Messier Leadership Award nominees

[puckhead]

Lidtrom, Doan, and Chara


congratulations, Lidstrom.
also, I fucking HATE the name of this award.

 

[dash]

Lidtrom, Doan, and Chara


congratulations, Lidstrom.
also, I fucking HATE the name of this award.

lol...Why no Canucks up for this award?

 

[Automattic]

This should be the Sakic/Yzerman award.

 

[Automattic]

This should be the Sakic/Yzerman award.

The Sakerman.

 

[quoipourquoi]

This should be the Sakic/Yzerman award.

Messier is kinda significantly more important in the historical sense than either...

 

[4thstreet]

Lidtrom, Doan, and Chara


congratulations, Lidstrom.
also, I fucking HATE the name of this award.

I agree with you.This is obviously for 1994 as he sure as hell didn't lead the canucks anywhere,or the Rangers in any other years.

Why did the NHL make up this bullshit reward for him?

 

[quoipourquoi]

I agree with you.This is obviously for 1994 as he sure as hell didn't lead the canucks anywhere,or the Rangers in any other years.

Why did the NHL make up this bullshit reward for him?

Yeah, what a douche for only winning the Stanley Cup 6 times in 11 seasons in a 20+ team league.

And for the record, my favorite statistic in hockey, courtesy of another poster:

Vancouver ('97-'98 to '99-'00):
With Messier: 71-103-33; .423
Without Messier: 7-24-8; .282

 

[Automattic]

This argument is so easy that I can go out swampstyle.....


The Captain >>> The Messiah



Historical sense? What Yzerman started hasn't came to an end yet.

 

[puckhead]

lol...Why no Canucks up for this award?

because we lead by committee, of course

 

[quoipourquoi]

What Yzerman started hasn't came to an end yet.

Oh, come the fuck on. What Yzerman started? Two words: Scotty Bowman. Bowman got Fedorov to adapt to the his brand of hockey well before Yzerman took to it. The Captain came very close to becoming Alexei motherfucking Yashin.

The Rangers were Messier's team. Ask Mike Keenan and Colin Campbell, and they'll tell you the same. Sadly, we can't ask Roger Neilson (RIP), but we all know what happened when Messier disagreed with his philosophy: He got shit-canned.

 

[puckhead]

And for the record, my favorite statistic in hockey, courtesy of another poster:

Vancouver ('97-'98 to '99-'00):
With Messier: 71-103-33; .423
Without Messier: 7-24-8; .282

yes, he (and Keenan) shredded the team and surrounded Mess with all his lapdogs.
they were shit with him, and obviously worse without him.

the team when he arrived had Bure, Linden, Mogilny, Lumme, McLean.
replaced by the likes Zezel, Klatt, York, Hendrickson, Snow.

made the playoffs 6 of 7 years before he arrived. 0 of 3 years with his 'leadership', one more hangover year of missing, and since then have made then 8 of 10 years.
there is a very good reason we refer to messier's time here as 'the dark years'.

 

[4thstreet]

Yeah, what a douche for only winning the Stanley Cup 6 times in 11 seasons in a 20+ team league.

And for the record, my favorite statistic in hockey, courtesy of another poster:

Vancouver ('97-'98 to '99-'00):
With Messier: 71-103-33; .423
Without Messier: 7-24-8; .282

I,m not slamming his accomplishments as far as goals and assists.

I find it hard to name a "leadership"award after him when he "led"the Rangers and Canucks out of the playoffs most years.His best years were in Edmonton.

If you're going to name a leadership award after a player,I would go with Beliveau,Gainey,Yzerman or Sakic before Messier IMO.

 

[DaBoltsNIsles]

Messier is kinda significantly more important in the historical sense than either...

How so? He captained a loaded Oilers team to the Cup after the Gretzky trade. He captained a loaded Rangers team with many ex- Oilers to a Cup.

Yzerman played on a very bad team for a very long time. Messier played second fiddle to Gretzky & Kurri for a long time.

I'm not saying Messier wasn't a terrific player. I just think he was a bit overrated.

 

[DaBoltsNIsles]

Oh, come the fuck on. What Yzerman started? Two words: Scotty Bowman. Bowman got Fedorov to adapt to the his brand of hockey well before Yzerman took to it. The Captain came very close to becoming Alexei motherfucking Yashin.

The Rangers were Messier's team. Ask Mike Keenan and Colin Campbell, and they'll tell you the same. Sadly, we can't ask Roger Neilson (RIP), but we all know what happened when Messier disagreed with his philosophy: He got shit-canned.

Scotty Bowman is the most overrated coach in NHL history as far as I'm concerned. He coached unbelievable teams in Montreal. Took over a Penguins team that was absolutely loaded & was outcoached by Al Arbour the year Montreal won the cup. He took over a Red Wings team that was loaded for bear as well. Yet he still found a way to be outcoached as the Wings lost to San Jose in the 1st round.

In fact it can be said that those two losses were quite possibly two of the biggest upsets in NHL playoff history.

 

[Darkstone42]

You know, I have a suggestion.

Instead of debating after whom the award is named, perhaps we should discuss the candidates.






Besides, we all know it'll be renamed the Crosby Leadership Award in a few years.

 

[quoipourquoi]

made the playoffs 6 of 7 years before he arrived. 0 of 3 years with his 'leadership'

And by 6 of 7, you mean that they missed the playoffs the year preceding Messier's arrival because they had already started to decline, yes?

They would've made the playoffs in 1999-2000 had he not been injured. They were 4 points out, and he missed 16 games (during which the Canucks were 3-9-4). The team was improving under their new core, whereas they were winning fewer games each season from 1993 onward under the old guard of Linden and McLean.

1993: .601 WPCT
1994: .506 WPCT
1995: .500 WPCT
1996: .482 WPCT
1997: .470 WPCT

An overhaul of the roster was necessary. Firing Tom Renney was necessary. Granted, Bure would've been nice to keep - and it would've lessened the rebuilding time - but him leaving after holding out in 1998-99 was all on the old Canucks management:

From the archives: Why Pavel Bure wanted out of Vancouver | http://communities.canada.com/theprovince

But Linden and McLean? They were a part of the problem.

McLean was shit, and outside of a glorious playoff, he had been shit since 1992, the only non-lockout year in his career in which he had a save percentage above 90%. In 1997-98, he went 6-17 on the Canucks, until Irbe managed to salvage some of the post-McLean-trade season (14-11).

Trading Linden got you Jarko Ruutu, Bryan McCabe, and Todd goddamn Bertuzzi. You should have been sending Mark Messier and Mike Keenan a Christmas card in the 2000s when the West Coast Express was in operation (Alexander Mogilny for Brendan Morrison, by the way), because they had enough foresight to know that Linden was expendable for a young power forward.

The Dark Years for the Canucks turned them into the team they were from 2001-2004. If Messier doesn't come in and alienate the locker room long enough turn that roster upside down (and ride-off like John Wayne at the end of The Searchers), you and Linden and McLean would have been middling in the Northwest in the new millennium, putting up a respectable 70-75 points and getting curbstomped by the offense of Iginla and Sakic twelve games each year.

Zezel, Klatt, York, Hendrickson, and Snow?

Try Bertuzzi, Morrison, Jovanovski; and the drafting of Sedin and Sedin. Rebuilding has its perks.

I find it hard to name a "leadership"award after him when he "led"the Rangers and Canucks out of the playoffs most years.His best years were in Edmonton.

He missed the playoffs only once in the first 18 years of his career. Most player's careers don't last that long. No other forward has played in as many playoff games as Mark Messier.

On a per-game basis, Wayne Gretzky scored more in the regular season than he did in the playoffs. So did Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman, Marcel Dionne, Ron Francis, Phil Esposito, Jaromir Jagr...

Even if we only look at those first 18 years of his career, Mark Messier scored more in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. He's the only player in the Top 10 scoring charts to have improved offensively when the games mattered more.

That's why he gets a trophy.

He captained a loaded Oilers team to the Cup after the Gretzky trade.

5th best team in a 21 team league, playing without home-ice in the Finals. They were no more loaded than a 7th overall team in a 30 team league.

The only reason one could mistake them for being loaded was because they had that year's Hart Trophy winner.

Messier played second fiddle to Gretzky & Kurri for a long time.

If Gretzky and Kurri weren't scoring, Messier and Anderson would play first fiddle without pause, hence people's utter lack of surprise when Messier started contending for Harts/Art Rosses/Lester B. Pearsons on the first line.

If Gretzky and Kurri were scoring, Messier would break his fiddle on the other team's players for the greater good of the Oilers - and tell the referee to fuck himself if he called a penalty.

You know, I have a suggestion.

Instead of debating after whom the award is named, perhaps we should discuss the candidates.

And I suggest people stop taking shots at Mark Messier (as if he didn't rock everyone's shit) whenever his name comes up. I hate Bobby Orr and think Ray Bourque had a better career, but I keep my damn mouth shut.

...I may have said too much.

 

[dash]

I hate Bobby Orr and think Ray Bourque had a better career, but I keep my damn mouth shut.

...I may have said too much.

Oh you better believe you said too much...Friggin blasphemy.

 

[SLY]

I hate Bobby Orr and think Ray Bourque had a better career, but I keep my damn mouth shut.

...I may have said too much.

My brain can not compute this post. Must be a typo or something.

 

[Automattic]

Oh, come the fuck on. What Yzerman started? Two words: Scotty Bowman. Bowman got Fedorov to adapt to the his brand of hockey well before Yzerman took to it. The Captain came very close to becoming Alexei motherfucking Yashin.

The Rangers were Messier's team. Ask Mike Keenan and Colin Campbell, and they'll tell you the same. Sadly, we can't ask Roger Neilson (RIP), but we all know what happened when Messier disagreed with his philosophy: He got shit-canned.

YASHIN!? (I should stop here)


KEENAN!?

CAMPBELL!?

That's quite a respectable list you have going there....
----------

Who cares who bought into Bowman's system first? It's not like Fedorov stuck with it or anything.

----------
Players still talk about and try to emulate Yzerman in Detroit. (who also happened to lead a team to overachieve this year too)

I don't know what the fuck they talk about in New York.

 

[SLY]

YASHIN!? (I should stop here)


KEENAN!?

CAMPBELL!?

That's quite a respectable list you have going there....
----------

Who cares who bought into Bowman's system first? It's not like Fedorov stuck with it or anything.

----------
Players still talk about and try to emulate Yzerman in Detroit. (who also happened to lead a team to overachieve this year too)

I don't know what the fuck they talk about in New York.

Nasty Italian sauage at MSG and rats? And those douchebags in pinstripes.