PCHA MVP), but also short. Like Fedorov, he may have had "a lot to prove" when he was younger, but didn't go as hard thereafter...at least in the regular season. His playoff record is exemplary, but like Fedorov, he also played for an excellent team, and appears to have benefitted from some special chemistry with at least one linemate (Jack Walker, specifically).

That's all I got on Foyston, though. His ATD bio is good, and should fill in the rest of the picture for voters unfamiliar with his game.

edit: there is a plausible argument that, but for Frank Nighbor, the NHL and [broadly western leagues...not getting into the weeds of the three-league period] were at something very close to parity for pretty much the entire pre-consolidation era.

Just throwing that out there for folks to chew on, but I think it's important we contextualize the competitive environment of the period as best we can.

 

[seventieslord]

Hey, it's 45 Senior level games!

Yeah, it's not a lot. However, for those of you that heavily value playoff games- he played 22 of those (20 SC challenges, 2 playoff games), which is actually a pretty good number for that era (for any career length). Tom Phillips, whose aura appears to be in large part based on SC games, was a ringer who played for multiple front runners and didn't get to that total.

Has someone posted that old table of mine that shows just how many SC games Phillips played against top-level opposition compared to guys like McGee?