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Who are your 5th -10th best players ever?

bambamcam4ever said:
Plus the guy was a raging alcoholic, which says a lot about the level of play in the league at the time.
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What's your source on that? Not saying that you're wrong, but I've never heard anything about Morenz being an alcoholic while he was playing. (It's well documented that he drank heavily, presumably due to depression, after his career-ending injury).
 
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Prime for prime Guy Lafleur. His 5 year peak was insane with the cups and playoff performances. A lot of guys have better longevity but disappeared in the playoffs when it mattered most. Smoking killed his longevity but peak for peak he was easily one of the best ever seen.
 
GMR said:
Maybe. But then you're moving someone else out. I have Crosby, McDavid, Jagr, Hasek, Roy, and Hull ahead of him. I'm also probably snubbing Beliveau, Lidstrom, Bourque, Harvey, Shore, Richard, and many others besides Ovechkin.

Being #1 in goal scoring is amazing but Brett Hull and Marcel Dionne are top 10 all time goal scorers and don't belong anywhere near the top 10 all time player list. You also have to factor overall skills, team success, trophies, etc.
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admiralcadillac said:
Dionne and Bossy have to be in the conversation
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Marcel finished 2nd behind Howe for all time NHL scoring and held the record for a long time. Had he been drafted by Montreal like he expected to be and not to the LA Kings which was a dead market, the accolades for him would have been over the top.
Dionne also was heavily criticized in his day for taking free agency by fellow players at a time when they didn't understand that making more money is good for the players in general. He finished his career at almost a point a game in his last season in New York but was pushed out because of his age and salary. He became well off investing in a dry cleaning business at a time when a lot of players had to find a second career in construction when they retired from hockey.
 
Golden_Jet said:
Lidstrom won over half his Norris trophies while Sid was playing.
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That’s true but I would say Lidstrom’s peak years were in the early 2000s. His prime though lasted anywhere from 1997-2008.

2006 was an outlier year for NHL scoring right after the lockout. That would be his best offensive season.
 
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Ray Mercer said:
Prime for prime Guy Lafleur. His 5 year peak was insane with the cups and playoff performances. A lot of guys have better longevity but disappeared in the playoffs when it mattered most. Smoking killed his longevity but peak for peak he was easily one of the best ever seen.
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If the topic is defined in a narrow way (ie "best six consecutive seasons, including playoffs"), an argument can be made that Lafleur is #5 all-time. (Other contenders for that title would include Hasek, McDavid, and maybe Esposito depending on how much you attribute his output to Bobby Orr). The problem is, relative to the the other 10-15 players fighting for spots 5-10 all-time, he has an enormous drop-off outside of that timeframe.
 
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I've never really looked at Lidstroms stats, so today I was surprised to see how dependant he was on the powerplay

Regular season
1160 points, 590 PP (51%)

552 ES points in 1564 games
29 points per 82 point pace

Playoffs
183 points, 111 PP (61%)

72 ES points in 263 games
22 points per 82 game pace
 
bambamcam4ever said:
Plus the guy was a raging alcoholic, which says a lot about the level of play in the league at the time.
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Hockey Outsider said:
What's your source on that? Not saying that you're wrong, but I've never heard anything about Morenz being an alcoholic while he was playing. (It's well documented that he drank heavily, presumably due to depression, after his career-ending injury).
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What hockey player wasn't? Lafleur was a famously a chain smoker and said he only quit when he returned to the league. In the 1980's other stuff started to happen to a host of players.

This is one of the reasons I believe that Fred "Cyclone" Taylor so dominated all of hockey in his day. He was a devout Methodist - a very healthy living person.

We didn't start officially seeing weight lifting until the 1980's (I believe Bobby Hull did it secretly and passed it off as farm work). Wayne only admitted to start doing in after marrying Janet as she was a very active lifter.jh
 
GMR said:
Different positions obviously but Crosby has the Hart trophies and was the face of the league for many years. I agree though that he was no better at center than Lidstrom was at playing defense.
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Fair enough I suppose it's just that I would rank them very close to eachother, same amount of cups, both game winning goals in Olympics, captains of very successful powerhouse teams, more or less impeccable careers but they both simply lack that extra oumph for a slamdunk top 10 of all time for me. Both top 20 for certain.

Just have a hard time ranking Crosby in top 10 when there are like 5-6(if not more) forwards currently in the league you could argue had just as good of a peak and same for Lidström with the Prongers(granted ive never been convinced that Prongers Hart year was any better than the best years of Lidström, even though he did get the Trophy), Potvins etc of the world around.

No problem with ranking Crosby abit above but I just don't see a very strong case for it. Maybe I am just being abit of a Swedish homer I suppose although I usually don't consider myself one so that's why I was interested in hearing another point of view.
 
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Video Nasty said:
Say what now?
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Howe winning the Lindsay. They were on the famous "Production Line" together with Alex Delvecchio.

There was quite a talk back in the day to rename the Player's Association trophy after Gordie instead of Lester Pearson.
They named it after Terrible Ted instead because Howe scuttled the union in the 1950's - much to his regret in the next few years. He got played like a chump ala Bobby.

So what I'm saying is, the Player's Association giving Gordie Howe an award would have been pretty ironic.
 
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Sentinel said:
How about you add four retroactive Norrises to Shore? 😉
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You're right, that would be more fair. The Art Rosses aren't that good of a designation either. When looking at old-time scoring leaders, a lot of guys got 2nd in regular season points, led in playoff points, etc. Heck, Retro-Rocket Richard Trophies could have well been counted. I was simply going by @Video Nasty's terms of the three trophies he mentioned as apparently most important for him. The purpose of the table was just to get a rough idea of where McDavid stands compared to the old-timers using Video Nasty's criteria. A better comparative analysis would consider a lot more trophies, dominance versus peers, multiple narratives from those who saw them play, and perhaps even video evidence.

By the way, I added Crosby to that table on page 2.
 
Hockey Outsider said:
If the topic is defined in a narrow way (ie "best six consecutive seasons, including playoffs"), an argument can be made that Lafleur is #5 all-time. (Other contenders for that title would include Hasek, McDavid, and maybe Esposito depending on how much you attribute his output to Bobby Orr). The problem is, relative to the the other 10-15 players fighting for spots 5-10 all-time, he has an enormous drop-off outside of that timeframe.
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I agree but I’m of the opinion that longevity is slightly overrated. If my life is on the line and I need a win there’s very very few that I would consider taking above a prime Lafleur. The man always delivered when it mattered most and was the leader of the greatest team of all time in my opinion. He was an absolute natural and the way he went about it was electrifying.
 
The Shadow said:
Messier was such a POS and would never be anywhere near my top guys list.

He wouldn’t last a season in the league now with how he played. He injured a lot of guys with cheap shots and these blatant attempts to hurt guys. Modano is one of many examples

I respect a guy like Sakic 100 times more who respected his opponents than I ever would messier.
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I get what you’re saying but respecting a player doesn’t make that player any better or worse than the next guy.
 
I said this via PM yesterday but reposting here:

Oof, this is such a hard question. I used to have Beliveau firmly at 5th. In the past few years Crosby has begun to eclipse that position in my mind, which put have him at 5 and Beliveau at 6. The next natural choice is Hull, but then I realize I have no goalie in my top-7 which just feels wrong. So then I put Hasek at 7 and Hull at 8, which feels too low. And then I’m like, how is Ovechkin not over Hull by now? So if he goes at 8, Hull goes back to 9 which feels criminally low. At #10 I feel like there has to be a defenseman, because how am I gonna have only one defenseman in the top-10? I’m a Bourque over Harvey/Lidstrom guy, so he slots in there. And then I see McDavid coming up the ladder and don’t know what I’ll do in a few years.

This whole exercise makes me feel very conflicted :laugh:
 
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