Lidstrom

[quoipourquoi]

Maybe it's because my main memories of him involve Mario Lemieux making him look silly and his jersey being retired in freaking Colorado, but I don't rank Ray Bourque in that top class. Not top 5. Sure, tops in Boston history. No doubt.

Are you drunk, pix?

For one, Hell yes, he's Top 5 (13-time 1st Team All-Star, 6-time 2nd Team All-Star). Second, Lemieux does that to everyone. Third, "tops in Boston"? ORR! :p

 

[quoipourquoi]

Also Robinson, Harvey...

Yeah, Big Bird was part of the actual Big Three in Montreal with Savard and Lapointe. I'd throw him, Potvin, and Harvey right near the top.

 

[pixburgher66]

Are you drunk, pix?

For one, Hell yes, he's Top 5 (13-time 1st Team All-Star, 6-time 2nd Team All-Star). Second, Lemieux does that to everyone. Third, "tops in Boston"? ORR! :p

I didn't mean THE top in Boston. And I'm not saying he's not in the elite group, just not my top 5 elite group.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I didn't mean THE top in Boston.

Hey, I had to check to make sure you weren't replaced by a body snatcher. :p

 

[pixburgher66]

Hey, I had to check to make sure you weren't replaced by a body snatcher. :p

I mean, Bobby Orr is my #2A for GOAT in general, soooo, hahaha.

 

[dash]

Wait a sec, did somebody actually call Coffey a defenseman?!?

 

[Winged_Wheel88]

Wait a sec, did somebody actually call Coffey a defenseman?!?

Shouldn't this be discussed in Auto's Coffey Talk thread?

 

[quoipourquoi]

Wait a sec, did somebody actually call Coffey a defenseman?!?

We joke, but he was such a good skater, it was only fair that he start his rushes from 20 feet behind the forwards.

 

[Eddie_Shack]

On Bourque: Top five, undoubtedly. He did have a reputation for getting turned inside out on occasion, maybe more than some of the other guys in the top five, but he was for the most part smart, physical, and dangerous enough offensively that opponents spent more time trying to stop him than trying to beat him.

On Coffey: Edmonton stunted his growth something fierce. He spent the first part of his career not having to learn an ounce of defense, being told to just put his foot on the gas and go. He was the perfect player to give the green light, but by the time the 90's rolled around he was obsolete. It wasn't that he was lazy or didn't care about defense, he was just lost. Sure, he could rack up 70+ points still, as long as he had a badass power play and some skill up front to feed the puck to, but if you can't stop a bantam player what good are you in the defense first 90's? He was the right guy at the right time for a long time, then obsolete faster than Betamax.

 

[sherbert1421]

 

[Eddie_Shack]

A little snippet from Matheson's column..

EDMONTON - Where does Nicklas Lidstrom rate among the greats?

I say he’s in the Top 25 players of all-time, which is different than throwing him into a conversation about whether he was better than Ray Bourque or Doug Harvey, with Bobby Orr at the summit of the defence mountain.

Here’s my list of the 25 best players in history:

Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier, Jean Beliveau, Phil Esposito, Steve Yzerman, Rocket Richard, Guy Lafleur, Orr, Lidstrom, Bourque, Harvey, Denis Potvin, Paul Coffey, Larry Robinson, Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Glenn Hall, Mike Bossy, Jaromir Jagr, Brett Hull, Bobby Hull, Joe Sakic and Ron Francis.

There could be lots of debate there, but there’s none about Lidstrom’s place in the pantheon of NHL players. Fortunately, the Detroit Red Wings had Lidstrom for 20 years. The Boston Bruins only had Orr for 10 years, until he dragged his ravaged knees to Chicago for 26 games over two seasons with the Blackhawks.

“Those 10 years of Bobby Orr ... he was the best player in the world. He changed the game,” said Red Wings general manager Ken Holland.

“Nick is going to go down with a handful of the greatest defenceman, four, five or six, but what separates Nick is he won a Norris Trophy at 41. He won Norris trophies when he was 37 and 38,” said Holland, who knew Lidstrom was special through the 1990s, even if he didn’t win a Norris until 2001.

“When we won the Stanley Cup in 1997, (Vladimir) Konstantinov was runner-up (to Brian Leetch). We had Vlad then and Yzerman and (Sergei) Fedorov (up front to get all the hype). Then Vlad had the car accident (a limousine crash which left him brain damaged, his body a shell of his old warrior self), and the next three years Nick was second in voting (to Rob Blake, Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger). But from 1998 until 2011, he was either first or second 10 times,” said Holland.

“And we made the playoffs every year Nick was here. In the finals six times, four Stanley Cups, 233 playoff games. That’s like another three seasons. This is a 20-year-old league now and Nick is twice as old, but I still think in 2012-13, he would have been in the top 10 defencemen.”

“Last year at the 60-game mark, I still thought Nick could play himself in the race for the Norris again, but he got hurt (a hairline foot fracture).”

Holland lived through Yzerman’s retiring because he knew his knee was wrecked, and he had Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg at centre.

Lidstrom is a different story. “When Steve retired, we still had Nick. His retiring leaves us with a hole. Yeah, it’s a crater.”

The Red Wings never use the woe-is-me card, but in the last two years they have lost Lidstrom, the hugely underrated Brian Rafalski (retired), and Brad Stuart, one of their glue guys, their second-pairing hard-nosed veteran, is almost surely going to free-agency on July 1. He wants to be back in California, if possible, because his family has stayed there while he’s played for the Wings. That’s a big gulp.

Lidstrom told Holland he was retiring just before Memorial Day weekend.

“I didn’t say much. I did a lot of listening,” said Holland.

Holland told him to take the weekend, but when Lidstrom said he was following through with his decision because he didn’t have the drive to train anymore and felt his game had slipped marginally, Holland pulled one more card out of the deck. “I saw Chelli (Chris Chelios) and he said he was going paddle-boating with Nick. I told Chelli to take one more run at Nick. Two hours later, Chelli called and said ‘No chance.’ ”

Heard Holland on a local radio show last week... pretty much called Orr the GOAT. It's always interesting to me what GMs and other hockey intel men think of the all time greats.

Nice try with Cheli, Ken... hopefully Chris didn't try to cross-check Nick in the dome when he said no.

 

[higgyfan4]

 

[puckhead]

has anyone mentioned 'class' yet?

 

[dash]

Matheson's top 25 list is pretty good, but the homer in him put Paul Coffey on the list when there are several players who deserve mention before Coffey including the following:

Marcel Dionne, Gilbert Perreault, Vladislav Tretiak, Mike Gartner, Stan Mikita, and Johnny Bucyk just to name a few.

 

[dash]

has anyone mentioned 'class' yet?

Man oh man, nice touch Nick.

Edit: Not that it really matters, but what does a full page colour ad cost in the papers these days? $75 grand? $100 grand? Am I even in the ballpark?

 

[beantownmaniac]

My top 5 d-men all time:

Orr (in my opinion the greatest player all time, period), with Bourque, Lidstrom, Harvey, and Robinson. Potvin is a close 6th.

 

[beantownmaniac]

Maybe it's because my main memories of him involve Mario Lemieux making him look silly and his jersey being retired in freaking Colorado, but I don't rank Ray Bourque in that top class. Not top 5. Sure, tops in Boston history. No doubt.

Mario is 6'4", Bourque 5'11". He did that to a lot of d-men 5 " shorter than him (although Orr could have slowed/stopped Mario). I doubt Mario would steamroll someone like, say Robinson. To use 1 play to judge Bourque's career would be an injustice.

 

[pixburgher66]

Mario is 6'4", Bourque 5'11". He did that to a lot of d-men 5 " shorter than him (although Orr could have slowed/stopped Mario). I doubt Mario would steamroll someone like, say Robinson. To use 1 play to judge Bourque's career would be an injustice.

I was admitting that I let those things determine my personal rankings. I didn't really get to watch prime Bourque, so I can't really judge it anyway.

 

[quoipourquoi]

On Coffey: Edmonton stunted his growth something fierce. He spent the first part of his career not having to learn an ounce of defense, being told to just put his foot on the gas and go. He was the perfect player to give the green light, but by the time the 90's rolled around he was obsolete. It wasn't that he was lazy or didn't care about defense, he was just lost. Sure, he could rack up 70+ points still, as long as he had a badass power play and some skill up front to feed the puck to, but if you can't stop a bantam player what good are you in the defense first 90's? He was the right guy at the right time for a long time, then obsolete faster than Betamax.

He still had a really great 1995. Not every player works in every system though. I still think he's the bee's knees just because of his offensive abilities (138 points in 1985-86).


Top 10 Defensemen
1. The Douchebag
2. Bourque
3. Harvey
4. Shore
5. Potvin
6. Coffey*
7. Lidstrom
8. Kelly
9. Robinson
10. Chelios

 

[Eddie_Shack]

He still had a really great 1995. Not every player works in every system though. I still think he's the bee's knees just because of his offensive abilities (138 points in 1985-86).


Top 10 Defensemen
1. The Douchebag
2. Bourque
3. Harvey
4. Shore
5. Potvin
6. Coffey*
7. Lidstrom
8. Kelly
9. Robinson
10. Chelios

I assume you used the asterisk to denote you are either trolling the shit out of me by putting Coffey above Lidstrom, or you had a temporary seizure causing you to type the list out incorrectly.

/if I'm drafting, I take Nick, Kelly, Robinson, and Chelios all above Coffey... but that's just me.