What are your thoughts about Richard's 1944/45 season?

[Michael Farkas]

What exactly is your argument? What does Hull's 77 goal season have in common with Richard's 50 goal season.

And I have attempted to present an objective statistical argument, I have no dog in this fight. I would appreciate some objectivity in return.

I have responded outside an objective parameter in response to others doing the same. I will try my best to keep it objective if others do too.

You are not being nearly as objective as you think. You keep saying it like you're on this level that we have to stand on each others' shoulders to achieve. You have ignored data provided to you. You have ignored common sense. You have ignored very correct subjective arguments (subjectivity being termed, in essence, as being universally negative should be grounds for expulsion anyhow). Just because there is data doesn't make it objective. That data is still being interpreted and valued in a subjective way...by you. A way that everyone on the planet knows is wrong. Meanwhile, we're asked to prove an impossible situation - how many goals would Richard get if there were world peace or how many goals someone else might have gotten had they not been ripped away from the league. That's not objective. That's not even productive.

You're the only one with a dog in this fight. You can't keep playing this "I'm being objective, I'm totally innocent, don't look at me" card. Frankly, it's very unbecoming and borderline gross at this point.

 

[JackSlater]

Wait, wait, wait...are you guys saying that Bobby Hull didn't hit his athletic peak at age 36 when he scored 77 goals in the WHA...? There were other factors involved? That's unpossible...

Where is the statistical argument that Bobby Hull's numbers are inflated in 1975? He showed even more goal scoring dominance in 1962 so we know that he was a good scorer, and why didn't Serge Bernier and Gene Peacosh dominate as much as Hull did? Be objective please. Next you'll be saying that Gordie Howe didn't have a peak level season in 1976 when he scored only one point less than his previous career high.

 

[tarheelhockey]

That Cain and Liscombe both failed to step up their relative production that year to a level that would even hint at a weaker league? No, it has not.

Yes, it has:

Your examples don't serve your purpose very well. Cain scored 32 goals in 1945. His high total outside of 1943-1945 was 21. That's a 52% increase. Liscombe scored 23 goals in 1945. His career high total outside of 1943-1945 was 14. That's a 64% increase. Both players look to have very inflated totals to me.

He posted that in response to you. You didn't reply.

This forum has a reputation for group-think. IMO that reputation is unfair. It's not impossible to come here with an unconventional point of view, lay out a well-researched and well-reasoned argument, and influence the consensus by demonstrating mastery of the subject.

But ignoring people's heavily-researched rebuttals, doubling-down on points that have already been refuted, and then insulting their intelligence and basic knowledge of the topic... that's asking for the rhetorical beat-down that you are currently receiving.

 

[daver]

You are not being nearly as objective as you think. You keep saying it like you're on this level that we have to stand on each others' shoulders to achieve. You have ignored data provided to you. You have ignored common sense.

I haven't denied that players were missing that year but common sense would dictate that their is some statistical evidence that backs up the assertion that Richard couldn't dominate that particular season if the players were still there.

(1) He clearly had the talent to do so.

(2) The other elite goalscorers still in the league did not step up their level of relative dominance like him. Like not even close.

So the burden of proof is on you to show why we should accept any significant devaluing of that season in respect to his level of dominance.

 

[JackSlater]

Statistics = objective.

Factors like hmmm I don't know...whether Richard replicated that level of dominance again? How about "I wonder how the other top goalscorers that were still in the league did that year?"

Statistics are objective. The value we attribute to those statistics is not, and hence if someone wants to attribute value to statistics the person must consider the context in which those statistics were attained. No one questions whether Richard scored 50 goals.

 

[daver]

Yes, it has:



He posted that in response to you. You didn't reply.

I have clearly stated that I have no issue with context about the number of goals he scored that year, the issue is with denying Richard's level of dominance. If Richard scored 40 instead of 50 and Cain scored 27 instead of 32, this doesn't change Richard's level of dominance.

JackSlater's post is not answering the question of why Cain and Liscombe did not increase their relative production.

 

[daver]

Statistics are objective. The value we attribute to those statistics is not, and hence if someone wants to attribute value to statistics the person must consider the context in which those statistics were attained. No one questions whether Richard scored 50 goals.

And their should be no question that Richard had two other statistically dominating seasons nor any question that two other elite goalscorers in 44/45 did not statistically reach a level of dominance that hints at the premise that Richard could not have been as dominant in a full NHL in 44/45.

 

[daver]

So what seasons are supposed to be "war affected seasons" that make one question the value of goal scoring leader?

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on this. Are Bentley's titles in 1943 and 1944 also "war years"?

 

[The Macho King]

So what seasons are supposed to be "war affected seasons" that make one question the value of goal scoring leader?

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on this. Are Bentley's titles in 1943 and 1944 also "war years"?

I think we need to take this back to a very fundamental question.

You are aware of World War 2, right? Like - you're aware that happened? And that it took place between 1939-1945 (US involvement a bit later - don't know how engaged Canada was at the outset of the War).

I ask because putting "" around war-affected makes it seem like you aren't aware that there was an actual conflict.

 

[JackSlater]

(2) The other elite goalscorers still in the league did not step up their level of relative dominance like him. Like not even close.

This is a pretty irrelevant point given that the best goalscorers in hockey other than Richard were largely elsewhere that year, but the most accomplished goal scorer in the NHL that year, outside of Richard, was Schriner. The only player in the league other than Richard who was a top five goal scorer four times, and all before the inflated WW2 years as well. That year Schriner had 22 goals in 26 games, good for .85 goals per game and well above his previous best of .51, which likely involved some inflation as it took place in 1943. Anyway, in Schriner's years in the top five goals per game this is how he relates to the tenth best in goals per game:

1936: +14%
1937: +16%
1938: +10%
1941: +35%
1945: +63%

Now, it's possible that Schriner peaked in terms of relative goal scoring at the age of 34 on a team without its number one centre and after a year not playing in the NHL, but it seems unlikely. I'll note that this really shouldn't be necessary to show that players had inflated results during seasons in which a massive amount of players were missing from the NHL.

I have clearly stated that I have no issue with context about the number of goals he scored that year, the issue is with denying Richard's level of dominance. If Richard scored 40 instead of 50 and Cain scored 27 instead of 32, this doesn't change Richard's level of dominance.

JackSlater's post is not answering the question of why Cain and Liscombe did not increase their relative production.

They very obviously did. Cain was 4th and 8th in goal scoring outside of 1944-1945 and 2 and 2 in 1944 and 1945. Liscombe was never top ten in goal scoring outside of 1944-1945 and he was 2 and 10 in 1944 and 1945. Let's look at the two seasons surrounding the 1944 and 1945 seasons.

1942 - Cain: 52nd, Liscombe: 31st

1943 - Cain: 22nd, Liscombe: 19th

1946 - Cain: 18th, Liscombe: 34th

1947 - Cain: playing in the AHL, Liscombe: playing in the AHL

This shouldn't be necessary, but it sure seems like the mighty Cain and Liscombe duo had very inflated placements in 1944 and 1945.

And their should be no question that Richard had two other statistically dominating seasons nor any question that two other elite goalscorers in 44/45 did not statistically reach a level of dominance that hints at the premise that Richard could not have been as dominant in a full NHL in 44/45.

The absence of most of the NHL's elite goal scorers, which Cain and Liscombe really weren't, really does hint at the obvious, which is that Richard wouldn't dominate as much in an NHL that was at full strength.

 

[daver]

Yes, it has:.

Again, stating raw goal totals is meaningless. He should be stating placement and Cain and Liscombe stack up to their peers.

Cain and Liscombe were 2nd in goals to Bentley 43/44 by two. Bentley also won the goal title in 42/43, apparently outside of the war years according to Jack Slater. This establishes Cain and Liscombe as contenders for the goals title in any given year. They did not show any remarkable increase in their relative production in 44/45. Why not?

Don't think that 42/43 wasn't a war year and Bentley wasn't a top goalscorer then we can look at 41/42 at Bryan Hextall, a top goalscorer of the early '40s who couldn't get very close to Bentley in 42/43.

Where is the overwhelming evidence that top goalscorers who went to war could have done better than Cain?

 

[tarheelhockey]

I have clearly stated that I have no issue with context about the number of goals he scored that year, the issue is with denying Richard's level of dominance. If Richard scored 40 instead of 50 and Cain scored 27 instead of 32, this doesn't change Richard's level of dominance.

JackSlater's post is not answering the question of why Cain and Liscombe did not increase their relative production.

Herb Cain
Goal scoring finishes (age)
1934 t-83 (21)
1935 7 (22)
1936 t-57 (23)
1937 t-25 (24)
1938 t-33 (25)
1939 t-16 (26)
1940 t-4 (27)
1941 t-43 (28)
1942 t-51 (29)
1943 t-21 (30)
1944 t-2 (31)
1945 2 (32)
1946 t-17 (33)
1947 AHL (34)
1948 AHL (35)
1949 AHL (36)
1950 AHL (37)

The inflation is obvious, and not tied to raw scoring rate.

Cain's only other appearance in the top-5 of goal scoring was as a support scorer on the 1940 Bruins, one of the most dominant offensive teams of all time that had four other players in the 1-2-3-4 positions on the league scoring chart. To re-iterate... the only other time Cain was a top-5 goal scorer was 5 years earlier when four teammates outscored him... he was 3rd on his own team in goals.

He simply wasn't an elite scorer... until the 1944 and 1945 seasons, in his 30s and two years from being a minor leaguer, when he was one injury to Maurice Richard away from being the top goal scorer in the NHL. THAT's your inflation in a nutshell.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I don't really know how to prove a negative, but I'm taking a 15 minute pass at getting this moving in the right direction (that direction is, of course, straight to hell)...

In 1945 alone, just 1945. Not all the rest of the war years as that's too expansive and I'm not sure I have the Excel skills and patience to map out this wasted exercise as we all know the answer within a reasonable degree...except one. Just 1945, of the top 30 point getters...13 of them had their career best finishes in 1945.

Some samples from those same top 30 scorers...

1945 rank | name | highest non-War finish (pre-42/post-49)
#5 Joe Carveth - 38th
#6 Ab DeMarco - Not good enough for league
#11 Mud Bruneteau - 26th
#12 Lorne Carr - 10th (had a 3rd in the War)
#13 Herb Cain - 16th (had a 1st in the War)
#14 Gus Bodnar - 23rd (had a 7th in the War)
#15 Buddy O'Connor - 26th (had a 2nd in the War)
#16 Hank Goldup - 66th
#17 Grant Warwick - Not good enough
#18 Flash Hollett - 24th
#19 Babe Pratt - 46th
#21 Steve Wojciechowski - Not good enough
#24 Pete Horeck - 54th (had an 11th in the War)
#26 Mel Hill - 46th (had a 14th in the War)
#27 Art Jackson - 23rd (had a 9th in the War)
#29 Fred Thurier - Not good enough
#30 Bill Jennings - Not good enough

And that's a very non-nuanced look...it doesn't even account for things like Ted Kennedy having a tied for career best scoring finish in 1945...but that's when he was 19 years old. That should not be his peak...he shouldn't be in the league, even...

I can't imagine there's a year where there are so many transients (by percentage of the league, I guess)...there were like, what, 80-90 regular skaters in the league in 1945? Of the alleged best, nearly half of them blew away their career placements...some of them weren't even good enough to play in the league on either side...

 

[daver]

This is a pretty irrelevant point given that the best goalscorers in hockey other than Richard were largely elsewhere that year, but the most accomplished goal scorer in the NHL that year, outside of Richard, was Schriner.

The fact that no other elite scorer could come close to Richard is considerably more relevant than hypothetically placing players in the NHL that year and hypothetically giving them goal totals.

Answer the question: Why could Cain and Liscombe dominate that year?

 

[tarheelhockey]

This establishes Cain and Liscombe as contenders for the goals title in any given year. They did not show any remarkable increase in their relative production in 44/45. Why not?

This is one of the most asinine things I've ever read on this board. At this point I hope you're just a master troll and not actually smoking what you're selling.

 

[daver]

Herb Cain
Goal scoring finishes (age)
1934 t-83 (21)
1935 7 (22)
1936 t-57 (23)
1937 t-25 (24)
1938 t-33 (25)
1939 t-16 (26)
1940 t-4 (27)
1941 t-43 (28)
1942 t-51 (29)
1943 t-21 (30)
1944 t-2 (31)
1945 2 (32)
1946 t-17 (33)
1947 AHL (34)
1948 AHL (35)
1949 AHL (36)
1950 AHL (37)

The inflation is obvious, and not tied to raw scoring rate.

Cain's only other appearance in the top-5 of goal scoring was as a support scorer on the 1940 Bruins, one of the most dominant offensive teams of all time that had four other players in the 1-2-3-4 positions on the league scoring chart. To re-iterate... the only other time Cain was a top-5 goal scorer was 5 years earlier when four teammates outscored him... he was 3rd on his own team in goals.

He simply wasn't an elite scorer... until the 1944 and 1945 seasons, in his 30s and two years from being a minor leaguer, when he was one injury to Maurice Richard away from being the top goal scorer in the NHL. THAT's your inflation in a nutshell.

Is Bentley's scoring finish of #1 in 43/44 inflated? The answer seems to be yes. But then how does he win 42/43 against some better competition than 43/44 that was also competing against even better competition in 41/42?

I asked this question before. What season do we start putting asterix besides because of the war?

As much as players missing in 43-45 is a fact, the remaining ones being given more offensive opportunities is a fact too which can explain a rise in their relative production.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Asterisk* is binary. It's yes/no. That's not a world to live in. Everything exists on a spectrum. Discussion here requires unequivocally qualified subjectivity...everything else - like what you're doing - is somewhere between "incomplete analysis" and "a complete waste of time"...

 

[JackSlater]

Again, stating raw goal totals is meaningless. He should be stating placement and Cain and Liscombe stack up to their peers.

Cain and Liscombe were 2nd in goals to Bentley 43/44 by two. Bentley also won the goal title in 42/43, apparently outside of the war years according to Jack Slater. This establishes Cain and Liscombe as contenders for the goals title in any given year. They did not show any remarkable increase in their relative production in 44/45. Why not?

Don't think that 42/43 wasn't a war year and Bentley wasn't a top goalscorer then we can look at 41/42 at Bryan Hextall, a top goalscorer of the early '40s who couldn't get very close to Bentley in 42/43.

Where is the overwhelming evidence that top goalscorers who went to war could have done better than Cain?

JackSlater would define the war years as 1943, 1944, 1945, with 1944 and 1945 being clearly more impacted than 1943 was. Other years surrounding those years were impacted but not to nearly the same degree as those three were.

The fact that no other elite scorer could come close to Richard is considerably more relevant than hypothetically placing players in the NHL that year and hypothetically giving them goal totals.

Answer the question: Why could Cain and Liscombe dominate that year?

They could "dominate" because many players who were better than them were not in the NHL due to WW2.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Is Bentley's scoring finish of #1 in 43/44 inflated? The answer seems to be yes. But then how does he win 42/43 against some better competition than 43/44 that was also competing against even better competition in 41/42?

I asked this question before. What season do we start putting asterix besides because of the war?

As much as players missing in 43-45 is a fact, the remaining ones being given more offensive opportunities is a fact too which can explain a rise in their relative production.

Bentley's 1943 and especially 1944 were both inflated. 1943 was a war year.

Even in 1943, the league was already missing e.g. Roy Conacher, Bobby Bauer, Milt Schmidt, Neil Colville, Woody Dumart. In the ebb and flow of careers, at least a couple of those guys were due for big seasons -- especially considering how many of them were stacked together with the Bruins. If nothing else, Syl Apps was running away with the title when he broke his leg mid-season.

Bentley was a good player in the middle of his prime, but he was probably peaked closer to a "natural" 3rd-5th type finish in both of those years. It would have been quite the stroke of luck for all of those missing players to simultaneously have down years AND Apps get hurt just in time for him to finish #1.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

With respect to BenchBrawl's post up thread - You have to wonder what the retired players said about Richard. Maybe something, "Ah he's just a one trick pony who is inconsistent. Back in my day you didn't have the luxury of a defenceman making long lead passes."

 

[Nick Hansen]

One of the stranger hills I've seen someone trying to die on...

 

[Big Phil]

It needs some context. I do think that his 1947 season with 45 goals, his Hart year, was more impressive since the next best was 30. 1945 does get a bad rap. I think there were still some good players in the NHL. Richard, Blake, Lach, Cowley, Kennedy, Mosienko, Syd Howe, etc. Sure they were missing the Bentley brothers, the Kraut Line, Syl Apps, goalies like Turk Broda. Durnan and Lumley were still in the NHL.

You still had the rest of the league playing against the same players. If Richard was a star in those two years and never after that then you'd have a case, but he wasn't.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Harry Lunley, the goaltender, was what? 17? Using that speaks to how weak the league really was...

 

[ResilientBeast]

Statistics = objective.

Factors like hmmm I don't know...whether Richard replicated that level of dominance again? How about "I wonder how the other top goalscorers that were still in the league did that year?"

So showing you the tremendous talent that wasn't playing in the NHL isn't persuasive enough for you?

 

[daver]

So showing you the tremendous talent that wasn't playing in the NHL isn't persuasive enough for you?

To prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Richard wasn't capable of dominating the league in scoring in 44/45 under any circumstances? Nope.

I don't mind some context on that season but to remove the possibility that he could have dominated against under any circumstances is not reasonable. To doubt whether he could have even won the goalscoring title that season is nothing but irrational speculation.

IMO, at worst, it is his 3rd best goalscoring season of his career and on the same the same level in terms of dominance as his 46/47 and 50/51 seasons.

I get the unique circumstances around the war. The issue here is how to interpret the missing talent which, IMO, goes exclusively into into the subjective and into speculation where one's biases or leanings can dictate one's interpretations.

For example, with the missing talent, other players obviously were given the opportunity to increase their relative production with an increase in offensive responsibilities. If you are a big Richard fan and hold dear his 50 in 50 season, you can choose to say that explains any increase in the relative production of some players in the war years. If you are a fan of Hull or OV or any other GOAT goalscorer, you can choose to say that obviously the league was weaker and use the increase in relative production as proof of this.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting the responses, and I still think some are arguing the number of goals by Richard rather than his level of dominance but I am honestly surprised that the majority of the regular HOH posters are willing to significantly devalue that season.

That being said, I think only one poster is willing to take that as a reason to rate Richard clearly below the apparent consensus range that the HOH has him.

The irony is that I think all O6 scoring finishes need statistical context when compared to scoring finishes from seasons where there are many more teams.