Your Wildly Outrageous (History of) Hockey Opinions...

[WarriorofTime]

I think you are missing the thrust of my point. What I'm disputing is the assertion that 1924-1934 Canada was birthing WAAAAAY more hockey talent than 1983-1993 Canada+USA+Russia+Sweden+Finland+Czechia+Denmark+Slovakia+Switzerland+Germany etc. combined.

Yes, I think people are confused as to what you are saying. If one were to assume that Canada has remained relatively constant in an absolute sense in its outpouring of top hockey talent from 1924-2000 births, it's not necessarily a claim that 1924-1960 Canadian births were rivaled by 1924-1962 births from other countries. More so that 1963-2000 births are facing increased competition because other places have picked up their hockey production. So a player born in 1924-1962 you could almost definitively say "best in Canada, therefore the world", whereas that claim is less strong post that time. So a same level of player may go from 5th to 10th. What this also means is the Number 1 player, who could be Canadian in any event, has less of a separation.

It's also fairly intuitive, consider a sport like soccer played basically everywhere. The chances of one country hogging all of the global talent are nill because there's just too many players coming out of too many places with good infrastructure in place for doing so, that no matter how good any particular country is at producing players and how popular the game is, you'll never see a scenario where 8 or 9 of the top 10 players in the world are from a single country (especially one that is more big to medium size as opposed to very large). This is most severe in a sport like Ice Hockey, where we can observe a 50-year trend of a 93.5 % Canadian league (games played basis) to 42.4 %. League has doubled in size and Canadian players have gone from 400 to 434 (min 1 GP on season), even with a growth in population, junior and minor hockey in Canada.

This is something to consider in era-adjusting and leads to errors in assuming the overall league talent is a relative constant. To make that assumption, you would need to make a large leap that Canada 1924-1962 is noticeably stronger in an absolute sense, and not a relative sense than Canada 1963-2000.

 

[Midnight Judges]

My other hot takes -

• Even full seasons are still tiny sample sizes, and overperformance or underperformance is just as likely to be randomness as it is to player intangibles in any of those samples.

IMO this is common sense.

So often we make claims like Player X had 112 points and Player Y had 109 points, therefore Player X was better, when really a 3 point difference over 82 games is practically nothing and could very well come down to a few hit posts or a few random bounces of the puck.

The range of variance in stats for the same general quality of play is much more than we typically acknowledge.

 

[DitchMarner]

Some hot takes from looking at the top player lists -

• By the time McDavid finishes his age-30 season, I think the top of my list might be:
  1. Gretzky
  2. Howe
  3. Bourque
  4. McDavid
  5. Lemieux
  6. Orr

Just wondering here...

Would having McDavid fourth all-time at age 30 be logically consistent with having Gretzky, Howe and Bourque as your top three?

I mean, you never need to justify having Gretzky first and Howe had a dominant peak and an impressive length of prime as well, but the only way to really get Bourque into the top three is by putting a lot of emphasis on prime/career length, which McDavid will be lacking compared to other greats by the time he's 30.

The way McDavid is going, he should be an obvious top five player by age 32 or so if he doesn't fall off a cliff or get seriously injured, but I'm not sure you can put him fourth all-time at age 30 if you have Bourque ahead of Orr.

 

[Midnight Judges]

A not insignificant portion of which being negative. I guess my hot take is that Lidstrom's peak is ridiculously underrated.

Maybe, but if it is, it also was underrated during his career as he was never a Hart finalist (IIRC he was a Pearson finalist once).

 

[norrisnick]

Maybe, but if it is, it also was underrated during his career as he was never a Hart finalist (IIRC he was a Pearson finalist once).

Correct. The number of times he had teammates slot ahead of him in Hart voting is proof positive that the voters don't know what they are doing half the time. Barring Fedorov in the early 90s.

 

[buffalowing88]

The refs are doing a fine job, maybe better at their jobs than ever. The fans have just gotten whinier and more entitled.

Peak Pronger was better than peak Lidstrom.

Luongos reputation as a goalie took a hit because of how sick everyone was of Vancouver fans pumping him. In the running for best goalie of his generation.

Price isn’t nearly a HoF goalie but had a few excellent years and massive Canadian fan backing.

Bettman is a very good commissioner who has done lots of good for the league. He has also done a lot of work to support Canadian hockey teams. I think there are still a few powerful big market owners that are stalling needed changes like actual revenue sharing from happening which will make the league take off again. At the end of the day he is still an employee of the owners.

I agree to some extent or another with all of your takes but the Bettman one in particular is where I'm most aligned. Fans love to find a public scapegoat to project their anger onto every time something happens in the league that they don't like. Bettman was literally hired to fill this role as one of his many responsibilities. He's been a steward of the game and for the most part has been able to justify the choices he's made. There are many worse commissioners. Not saying he's the best, but he's better than just about anyone MLB has had in the past half century and plenty of his predecessors in the NHL.

I guess my outrageous take is that Ovechkin has no business being grouped with Crosby in the all-time tier discussion. Idk if that's even the case on this board currently but Ovechkin was an incredible goal scorer who just didn't impact the game on the level of Crosby at any point in their careers post 2008. He has the hardware but I would choose Crosby 10 times out of 10.

 

[norrisnick]

I agree with some of these, will probably highlight some later. I will get to one that I don't think I've ever seen before.

Lidstrom was better offensively than defensively.

Only if you count things as defense that aren't actually defense.

 

[DitchMarner]

Adjusting Statistics. I have trouble logically reconciling that concept. Why do we do it? What is the logical and rational explanation as to why we should and how it should be done?

Using a recent example to make my point...

Kucherov just scored 144 points.
Malkin in 2012 scored 109 points, in what is a season very highly valued by most. Many might even argue it's a better season than Kucherov's.

It's just a way of trying to make comparisons between different seasons fairer.

There are different ways to adjust and it hasn't been unequivocally proven which way (if any) is the best, but I think everyone should agree that you have to look at more than just the point totals of two players to decide who was better or had a better season. I think you should obviously look at more than adjusted point totals for two players as well.

In the case of Kucherov 2024 and Malkin 2012:

In raw point totals, Kucherov wins 144 to 109 (difference of 35).

In adjusted points per Hockeyreference, Kucherov wins 140 to 122 (a difference of 18).


I'm sure that as a fan of hockey, you'll acknowledge that as good as peak Kucherov is, he probably isn't 35 points better than peak Malkin. I don't think he's 18 points better, either, and that's why you should be looking at more than actual and adjusted point totals to begin with.


If you compare them based on how they compared to their peers, Malkin has wider gaps over the second and third leading scorers than Kucherov. However, you can argue 2024 MacKinnon and McDavid are better competition than 2012 Stamkos and Giroux. Then you look at the rest of the top five scorers and then top ten and keep going on.


I get that fans of hockey are not necessarily fans of mathematics or logical thinking/deductions and may not want to spend a ton of effort and time trying to answer the question of which of two players had a better season. But I think if you want accurate answers, you have to dig deeper than you may want to.


I try to not be too dismissive of information or different perspectives. In a given thread, I might be strongly influenced by HockeyOutsider and his VsX numbers and expertise and might also value Michael Farkas' conclusions shaped by his visual observations as well as opinions from, say, JackSlater and The Panther. I try to use my own judgement as well, but often I try not to have a very firm opinion unless I've spent a good amount of time trying to answer something and put in a solid amount of thinking and research.

 

[The Macho King]

Jagr is not a top 20 player.

 

[MadLuke]

Malkin had games where he scored 1 point. Or two. Or Three. Or Four. etc
Kucherov had games where he scored 1 point. or Two. or Three. Or Four. etc.
So all those game outcomes were possible in either year - Kucherov just managed to do it more often and more consistently, and ended up with a higher total. ie - better season.

This is one of the strangest rational ever, to prove it what if I told you Kucherov had a 6points game and not Malkin, would that change your opinion ?

Does anyone think Crosby had a better season this year when he score 94 pts than when he scored 89 in 2017 ?

That 37 years old Joe Sakic had a better season when he scored 100pts then when he scored 87 in 2004 ? That was 2 much closer seasons in time.

I am sure we can find people scoring 4 pts in a game in all those season, the debate is not around it is impossible according to some physic law to score 200 goals a season, it is if someone scored 3 one game why not doing the same 80 games in a row...

We have all seen very fast undeniable change in the scoring environment, no one would push back for 92-93 or 06-07 vs 03-04 like that or change in the forward pass rules

 

[blogofmike]

What won't go over well here, and probably would be fine with the majority of fans who wouldn't recognize the name, is my opinion that Doug Harvey is not a Top 5 all-time defender.

I don't see how he's making a Bourque-level impact.

Harvey may have been handcuffed by coaches who didn't want him to rush the puck, but we don't Niedermayer credit for stuff that didn't happen. And given the results, it's hard to complain about Toe Blake's decision-making. From the looks of it, his role on the breakout is to make a very short pass to Beliveau inside of his their own blue line.

Even on the powerplay, he's not really a quarterback in the way we're used to. He tees up the puck for Geoffrion who is actually running the show, which explains why Harvey often has a high share of secondary assists on the powerplay.

He does look like a good defensive player and penalty killer. But it's unclear how much that actually impacts the scoreboard. The Canadiens were just as good killing penalties when Harvey himself was in the box. Upon his departure, the Canadiens go from good to great defensively. The Rangers get better on his arrival, but a lot of that is losing 3rd-string goalie games (1-7-1). The Norris-winning Harvey is outscored within his own team at even strength by defenders Al Langlois(!) and Harry Howell.

 

[frisco]

Peter Forsberg is not a top 100 player all-time.

I'll take Orr, Shore, Bourque, Potvin, Fetisov, Lidstrom, Coffey over Doug Harvey for d-men.

The NO GOAL 1999 Brett Hull goal in triple OT--Game Six vs. Buffalo was the worst call in sports history.

Jaromir Jagr is at least #5 all-time.

1981 Canada in the Canada Cup was the best team ever.

My Best-Carey

 

[sr edler]

I don't have any outrageous or wild hockey opinions. On an unrelated note there's a stage in Super Mario World to SNES named Outrageous but when I was a kid I pronounced it otra-geus.

I don't know if this is outrageous, but I prefer multifaceted goalscoring in front of just standing around sniping, meaning I would prefer guys like Lemieux and Bure in front of Ovechkin and Brett Hull, but to me that's more in line with common sense and doesn't seem wild.

 

[Slats432]

I know I am an Oiler fan but I have always thought of Grant Fuhr as very overrated. The "money" goaltender, and a "wouldn't let the next one in" let in tons of bad goals. If he wouldn't have let in all those bad goals, he wouldn't have had to stop the next one. I thought Fuhr was a decent goalie, but I have often thought that the Oilers would have had the same or better results with Mike Vernon or John Vanbiesbrouck who were both drafted in 1981 as well.

 

[Midnight Judges]

I guess my outrageous take is that Ovechkin has no business being grouped with Crosby in the all-time tier discussion. Idk if that's even the case on this board currently but Ovechkin was an incredible goal scorer who just didn't impact the game on the level of Crosby at any point in their careers post 2008. He has the hardware but I would choose Crosby 10 times out of 10.

So it's just a coincidence that the Capitals were a lottery team when Ovechkin arrived and then went on to win the second most games in the NHL from 2005-2021 with him as the only hall of famer on the roster?

 

[Midnight Judges]

I don't know if this is outrageous, but I prefer multifaceted goalscoring in front of just standing around sniping, meaning I would prefer guys like Lemieux and Bure in front of Ovechkin and Brett Hull, but to me that's more in line with common sense and doesn't seem wild.

Amazing how Ovechkin has accumulated the 3rd most hits in the NHL during his career by "just standing around."

NHL Stats

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[MadLuke]

1) The link between winning and being the best team in a high random-low scoring sport (Soccer is low scoring but low random) like hockey can be exaggerated. Lot of explanation are made just because of result ad-hoc and would be different with a puck bounced in a different way.

2) The myth in 1 that the link is really strong is really important to keep alive, what would be the point otherwise and I have no issue with it.

-----
Franchise ability to be better than another one since the youth club teams system disappear and the drafts system was diminished so much to be close to nill, lot of talks about modern Oilers ineptitude vs Bruins superbe team culture, etc... but how much of it is really true.

Were the 1995-2012 RedWings and Devils incredibly well run, or they happened to have Lidstrom and Brodeur and since they went away just a big nil....

You can hurt a franchise by a blunder of a bad contract, but how much can you elevate it over the median competence these days ?

You can spend a fortune on the coaching staff that does not count under the caps in the NHL vs other sports, but how much coaching can give you an edge in this sport ? Specially how confident than the high paid big name will be the answer (a bit like goaltending... seem a bit of a crap shoot sometime), you can have better installation and play the cap with giant signing bonus like the leafs, but that limited and not better than nice weather and tax system.

 

[Vilica]

Just wondering here...

Would having McDavid fourth all-time at age 30 be logically consistent with having Gretzky, Howe and Bourque as your top three?

I mean, you never need to justify having Gretzky first and Howe had a dominant peak and an impressive length of prime as well, but the only way to really get Bourque into the top three is by putting a lot of emphasis on prime/career length, which McDavid will be lacking compared to other greats by the time he's 30.

The way McDavid is going, he should be an obvious top five player by age 32 or so if he doesn't fall off a cliff or get seriously injured, but I'm not sure you can put him fourth all-time at age 30 if you have Bourque ahead of Orr.

I think you're underestimating the length of McDavid's career already compared to Lemieux. I did caveat to end of age 30 season to give me 3 full years after this one, but even 2 years to 30 kinda works if you squint. By the time of his first retirement at age 31, Lemieux had played 745 games, with 6 Ross, 3 Harts, and 3 Hart finalists (as well as 2 Cups). At the end of this regular season, his age 27, McDavid has 645 games played, with 5 Ross, 3 Harts, and 3 Hart finalists. So I'm really only forecasting 4 playoff runs and 3 regular seasons, at which point McDavid will be pushing 900 games played and possibly 1400 points, if healthy.

If you look at McDavid vs Lemieux age by age (helpfully, they both debuted at age 19), after their age-27 seasons, Lemieux had nearly 200 points more in 80 less games played, but the Penguins had scored about 700 goals more than the Oilers did in their respective time periods.

The other aspect about Orr versus Bourque is that if you wash out 5 Norris apiece as equal (they're not, Orr's were better), you're left with Orr's age 18-20 seasons, plus his age 24 year. Looking at those 4 years historically, you most likely have 1 Norris win (age 24, where even with the missed time Orr wins), 1 finalist (age 20, could win depending on competition), and 2 receiving votes (age 18 and 19, missed time and lack of competition again contributing) compared to Bourque's 9 finalist and 4 4th place finishes. Even with all those extra seasons, I'm still not sure I always rank Bourque ahead.

 

[JackSlater]

I am always surprised at how much people disagree with this, but the better team loses a playoff series with decent regularity. Plenty of Stanley Cup winners were not the best team in the NHL in a given year, and people looking for the playoffs to yield the best team are missing the point.

 

[MadLuke]

but the Penguins had scored about 700 goals more than the Oilers did in their respective time periods.

A bit of a strange choice of words, could you imagine talking about much a quarterback teams scored point in any way negatively about them

 

[MadLuke]

I am always surprised at how much people disagree with this, but the better team loses a playoff series with decent regularity.

To the point I am not sure if they really do, I think which is fair enough to want to define better team as: The one that win the series between the 2. It has the advantage of being grounded in reality, to make the sport more fun and so on.

And not how we imagine it, if we start 1,000 parallel universe, which team won in most of them... Yes Team Canada lost to team Swiss 2-0, but would they play 100 games it is reasonable Canada would win most of them, being controversial is really strange to me.

A team so good it would win a series 75% of the time would still have just 32% of chance of winning the cup...

 

[The Macho King]

I am always surprised at how much people disagree with this, but the better team loses a playoff series with decent regularity. Plenty of Stanley Cup winners were not the best team in the NHL in a given year, and people looking for the playoffs to yield the best team are missing the point.

I guess my take is - I don't care who the best team is, I care about the team that wins.

What you say is somewhat true, but also... I don't care?

On the other side of that, my take is - playoff performance (not results) should matter *a lot* more in player evaluations than they currently do around here. This is to the benefit of some and the massive detriment of others, but sample size be damned, showing up with the Cup on the line means a lot more to me than scoring 4 points against the Sharks in January.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I don't know if this is outrageous, but I prefer multifaceted goalscoring in front of just standing around sniping, meaning I would prefer guys like Lemieux and Bure in front of Ovechkin and Brett Hull, but to me that's more in line with common sense and doesn't seem wild.

Ovechkin was as multi-faceted a goalscorer as it gets if you look at goal charts.

 

[Hobnobs]

I wouldnt call it a belief but more a suspicion that there is "scripting" going on behind the scenes.

Probably a wildly outrageous enough for a thread like this.

 

[DitchMarner]

I wouldnt call it a belief but more a suspicion that there is "scripting" going on behind the scenes.

Probably a wildly outrageous enough for a thread like this.

I mean, there may be to some extent. Not just in hockey but in all sports and a lot of other things as well.

If true, the powerful elites must truly and immensely love the emotional suffering of Maple Leafs fans.