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

[Gorskyontario]

He's sub ppg in the playoffs.

So is Steve Yzerman. Your point? Or are you just nitpicking Jagr and making things up?

 

[The Panther]

In the 94-95 season Lemieux missed the entire year. In 00-01 he only played 43 games. I really hope he dominated Jagr inoint totals during that stretch.

I thought it was obvious that I was referring to 1995-96 and 1996-97.

In the 43 games you mention in 2000-01, Jagr outscored Lemieux.

(All of this is secondary trivia to the actual point I was making, of course.)

 

[The Macho King]

So is Steve Yzerman. Your point? Or are you just nitpicking Jagr and making things up?

McDavid has blown by Yzerman too?

 

[Gorskyontario]

McDavid has blown by Yzerman too?

Jagr was a great playoff performer, no amount of lies or misinformation will change this.

 

[Michael Farkas]

What was the expansion talent pool?

The question we run into expansion is



I tried rather bluntly to point this out a few years ago:
Team 1968 vs Team 1980

In 1968, the AHL/CHL/WHL didn’t have enough scoring talent for one NHL team, let alone 6. The NHL wasn’t 100% efficient at getting all of the top talent to play in the league, but they got most of them.

You looked at the Top 20 scorers in the WHA and were disappointed. Take a look at these guys and be sad that you think the 1966 AHL was better than the WHA:
1966-67 AHL Leaders

Some of them weren't even invited to the NHL when there was a doubling of jobs.

As for Blaine Stoughton and Eddie Joyal, if we’re saying that Eddie Joyal is elite when he’s 20th in in points in 12 team league, why is Stoughton not when he’s 22nd in points and 6th in goals in 1981-82, in year 3 of the post-merger? He drops to 36th in points and 15th in goals in 1982-83. In 1983-84 with only 23 goals around the trade deadline, he loses his spot to a bigger, younger, faster Sylvain Turgeon – who was 19 and wouldn’t have been allowed to play before the 1980s. (Dumping a $200k (maybe $300k?) contract was also a key consideration). How was Eddie Joyal, the Wayne Gretzky of the class of 68, better than that?

Blaine Stoughton has a hard time in 1984, because once his scoring touch is gone, he's expendable. If he'd been around in 1972, someone would have taken a shot at him. After all, the elite Eddie Joyal is hanging around with 21 points in 70 games and a -43. Since 44 points in 68 games was enough to get Stoughton banished to the AHL, I'm willing to bet 1972 Eddie Joyal doesn't make the 1984 NHL, but 1984 Stoughton probably finds a job in the smaller 1972 NHL. (I mean if young Stoughton leads the Maple Leafs in playoff scoring in 1975, and saves their bacon against the Kings, why wouldn't a more accomplished Stoughton get a shot?)

The reason why the top scorers from the WHA are the ones that are chosen is because the WHA was a hollow league full of incomplete, one-way players primarily.

The AHL is a development league. The guys that can top the charts there might actually be AHL lifers. Quad-A players etc. So, there isn't an analogy to be made in that respect.

Right now, it's pretty fair to say that the AHL is the second best league in the world - or at least is heavily in the conversation. And even right now, there are guys near the top of their sheet - Rocco Grimaldi, T.J. Tynan, Chris Terry, etc. that just aren't NHLers.

The WHA was intending to challenge for the top league in the world...it responded with a Summit Series of its own, it invited Euro pro exhibitions, it tried to challenge for the Stanley Cup, etc.

In the meantime, Pete Mahovlich having an 11 point season in the AHL in 1967 won't register here...but he becomes a multi-time 100 point scorer in the NHL.

I'd be willing to bet on anything with these two players once we do an actual talent evaluation because there's just no way to contort the numbers around...no silver bullet, no shortcuts here.

18 year old players found success in the 1980s NHL?

Good.

They probably still could have succeeded in the 1970s NHL, but the league minimum was 20-years old. The lack of teenage success in the pre 1980s NHL wasn’t because of a superior on-ice product, it was because the NHL was blocking the participation of teenagers by rule.

Fair, but not completely true. There were times in the 70's (particularly in the second half) that teenagers could play. Also, up to 1970, players could play if they were good enough (Orr).

When teenagers were eligible, they only infiltrated poor teams. But all right, fair enough...

Barrasso winning a Vezina is part skill and part good fortune. He was good. But he also played on one of those 6-8 teams that almost always had good GAA numbers. Buffalo was 1 PPOA away from facing the fewest PP chances against in the NHL. The goalies on winning teams were in a 2-man rotation, and didn’t put up big numbers (Fuhr’s 30 wins led the NHL). If you believe this Norris fella, Barrasso played slightly easier minutes than the league average, while Bob Sauve played harder minutes, which also exaggerated the gap between Barrasso and his backup. BUFFALO SABRES GOALTENDING HISTORY: YEAR-BY-YEAR

The 1980s NHL had access to talent pools that did not exist in the expansion era.

They had access to younger players.

They had access to European players and a new American talent stream. 0 Swedes and Finns were in the NHL in 1968, and unlike Australia, they have managed to produce a ton of NHL-calibre talent.

They had an unusually strong cohort of players starting to play that shortened the careers of all those guys with 1950s birthdays by outcompeting them, with the best of the 79-84 generation continuing to be high end players into the late 1990s.

When there were 30 North American teams in 1976-77, that debuting cohort had 12 players make it to 1986-87: 1976-77 NHL Debuts | Hockey-Reference.com (11 there + Morris Lukowich from the WHA).

When there were 21 teams in 1979-80, 38 debuting players made it to 1989-90, and 22 were still playing the year after the last of the 76-77 guys (Carlyle) was gone. 1979-80 NHL Debuts | Hockey-Reference.com

From here: How inflated were Bobby Hull WHA stats?

The 1980 Whalers made the playoffs fair and square, without a special expansion division. The 1981 Edmonton Oilers also managed to sweep the 1981 Montreal Canadiens. The Expansion 6 didn't win a series until the 1974 Flyers won the Cup.

The 1982 Nordiques would go to the conference finals. The 1983 Oilers go the Finals, and the 1984 team wins the Cup.

Again, by the equivalent point in time the 1968 teams hadn't won a playoff series.

The Jets...were in the wrong division after 1981 to help me out in this argument. Although again, look at the credit Mike Liut gets for turning around the Blues and imagine what WInnipeg could do if they were able to land one of the 3 good WHA goalies instead of getting the Blues mediocre backup Ed Staniowski.



Yep. And the 1968 expansion gave us a half of a league full of Chebaturkins.

That's why 40 year old Howe is a 100 point scorer. Records fall, and they all fall to the old guard.

In the early 1980s, none of the stars sets a significantly better personal best, (except for Mike Bossy.)

There was a Gretzky and a Howe and a Nilsson in the WHA. And if they were able to keep future Pearson-winner Mike Liut, future Jennings winner Pat Riggin, and future 1982 Cup Finalist Richard Brodeur, (or even Nilsson for that matter) they'd have likely done a lot better collectively as a regular season threat. Would they not be Bures, instead of Chebaturkins? How many Expansion 6 players won the Hart or the Pearson or any other significant trophy?

In year 4, Bill White became the first non Original 6 player to make a post-season AS team, in 1972. At the equivalent point, the 1982-83 First All-Star Team consists of Mike Bossy, Pete Peeters, and WHAers Gretzky, Messier, Langway, and Howe, with Michel Goulet on the 2nd team.

Why not also look at WHA talent that came in earlier as well? Rejean Houle was a good enough two-way forward they played him with Gainey and Jarvis. John Tonelli was a contributor to an 1980 Isles that won the Cup against a team that former WHA-er Ken Linseman led in points. Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson helped turn the Rangers into contenders.

All of them are better than Gord Labossiere.

After all, there were plenty of one-way talents in the 1970s NHL too. A lot of those guys couldn't score at all.

The average team scores 209 goals in 1967. That goes down to 206 goals in 1968. Was the league about the same in quality or perhaps slightly better defensively? Of course not.

In 1968 every O6 team is at 209 GF or more. The E6 teams are between 153 goals and 200. Because East teams play each other more often, the awful Red Wings are the worst defensive team in the NHL. Against the O6, it's almost 80s level scoring against the Wings: 3.82 GF/G for O6 teams. The other half of the league? 2.75 GF/G, with 4 of 6 teams at 2.5 goals per game or under.

There's a n illusion of good defense in that E6 vs E6 games are low scoring. They usually get blitzed by O6 teams. But because they can't even score on each other, the overall league GPG goes down.

While the later 1979-80 expansion would see the new guys have enough scoring talent to score on bad existing teams, the 67-68 expansion saw AHLers enter the league who exhibited negligible scoring skills.

As the Sea Captain might say, "Aye. Not a Bure in the bunch."

Despite a huge advantage for WHA teams coming into the league - because they kept a fair amount of their players...especially compared to teams starting from complete scratch. The WHA teams in 1980 had the same record as the "blitzed" 1968 expansion teams.

E6 vs. O6 40-86-16 (.340)
WHA4 vs. "established" NHL 66-134-40 (.358)

(established = removed WHA teams, plus expansion Col and Wsh).

Edmonton is the same from '80 to '81, Quebec improves. But both Hartford and Winnipeg get even worse the next season.

But, again, a minor leaguer like Labossiere isn't the measure here. Not to mention, Labossiere couldn't make the O6 league on even a bad team. Then was kicked around by E6 teams to no real success...couldn't really crack the E6+ league either. Then, well past his prime, immediately becomes a top 10 scorer in the WHA in his mid 30's.

The whole "AHL gave birth to [#7 d-men] and not [high-end scoring talent]" is a tricky one...no matter how you slice it, it's not directionally accurate. The goal of development leagues isn't solely to produce goals. It's to produce NHL caliber players.

That expansion gave us the aforementioned Mahovlich, Bill Goldsworthy, Andre Lacroix, etc.

I guess before this goes any further, it might be worthwhile to do a reality check or a "is it worth it?" check...

Let's say that the quality of the NHL today is a 10 out of 10. And let's say that in the condensed league of the mid 60's, it was a 9 out of 10.

Where do you roughly feel like 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, respectively, fall on that scale?

I'm just trying to figure out if we're really coming from that great of a distance apart...

 

[Michael Farkas]

Norm Ullman is vastly overrated. I'm proud if my various hate posts did anything to keep him out of the Top 100.

I think we might have inadvertently worked together on this one though...I have a lot of anti-Ullman posts in those threads...

Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 1

Normie Ullman...so, I already had thoughts on Ullman...the last two days, I wrapped up work, and I put on some playoff games of him in his prime while working out and, man, I still don't see it...I don't know, boys...I know he has a quadrillion points, but he's just not a difference maker for...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

I think in 30 years people will see McDavid ahead of Lemieux. Obviously people can think whatever they want with a subjective “who was better” standard but Lemieux will have been roughly 60 years ago by that point and the further it goes the more he gets overshadowed by Gretzky in historical senses.

Will it elicit howls of rage from anyone besides Pens fans if I say Id be totally okay with dropping Lemieux out of the big four in favour of maybe Hasek/Roy?

Am I too hard on Lemieux? I just dont see him as a true great for winning as much as putting up numbers.

In 208 games. He's sub ppg in the playoffs. Even setting aside his latter years, he is well below his regular season numbers.

Two things:
-All scoring drops by something like 30% from regular season to playoffs. Being PPG in the playoffs is a huge achievement, especially when your prime spans the DPE
-Something like 10-15% of those games come after his age 40 season, which is rare for anybody not named Howe or Selanne.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I just dont see him as a true great for winning as much as putting up numbers.

And the proposal is to replace him with Hasek...?

 

[Crosby2010]

I still find the netting behind the nets unnecessary and it is more of a barricade in between the fans and the players than protection. Less pucks are caught and used as souvenirs. And before someone says "Well, go say that to Brittany Cecil's family".................well, I'm not going to do that obviously, but nearly a century of NHL hockey had no one die from a puck into the stands. It didn't need to go to that drastic of a measure. There are plenty of seats where you can sit where you'll never get a puck and plenty where you could have (and to an extent still can). The visibility is hampered a bit from the netting too. Okay, send your pitchforks my way!

I might be a fan of the Leafs and a lifelong hockey fan who knows the game but for the life of me I cannot grasp the fuss over Matthews' supposed strong "two-way" game. I almost had a stroke when I heard he was a finalist for the Selke trophy this year. Sorry, even liking the Leafs I can't see how he is great defensively. He certainly wasn't in the playoffs. Marner I get, but Matthews? No.

I don't know if this is controversial or not, but I still emphasize how for the most part the teams that win the Stanley Cup have a stronger contingent of Canadian players than Americans/Europeans. Three of the 4 teams left in the playoffs have a lot of Canadian contingent and I don't think that is an accident. Nor do I think the Canucks this year losing in the playoffs was a shock because of their lack of Canadian boys. Okay....................fight me!

 

[MadLuke]

In 208 games. He's sub ppg in the playoffs. Even setting aside his latter years, he is well below his regular season numbers.

Jagr had the best PPG in the playoff during his prime, scoring got quite hard

95-01 nhl playoff ppg, 30 games or more

Jagr....: 1.23
Lemieux.: 1.22
Lindros.: 1.14
Sakic...: 1.14
Forsberg: 1.14


I think some I do not how or why, you are Lemieux-Jagr-Francis loosing to the Turgeon less Islanders, Panthers, does not look good, you need to make it work regardless is not a indefensible position.

But Jagr playoff ppg look quite good, from 91-93 maybe not superbe, but 8 powerplay points is not normal for a scoring star forward, his even strength scoring look really good he simply was not usually on the first pp unit.

Obviously Sakic-Forsberg maybe play a larger percentage of their games in the last 2 round when scoring get harder and can be considerer the 1-2 playoff scorer of that era (and play way more games, when ppg is close go with the large volume one), without much controversy, but Jagr does not look bad at all here.

 

[WarriorofTime]

By the mid-90s, Lemieux's allergy to the defensive zone definitely impacted his team's ability to win more Cups. And of course his lack of personal availability as well. If you're building team from scratch with anyone in history, both are pretty impactful. Cancer is mentioned a lot, but the back injuries were more impactful as far as time missed.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I don't know if this is controversial or not, but I still emphasize how for the most part the teams that win the Stanley Cup have a stronger contingent of Canadian players than Americans/Europeans. Three of the 4 teams left in the playoffs have a lot of Canadian contingent and I don't think that is an accident. Nor do I think the Canucks this year losing in the playoffs was a shock because of their lack of Canadian boys. Okay....................fight me!

Well this should be easy to prove empirically or not. I know Anaheim in '07 and Vegas in '23 had a disproportionately high number of Canadian players, but has that otherwise been true? Team like Rangers in '94, Detroit their years and '08 in particular would likely go the other way, and Tampa went back to back with a lead Forward-D-Goalie trio of Kucherov-Hedman-Vasilevskiy. Someone can do a deep dive into this, but I suspect it'd probably be pretty random and vary heavily year to year.

 

[WarriorofTime]

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Post-Cups but Pre-KHL (and return)

Jagr 5th in points (played way less games than the HHOFers above him that played on the best teams of the time period) and with a relatively low 60 GP filter, he is best PPG with only Forsberg close.

His career Playoff PPG is brought down by being 0.51 PPG in an extended 39 game sample when you'd expect him to be retired. It'd be hard for me to think of a 41 year old Jagr playing 3rd line on the Bruins as they got to the 2013 Stanley Cup Final and thinking that is somehow a demerit on his career resume.

 

[K Fleur]

Even though it is treated as such; Save% is not the end all be all of goaltender statistics.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Obviously Sakic-Forsberg maybe play a larger percentage of their games in the last 2 round when scoring get harder and can be considerer the 1-2 playoff scorer of that era, without much controversy, but Jagr does not look bad at all here.

I dug into this here before here but the search function sucks.

Sakic and Forsberg had noticeably higher PPG in the first two rounds compared to the last two. Both also played strong defensive roles. But both (Forsberg in particular) enjoyed weaker defensive matchups.

The Jagr Penguins typically faced stronger teams in round one and two. And he was the sole focus from 1997-2000.

I don't think great is the correct descriptor for Jagr in the playoffs. But he was certainly good and produced about as good as can be expected in the circumstances without Lemieux. I think there are very real criticisms for how the team collapsed in 1993, 1996, and 2001. Which is on Lemieux just as much.

He doesn't have a McDavid 2022, Sakic 1996, Forsberg 2002, Hull 1971, Bourque 1983, Ovechkin 2009, Crosby 2008.

He doesn't lose anything in the playoffs. But he doesn't gain anything either.

 

[MadLuke]

He doesn't lose anything in the playoffs. But he doesn't gain anything either.

That, a good way to put it imo, a bit like Bobby Hull

 

[K Fleur]

Jagr has a lot of big time moments in The playoffs too. No Conn Smythe run but those aren’t exactly easy to have.

Plus he always tortured the Capitals so his resume is fine enough in my book.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I know it's not a long run, but if a player like Ovechkin gets credit for not getting out of the second round, then Jagr should too...

On one leg, with this dog **** roster 1998-99 Pittsburgh Penguins Roster, Stats, Injuries, Scores, Results, Shootouts | Hockey-Reference.com single-leggedly beat Cup favorite New Jersey to save the franchise from moving that summer. That's not bad.

 

[K Fleur]

My most controversial opinion is that I’m starting to come around to @Michael Farkas ’s side on Tim Thomas.

 

[jigglysquishy]

My most controversial opinion is that I’m starting to come around to @Michael Farkas ’s side on Tim Thomas.

He's influenced my opinion on goalies a lot.

Also that every goalie I knew growing up turned into a fat alcoholic didn't help.

 

[Gorskyontario]

Then, well past his prime, immediately becomes a top 10 scorer in the WHA in his mid 30's.

The wha improved in quality as it contracted into the late 70s. In 72-73 the league was at its weakest, was probably roughly a halfway point between the AHL and NHL a year prior. Since only 67(I think) NHLers crossed over. Best ones being Hull, Jc Tremblay, Cheevers.
You also neglect to mention Labossiere dropped to a 50 point player after his first year. I'm assuming due to being bumped down the lineup with the arrival of the Howes.

Just remember, the Jets would have destroyed ANY nhl team, with the exception of the Habs in the late 70s.


Colorado Rockies 1977-78 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com , That is a playoff team in the late 70's NHL. Lol.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yeah, mentioning a 34 year old that got pushed down the lineup becoming a 65-point pace player seemed neither pro my argument nor pro the WHA is great argument...it would make "literally zero sense" to mention it...

I need to "remember" a scenario that you made up in this "outrageous opinions" thread...? Is that serious or are you just having a piss...?

In case it's serious, as you seem to not be the jocular type, the proposal is...

A team that we watched finish as the worst team in the NHL in 1980, who returned:
Morris Lukowich (#1 in goals, #2 in points in '79)
Peter Sullivan (#2 in goals, #3 in points)
Willy Lindstrom (#4 in goals, #5 in points)
Plus, top-4 d-man Scott Campbell, their goalies, Bill Lesuk, Lyle Moffat, got at least some more games out of Bobby Hull...plus some more depth guys that stayed around (or tried, they moved up to a better league and couldn't hang)

Added Lars-Erik Sjoberg to their top 4, added young Ron Wilson, added elite WHA d-man Craig Norwich, added top-end WHA scorer Peter Marsh...in place of Kent Nilsson, Terry Ruskowski, and Barry Long...

A really fair chunk of that 1979 team was still with them in 1980...they went from the champs of the WHA to last place in the NHL (including winning 1 of 4 against a depleted Montreal team). And since we love citing exhibition games in this arena so much...the 1978 Colorado Rockies (the "lol playoff" team) beat Winnipeg that season. That's the team that I have to "remember" a thing that they didn't do and probably couldn't...?

That "literally makes less than zero sense", as one poster likes to say in most posts...

 

[BraveCanadian]

Jagr was a great playoff performer, no amount of lies or misinformation will change this.

Jagr as a (relatively) poor playoff performer is part of the HoH zeitgeist now.

He just had the misfortune of peaking individually when the Pens were a dumpster fire imo.

 

[JackSlater]

Mike Babcock is an underrated coach now. He wasn't underrated at his peak, but he is now. I don't think that the Detroit rosters post-lockout were as loaded as people believe beyond the top three players, and a massive portion of Detroit's success was the way they played and how well verything was executed. 2008 Detroit is the best post-lockout team but it really isn't the best roster. Should Detroit have won more than 1 up from 2006-2009? Yeah, probably, but I don't hold it against Babcock that Anaheim was a beast of a team in 2007 or that Detroit was riddled with injuries while the NHL moved the schedule ahead in 2009. 2006 easily could have been a Stanley Cup, but it was also an awkward transition year. If someone is judging how well Detroit played with its roster rather than binary Cup results, Babcock looks pretty great.

I'll go more unpopular and suggest that several teams are doing themselves a disservice by not pursuing Babcock, or doing what Columbus did. The way Toronto has turned out also makes Babcock look better, not that he was remotely perfect.

I might be a fan of the Leafs and a lifelong hockey fan who knows the game but for the life of me I cannot grasp the fuss over Matthews' supposed strong "two-way" game. I almost had a stroke when I heard he was a finalist for the Selke trophy this year. Sorry, even liking the Leafs I can't see how he is great defensively. He certainly wasn't in the playoffs. Marner I get, but Matthews? No.

I don't know if this is controversial or not, but I still emphasize how for the most part the teams that win the Stanley Cup have a stronger contingent of Canadian players than Americans/Europeans. Three of the 4 teams left in the playoffs have a lot of Canadian contingent and I don't think that is an accident. Nor do I think the Canucks this year losing in the playoffs was a shock because of their lack of Canadian boys. Okay....................fight me!

I don't think that these are really outrageous in that most people know that Matthews isn't actually one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL and have noticed that a lot of the best teams have invested in getting heavier/harder in the playoffs. American development seems to have changed, in that I think a lot of old school American defencemen/forwards would have filled those roles before. For now Canada is producing most of those players but at a diminishing rate, which is part of the reason that they are becoming more valuable.

 

[Gorskyontario]

A really fair chunk of that 1979 team was still with them in 1980

Lets be clear. The ultimate form of the Jets was the 77-78 season, before they replaced the hot line with the the Aeros guys(decent layers still).

Please, make a table and prove who the Jets kept after 78-79, and who they lost. Aswell as who retired. They lost most of their good players, either to other NHL clubs, or retirement.
Several Jets players, notably Sjoberg and Sullivan were either old, or had their careers derailed by injury after the WHA.


Please tell me more about how strong the NHL was in the late 70s, where Terry O'reilly lead the 2nd best team in the league in scoring. Lol.

Jagr as a (relatively) poor playoff performer is part of the HoH zeitgeist now.

Anyone who says that is objectively wrong, and I will continue to say their posts make less than zero sense.