Top 10 Lists: Treat With Care
I peruse the odd sports blog and sometimes I come across some poorly thought out Top 10 lists that rarely seem to stick to any objective criteria when ranking players.
For example, I came across one where the compiler had Mark Messier ranked number 2 and Brendan Shanahan in the top 10.
Yes. I shook my head violently too. I just came back from the hospital. It’s a mild-concussion. I should be fine once the vomiting subsides.
If you’re compiling a Top 10 “favorite” players list then no harm. Knock yourself out. However, you can’t use subjective perception and pass it off as an objective all-time Top 10 list. It’s like wanting your cake and eat it too. It’s like making a Michael Moore movie. All noise and no substance.
You need to be objective lest all sensible perspective be foregone. One way to weed out subjectivity is to consider peak and career value, dominance, NHL All-Star selections (not the game), awards (Art Ross, Vezina, Conn Smythe, Norris etc.) all play a vital role in the equation.
Once you remove personal perspective and look at things from this angle, it’s easy to make the case that Messier and Shanahan (great players no doubt) don’t belong in any Top 10 list.
One of my favorite players all-time growing up was Steve Yzerman and I’ve seen his name also creep in from time to time. Do I think he belongs?
Nope.
The massive, overwhelming consensus “top five” without much debate are: Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux and Maurice Richard. Their cultural and statistical impact on the game is unrivaled.
Numerous players get the nod before the three players aforementioned including Guy Lafleur, Raymond Bourque, Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito, Jaromir Jagr, Doug Harvey, Eddie Shore, Bobby Hull, Jacques Plante and eventually Niklas Lidstrom.
And please no “their great leaders” stuff. Every single one of these players were “great” leaders. That’s hard to quantify and shouldn’t be a reason on its own to mention certain players.
10 Responses to “Top 10 Lists: Treat With Care”
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Actually Yzerman belongs in the top 10 ahead of all those players you mentioned in the bottom list and also he belongs ahead of Gordie Howe. Lidstrom doesn’t belong in the top w25 He is by far the most overrated hockey player of all-time. He has been surrounded by great players his entire career. Without those great players on his team he’d just be slightly above average.
Hello CJ,
Just curious. How exactly should Yzerman be ahead of Howe?
Thanks for taking the time to write.
Yzerman was better in every aspect except fighting. He was better offensively, defensively, and the better leader. The only reason Gordie has more points is because he played in a lot more games than Yzerman. In Gordie’s time goaltenders barely wore any padding and they didn’t wear helmets so it was a lot easier to score in that era. Also remember that Yzerman played the majority of his career with a bad knee.
Thanks CJ.
Well, here’s how I see it. Let’s separate the subjective from the objective. It’s tough to compare two players from different eras. I saw Yzerman play (in the 80s and 90s. He was a personal favorite of mine) but not Howe. Nonetheless, there are some objective ways to measure peak and career values.
Let’s look at accomplishments/awards because this is the only real way to measure it:
Art Ross trophies: Howe 6; Yzerman 0. Yzerman had six top ten finishes and his best result was 3rd in 1989 and then 1990. Howe finished in the top 10 18 times in 26 years! That means he was a top ten player 70% of the time and the best score for a quarter of that. Yzerman was a top ten player 29% of the time and never dominated statistically.
Yes, on a points per game basis Yzerman is slightly better at 1.16 to Howe’s 1.05. Still, you gotta give it to Howe. Besides, Howe could shoot right or left!
Not enough for you, you say? Let’s continue.
Hart trophies for MVP. Howe 6; Yzerman 0. Yzerman has a Conn Smythe but that was introduced in 1965 well after Howe’s peak years.
All-Star selections (not the game but actual selections): Howe had 12 first-team selections and nine second-team. 21 of 26 seasons he was among the very best. 12 of those times he WAS the best. Yzerman but one 1st all-time selection.
Defensively it’s trickier. Early in his career Yzerman was a pure offensive and flashy player (and what moves! He and Denis Savard were great to watch in the 1980s) and it wasn’t until when Bowman did Yzerman become a “two-way” hockey player. With it, he won three cups.
However, Howe was probably the most complete and versatile hockey player ever. Remember, back then there wasn’t all these specialty players. The super stars played PK and PP. So Howe did play defensive hockey and as you point out he was a fighter too. Which of course led to the “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” where a player scores a goal, assist and a fight in a game.
Sure. Fighting is “not” part of the game.
Anyway.
The only trophy that measures this today is the Frank Selke and that started in 1978. Yzerman won it once. And even there he’s not considered the best: Bob Gainey (4) and Guy Carbonneau (3) were. Even Jere Lehtinen has three trophies in this category.
I think that about covers my argument. The defense rest!
And you were saying about Lidstrom? A similar case can be built for Lidstrom. I’m not sure what you mean by “insulated” but he was one of those key players in which the Wings built around. Lidstrom is hands down one of the greatest defenseman ever. Watch him. Observe him. He’s unreal and surreal. I wonder if he was Canadian would people talk more about him. Like Yzerman he’s “quiet and classy.”
What an organization the Red Wings are. I think we can agree on that!
Take care.
Hope to see you around here soon.
Oh yeah. Forgot. Howe was part of the one of the greatest Wings dynasties that rivaled the great Montreal Canadiens winning four cups. He was so great, subjectively speaking, he managed to outperform one of the all-time greats in Maurice Richard. Wonder Y was never able to outshine Gretzky and Lemieux.
Maurice Richard is no where near as great as Mario and Gretzky. Howe wouldn’t have outshined those two.
As for trophies, they are meaningless because they are subjective and don’t always go to the right player. Too often the right player will get overlooked because he plays for a bad team. That’s what happened with Yzerman. Also he played with that bad knee for most of his career so that prevented him from winning trophies.
Lidstrom and Howe are my favorite players but that doesn’t make me blindly rank them ahead of Yzerman. Yzerman was the better player. He is the best Red Wing player of all-time. It’s a shame his accomplishments are looked down so much because he didn’t win trophies or he wasn’t the best player in the league. Those are really silly reasons to knock a player’s accomplishments and to keep him out of the top 25 or top 50.
Another thing there are hundreds of players that have won more trophies than Yzerman. I think even Draper has a selke and more awards. I guess they should all be ranked ahead of Yzerman by your criteria, right? So that would mean Yzerman isn’t in the top 100.
CJ,
I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree.
I don’t think it’s “blindly” putting them ahead. I think their careers speak for themselves.
Yzerman wasn’t “shafted” out of any trophies as you imply. Besides, how do you argue the all-star selections? I don’t know how old you are, but I even remember Stevie Y getting cut from Team Canada during the Canada Cup - which made people wonder.
Draper has no Ross/Harts/Conn. I don’t think that was a good player to use. You measure greatness against your peers.
I chose Richard because he was a contemporary. Some people swear that Orr, Richard or Howe were the greatest ever.
I agree that sometimes trophies don’t always go to the “right” player but that’s more the exception than the rule. You can’t say they got it wrong EVERY time with Howe and that, conversely, NEVER got it right with Y. And it’s hard to “quantify” how important a leader and superstar Yzerman was. I think we agree there. It’s just how he ranks we disagree.
Ironically, I think you’re using more subjective value. The onus is on Y (and his supporters) to prove he’s ahead of Howe. I lied I never saw him play. I remember him with the Hartford Whalers!
Last, ask any pundit. How many would choose Y over Howe? Few if any, I bet.
Hey, this is fun. Thanks.
It is blindly put them ahead because they are your favorites and they don’t belong there. Yzerman’s numbers are better than Howe’s that is really the only true measure. Yzerman’s point-per-game is better than Howe’s and remember Yzerman did that with a bad knee for the majority of his career. It’s hard to compare defenseman to forwards, but again I look at the fact that Lidstrom has looked terrible when he doesn’t have an all-star defenseman playing next to him. He needs to have a strong partner with him or he just isn’t good. There are more times that awards and all-star selections are wrong than they are right. Yzerman did get robbed of some Hart Trophies and even a conn smythe. I used Draper because he is closest to Yzerman when it comes to awards. They have won just about the same amount of awards. Like I said, there are hundreds of players that have more awards and all-star selections. Would you put Draper and all those hundreds of players who have more awards and all-star selections ahead of Yzerman? I know Yzerman’s resume is not as impressive as Howe’s or Lidstrom’s or the hundreds of players, but to me that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve watched Howe, Lidstrom, and Yzerman and Yzerman was the best out of all of them. Remember Howe is my favorite and then Lidstrom.
Lol, I don’t have “favorites.” Thanks for keeping it civil. Let’s agree to disagree and hopefully we’ve started enough of a debate to let others chime in with their thoughts. Take care.