Mike Modano
galaxy27
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so, i've been to one pro hockey game since i've graced this planet with my presence. Dallas against somebody back in the 90s. it was the most fun i have ever had at a sporting event, but i didn't know what the hell was going on. like the first time they called icing i said, "oh that's just terrible that he flung ice in that guy's face with his skates like that." then the guy i was with (who knew hockey) said, "no dude. you can't just unload the puck across the entire rink like that without repercussions." got it.
fast forward to the end of the game. despite the fact that i was a complete neophyte, even i could tell that Modano was the best player on the ice. which takes a circuitous route to my question.
in the grand scheme, just how good was this guy?
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I remember when we drafted him, I bought tons of packs chasing his rookies, and have quite the raw collection of his early cards.
He was phenomenal! Great skater, 100mph slapshot, he could make opponents look inept. He was one of the few players the other team had to focus on at all times.
Unfortunately, he played when "clutch & grab" was allowed, so he was limited by the style of play.
Thanks for mentioning him!!!
I'm not a hockey card guy, but I do have two signed Modano jerseys. I ignored hockey until I moved to Dallas and saw the Stars play, and mostly it was watching Modano that turned me into a fan. He had incredible skills, but mostly he was just an incredibly smart player. He always knew where to be, when to pass, when to shoot. Just how good was he? One of the very best.
In hockey there are always stars, Super stars, and role players.
Mike was a star.
In the grand scheme, he was a star at a level just under superstar. He got you 33-35 goals and 75-85 points every year. Never in contention for any of the big trophies other than Calder (Rookie of the Year). A really good player but his contemporaries were Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Sergei Fedorov, Pat LaFontaine, etc - and those guys were all significantly better.
He was good enough to make the HOF.
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If you just look at offensive numbers in hockey, you aren't getting the entire story.
The guys listed above all played on better teams and several of them had superstar teammates the other team had to focus on.
Modano was really the only superstar on those North Star teams, so the opposition focused their entire game on not letting him beat them.
He wasn't as good as Lemieux, but his overall hockey ability was as good as any of the others mentioned.
Federov also falls into the same category, he is under rated.
The same thing is going on now with McDavid, he's a scoring machine, so he's automatically considered the best.
Watch Kirill Kaprizov sometime. He's basically the Wild's entire team on most nights. If you gave him a center who could finish, Kaprizov would be the points leader, he passes the puck better than anyone not named Gretzky I have ever seen.
He also plays hard in the defensive zone and drives the offense.
Another example is Robertson, GREAT shooter, but not in Kaprizov's class as a hockey player.
It's certainly easy to look at the best goal scorer and say he's the best player, but that is usually not the fact.
Exactly. Modano was never in serious contention for most awards, but most awards are just variations of "scores a lot of goals" with different clothes. The one award that is mostly independent of being a scoring leader is the Selke, and Modano was frequently in serious contention for that. And not for nothing, Modano was a perfectly legitimate candidate for the Conn Smythe in the Stars Cup year, and, had they beaten the Devils, the year after that.
Ahd yes, I saw the shot at Robertson, the guy who has, yes, scored more goals than Kaprizov. And what he's also got more of than Kaprizov are assists, offensive point shares, defensive point shares, and the degree to which he is beating Kaprizov in +/- is astonishing. Is Robertson in a different class of players than Kaprizov? I had thought of them as in the same class, but you may be right; Robertson does appear to be a higher class of player.
Robertson is certainly a DEADLY shooter, better, I would say than Kaprizov in that respect.
In the games between the two teams, I have seen Kaprizov do a lot of things that Robertson doesn't. I think Robertson is somewhat like Bossy, a truly gifted scorer.
In all my 50 plus years of watching hockey, I have rarely seen a guy who plays so well in all phases of the game as Kirill Kaprizov.
Lou Nanne was asked the other day on the radio if the Wild could get the #1 overall pick in next year's draft by giving up Kaprizov, he paused, and said "no". He went on to say that of all the top players in today's game, Kaprizov was the best at winning puck battles along the boards. The guy is awesome.
I would say that both players are superb, Kirill may not quite be the pure scorer that Robertson is. He more than makes up for it by his overall play.
PLEASE don't use +/- in discussions with me.
I normally wouldn't, but when the gap is as HUGE as it is in this case, and the two teams are essentially equals, I think it at least means something. Who is the better defender, Kaprizov or Robertson? There are no great stats for that, but +/- says it's Robertson, and defensive point shares says it's Robertson. Ignore +/- if you'd like, but even if you do, I think you'll struggle to find any evidence that Robertson isn't better. And to describe Robertson as a better "pure scorer" is a little slippery when Robertson has more assists, too. Better to say that Robertson contributes more to scoring goals than Kaprizov does. For Kaprizov to be the better overall player must then mean that he is better at preventing the other team from scoring goals and, as I said, I don't know what your evidence is for that. You may not like the evidence I cited, but you need to tell me what I should be citing instead.
He had 4 top 10 finishes for the Selke, never better than 3rd. With all due respect to Modano, he was never in truly serious contention for that award with Carbonneau, Fedorov, Peca, and Lehtinen around.
Robertson may be a better point producer, but that does not mean he is a better hockey player.
Joe, I remember you touting Krill 2 years before he entered the league. He hasn't disappointed at all. Exciting player with a touch of J Yagr and can control the game. It is so difficult to compare hockey players. Two great players such a Gretzky and Mario didn't play the same way. It's going to suck for these two guys playing in the McDavid era. Theye are not going to win any major individual award. I think you guys forgot the Russian Rocket.
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Doug Gilmour had 127 points in 1992 and won the Selke
And Fedorov had 120 one year while winning it. Sometimes great offensive players are also really good defensively.
Federov was a fantastic player!!!!!!
Very underrated, at least in discussions here.
Kaprizov plays the entire rink. Some players only focus on scoring.
I'll take a guy like Kaprizov over a guy who scores more but lets other guys do the dirty work.
That's no rip on Robertson btw, he's a great player.
When I said the Selke was independent of being a scoring leader, what I meant is that it was independent of being a scoring leader. What I did not say is that it never went to scoring leaders, because that would mean the two things weren't "independent". Sometimes it goes to a scoring leader, sometimes it doesn't; who wins the award appears to me to be independent of whether or not the winner was a scoring leader.
Fedorov was a plus 42 that year for a good Detroit team.
Gilmour was a plus 38 his Selke year with 128 points.
As great as those years were, Bobby Orr was a plus 124 while winning the Norris and Hart one year when his knees were the best they could be.
He was plus 80 a few other years when he was hurting a bit.
He was twice as good as those two.
Easily twice as good. You can’t even put those two in the same sentence as him.
And Wayne Cashman was a +59. Clearly, he was vastly superior to Fedorov and Gilmour.
what you could also have said is that the Selke is dependent on the player being a center because it hasn't been awarded to a winger since Lehtinen. Marian Hossa, the best defender of the previous era, never won it so that should tell you that the award is as about a valuable as a Gold Glove pre-5 years ago.
The requirements are basically - be a two way center, and score at least 60 points a year. Then take the best player from that group, and if he's Canadian and hasn't won it before, chances are he'll get it.
When Datsyuk was running off 3 straight Selke's a decade ago, he was great, at the time, along with Hossa, one of the two best two-way players in the league for a 5 year stretch, but defensively, he wasn't as good as Sammy Pahlsson and a few others and I'm sure no one here, unless you're a Ducks fan, remembers Sammy Pahlsson, or has even ever heard of him. Ottawa fans probably do because the Ducks' checking line (Pahlsson, Rob Niedermayer & Travis Moen) of that era was just as responsible for that Cup as Giguere, Pronger and Rob's brother were. They absolutely smothered any semblance of offense and just killed guys.
Then you have unheralded guys like Marcus Kruger from the Blackhawks run who was technically a 4th liner (making $3 mill a year) most years, and at their peak run would start no more than 25-30% of his starts in the offensive zone yet continually had +CORSI/possession ratings while locking down the opposition's top line center. For a 5 year stretch no one tilted the ice like Kruger. Yet Toews won the Selke one of those years while not even being tasked with the toughest defensive assignments which went to Kruger and his dungeon act. That's not a knock on Toews, he could certainly have handled those assignments, but the point is, he didn't have to. Just like Bergeron doesn't have to handle the toughest assignments now because Coyle & co are handling them. So guys like that get zero consideration from the masses even though they're better than most of the guys who actually won the award. Another unheralded guy would be Andrew Cogliano especially in his younger Oilers/Ducks days.
and Modano was every bit as good as the Yzerman and Sakics of that era (as a whole when factoring in defense). Better skater than both, better defensively than Sakic and Yzerman was garbage in his own end - played no defense his entire career until Bowman tried to trade him to Ottawa for Yashin. Modano had no one on his wing his entire career except grunt guys like Langenbrunner and Morrow and then eventually the end of his career bloated Brett Hull who slopped in off the golf course (seven High Lifes in) 20 minutes before puck drop. Modano only played for defensive slog coaches, and played entirely in the slog era. He wouldn't be Matthews (as a pure goal scorer) or McJesus today, but I'm fairly sure if Modano's prime overlapped with the last 3-4 years of this Stars team with Robertson and Pavelski on his wings, he could have had a Malkin like career (points wise) with much better defense...and Malkin won the Hart and two Art Ross trophies.
When Modano was in his prime in 1996 he played very well when we beat Canada.
He did not play as well as LeClair, Hull, Leetch, Hatcher, Amonte, Tkachuk.
He played very well though.
Mike was a star, but not a super star.
He played well in the 1996 World Cup, but to be honest, he was a non-factor in the final three games against Canada.
Btw, Brind’Amour and Yzerman +4.
Modano +4
Gretzky -6
Messier -5
Coffey-4
Modano stuck at 1499 career games and could have played the last week of the season but his coach, Mike Babcock, intentionally scratched him from the line-up, so he would never make the 1500 game played mark.
This is just one example showing the true character of Mike Babcock.
Many, many players have said that he is an awful human being.
Go look it up.....very interesting.
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Nice to see Modano getting credit for being a fabulous hockey player!
Most people don't understand hockey very well and simply look at goals scored and then assists.
It's incredibly rare to find a player who takes care of his defensive responsibilities, drives play out of the defensive zone into the offensive and is able to both set up his team mates and score goals as well.
Goal scoring is an art not many players have, if they are allowed to focus their games entirely in the offensive zone, they end up looking a lot better than they deserve.
Lemieux was the best I've ever seen, when he wanted to be. Modano was an absolute beautiful skater, but not quite as physical, he would have been unstoppable had players not been allowed to grab him nearly every time he got possession of the puck.
Same as all sports. Things that are easier to count get far more credit than they deserve. Baseball comes the closest to solving tis problem because every play is discrete and has a very small number of moving parts. Even in baseball most defensive metrics are terrible and some absolutely terrible defenders are lauded while some of the best are ignored. The amusing thing is that even the coaches and GMs who should know the best about the less obvious stats have no idea.
Babcock is such a garbage person. He basically destroyed Johan Franzen. Henrik Zetterberg - who likes everyone - hates him.
Babcock when he'd signed on to become coach of Toronto, went to Mitch Marner (a rookie of 19 years old at the time) and demanded that he write out a list of all of his teammates and rank them in order based on their effort. Babcock then went to the players and told them what Marner thought of them.
you can add Tomas Holmström to that list as well. My cousin was at an open skate where Homstrom, coming off of knee surgery and multiple concussions was scooting around, not even on the active roster at the time, red no contact jersey and all that, where Captain Stoneface yelled at him to "skate faster!". Holmstrom, who as you likely know already, was about as slow as a forward could be already, said something to the affect of "are you new here? This is as fast as I go"....then Stoneface started insulting him in front of everyone with fat jokes and all.
There's a reason he hasn't been rehired (not just his personality, also his garbage brand of interference based hockey which is as outdated as Ken Boyardee Hitchcock's).