What weaknesses did Jaromir Jagr have in his prime?

[Dingo]

agree with almost everything in your post, dingo. i never played with guys like that, but some of them were the dads hanging around our teams, opening bench doors, helping with practices, etc growing up.

you could always tell when the discussion came to bure vs linden.



if i may veer slightly off topic here, i think systematic might be closer to what you mean here. even that’s kind of pushing it, if i’m understanding you correctly.

when ppl use the word systemic, they don’t mean a clean clockworky cause and effect like you do here. they mean that an institution or its rules are built in a way that favours certain results, whether this effect is intentional or not.

to make a politically neutral example, you could say that a hockey league that doesn’t allow forward passing makes it so that a ray whitney-type player who can skate with the puck has a systemic advantage over a ray sheppard-type player, even though all told they are similar calibres of player.

does that maybe help at all with your dislike of the word?

Bure Linden is a perfect example of what i was saying. (Im a BC guy, too)

I dont want anything more to do with subject number two, lol! Systematic it is.

 

[Dingo]

Agreed. Wins were considered hugely important up until at least the late 1990's. There was a gradual shift in thinking after that, which I think was due to four factors:

1. Hasek was the consensus best goalie during his prime but never led the league in wins until he went to the stacked team Red Wings, which showed the limitations of judging goalies based on win/loss records;
2. Save percentage (which was officially tracked since the early 1980's) was finally starting to get some traction as a more meaningful goalie stat;
3. Win-loss records for pitchers were rapidly falling out of fashion in baseball (especially in the early 2000's) - there's been a sharp divergence with Corsi etc over the past decade, but advanced hockey stats were strongly influenced by Bill James and other baseball analysts for a couple of decades;
4. After the lockout, goalies were rapidly climbing the single-season and career wins leaderboard, which made people realize that stat is era-dependent (a win is a win, but obviously there are more wins when there are more teams, the schedule is longer, and fewer games end in ties).

good post.

my memory says that GAA was the end all when i was a kid, from the mid 80s until .... ya, i think late 90s where save% took over GAA a bit. Even then, they made a big deal about Hasek’s 1.xx GAA.
I guess I just never clued in to wins, or maybe just thought it was such a team stat that i zoned out whenever it was being discussed. (GAA is a team stat, too, but i didnt see that right away as a kid)

 

[psycat]

These claims inspired me to run a little reality check as far as voting on our own site is concerned.

Here's where Jágr ranked on the aggregate list in the 2018-2019 Top-100 project: #15
Here's how the 13 voters* I could identify as Americans & Europeans ranked Jágr: 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 15, 16, 19, 19, 19, 30, 32, 36

(*The 13 are [and please correct me if I'm wrong about anyone's nationality]: @Batis, @ChiTownPhilly, @Dennis Bonvie, @Iceman, @ImporterExporter, @quoipourquoi, @Mike Farkas, @Sentinel, @sr edler, @steve141, @ted2019, @TheDevilMadeMe, @The Macho King)

The median rank among non-Canadian voters is #16, which means they ranked Jágr very much like Canadian voters did.

Other facts:

• The single-highest rating of Jágr in Round 1 was by a Canadian voter.
• 11 out of 13 non-Canadian voters ranked Crosby over Jágr in both round 1 & round 2.

One could almost come to the conclusion that any bias Canadians here might have against Jágr is exceeded by the bias you, @psycat, have against Canadians.

Weak sample size. Also keep in mind that the sample size is from a forum full of backslappers eager to fit in. Else they might be deemed not worthy by the old Habs geezers.

It's pretty easy to understand, in Sweden majority would (wrongfully) rank Forsberg above Crosby. Do you believe Candians are somehow immune to having bias? Who had the better overall peak - Ovechkin vs Jagr vs Lafleur . Take this thread for example so if Jagr have a better peak than Ovechkin, who have a better peak than Crosby, how can Crosby be ranked ahead of him? Jagr got insane longveity, far better peak etc. It just makes zero sense.

But sure if you prefer to believe there is some other reason by all means feel free, truth is Jagr is horribly underrated on this site. Having him below someone like Richard is also a dubious preposition to say the least.

 

[Troubadour]

Weak sample size. Also keep in mind that the sample size is from a forum full of backslappers eager to fit in. Else they might be deemed not worthy by the old Habs geezers.

It's pretty easy to understand, in Sweden majority would (wrongfully) rank Forsberg above Crosby. Do you believe Candians are somehow immune to having bias? Who had the better overall peak - Ovechkin vs Jagr vs Lafleur . Take this thread for example so if Jagr have a better peak than Ovechkin, who have a better peak than Crosby, how can Crosby be ranked ahead of him? Jagr got insane longveity, far better peak etc. It just makes zero sense.

But sure if you prefer to believe there is some other reason by all means feel free, truth is Jagr is horribly underrated on this site. Having him below someone like Richard is also a dubious preposition to say the least.

Hey, I'm a strong bias believer! I'm biased too! But I also believe that national bias stems from xenophobia and xenophobia gets eased and cured by exposure. So I believe the NA audience have over the time become better at handling or even eliminating national bias because overall, they have been forced to deal with foreigners from all around the world more than Euros have. At least as far as hockey players go.

I still think the bias persists, but I also think it's somewhat unfair to project our own bias and take it as a measure stick. Especially when it comes to NHL. Don't forget the local bias plays a huge part there, too.

If only 5% of Pens fans rate Jagr higher than Sid, and if it has a non-hockey reason, it has more to do with Jagr leaving the way he did for the rival and not returning the way he did for another rival than the fact he is Czech while Sid is Canadian, at least I would bet on that. Nationality maybe tips the scale a bit, but it's probably not the main factor there.

In the grand, nation-wide scheme, I have no idea.

But I'm not that sure we wouldn't be more reluctant to decorate Canadian or American players with Harts and all that in our leagues than NA's were in the late nineties where Euros basically ruled their league. I say be careful with that not because of popularity votes on this board, but because we can really hurt feelings of the genuine/innocent people here.

EDIT: Let's not forget the nationality may be just an "agent". We tend to follow our national teams more than other national teams, so we keep en eye on our players more, see more of them and maybe compare a better picture of them with a somewhat limited picture of players of other nationalities. So the nationality plays a role, but it is not the sole reason.

Jagr and Nagano could be a good example. On paper, he looks underperforming, especially in the later stages. In reality, he scared both Canadians and Russians, tied defenses to himself, opened up a ton of space for the others in some of the tightest games I have ever seen, where everyone besides Hasek and maybe Roy had huge nerves and appeared snakebitten and unspectacular. If you actually rewatch those games, Jagr was one of the few create-something-out-of-nothing guys there, but hey, no points, so not good. That's where nationality plays a role. Czechs and maybe Slovaks paid a close attention, so they know better.

 

[The Panther]

Weak sample size. Also keep in mind that the sample size is from a forum full of backslappers eager to fit in. Else they might be deemed not worthy by the old Habs geezers.

I'm not sure if you're aware but it's not the 1970s in Canada anymore. The Montreal Canadiens no longer hold any powerful cultural sway over hockey culture in Canada, and haven't since about the 1980s. The poster you quoted has basically shown that your theory about Canadians on this forum under-rating Jagr is 100% wrong, so you might as well just suck that up.

Do you believe Candians are somehow immune to having bias?

Of course Canadians (like all humans who have ever lived) have biases. But this forum is not typical of Canadian opinions. You will find that the regular posters here are generally well informed, open to information, and possessed of a broad perspective. (Not everyone, of course -- there are still the extremists who rate Jagr at #36 or whatever, but if you throw a rock in the air you'll hit someone, etc...).

Who had the better overall peak - Ovechkin vs Jagr vs Lafleur . Take this thread for example so if Jagr have a better peak than Ovechkin, who have a better peak than Crosby, how can Crosby be ranked ahead of him? Jagr got insane longveity, far better peak etc. It just makes zero sense.

No, it does make sense, because the thread you're referring to is about PEAK only. It's not about how we rank players. The two things are completely different. Like, a lot of people would say Guy Lafleur had a higher peak than, say, Crosby, but fewer would rank him over Crosby. Similarly, it's quite conceivable that Ovechkin had a higher peak than Crosby but is overall a slightly lesser player.

But sure if you prefer to believe there is some other reason by all means feel free, truth is Jagr is horribly underrated on this site. Having him below someone like Richard is also a dubious preposition to say the least.

(You want 'proposition' there.) I sort-of agree that Jagr is a little bit (not a lot) underrated on this site. Although I personally don't lean that way, I can see why some posters (over?)rate team success (esp. in playoffs) in their separation of elite players. I dunno, the older I get (I'm 44, btw) the less I care about how well a player's team did. I'm of the opinion that Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky in their primes could influence their teams, individually, by a degree of about 10-15% to the good vs. if they were not there at all. And those are the two greatest players (skaters, anyway) of all time. So, the average superstar player probably influences his team about 5-8% or something. That's really good, but it's hardly enough to make an average team into a Dynasty (or even to win one Cup). So, I don't really care overly much about team success, ALTHOUGH I can certainly see the value in a great player who ups his games consistently in the post-season or when games are on the line. (That's one reason some posters rank Maurice Richard -- who also retired as the #1 goal scorer in NHL history, lest we forget -- higher than you are comfortable with.)

What I do have a problem with, though, is when some posters try to lower the rankings of (to name two) Jagr and Dominik Hasek because they were bad team guys, supposedly. I just think that's total nonsense. Even if they were bad team guys (which, I'm pretty sure, they weren't), there is no way in hell we as sports fans can know it. Even most of those guys' teammates cannot really understand them because they have no idea what it's like to move across the ocean to a foreign culture/language to pursue your life and career in your early-20s. We're just into the sketchy zone of speculation now, which is largely based on media reporting (and let's recall that the Toronto-dominated Canadian media tried to sell us on Dion Phaneuf as a rival of Crosby and Ovechkin). Or, we see when certain players (Jagr and Hasek are again good examples) have one season of career turmoil or whatever, and then they get painted forever after with that brush, which now colors their entire career, illogically. How about we rank players based on what they did on the ice? (When I see the "Hasek quit on his team, so he's not dependable" line of logic, I just cringe.)

I do think people who still bang-on about the NHL being biased against Europeans need a reality check. Salming almost won the Norris in the 1970s, and it's now been 26 years since the first European was named MVP of the League. Get over it already! The most recent League MVP from Europe was... oh yeah, last season. (I must admit my own bias -- or is it? -- in that I get a bit tired of certain posters going on endless about Soviet-era players, and current/recent Russians, as the cream of the crop.)

And as far as this forum goes... er, what do you expect? This a North American originated forum, with lots of Canadian posters, in English. It's obviously going to be biased towards the NHL and its history, and probably somewhat towards North Americans.

(I must say, also, that, growing up in Alberta in the 80s/90s, I never had any of this anti-European, pro-Canadian all the time nonsense in my head. As long as I can remember, Finns and Swedes were some of my favorite players.)

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Weak sample size. Also keep in mind that the sample size is from a forum full of backslappers eager to fit in. Else they might be deemed not worthy by the old Habs geezers.

It's pretty easy to understand, in Sweden majority would (wrongfully) rank Forsberg above Crosby. Do you believe Candians are somehow immune to having bias? Who had the better overall peak - Ovechkin vs Jagr vs Lafleur . Take this thread for example so if Jagr have a better peak than Ovechkin, who have a better peak than Crosby, how can Crosby be ranked ahead of him? Jagr got insane longveity, far better peak etc. It just makes zero sense.

But sure if you prefer to believe there is some other reason by all means feel free, truth is Jagr is horribly underrated on this site. Having him below someone like Richard is also a dubious preposition to say the least.

Backslappers! That's pretty blunt.

 

[Sentinel]

These claims inspired me to run a little reality check as far as voting on our own site is concerned.

Here's where Jágr ranked on the aggregate list in the 2018-2019 Top-100 project: #15
Here's how the 13 voters* I could identify as Americans & Europeans ranked Jágr: 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 15, 16, 19, 19, 19, 30, 32, 36

(*The 13 are [and please correct me if I'm wrong about anyone's nationality]: @Batis, @ChiTownPhilly, @Dennis Bonvie, @Iceman, @ImporterExporter, @quoipourquoi, @Mike Farkas, @Sentinel, @sr edler, @steve141, @ted2019, @TheDevilMadeMe, @The Macho King)

The median rank among non-Canadian voters is #16, which means they ranked Jágr very much like Canadian voters did.

Other facts:

• The single-highest rating of Jágr in Round 1 was by a Canadian voter.
• 11 out of 13 non-Canadian voters ranked Crosby over Jágr in both round 1 & round 2.

One could almost come to the conclusion that any bias Canadians here might have against Jágr is exceeded by the bias you, @psycat, have against Canadians.

This argument has an opposite side. I ranked Jagr at #14 because of his (relative) lack of Harts. Harts are determined by the North American media. If the North American media was more sympathetic to Jagr (as oppose to, say Pronger or Sakic), he would have more Harts and be ranked higher.

I have these three players together, joined at the hip: Lafleur at 13, Jagr at 14, and Crosby at 15. Lafleur has Harts and playoffs, Jagr has Art Rosses and longevity, Crosby has Harts and playoffs.

 

[Professor What]

Weak sample size. Also keep in mind that the sample size is from a forum full of backslappers eager to fit in. Else they might be deemed not worthy by the old Habs geezers.

It's pretty easy to understand, in Sweden majority would (wrongfully) rank Forsberg above Crosby. Do you believe Candians are somehow immune to having bias? Who had the better overall peak - Ovechkin vs Jagr vs Lafleur . Take this thread for example so if Jagr have a better peak than Ovechkin, who have a better peak than Crosby, how can Crosby be ranked ahead of him? Jagr got insane longveity, far better peak etc. It just makes zero sense.

But sure if you prefer to believe there is some other reason by all means feel free, truth is Jagr is horribly underrated on this site. Having him below someone like Richard is also a dubious preposition to say the least.

The "backslappers" bit is very, very far from my experience here. I honestly don't know what you're looking at to see that. Almost everyone here is very civil, but I've seen very sharp differences of opinion all over this board. For the record, I'm probably much closer to your position on where Jagr should rank, but nowhere near being on the same page as to why I believe he's not ranked there on this site.

The fact is, different people hold different aspects of a player's game in higher or lower esteem, and their opinions as to how each of those aspects should be rated are just as varied, and neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can be so dogmatic as to say that we're absolutely right of that anyone else is absolutely wrong, because this is so subjective of a discussion. I think you're right that Jagr should be ranked ahead of Crosby, but I'd be kidding myself if I didn't acknowledge that those who disagree don't have a case. As for Richard, I don't rank him fifth, but I'm not about to shoot spitwads at anyone that did rank him as high as that. He was a goal scorer extraordinaire, past anything the league had seen to that point, and his historical significance was huge. There's a case there, and it's not exactly an insult to Jagr (or anyone else outside the big four) to be ranked behind him.

Anyway, the key point here is that we're dealing with opinions. We all have them, and they all stink. Why? Because we're all imperfect, which makes them so by extension.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Just looking back at my prelim list (I had him 15)...where can I go?

The Big 4 - no case.
Beliveau/Hull/Harvey - no case.
So, now we're at 8.

Now, let's work from Jagr up...I had Mikita at 14...easy to make that case. So you're at 14.

Between 8 and 14, what d-man takes the L here: Lidstrom, Bourque (maybe?), Kelly (possibly), Fetisov, Potvin...the only forward I have in that range is Crosby.

I mean, maybe if you find Kelly overrated (I think I do a bit now) or Bourque overrated (man, the more I watch him in the first 10 years, the less and less I like him defensively), you can squeeze him up to 12...? I just don't know who else gets gassed in there, these are tough steps...and I give Jagr credit for the 2000 and 2006 MVPs in my head already...

 

[Troubadour]

His one timer and slapshots were god awful until he started staying after practice working with Gonchar when he was with the Caps, until then he just had unreal moves to his backhand and to set up his wrist shot, Mario, Francis, Coffey and just about everyone on the roster at the time used to laugh at him in shooting drills since he just had a backhand and wrist shot.

I don't think his shot didn't improve before his stint with the Caps. It kept betting better throughout the nineties. Also, Coffey's time with Pittsburgh didn't exactly coincide with Jagr's prime. But in his first three years in the league, backhand move was his bread and butter.

I found this compilation of many of his goals from 1990 until 1993, and I would say 7 out of 10 were the backhand dekes.



I was surprised to see how many times he ecstatically flipped the bird as a goal celebration. I don't think he realized how much it gets on people's nerves, but people probably realized that and let it slide. I mean come on, this is dangerous:



Another rare slapper:



What's with the Michael, Michael, motorcycle thing?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Just looking back at my prelim list (I had him 15)...where can I go?

The Big 4 - no case.
Beliveau/Hull/Harvey - no case.
So, now we're at 8.

Now, let's work from Jagr up...I had Mikita at 14...easy to make that case. So you're at 14.

Between 8 and 14, what d-man takes the L here: Lidstrom, Bourque (maybe?), Kelly (possibly), Fetisov, Potvin...the only forward I have in that range is Crosby.

I mean, maybe if you find Kelly overrated (I think I do a bit now) or Bourque overrated (man, the more I watch him in the first 10 years, the less and less I like him defensively), you can squeeze him up to 12...? I just don't know who else gets gassed in there, these are tough steps...and I give Jagr credit for the 2000 and 2006 MVPs in my head already...

So with Fetisov and Lidstrom ahead of Jagr, that means you have 3 European players in the top 15.

Cleary you are not Canadian.

 

[Theokritos]

It's pretty easy to understand, in Sweden majority would (wrongfully) rank Forsberg above Crosby. Do you believe Candians are somehow immune to having bias?

I don't think Canadians are inherently less biased than Swedes, but I think the average Canadian hockey fan is more likely to follow the NHL very closely than the average Swedish hockey fan is, for obvious geographical reasons.

This argument has an opposite side. I ranked Jagr at #14 because of his (relative) lack of Harts. Harts are determined by the North American media. If the North American media was more sympathetic to Jagr (as oppose to, say Pronger or Sakic), he would have more Harts and be ranked higher.

That's a fair point if Hart placement really played a big role. I don't think it should play such a big role in a league that has no balanced schedule and that is too big for the majority of the voters to see all the top players regularly, but it's a fair argument as to where bias could actually creep in.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I'd be interested to see a survey of fan's judgements of certain players, broken down by time zone.
I've talked here before that I have an unfortunately scant basis for my opinion on MacKinnon vs. McDavid, being out here floating in the Atlantic (and I'm even kind of checked-out towards the end of Matthews and Eichel showcases).

I wonder if our friends in the midwest and on the sheild are optimally placed for solid player judgements.

 

[Retire91]

that stupid goal reaction. JK I really can't think of a fault worth mentioning. I know a lot of people mentioned defense but can you fault one the best offensive players of all time for that. I think his defense philosophy was I will score more goals if I don't focus on preventing them. Maybe that is a problem usually but when you are talking about one of the best scorers all time...

 

[Midnight Judges]

...that's a long way from screaming that all Euros are soft, they don't belong in the NHL, and they should all go back to Europe.

That strikes me as an incredibly low bar.

Is that how bad it was? When was that? And when did it get fixed? When was the reckoning?

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Jagr's weakness was his play away from the puck. A lot of the puck hogs in pickup games were Jagr fans...

 

[Professor What]

That strikes me as an incredibly low bar.

Is that how bad it was? When was that? And when did it get fixed? When was the reckoning?

I was just using hyperbole to try to demonstrate how overstated the claim of bias against Jagr was. Apparently, I didn't do a very good job of it.

But, just after the fall of the Iron Curtain, that actually was pretty close to what people like Don Cherry were saying.

Oh, and by the way, for anyone interested, here's the link to the article I mentioned that says that the NHL should become a North American league again: Six Ways To Save The NHL (Firing Gary Bettman is #6) It's point #1, and it's very, very poorly reasoned. It's not new, but 2008 is recent enough (Ovi was in the league) to show that there are still some who have crazy ideas. I can't imagine that anyone that has any real interest in hockey would want a league without players like Jagr, Hasek, and Ovechkin.

 

[CrosbyIsKing87]

My only nitpick of prime Jagr is the Pittsburgh Penguins of the mid to late 90s seemed like a real country club atmosphere suffering from some massive Stanley Cup hangover from their 1991, 1992 wins and the 1993 upset. Before the sell off, the Penguins were still stacked even with Lemieux drifting in and out of injury plagued seasons and retirement. Fire wagon hockey was not a problem, but you knew that the Penguins would be defeated by a harder working, more physical, more organized opponent and hotter goaltending (Florida, Philadelphia, New Jersey) and increasingly didn't belong in the class of Detroit, Colorado as skilled contenders even if they did make it out of the East. Where does Jagr fit into all of this? If wasn't quite as offensively inclined and bought into more of a team structure, I don't see why Pittsburgh should have gone into decline like they did.

As someone who lived in Pittsburgh and followed the team closely back then I can say that this is true. Team discipline was not real tight. But I don't think that would have worked with the Pens back then. They were so gifted and laid back that they would have rebelled against a tough disciplinarian coach (and they basically did just that, showing Bowman the door in 1993). When Jagr came into the league in 1990-91 he was very skilled but hesitant to be assertive and shoot more. He deferred to others who were older, more accomplished. Defensively he was not great but not a total liability. He was a typical 18 year old: still learning, kind of self-conscious. He tried to beat two or three guys too much until he learned that he couldn't do that (yet). Actually I thought at the time that was his biggest flaw: not using his teammates enough.

Even in 1991-92 he was not yet there with his offensive game. He was very fast, extremely strong on the puck but used his wrist shot and backhand and didn't use the slap shot. I don't know why. I used to wonder why. The coaches worked with him on that because they knew if he could add that and some other things to his game would be a 50 goal scorer (up until then he was about a 30 goal scorer). The next year he got better and more dominant but still hadn't really broke out goal-wise. You could see he had some room to grow. Then in 1995-96 he blew up. 62 goals and 149 points. MONSTER season. He put it all together. Then he added leadership in 1998-99 to 1999-00 and was much more of a complete player. He did, however, always have an unpredictable at best, and entitled, at worst, attitude. Did not make the best example. The Pittsburgh media could tell you stories. Then it all completely unraveled in 2001 LOL. Attitude sucked. Got distracted by off the ice issues. Demanded a trade. Became a paycheck player. But he came around later in his career and kind of made up for that.

Basically I would say his strengths:
• Offensive instincts/vision
• Balance with the puck
• Shot
• Speed
• Clutch in big moments

Weaknesses:
• Attitude / flakiness / prima donna
• Didn't use his shot enough early in his career
• Not elite defensively (but as pointed out not really that big of a deal in the big picture)

 

[psycat]

Just looking back at my prelim list (I had him 15)...where can I go?

The Big 4 - no case.
Beliveau/Hull/Harvey - no case.
So, now we're at 8.

Now, let's work from Jagr up...I had Mikita at 14...easy to make that case. So you're at 14.

Between 8 and 14, what d-man takes the L here: Lidstrom, Bourque (maybe?), Kelly (possibly), Fetisov, Potvin...the only forward I have in that range is Crosby.

I mean, maybe if you find Kelly overrated (I think I do a bit now) or Bourque overrated (man, the more I watch him in the first 10 years, the less and less I like him defensively), you can squeeze him up to 12...? I just don't know who else gets gassed in there, these are tough steps...and I give Jagr credit for the 2000 and 2006 MVPs in my head already...

In my mind he got a strong case over Hull. Harvey top 7? I think not, top 7 dman perhaps. Why would Beliveau rank above Jagr? Not entirely against it but would love a compelling argument.

All the others you mention except Bourque, that said I am also not so sure on him, I have firmly below Jagr.

The Great One
The Big 3, I would personally rank them Orr, Howe, Lemieux but could see a case for any order.
Jagr, Hull, Bourque, (Hasek), (Beliveau, maybe)
A shit ton of players.

So to me he is no lower than 8th since I would rank Beliveau below(albeit maybe in the same ballpark) and I find ranking goalies with skaters kinda weird so in reality no lower than 7th with the caveat that I could possibly be swayed on a comparison or two but still inside top 10 for sure.

 

[Professor What]

In my mind he got a strong case over Hull. Harvey top 7? I think not, top 7 dman perhaps. Why would Beliveau rank above Jagr? Not entirely against it but would love a compelling argument.

All the others you mention except Bourque, that said I am also not so sure on him, I have firmly below Jagr.

The Great One
The Big 3, I would personally rank them Orr, Howe, Lemieux but could see a case for any order.
Jagr, Hull, Bourque, (Hasek), (Beliveau, maybe)
A shit ton of players.

So to me he is no lower than 8th since I would rank Beliveau below(albeit maybe in the same ballpark) and I find ranking goalies with skaters kinda weird so in reality no lower than 7th with the caveat that I could possibly be swayed on a comparison or two but still inside top 10 for sure.

So, here's where you and I are fairly close. There are only four players who I wouldn't listen to an argument in favor of Jagr over, and obviously, we all know who they are. Of course, that doesn't mean that some of those arguments would necessarily have a strong chance.

Beliveau's case is exceptionally easy to make, though. He was scoring 40 during a time that only Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe were doing it, and only Joe Malone and Cooney Weiland had done it before. And we're not talking just barely scraping the number either, but he had 45 and 47 goal seasons. That was absolutely exceptional. He was a strong playmaker as well, so offensively, he was elite and well-balanced. But, where he gets the nod over Jagr is that he was known to also play a strong defensive game, and he was a beast, dominating the game physically. Really, in a lot of respects, he was very similar to Gordie Howe. Obviously, he's not quite at the same level, but he was at a high enough level to win two Harts while Mr. Hockey was in his prime.

Hull is closer to me. I know that he finished 5th in the top 100 project, but that's one I don't quite get. There's an argument to be made for sure. I'm not about to deny that. I just don't see it myself. But the case for him vs Jagr is based on offense, quite clearly. Jagr was more rounded, but Hull is clearly one of the top goal scorers ever -- possibly even #1. Which one you prefer and how you view Hull's WHA years will go a long way to giving you your answer on this comparison.

Harvey was an outright stud. Top seven defenseman? Slam dunk top 5, with 2-5 hard to separate, in my opinion. But we're looking at a d-man who was pretty stout offensively before Orr popularized it, and if you allowed me to take one shutdown defenseman from any point in history, I'd take him on that alone, but then I get his offensive contributions too? Heck yeah. In a perfect dream scenario, I'd love to put him on a blueline with Orr. There's a reason he dominated early Norris voting, and he was a very strong Hart contender, despite the fact that he know how hard that sell is.

I'd also throw Hasek in as a tough comparison for Jagr in my opinion, though as you say, comparing goalies and skaters is crazy tough. But Hasek was so dominant for so long that he has to rate very high for me. And honestly, his playoff record isn't half bad when you consider that he actually got the Sabres to the Stanley Cup Finals.

After that, things are much more in the air for a while. Honestly, I'm not so sure that the gap between 5 and 20 isn't smaller than the gap between 4 and 5, which really says a lot about the guys at the top. It also means that while there are certain players I'm willing to put some level of dogmatic force on my feelings concerning them and the neighborhood in which they should rank, it becomes far, far less comfortable to do so.

 

[psycat]

So, here's where you and I are fairly close. There are only four players who I wouldn't listen to an argument in favor of Jagr over, and obviously, we all know who they are. Of course, that doesn't mean that some of those arguments would necessarily have a strong chance.

Beliveau's case is exceptionally easy to make, though. He was scoring 40 during a time that only Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe were doing it, and only Joe Malone and Cooney Weiland had done it before. And we're not talking just barely scraping the number either, but he had 45 and 47 goal seasons. That was absolutely exceptional. He was a strong playmaker as well, so offensively, he was elite and well-balanced. But, where he gets the nod over Jagr is that he was known to also play a strong defensive game, and he was a beast, dominating the game physically. Really, in a lot of respects, he was very similar to Gordie Howe. Obviously, he's not quite at the same level, but he was at a high enough level to win two Harts while Mr. Hockey was in his prime.

Hull is closer to me. I know that he finished 5th in the top 100 project, but that's one I don't quite get. There's an argument to be made for sure. I'm not about to deny that. I just don't see it myself. But the case for him vs Jagr is based on offense, quite clearly. Jagr was more rounded, but Hull is clearly one of the top goal scorers ever -- possibly even #1. Which one you prefer and how you view Hull's WHA years will go a long way to giving you your answer on this comparison.

Harvey was an outright stud. Top seven defenseman? Slam dunk top 5, with 2-5 hard to separate, in my opinion. But we're looking at a d-man who was pretty stout offensively before Orr popularized it, and if you allowed me to take one shutdown defenseman from any point in history, I'd take him on that alone, but then I get his offensive contributions too? Heck yeah. In a perfect dream scenario, I'd love to put him on a blueline with Orr. There's a reason he dominated early Norris voting, and he was a very strong Hart contender, despite the fact that he know how hard that sell is.

I'd also throw Hasek in as a tough comparison for Jagr in my opinion, though as you say, comparing goalies and skaters is crazy tough. But Hasek was so dominant for so long that he has to rate very high for me. And honestly, his playoff record isn't half bad when you consider that he actually got the Sabres to the Stanley Cup Finals.

After that, things are much more in the air for a while. Honestly, I'm not so sure that the gap between 5 and 20 isn't smaller than the gap between 4 and 5, which really says a lot about the guys at the top. It also means that while there are certain players I'm willing to put some level of dogmatic force on my feelings concerning them and the neighborhood in which they should rank, it becomes far, far less comfortable to do so.

Won't answer your post in full since frankly I can get on board with most and it seems well thought out enough. Also I am about to watch Sweden vs Russia.

I will say though that to me Harvey get's zero credit for being stout offensively "before Orr popularized it". To me Eddie Shore was Harvey 10 years before Harvey, Lidström was Harvey but better(Let's say Harvey was slightly better defensively which I don't agree with but still Lidström more than makes up for it offensively and in this comparison Lidström actually played on worse teams for a change), I rank Bourque ahead of Lidström so there's one more and I would also have Potvin firmly ahead.

So he is at best 6th for me Orr, Bourque, Shore/Lidström/Potvin are all ahead in my book. Then you have Robinson and Fetisov who I rank pretty much interchangeable with Harvey. Anyhow he is way below top 10 totally for me and frankly I am not sure any dman besides Orr and Bourque would make that list. And even then I am not 100% sold on Bourque being there.

Regarding Hull I find it weird so many claim that Ovechkin passed him as a goalscorer but still somehow he should be ranked top 5 of all time but I digress might just be different criterias I guess.

When it comes to Beliveau and Jagr I think we can agree to disagree, I don't find it insulting to rank him above but I personally can't. Simply put one Art Ross is not five, being similiar to Howe is not being Howe and matching Richard doesn't really mean much to me when comparing to the all time greats. Not to mention Jagr arguably got the second greatest longveity of all time for forwards.

Sure Beliveau got the cups but I see players regulary being punished for playing on great teams, except for the old Habs players in their cases it seems like their legacy is collectively and individually enhanced while someone like Lidström(or even Sakic) get's punished for playing on deep teams. Not to mention I am of the firm belief that Jagr played in a much more competive era.

As for the sentiment that the gap between 4th and 5th is larger than the gap between 5th and 20th I agree with the caveat that, again, goalies are very hard to judge in relation to skaters.

 

[Professor What]

Won't answer your post in full since frankly I can get on board with most and it seems well thought out enough. Also I am about to watch Sweden vs Russia.

I will say though that to me Harvey get's zero credit for being stout offensively "before Orr popularized it". To me Eddie Shore was Harvey 10 years before Harvey, Lidström was Harvey but better(Let's say Harvey was slightly better defensively which I don't agree with but still Lidström more than makes up for it offensively and in this comparison Lidström actually played on worse teams for a change), I rank Bourque ahead of Lidström so there's one more and I would also have Potvin firmly ahead.

So he is at best 6th for me Orr, Bourque, Shore/Lidström/Potvin are all ahead in my book. Then you have Robinson and Fetisov who I rank pretty much interchangeable with Harvey. Anyhow he is way below top 10 totally for me and frankly I am not sure any dman besides Orr and Bourque would make that list. And even then I am not 100% sold on Bourque being there.

Regarding Hull I find it weird so many claim that Ovechkin passed him as a goalscorer but still somehow he should be ranked top 5 of all time but I digress might just be different criterias I guess.

When it comes to Beliveau and Jagr I think we can agree to disagree, I don't find it insulting to rank him above but I personally can't. Simply put one Art Ross is not five, being similiar to Howe is not being Howe and matching Richard doesn't really mean much to me when comparing to the all time greats. Not to mention Jagr arguably got the second greatest longveity of all time for forwards.

Sure Beliveau got the cups but I see players regulary being punished for playing on great teams, except for the old Habs players in their cases it seems like their legacy is collectively and individually enhanced while someone like Lidström(or even Sakic) get's punished for playing on deep teams. Not to mention I am of the firm belief that Jagr played in a much more competive era.

As for the sentiment that the gap between 4th and 5th is larger than the gap between 5th and 20th I agree with the caveat that, again, goalies are very hard to judge in relation to skaters.

I wasn't trying to suggest that Orr was the first to play offensively as a defenseman, and you can even predate Shore. Just in NHL history, Harry Cameron was charging from the blue line from the get go. Still, it was Orr that popularized it. And while Harvey wasn't unique in contributing offensively the way he did (and let's not forget Red Kelly in there either), it was far from common.

As far as defensemen go though, as I said, numbers 2-5 are incredibly hard to separate for me, and that goes a long way to why I feel the way I do about 5-20 being so close. But Harvey, Lidstrom, Shore, and Bourque can go in any order. Kelly, Potvin, Fetisov, and Robinson are next tier for me, but at that point, I don't think we're talking top 10 candidates anymore, so they're less relevant to a discussion of Jagr, if we're going on a shared assumption of him being ranked highly.

As for the number of Cups, I'm far, far less interested in that than I am how much a player contributes to his team's quest for it. So, Beliveau won 10. Great, but not really as relevant as some claim. If it's that important, then Henri Richard is the GOAT. What I do care about is that Beliveau was an outstanding playoff contributor. I'm firmly opposed to awarding or punishing a player for playing on good or bad teams. I do my best to rank them where I think their individual accomplishments place them. Sure, playing on a string team helps, but a guy who holds a lot of responsibility for them being so good should get credit for that.

Ultimately, I'm not so worried about Beliveau getting only one scoring title when I look at the completeness of his game. Losing to Howe? No shame. A lot of the other winners during his time were overwhelmingly offensive players nowhere near Beliveau's defense. And that 40 goal scorer thing is still incredible. It's also worth noting that Ovechkin only has once scoring title, despite the fact that he's in the conversation for greatest goal scorer of all time.

For the record, I don't think it's insulting to rank any player above another as long as there's a rational, well-thought behind it, and there are always going to be those disagreements. Good thing too, since we'd have nothing to discuss otherwise.

I absolutely agree with you on the Hull vs. Ovi thing. The strongest argument for either of them is where they rank among goal scorers. Personally, I don't see either of them cracking g the top five.

 

[Boxscore]

Jagr hated being hit nonstop. Chris Therien of the Flyers gave Jagr fits because he took the body on him all game long and it drove Jagr crazy--he'd go back to the bench, shake his head, and look all frustrated with his red cheeks.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Jagr hated being hit nonstop. Chris Therien of the Flyers gave Jagr fits because he took the body on him all game long and it drove Jagr crazy--he'd go back to the bench, shake his head, and look all frustrated with his red cheeks.

Hal Gill was a Jagr nemesis also.

Maybe he just had trouble with guys that were bigger.

 

[hacksaw7]

Claude Lemieux was a big user of the heavy slapper from anywhere. It was bombs away at the net...and it's surprising how much it would go in since he was never known as having among the hardest shots in the league