Who would still be a star?

[Iain Fyffe]

Worse, the short-shift. No need to pace yourself anymore just go balls-to-the-wall for 30-45 seconds. No need to pace yourself but also no time to be creative: Only time to execute a pre-choreographed pattern that doesn't require time to think, just execute reflexively.

Absolutely. This is one reason I find really old-tyme hockey so interesting (pre-1910 or so); many people figure it must have been boring because it would have been slower on the whole, but there would have been so much more strategy in the sense of deciding when to hit a burst of speed to get around a tired defender, since you had to conserve energy yourself as well. Now it's just all-out, all the time.

 

[Morgoth Bauglir]

Absolutely. This is one reason I find really old-tyme hockey so interesting (pre-1910 or so); many people figure it must have been boring because it would have been slower on the whole, but there would have been so much more strategy in the sense of deciding when to hit a burst of speed to get around a tired defender, since you had to conserve energy yourself as well. Now it's just all-out, all the time.

I still curse Mike Keenan to this day for introducing it when he was with the Flyers and everybody copied it: It's one of the worst things to happen to hockey in my lifetime

 

[Killion]

I still curse Mike Keenan to this day for introducing it when he was with the Flyers and everybody copied it: It's one of the worst things to happen to hockey in my lifetime

Ya, and along with your earlier post, it was Keenan who really ramped up the Short~Shift Game however it had been employed strategically at various times previously. Back in the mid-70's Fred Shero in meeting the Sabres in the Finals used it to great effect in shutting down the French Connection Line. Top lines a decade before Keenan & the 80's were playing 60-90-120 second shifts in some cases. Shero sending out fresh troops every 30 seconds to the French Connections average of 97 seconds. Shock Troop mentality with orders to hit & kill, borderline psycho without taking penalties. Perrault in particular to be given no room, no quarter & to be shown no mercy down the center of the ice.... Clear Gentlemen?... then he'd go write some strange disconnected motivational line on the chalkboard... All You Need is Love or whatever... just bizarre but I digress..... very strange man SP.... yes indeedy...

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

No quarter... then he'd go write some strange disconnected motivational line on the chalkboard... All You Need is Love or whatever... just bizarre but I digress..... very strange man SP.... yes indeedy...

You've got Zeppelin and The Beatles in there but I think he probably quoted Pink Floyd.

 

[Morgoth Bauglir]

Ya, and along with your earlier post, it was Keenan who really ramped up the Short~Shift Game however it had been employed strategically at various times previously. Back in the mid-70's Fred Shero in meeting the Sabres in the Finals used it to great effect in shutting down the French Connection Line. Top lines a decade before Keenan & the 80's were playing 60-90-120 second shifts in some cases. Shero sending out fresh troops every 30 seconds to the French Connections average of 97 seconds. Shock Troop mentality with orders to hit & kill, borderline psycho without taking penalties. Perrault in particular to be given no room, no quarter & to be shown no mercy down the center of the ice.... Clear Gentlemen?... then he'd go write some strange disconnected motivational line on the chalkboard... All You Need is Love or whatever... just bizarre but I digress..... very strange man SP.... yes indeedy...

Shero should have just asked Alice: I think she'd know

 

[Killion]

You've got Zeppelin and The Beatles in there but I think he probably quoted Pink Floyd.

Possibly. One time writing on the board.... A Man with a Dream of pleasure can go forth & conquer a crowd and three. With a new songs measure can trample a kingdom down...... huh?.... so I looked into this, wheres it from?..... lines from a popular but rather obscure 19th Century Irish poet, Arthur O'Shaughnessy, not the lyrics from a track off of Emerson, Lake & Palmers Tarkus or whatever as Id first suspected .... gets weirder though.... seems Herb Brooks in 1980, Miracle on Ice, he quoted O'Shaughnessy in a speech to the players prior to playing the Russians from another poem called Music & Moonlight, "we are the dreamers of dreams".... interesting huh? Quite the coincidence... Not..... So, totally OT I guess but there ya go. More junk for your attic.

 

[Big Phil]

Prove that Harvey controlled the game better. Lidstrom, who was basically a defense-first guy, produced more offensively in raw and adjusted stats than Harvey. Lidstrom is also considered by many to be the most important player in the Red Wings past 4 cups, which featured Yzerman, Fedorov, Zetterberg, and Datsyuk. In fact, he was the only constant superstar in all 4 championships.

Just watch Harvey, that's all. And I think if people consider you the most important player on a dynasty containing Beliveau, Richard, Geoffrion, Moore and Plante that might trump anything else right? I might put Beliveau ahead of him if anything, and even then it's awfully close between those two.

Comparing the top end competition across vastly different eras is highly subjective. Unless you want to claim Canadian hockey has nose-dived to the point that the only reason why there are elite players from other countries now is because Canada is so bad at producing elite players then you'd better accept that having elite players from multiple nations has improved the top end competition. Is that what you're proposing?

I'm proposing that things go in cycles. The 1960s was an easier time to win the Norris than the 1950s or 1970s or 1980s or 1990s. In fact the 1960s is compatable with Lidstrom's era in many ways. There was a constant winner (Pilote), there was notable weaker top end talent than a decade before, the older guys were petering out (Harvey). 2014 is just starting to finally have a deep pool of guys that can win the Norris again. For a while, it wasn't like that. That's what is far more important than what you do by looking up a player's birth certificate. Look at who he was competing against. Lidstrom's best competition was Niedermayer. That lags well behind other generations. It isn't as if he should be discredited by any means because I believe the NHL is still the NHL, but he wasn't matched up against a prime Bourque either. Lidstrom did most of his damage in a 30 team league too, and it is generally a consensus that he'd have much less Norris trophies if he was going against a different era like in the 1970s. This was just a high water time for elite defensemen. The impact Orr had on the NHL and the mobile defenseman is something I think you are underrating greatly.

As I've clearly shown there are more names popping up as we go along, and from different nations which points to additional elite talent coming into the league.

There's certainly been more talent, and more middle of the pack guys. With that you are not wrong, because the law of percentages will show this. But what is telling is that even today you still aren't seeing guys changing hands at the top either. Chara was an all-star in 2004 for the first time and still is in 2014. Weber has been a constant threat. Keith has won a pair already. We don't know the staying power Karlsson or Subban will have. Doughty hasn't yet put up good enough seasons to stay up there but I guess on projection we'd have to assume he could be a constant guy up there. It isn't as if it has all of the sudden gotten harder to win the Norris than 20 years ago, or 40 years ago. How many defensemen in the NHL do you think honestly have a crack at it? I'd say half a dozen or so. Which is pretty consistent with most eras. The NHL is deeper today, but what we've seen is that we have more middle of the pack defenders rather than constant threats for the Norris. Going into this season, if I were to say that one of Keith, Weber, Subban, Chara, Suter or Doughty will win the Norris is this likely going to happen? Probably. You can do that with a lot of eras, you know.

You're the one who said it's the same guys year after year. If you're upset that Iafrate was voted an AS then don't complain to me. Another way of looking at it is he wasn't a threat to dethrone Bourque or Chelios but he did take away an AS nomination from Coffey and Stevens that year.

Yeah, but once though. You see that with a lot of different eras too. A guy will pop up out of nowhere and grab it. Brian Engblom had one in 1982. Bryan McCabe (look it up) in 2004 believe it or not. Barry Ashbee in 1974. Sometimes an unusual guy pops up and gets some recognition because the voters are sick of the same guys in there. This might explain the always popular Iafrate. Not that he had a bad year, but that once in a while even the lower caliber ones can put it together for a season.

First of all, most of the current guys still have long careers ahead of them so I think you'd better be careful pretending you know how good they are because that perception could change a lot as their careers progress.

Secondly, let me guess, you're basing this judgment of current elite defenders being somewhat inferior to past guys on your eye test? Or is it their offensive stats? Good luck with that. It's completely subjective and you'd have just as much luck going to scout an OHL game and predicting how a player would do in the NHL.

Thirdly, I didn't say the current group trumps that past groups, although I think they are deeper (AKA more competition). I think they are very much comparable though at least, not inferior.

We'll see how this current group fares. There is a nice group of defensemen in the NHL now and I haven't seen a core like this in 20 years to be honest. If they compare to the early to mid 1990s core we shall see, but that will be awfully hard to do. I don't see a Ray Bourque in there, or a Coffey. Maybe a Stevens/MacInnis/Leetch type.

And by the way, the likes of Orr, Robinson, Potvin, Park, etc. from a bygone era played a tremendous all around game. Students of the game know this. They were very difficult to play against. It isn't just about offensive stats, although that is part of the equation. Bourque is another name who excelled in every situation. He WAS the offensive catalyst on his team at some times. Think about that, he was a defenseman. So the people who rank these guys high didn't just fall off a hay wagon either. Most actually watched them play.

I like the current crop right now though too. There will be some HHOFers in that group, no doubt. But I would say from the early 2000s up until just recently there was thinner top end competition on defense. This was all a 30 team league too, so it kind of trumps the idea that winning the Norris is harder with the more teams from the more countries there are. This just isn't true. Pronger was always injured, Niedermayer didn't step up until 2004. There was a bit of a lull for a while. That isn't to discredit the Norris over the last 10 years, but it does mean that you should look at the direct competition rather than just the country they were born in.

You're really underrating Lidstrom. His impact on the ice is hard to gauge in any particular season but the league has never seen a player that dominant who so rarely took penalties, rarely got injured, and rarely made mistakes, all while being a workhorse on the back end of a modern day dynasty. He was completely unique and if you didn't watch him every game you wouldn't realize how impactful he really was.

Chelios, who saw Lidstrom first hand, doesn't agree with you either:

And almost everyone who saw both Bourque and Lidstrom play their whole careers would disagree with Chelios. Look, the guy played with him for a decade, he's going to compliment him. Why wouldn't he? Lidstrom is an all-time great. But how you described Lidstrom is exactly how Harvey was, just more controlling. I've seen even Potvin control the pace of the game better than Lidstrom. He just had the puck more often than him. Lidstrom had the better career, because it was longer, but peak value there aren't many who would have passed on Potvin.

 

[Iain Fyffe]

Just watch Harvey, that's all.

As much as a challenge to "prove" Harvey was better is unfair (such as thing cannot be proven, or disproven for that matter), this reply is also unfair. I don't think that, on a hockey history board, you should expect someone to have necessarily personally seen what they are discussing. If we only discuss to what we have personally seen, that's awfully limiting.

 

[danincanada]

Just commenting on durability, and I already said he's the best pokechecker of his generation.

You're just being overly critical of Lidstrom, like usual.

If Roy didn't wear a mask like all goalies pre-Plante and had that equipment he wouldn't have been able to play the butterfly style for fear of taking a million pucks in the face. This would have affected his style greatly.

If Gretzky played in an earlier time he would have been targetted more and would have had to fend for himself. This would have given him a lot of problems and probably more injuries.

See how easy it is to do this? Are we really going to do this to these guys?

 

[danincanada]

I still curse Mike Keenan to this day for introducing it when he was with the Flyers and everybody copied it: It's one of the worst things to happen to hockey in my lifetime

It was bound to happen eventually. It's a sport and winning is the goal. Keenan was just being strategic and smart.

If two relatively equal teams played and one was a 4 line team that took 45 second shifts and went all out each shift and the other was rolling 3 lines that took 2 minute shifts the game would probably turn into a blowout by the end.

 

[danincanada]

Just watch Harvey, that's all. And I think if people consider you the most important player on a dynasty containing Beliveau, Richard, Geoffrion, Moore and Plante that might trump anything else right? I might put Beliveau ahead of him if anything, and even then it's awfully close between those two.

Harvey's offensive stats should be better if he really controlled the game as much as you claim. Lidstrom was defense-first and his were higher.

Lidstrom won the Conn Smythe on a team with Yzerman, Fedorov, Hasek, Shanahan, Chelios, Hull, Larionov, and Robitaille so they are very comparable.

I'm proposing that things go in cycles. The 1960s was an easier time to win the Norris than the 1950s or 1970s or 1980s or 1990s. In fact the 1960s is compatable with Lidstrom's era in many ways. There was a constant winner (Pilote), there was notable weaker top end talent than a decade before, the older guys were petering out (Harvey). 2014 is just starting to finally have a deep pool of guys that can win the Norris again. For a while, it wasn't like that. That's what is far more important than what you do by looking up a player's birth certificate. Look at who he was competing against. Lidstrom's best competition was Niedermayer. That lags well behind other generations. It isn't as if he should be discredited by any means because I believe the NHL is still the NHL, but he wasn't matched up against a prime Bourque either. Lidstrom did most of his damage in a 30 team league too, and it is generally a consensus that he'd have much less Norris trophies if he was going against a different era like in the 1970s. This was just a high water time for elite defensemen. The impact Orr had on the NHL and the mobile defenseman is something I think you are underrating greatly.

I believe these things can encounter cycles, especially when it's one developmental program or nation, but it would be far easier to claim this if the NHL had remained nearly all-Canadian like the O6. When other talent streams appear and produce elite players the cycle theory takes a bit of a back seat.

Pilote won 3 Norris', Lidstrom won 7. Lidstrom was in the conversation from about '96 to '11. That's 15 years and he also had far more success in the playoffs. You are really doing your best to downplay Lidstrom's reign by comparing him to Pilote. It's also very ironic that you name one guy (bolded-Harvey) for enabling Pilote to shine but one guy (Lidstrom) doesn't seem to get the same credit for shining so much in his reign. I could claim these current defenders are only winning the Norris because Lidstrom is gone but that would be silly. It's their time and they are facing their own peers.

Niedermayer was not Lidstrom's only competition. Through the years he faced Pronger, Blake, Stevens, Zubov, Gonchar, Desjardins, and Hatcher in their primes. Leetch was only 2 years older than Lidstrom so he was in his prime. Bourque, MacInnis, and Chelios still had gas in the tank, and Chara, Keith, and Weber were all at the early stages of their primes. Now compare that with Harvey. You can't just point to Kelly and wash your hands of it.

Anyways, enough about Lidstrom...

There's certainly been more talent, and more middle of the pack guys. With that you are not wrong, because the law of percentages will show this. But what is telling is that even today you still aren't seeing guys changing hands at the top either. Chara was an all-star in 2004 for the first time and still is in 2014. Weber has been a constant threat. Keith has won a pair already. We don't know the staying power Karlsson or Subban will have. Doughty hasn't yet put up good enough seasons to stay up there but I guess on projection we'd have to assume he could be a constant guy up there. It isn't as if it has all of the sudden gotten harder to win the Norris than 20 years ago, or 40 years ago. How many defensemen in the NHL do you think honestly have a crack at it? I'd say half a dozen or so. Which is pretty consistent with most eras. The NHL is deeper today, but what we've seen is that we have more middle of the pack defenders rather than constant threats for the Norris. Going into this season, if I were to say that one of Keith, Weber, Subban, Chara, Suter or Doughty will win the Norris is this likely going to happen? Probably. You can do that with a lot of eras, you know.

You're naming far more current guys right now who "have a crack at it" than in Harvey's time. Again, you're just proving my point. It's far deeper now and it's not even debatable. You can assume all you want that Harvey and Kelly would blow this current group away but that's a massive assumption.

Yeah, but once though. You see that with a lot of different eras too. A guy will pop up out of nowhere and grab it. Brian Engblom had one in 1982. Bryan McCabe (look it up) in 2004 believe it or not. Barry Ashbee in 1974. Sometimes an unusual guy pops up and gets some recognition because the voters are sick of the same guys in there. This might explain the always popular Iafrate. Not that he had a bad year, but that once in a while even the lower caliber ones can put it together for a season.

Engblom got more votes than his teammates Robinson and Langway. Just give him credit for that season and acknowledge it for getting the voters attention over those two. It does happen sometimes.

And almost everyone who saw both Bourque and Lidstrom play their whole careers would disagree with Chelios. Look, the guy played with him for a decade, he's going to compliment him. Why wouldn't he? Lidstrom is an all-time great. But how you described Lidstrom is exactly how Harvey was, just more controlling. I've seen even Potvin control the pace of the game better than Lidstrom. He just had the puck more often than him. Lidstrom had the better career, because it was longer, but peak value there aren't many who would have passed on Potvin.

Or maybe Chelios was just in awe of Lidstrom from seeing him first hand and said what he thought from his wealth of hockey experiences? This is the same guy who subtly threatened Bettman's life during the '95 lockout.

You're so quick to dismiss a HOF defenseman's opinion, a guy who played how many years in the league and saw so much. I'd value what he says over anyone on this board.

 

[quoipourquoi]

You're just being overly critical of Lidstrom, like usual.

If Roy didn't wear a mask like all goalies pre-Plante and had that equipment he wouldn't have been able to play the butterfly style for fear of taking a million pucks in the face. This would have affected his style greatly.

If Gretzky played in an earlier time he would have been targetted more and would have had to fend for himself. This would have given him a lot of problems and probably more injuries.

See how easy it is to do this? Are we really going to do this to these guys?

I actually used the goaltending example in my post.

It's no different than the way lightweight goalie pads changed the way a player could consistently make certain types of saves in this generation.

Don't know how you missed it. And you're welcome to dig for a post where I have said that any particular goaltender who played with a mask was more durable than the generation of goaltenders without masks. I don't know that you'll find it.

But that's what you're doing here. You're playing up Lidstrom's durability as something astonishing in comparison to older players when he played in an era that made it easier to play the puck than play the body - while blocking fewer shots than his teammates. And in his later years, he was never asked to play the puck on a dump in, but only receive the puck while his partner takes the hit from forecheckers. It's a credit to the Detroit strategy to protect their best player, but when you start a comparison of durability between Lidstrom and the previous generation, you need to acknowledge the difference in roles and why Lidstrom doesn't get hurt.

 

[blogofmike]

If Lidstrom was competing against greater defenders, he'd win fewer Norrises. 2011 would be the first to go...

 

[danincanada]

I actually used the goaltending example in my post.

Don't know how you missed it. And you're welcome to dig for a post where I have said that any particular goaltender who played with a mask was more durable than the generation of goaltenders without masks. I don't know that you'll find it.

The point is you'd never pipe up in a discussion about Roy and slam him because of the equipment he had. Remember that jersey he wore with the Avs that was about 20 sizes too large?

But that's what you're doing here. You're playing up Lidstrom's durability as something astonishing in comparison to older players when he played in an era that made it easier to play the puck than play the body - while blocking fewer shots than his teammates. And in his later years, he was never asked to play the puck on a dump in, but only receive the puck while his partner takes the hit from forecheckers. It's a credit to the Detroit strategy to protect their best player, but when you start a comparison of durability between Lidstrom and the previous generation, you need to acknowledge the difference in roles and why Lidstrom doesn't get hurt.

I wasn't just comparing Lidstrom's durability with past guys, I was comparing him with everyone. It doesn't matter what style he played, he logged tons of ice-time and rarely got hurt during his 20 year career. The only guy who has an argument over him is Scott Stevens because he had nearly the same durablity and played a physical game. Both were incredibly durable considering their roles.

Lidstrom never played the puck on a dump in? That's quite the claim.

 

[Rhiessan71]

Harvey's offensive stats should be better if he really controlled the game as much as you claim. Lidstrom was defense-first and his were higher.

Ummm...the record for points by a Dman was just over 60 before Orr came along and broke it in 68/69.
Lidstrom played 82 games a season, Harvey played 70.
Harvey's peak was also played during the lowest scoring era.

Or maybe Chelios was just in awe of Lidstrom from seeing him first hand and said what he thought from his wealth of hockey experiences? This is the same guy who subtly threatened Bettman's life during the '95 lockout.

You're so quick to dismiss a HOF defenseman's opinion, a guy who played how many years in the league and saw so much. I'd value what he says over anyone on this board.

When that same HHoF greatly reduced Dman at 40 is a close second to Lidstrom for the Norris while at the same time, at his absolute peak, that very same Dman could only beat Bourque 3 times, twice by the skin of his teeth....then yeah, one can conclude there's a little glad-handing going on.

 

[Iain Fyffe]

Ummm...the record for points by a Dman was just over 60 before Orr came along and broke it in 68/69.
Lidstrom played 82 games a season, Harvey played 70.
Harvey's peak was also played during the lowest scoring era.

It took him a few years to get going, but in the middle of his career, Lidstrom was at the top of the heap of defencemen scoring for a number of years. Harvey was as well, but often behind Kelly and Gadsby. Harvey was more consistently at the top, considering how in Lidstrom's first few seasons he wasn't anywhere near the top.

 

[tinyzombies]

It took him a few years to get going, but in the middle of his career, Lidstrom was at the top of the heap of defencemen scoring for a number of years. Harvey was as well, but often behind Kelly and Gadsby. Harvey was more consistently at the top, considering how in Lidstrom's first few seasons he wasn't anywhere near the top.

Harvey used to drink with my (step) father-in-law and he used to say that he could do anything Orr did and that he had a hard shot, especially with a curve. They discouraged rushing dmen in pre-Orr days as we know. Also, Harvey was a nasty customer to play against (dirty player; and was a boxer before the NHL).

If he had all the treatment modern players have (and cut the drinking), he'd be around 200 lbs. But you can see his acceleration on video, he was an amazing skater. Not sure whether or not he would have chosen to be a dman these days, although it's being said that the trend is going to smaller, skill dmen.

Scotty Bowman has him as the #5 all-time best player, which is a sentimental choice no doubt, but clearly he's underrated. Bowman would be the one best equipped to compare Lidstrom to Harvey or vice versa. I think it's apples and oranges style-wise. Harvey was a physical player.

 

[danincanada]

Ummm...the record for points by a Dman was just over 60 before Orr came along and broke it in 68/69.
Lidstrom played 82 games a season, Harvey played 70.
Harvey's peak was also played during the lowest scoring era.

We've already been through this before but let's do it again.

Harvey (Career):
Raw Regular Season PPG 0.485
Raw Playoffs PPG 0.526
Adjusted Regular Season PPG 0.606

Lidstrom (Career):
Raw Regular Season PPG 0.730
Raw Playoffs PPG 0.696
Adjusted Regular Season PPG 0.770

When that same HHoF greatly reduced Dman at 40 is a close second to Lidstrom for the Norris while at the same time, at his absolute peak, that very same Dman could only beat Bourque 3 times, twice by the skin of his teeth....then yeah, one can conclude there's a little glad-handing going on.

I'll listen to you instead then, how many years did you play in the NHL again? Chelios seems to be the type of guy who has a high opinion of himself but he's always seemed to have a higher opinion of Lidstrom.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

It was bound to happen eventually. It's a sport and winning is the goal. Keenan was just being strategic and smart.

If two relatively equal teams played and one was a 4 line team that took 45 second shifts and went all out each shift and the other was rolling 3 lines that took 2 minute shifts the game would probably turn into a blowout by the end.

the strategy of the canucks, when they were unbeatable in the second half of the '10 season, and through the '11 season: long shifts, playing possum, wear the other team out over the course of entire shifts in the offensive zone, and over the course of games. maintain possession at all costs; only shoot when it's too good of a shot to pass up. usually tight games, even sometimes trailing up to the second intermission, then about mid-way through the third they'd start to run away with the game.

 

[tinyzombies]

"Bowman coached both Lidstrom and the man he is usually compared with in the argument about who was the second-best defenceman of all time, Doug Harvey. It is hard to compare them, Bowman said, because they played in different eras, with Harvey spending most of his Hall of Fame career with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s before finishing up in 1969 at the age of 45 with Bowman and the St. Louis Blues. Those were mostly the pre-Orr years, when NHL coaches did not allow their defencemen much latitude to play offensively.

However, Bowman said, there were similarities in that neither player was caught up the ice, both rarely made the wrong decision with the puck along the blueline and both were skilled passers.

“They controlled the game,” Bowman said. “They both had the same concept: The resulting play they made was not to give the puck away. They made plays. They had the ability to control the game, mainly because of their ability to pass the puck at the right time and play the point.

“When I look at a defenceman, when he gets the puck, what is the resulting play? Does his team keep the puck or does the other team get it? Over 95 per cent of time, when Lidstrom had the puck, one of his teammates got it.”"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/lidstrom-just-a-wonderful-player/article4219768/

----> looks like Scotty is leaning to Lidstrom (even tho he once picked Harvey as the 5th best player to ever play the game...). Then again he is only comparing one facet of their games.

 

[Big Phil]

As much as a challenge to "prove" Harvey was better is unfair (such as thing cannot be proven, or disproven for that matter), this reply is also unfair. I don't think that, on a hockey history board, you should expect someone to have necessarily personally seen what they are discussing. If we only discuss to what we have personally seen, that's awfully limiting.

You can still watch video of the guy.

Harvey's offensive stats should be better if he really controlled the game as much as you claim. Lidstrom was defense-first and his were higher.

Lidstrom won the Conn Smythe on a team with Yzerman, Fedorov, Hasek, Shanahan, Chelios, Hull, Larionov, and Robitaille so they are very comparable.

But does Harvey win a Conn Smythe if they existed? Pretty good chance I would say. I would also point to Yzerman or Fedorov as the biggest pieces of that Wings trio of Cups. I'm not sure anyone overtakes Harvey on the Habs. That says something to you doesn't it?

I believe these things can encounter cycles, especially when it's one developmental program or nation, but it would be far easier to claim this if the NHL had remained nearly all-Canadian like the O6. When other talent streams appear and produce elite players the cycle theory takes a bit of a back seat.

Pilote won 3 Norris', Lidstrom won 7. Lidstrom was in the conversation from about '96 to '11. That's 15 years and he also had far more success in the playoffs. You are really doing your best to downplay Lidstrom's reign by comparing him to Pilote. It's also very ironic that you name one guy (bolded-Harvey) for enabling Pilote to shine but one guy (Lidstrom) doesn't seem to get the same credit for shining so much in his reign. I could claim these current defenders are only winning the Norris because Lidstrom is gone but that would be silly. It's their time and they are facing their own peers.

Niedermayer was not Lidstrom's only competition. Through the years he faced Pronger, Blake, Stevens, Zubov, Gonchar, Desjardins, and Hatcher in their primes. Leetch was only 2 years older than Lidstrom so he was in his prime. Bourque, MacInnis, and Chelios still had gas in the tank, and Chara, Keith, and Weber were all at the early stages of their primes. Now compare that with Harvey. You can't just point to Kelly and wash your hands of it.

Anyways, enough about Lidstrom...

Lidstrom trumps Pilote. That wasn't the point I was making that seemed to go over your head. I was saying that there was a time when there was a bit of a lull for defensemen and the 1960s pre-Orr was one of those eras. I saw the 2000s as one of those eras as well. As you can see, we are naming names like Desjardins, Hatcher, Gonchar, Zubov, etc. None are likely to make the HHOF. This is from 2001 onwards of course. You may as well throw Dan Boyle into the mix. Bourque retired in 2001. Leetch was on the decline by then, as was Stevens. MacInnis was old. That old crew from the 1990s wasn't really in the position to be in the Norris mix year after year. When they all fizzled away it did pave the way for Lidstrom to win some. Now, give him credit, he did win a lot of them and it says a lot. But if you are going to attack other eras even like Harvey's then you have to be fair and realize that Lidstrom had some advantages too. His era wasn't exactly filled with HHOF defenseman, just like Pilote's. No one thought Eric Desjardins was going to win the Norris. Not even his mother. Blake was around for a bit, Pronger when he wasn't injured was around, but especially from 2001-'04 that was a bit of a lull. Post lockout it wasn't much better either. So regardless of what country these guys are born in, it does go in cycles. There was a much deeper pool of elite defenseman in the 1970s and 1990s. Heck, I saw it.

You're naming far more current guys right now who "have a crack at it" than in Harvey's time. Again, you're just proving my point. It's far deeper now and it's not even debatable. You can assume all you want that Harvey and Kelly would blow this current group away but that's a massive assumption.

Harvey and Kelly would be winning Norrises in the 2010s. No question about it. So would Orr. So would Bourque. Bourque won 5 of them against much stiffer competition. Right now, there isn't a defenseman that is at the level of any of them that I just mentioned. It doesn't mean that Keith couldn't win one, it just means that consistently he'd be lagging behind. You act as if I am mentioning anything but all-time great defensemen here.

Or maybe Chelios was just in awe of Lidstrom from seeing him first hand and said what he thought from his wealth of hockey experiences? This is the same guy who subtly threatened Bettman's life during the '95 lockout.

You're so quick to dismiss a HOF defenseman's opinion, a guy who played how many years in the league and saw so much. I'd value what he says over anyone on this board.

All depends when the comment was made too. They were teammates, you are going to talk well of your teammate. I don't think you'll find a lot of people who saw Bourque and Lidstrom's careers objectively and pick Lidstrom. Just saying. Bourque in 2001 was not Bourque in 1987 and he still finished 2nd to Lidstrom.

 

[Iain Fyffe]

You can still watch video of the guy.

That's not the point. If it's so obvious you should be able to provide something more than "if you had seen him play, you'd know."

And what about players for whom there is little or no video in existence? How can we know things about them, and why are these methods not sufficient to establish Harvey's effectiveness?

 

[tarheelhockey]

I think most of us consider Harvey better than Bourque slightly as well.
...
Look at it this way. Lidstrom won 7 Norris Trophies. Harvey won 7. Almost everyone considers Harvey better.

I'm not sure how clear the consensus is on Doug Harvey compared to either Bourque or Lidstrom. In the Defensemen project, which was generally more about who had the better career than who was the better player, Harvey edged Bourque for the #2 spot by only 10 points on a 935-point ballot. Lidstrom and Harvey weren't really held up against one another directly because of the way the conversation played out -- IIRC after the project I started a Lidstrom vs Harvey thread and it ended up much like this one.

That said, even if it's true that "most" consider Harvey > Bourque, it's not by a very decisive margin. And I don't think it's true that "almost all" consider Harvey > Lidstrom, considering how often we see Lidstrom mentioned as the #2 or #3 defenseman of all time.

 

[Rhiessan71]

We've already been through this before but let's do it again.

Harvey (Career):
Raw Regular Season PPG 0.485
Raw Playoffs PPG 0.526
Adjusted Regular Season PPG 0.606

Lidstrom (Career):
Raw Regular Season PPG 0.730
Raw Playoffs PPG 0.696
Adjusted Regular Season PPG 0.770

Yes, we have been through this already and once again you ignore what I actually said and just produce the stats differences.

What part of the League record for Dman scoring was just over 60 points was not understood? A record that Harvey at least got close to.
Lidstrom never came remotely close to the League record, he never even came close to 100 or 90.
With the exception of the PP infested first year after the LO, Lidstrom never even came close to 80. He much more often in the 60 point range.

The slapshot is by far the biggest point producer for Dmen today. In Harvey's day the slapshot was in its infancy, only a small handful of guys could even take one effectively.

Quite simply, it was much harder for Dmen to garner points back then. Teams attacked the offensive zone differently and moved the puck in it differently. It wasn't a cycle game, then up to the point deal going on and Dmen rarely joined the rush.
It was a game that really didn't include Dmen in the offensive scheme.

I'll listen to you instead then, how many years did you play in the NHL again? Chelios seems to be the type of guy who has a high opinion of himself but he's always seemed to have a higher opinion of Lidstrom.

I didn't ask you not to listen to Chelios.
All I asked you to do was look at the facts.
A 40 year old, past his prime Chelios finishes a close second to Lidstrom as the best Dman in the League.
Yet a peak (not even just a prime) Chelios can only manage to narrowly beat Bourque twice and won once when Bourque missed a 1/4 of the season.

Sorry but I'll draw my own conclusions from the facts over Chelios blowing smoke up a teammates ass thank you very much.

And all this talk about Lidstrom controlling a game...he did to a degree but it was NOT in the same class as what Harvey, Orr and Bourque did.
For the umpteenth time, Lidstrom was not a puck carrier and did NOT handle the puck to any where close to the degree that Orr, Harvey and Bourque did.
Lidstrom was a first pass guy that garnered the vast majority of his points on the PP.

There's a reason that at the end of the day Bourque has a better ESGF/60-ESGA/60 and was over-all more effective than Lidstrom despite not being as good defensively.
Bourque had the puck on his stick much more often than his opposition did and much more often than Lidstrom did.

 

[Sentinel]

R71 really hates the Red Wings...