<< <i> The fact that you don't even realize Housley's second all-star team selection is voted upon by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season and not the fans tells me your knowledge of the game simply isn't that extensive
it means I put about as much weight into the voting of the PHWA as I do the majority of the members of the BBWAA. In the 80's & 90's - pre-Internet feeds/NHL Center Ice/Cable Sportsnet packages, like yourself, in all likelihood, the non-Buffalo, or the non-Winnipeg writers saw Housley play in roughly 0.1-0.5% of his career games. That doesn't mean you/they can't have their opinion, it just means the vast majority of them saw about as many of Housley's games per year as Reds' BBWAA writer Hal McCoy watches the Padres play (6 games) each year before placing his MVP/Cy Young/ROY vote. Besides, if the Islanders and Rangers voters don't care about their voters, why should I? >>
No, it actually means when you're proven to be wrong and have lack of knowledge you constantly "shift the goal posts" in an attempt to avoid some perceived embarrassment. Because of the discussion we're having here I'm very aware that your hockey knowledge is limited. I'm just piping up because I don't want others to be influenced by your misinformation. In simple terms, if you believe Housley was above average defensively based on GVT calculations you simply don't know what you're talking about. For example, here is a link from ESPN debating his HOF worthiness. And I quote:
Pros Longevity. Superb passer of the puck. Will soon pass Larry Murphy (1,216) and move into third place on the all-time scoring list for defensemen, trailing only Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey. Racked up 60 or more points in first 11 seasons of his career. Is the highest-scoring U.S.-born defenseman.
Cons Has only been past the first round of the playoffs in two of his 20 seasons -- which says as much about the teams he's played on as Housley; still, he's a common thread. Small, highly suspect defensively. Notoriously one-dimensional, no one will ever be accused of nicknaming him "Ol' Blood and Guts." Eddie Shore would be appalled.
<< <i> Seriously, Howe was very underrated. Before he began having trouble with his back in the late 80's he was most likely the 2nd best defenseman of the decade. Next to Coffey, he was the best skater. The main thing was that he was very smart. I really don't recall him having a bad game or really ever getting beat or caught out of position. Those Flyers teams were not stacked with HOF'ers like the Isles or Oilers, yet they put together 100 points seasons and two trips to the finals. Having that stud first pairing anchored by Howe was the key factor in their success. It was because other teams had to wait until Marsh and Crossman stepped onto the ice in order for them to score.
When I said that I think that Howe may have been the best player to play for the Flyers, that was not a casual statement. Clarke won 3 Hart Trophies, but having watched Clarke win those three Harts and Howe play dominantly from 82 through 88, I would choose Howe. Bill Meltzer, who writes articles for NHL.com (Accross the Pond), the Flyers web-site and Hockeybuzz, is one of the best analysts I've ever read and he shares that opinion of Howe.
Oh, and I would take Howe over Federov seven days a week. >>
I agree 100% about Mark Howe. But he wasn't the 2nd best defenseman of the decade behind Paul Coffey. Ray Bourque was the best defenseman of the 1980's. Larry Robinson and Dennis Potvin were still pretty darn good in the early 80's too.
Mark Howe is Not Worthy of the Hall of Fame over Phil Housley, Adam Oates, Dave Andreychuk, Tom Barrasso, and Sergei Makarov. Mark Howe was a Good Defenseman, but a Hall of Fame Level defenseman. Heck Mark Howe should even be in before Doug Wilson. Rick Middleton, Pat Verbeek and Brian Bellows are also should be in the Hall. I thought Rick Martin would go in this year. He should have been selected.
I understand your allegiance to Howe. A class act, a great defensman, and pretty much a guy who went unnoticed in his pre-Philly days.
I don't think you can say Howe was better then Doug Wilson, or any of those other guys. They were all great hockey players. To say that one was better then the other is a little foolish imo. All great players.
for every 8-9 year old grammar fail article from a defunct website by a CalGary columnist who only saw him at the end of his career, there is a more recent example. Since it's an "Insider" column here was the rub
1. Phil Housley Regular-Season GVT: 267.7 Playoff GVT: 14.7
Housley has the highest regular-season GVT of any player not in the Hall of Fame. In era-normalized statistics, Housley is the fifth-highest scoring defenseman in league history, behind only Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey, Al MacInnis and Nicklas Lidstrom. Housley also was important as one of the first major American stars in the league, and set the records for games, assists and points by a U.S.-born player; he still owns the assist record. He played for the U.S. in the Canada Cup/World Cup in 1984, 1987, 1996 and 2002. The one thing that seems to work against Housley is his lack of a Norris trophy, due to the peak of his career overlapping with Bourque, Coffey and MacInnis (he was a runner-up in 1992), Undersized at 5’10” and 185 pounds, Housley relied on savvy, vision, and anticipation to ward off would-be attackers and when they made a mistake, he was there to capitalize in the form of a goal or assist. Scotty Bowman was never shy to use him on the penalty kill due to his knack for eliminating shooting and passing lanes, and altering a forward's path. Whatever the issue is with voters, Housley's career numbers are too impressive to overlook.
Understandably you've ignored the SI article with Bowman's comments regarding Phil I linked to earlier where he compared Phil's skill-set to Park, Potvin, and even Orr. I can see why arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport (who coached Housley in his prime) opinion doesn't matter to you. That's fine. Again, you're not going to change my opinion. I disagree. You disagree and that's fine. You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time. Also it would help your credibility in having a reasonable discussion without continually throwing around "misinformation" and "flawed stats" like others are just making things up. Your opinion is yours. We're entitled to ours, and quite frankly, for the stats guy that you say you are, you haven't backed anything up with relevant stats. You don't buy into GVT, that's fine. Show us something better. Earn yourself an engineering degree or MS/PhD in statistics and go through his career shift charts and scoring sheets. Run the numbers for quality of competition he faced, and his quality of teammates opposed to Howe and Langway. Formulate the Relative +/- for each player...and while doing so create your own model of the CORSI ratings for these players (I'll guarantee you Housley's CORSI trumps both of theirs by large margins). Finally tally their GAON and GFON per 60 minutes using your own models. Then get back to me and using your logic, I'll promptly say your models are flawed simply because I don't agree with them.
With regard to cardsnbeads, if you saw Howe play, did you ever see him in anything other than a Red Wings uniform?
Seriously, Housley over Howe?
yeah George, seriously...and if you're using that logic, how many games did you see of Housley's career other than those BUFF vs Philly games? Zero to one per year. We get it, you're a Flyers fan and saw a lot of the second half of his career. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. It doesn't make it anymore right or wrong than the other 3 or 4 posters who disagree with you. Perhaps instead of throwing up a facepalm emoticon, you can back up your assertion with some relevance. Maybe try to evaluate why it's taken him so long for Howe to get the nod. Perhaps use the leading reason he hasn't gained entry earlier....quality of teammates on those 100+ point teams he played on in 6 or 7 of his years in Philly. You can start by using the - working backwards through +/- example I used on page one where I showed how relevant Jeff Schultz's +50 rating was last year in relation to his piggybacking his quality of linemates. Or maybe you're just asserting Howe was so Lidstrom-esque defensively that it automatically makes up the -141 deficit in goals scored, or the 428-195 deficit in Goals Created, or the -70 gap in PPP, or that Housley basically doubled him up in both even strength goals (202-111) and Game Winning Goals (48-24) between them. These are WHL number inclusive. Howe may have been very good defensively, but there's nothing in the advanced metrics to suggest he was Lidstrom in his own end. Howe deserves the HOF nod, but he wasn't as deserving as Housley.
It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame.
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
True Howe had great years in the WHA, but that was against lesser players.
The guys who always said Bobby Orr was better then Gretzky would say that Orr played against the best in the original six early in his career, while Gretzky played in a watered down NHL in the early 80's.
Orr and Gretzky were both great, but Mario had the best skill set.
Mark Howe was an excellent defensman, so was Housley, but Doug Crossman was not a solid NHL defensmen.
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
True Howe had great years in the WHA, but that was against lesser players.
The guys who always said Bobby Orr was better then Gretzky would say that Orr played against the best in the original six early in his career, while Gretzky played in a watered down NHL in the early 80's.
Orr and Gretzky were both great, but Mario had the best skill set.
Mark Howe was an excellent defensman, so was Housley, but Doug Crossman was not a solid NHL defensmen. >>
Just curious how you can tell that Mario had a better skill set than Orr?
<< <i>yeah George, seriously...and if you're using that logic, how many games did you see of Housley's career other than those BUFF vs Philly games? Zero to one per year. We get it, you're a Flyers fan and saw a lot of the second half of his career. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. It doesn't make it anymore right or wrong than the other 3 or 4 posters who disagree with you. Perhaps instead of throwing up a facepalm emoticon, you can back up your assertion with some relevance. Maybe try to evaluate why it's taken him so long for Howe to get the nod. Perhaps use the leading reason he hasn't gained entry earlier....quality of teammates on those 100+ point teams he played on in 6 or 7 of his years in Philly. You can start by using the - working backwards through +/- example I used on page one where I showed how relevant Jeff Schultz's +50 rating was last year in relation to his piggybacking his quality of linemates. Or maybe you're just asserting Howe was so Lidstrom-esque defensively that it automatically makes up the -141 deficit in goals scored, or the 428-195 deficit in Goals Created, or the -70 gap in PPP, or that Housley basically doubled him up in both even strength goals (202-111) and Game Winning Goals (48-24) between them. These are WHL number inclusive. Howe may have been very good defensively, but there's nothing in the advanced metrics to suggest he was Lidstrom in his own end. Howe deserves the HOF nod, but he wasn't as deserving as Housley. >>
Over the course of Housley's career I probably saw him play approx. 75 games between regular seaso, play-off, Canada and World Cup games. I am not saying that Housley wasn't good, just that Howe was better (definitely peak and arguably career although Housley played longer and had fewer injury impaired seasons). The reasons Howe was not in the HHOF already is that he only had 9 peak seasons in the NHL before injuries impaired both his playing time and effectiveness, he played his first six seasons in the WHA which negates the comparabilty of his stats versus the NHL, and, to at least some extent, the bias against the fact that he chose to start his career in the WHA versus the NHL.
Was Housley a more talented offensive player than Howe? I think so.
But let's look at some stats. I looked at multiple years for both players, but for this purpose, I will look at the players' best PS (Point Shares) from Hockey-Reference.com for Howe it is 82-83 and 85-86 and for Housley it is 89-90 and 91-92. At even strength, in 82-83 Howe was on ice for 40.6% (108/266) of the Flyers' goals for and 34.1% (61/179) of the goals against. (FYI, that season Howe was Lindstromesque in that Howe was +47 and his partner, the immortal Glen Cochrane, was +42. Howe was a 1st team All-Star but was robbed of the Norris due to an infatuation that season to Langway) In 85-86, those stats were 58.2% (142/244) on goals for and 33.5% (57/170) on goals against. Howe was again a 1st Team All-Star but the Norris went to Coffey because he set some sort of scoring record for defenseman or some non-sense.
In 89-90, Housley was on for 44.0 (91/207) for and 42.1% against and in 91-92 38.1% (61/160) for and 37.5% (66/176) against. In 91-92, Housley earned his only post-season All-Star award on the 2nd Team.
Most of the PS and GVT stats are more heavily weighted towards point totals. Housley killed on the PP and was a great quarterback. Howe was good on the PP he didn't play as many minutes as he was used more at even strength and PK, plus the Flyers tended to cycle their back end PP units morre with Doug Crossman and a forward at the point. Housley really did not begin to rack up PK minutes until after his first few seasons in Winnipeg.
Main point is that Howe at peak level was better than Housley as an all-around defensemen. I would take him ahead of Howe on my PP unit but that is all. At even strength and PK, Howe would be the guy.
solid post, and maybe you're right about the "peak" individual years, but a peak generally entails a 8-10 consecutive year run. Not individual cherry picked seasons. If you're going to base this on HR's PS system, let's look at each player's first 10 years of their NHL careers. Obviously Howe will have a huge advantage here since he entered the NHL in his prime at age 24, while Housley was an 18 year old rookie.
Point Shares - 95.1 for Housley, 89.8 for Howe Offensive Shares - 53.7 for Housley, 41.1 for Howe Defensive Shares - 41.4 for Housley, 48.7 for Howe Goals Created Per Game (10 year total) - 3.80 for Housley, 3.04 for Howe
if you were to cherry pick the top 5 years from each player you'd have
Point Shares - 55.9 for Housley, 55.7 for Howe Offensive Shares - 31.8 for Housley, 25.2 for Howe Defensive Shares - 24.1 for Housley, 30.5 for Howe Goals Created Per Game (5 year total) 1.90 for Housley, 1.72 for Howe
So even cherry picking their primes with Housley at a disadvantage over the ten year peak, and not even factoring in Howe's advantage in quality of teammates, Housley still comes out on top aside from the total defensive value which I think we already knew anyway.
"for every 8-9 year old grammar fail article from a defunct website by a CalGary columnist who only saw him at the end of his career, there is a more recent example. Since it's an "Insider" column here was the rub"
As I figured, the ESPN article that clearly states Housley's deficiencies was written by an intellectual incompetent and the ESPN article which you feel is supportive of your case was written by an absolute savant. And if the aforementioned columnist is a "CalGary" guy that means he saw him smack dab in the middle of his career as Phil had his start in Calgary at 30 and played in 11 more seasons from his start with the Flames, not at the end of his career as you state. Well to be fair, I guess, 11 might be a bit of a stretch as he only played four games in his last season with Toronto but he ended off on a "positive" note.
"Phil Housley played one shift last night, and then didn't see the ice again, reports the Toronto Sun. His poor defensive zone coverage in the first two games of this series has led to his benching. Apr 15, 12:44 PM"
"Understandably you've ignored the SI article with Bowman's comments regarding Phil I linked to earlier where he compared Phil's skill-set to Park, Potvin, and even Orr. I can see why arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport (who coached Housley in his prime) opinion doesn't matter to you."
First of all, I didn't notice you posted the link until you made an additional reference. Second of all, upon looking I discovered the article was written on October 25th, 1982, about 20 days days or so into Phil Housley's career. I realize there's never been hyperbole about rookies before (insert sarcasm) and Bowman was responsible for drafting him so he wouldn't have any reason whatsoever to be biased towards Phil's skill set and potential (again, insert sarcasm). I'm sure if you contact Bowman in the present day he'll stand behind his comparison of Housley to Park, Potvin and "even" Orr. Oh, and that three sentence article you linked from from the NYT (written by unknown) is certainly a definitive argument. It could have been written by you for all we know.
"You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time."
I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just trying to point out to the rational people on here that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advanced statistical analysis (e.g. GVT) is not the definitive tool that you pretend it to be, especially for defensemen as illustrated in this case. You state Housley's defensive GVT value was +69.4 and argue this is statistically precise when relating his value as a defensive contributor. If that's the case his career 267.7 GVT value must also be precise. In turn, this means Langway's career 128.9 GVT value must also be accurate. By this mathematical assessment you are determining Phil Housley's career to be 2.1 times (rounding up) more valuable than Langway's. I would be very surprised if you would find many that would chose Housley over Langway as an "all-time" defenseman, let alone to say he was 2.1 times as valuable.
"Earn yourself an engineering degree or MS/PhD in statistics and go through his career shift charts and scoring sheets. Run the numbers for quality of competition he faced, and his quality of teammates opposed to Howe and Langway. Formulate the Relative +/- for each player...and while doing so create your own model of the CORSI ratings for these players (I'll guarantee you Housley's CORSI trumps both of theirs by large margins). Finally tally their GAON and GFON per 60 minutes using your own models. Then get back to me and using your logic, I'll promptly say your models are flawed simply because I don't agree with them."
Quite an arrogant statement to assume you know my level of education. For all you know I may have a statistics doctorate, have spent much time researching GVT and find it to be a flawed analysis. You regurgitate some output data and pretend to be knowledgeable. For you to even think I would waste hours upon hours analyzing input data for you to just "shift the goal post" once again is just silly. If you really want to be able to evaluate players properly you need to refine your biggest weakness, your narrow focus. GVT is not definitive, get over it. You keep harping on the fact that you feel many people have only seen Housley play a very small percentage of his games and are, thus, not qualified to comment on his skill set. How do you think scouts and all others who evaluate potential talent operate? Do you think Scotty Bowman watched every game Housley played before he drafted him and made those comments approximately 20 games into his career? I would estimate he watched the low percentage you continually reference and in your opinion that would make his opinion unqualified.
"yeah George, seriously...and if you're using that logic, how many games did you see of Housley's career other than those BUFF vs Philly games? Zero to one per year. We get it, you're a Flyers fan and saw a lot of the second half of his career."
Oh, and stop using "we" to support your arguments because I don't believe "we" have many people stumping for you in this discussion as of yet.
If the consensus opinion about Housley was that he was an elite offensive defenseman (which he was) and an above average offensive defenseman (which he wasn't) he'd already be in the HOF. And that's all the proof "we" need thus far.
<< <i>solid post, and maybe you're right about the "peak" individual years, but a peak generally entails a 8-10 consecutive year run. Not individual cherry picked seasons. If you're going to base this on HR's PS system, let's look at each player's first 10 years of their NHL careers. Obviously Howe will have a huge advantage here since he entered the NHL in his prime at age 24, while Housley was an 18 year old rookie.
Point Shares - 95.1 for Housley, 89.8 for Howe Offensive Shares - 53.7 for Housley, 41.1 for Howe Defensive Shares - 41.4 for Housley, 48.7 for Howe Goals Created Per Game (10 year total) - 3.80 for Housley, 3.04 for Howe
if you were to cherry pick the top 5 years from each player you'd have
Point Shares - 55.9 for Housley, 55.7 for Howe Offensive Shares - 31.8 for Housley, 25.2 for Howe Defensive Shares - 24.1 for Housley, 30.5 for Howe Goals Created Per Game (5 year total) 1.90 for Housley, 1.72 for Howe
So even cherry picking their primes with Housley at a disadvantage over the ten year peak, and not even factoring in Howe's advantage in quality of teammates, Housley still comes out on top aside from the total defensive value which I think we already knew anyway. >>
I will try to keep this short.
First off, I did look at multiple seasons for both players but for brevity, showed only two. I was trying to cherry pick their best seasons. Second, you missed the sentence that said GVT and PS are heavily weighted toward scoring points. Those will favor players that actually recieved points compared to those that significantly contributed to the circumstances leading to a goal or the prevention of a goal. Third, you missed the fact that Housley was not a primary PK unit defenseman for most of his career. While that does not say he was bad defensively, it does say that his coaches thought his skillset did not lend itself to penalty kiling.
I took a deeper look into my initial analysis of play at EVEN strength. I have a bit of data but will only summarize the methodology and the results. What I did was take the +/- data for the player and his team for that season (GF less PPGF for Net Goals For ["NGF"] and GA less PPGA for Net Goals Against ["NGA"] that provides net +/-). Consequently, you then have that data for when the player was and was not on the ice. NGF/NGA provides a scoring ratio for the team, player and team w/o the player. Winning teams will almost always have ratios over 1::1 (perhaps a team that has at least a 25+ differential in their special teams will be over .500) and losing teams below 1::1. Once I got that data, I kept both the raw spread of their on/off performance and the ratio of the on/off performance. Hopefully the examples below will present in a readable fashion. The expectation at EVEN strength is that a good player will have a higher NGF/NGA ratio than the team has when he is not on the ice. This would apply to a bad team as well. For eaxample if a team gives up one goal for every 0.90 goals it scores then a really good player on that team may have a 0.93 ratio and the rest of the team a 0.88 ratio.
I looked at Howe from 79-80 through 87-88 (nine seasons), Langway from 82-83 through 88-89, Coffey and Gretzky while at Edmonton, Bourque's whole career and Orr from 67-68 through 74-75. Also Housley from start of career through Winnipeg.
Thus, looking at Booby Orr's line, in 1970-71 he was on the ice for 258 Boston goal, 79 were PP goals for a NGF of 179. He was on the ice for 85 goals against, 30 of them while shorthanded for a NGA of 55. His +/- was a record +124 (179-55). Boston scored a total of 399 goals, 80 of which were on the PP for a NGF of 319. The team had 207 GA, 53 of them shorthanded for a NGA of 154 and a team +/- of +165 (319-154). When Orr was not on the ice, the team had a NGF of 140 (319-179) and a NGA of 99 (154-55). At even strength, the Bruins outscored their opponents by 2.071::1 (319/154). When Orr was on the ice, they outscored their opponents 3.255::1 (179/55) and when he was not they outscored their opponents 1.414::1 (140/99). When Orr was on the ice at even strength, the Bruins were 1.84 goals better than when he was not (3.255-1.414) or 2.3x more productive (3.255/1.414).
Thoughts about even strength performance: Coffey was as I expected - very slightly above the rest of the team some years and below in others. He looks good in the other metrics in that his play was directly more than indirectly responsible for goals (goals and assists). It doesn't hide the fact that his team often did better at outscoring an opponent at even strength when he was not on the ice. Housley was similar to Coffey. In this evaluation he only had two seasons that would rank with Howe's two worst (79-80 when he was a forward and 83-84). Of course, those two worst were really good seasons, though. Bourque was amazingly consistent. Only at the end of his Boston tenure did the team perform better with him off the ice. His career spread was 0.373 goals. The nine years I looked at for Howe, his spread was 0.496. Langway was up and down. Amazingly, in his Norris trophy year, the rest of the team very slightly ouperformed him at even strength. However, the Caps were something like 87% on the PK, primarily due to Langway. Howe still should have won the Norris. Orr was simply amazing. Of the group I looked at, other than Howe, he was the only player to have a ratio 2x the rest of the team, but he did it 4 times. His spread for the years looked at was 1.031 goals. Gretzky was also amazing, although his numbers don't jump off the page like Orr's. I think this is because the stats I'm looking at favor defensemen (or at least stud defensemen) in that they typically have more Time on Ice (TOI), can influence the flow of play a bit more and +/- probably underweights ACTUAL points (although I believe to a lesser degree than GVT and PS overweight points). For example, in the 84-85 stats above, Gretzky was on the ice for 249 Edmonton goals. He had POINTS on 208 of THEM!!!
If anyone wants the spreadsheet with the data, feel free to PM me.
Other conclusions: Stats in any form can be deceiving. Observation is better. Howe went unnoticed by the HHOF committee because he didn't score 30+ goals, he played out the last seven years of his career in shortened injury riddled seasons, and the Flyers had good teams without a lot of flash. I would like to look at Doug Wilson, Al MacInnes and Larry Robinson in this method.
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
Some Russians never played in the NHL and are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
True Howe had great years in the WHA, but that was against lesser players.
The guys who always said Bobby Orr was better then Gretzky would say that Orr played against the best in the original six early in his career, while Gretzky played in a watered down NHL in the early 80's.
Orr and Gretzky were both great, but Mario had the best skill set.
Mark Howe was an excellent defensman, so was Housley, but Doug Crossman was not a solid NHL defensmen. >>
Just curious how you can tell that Mario had a better skill set than Orr? >>
It's like comparing a Chick-fil-A sandwich to a chicken sandwich at McDonald's. They're both delicious.
As I figured, the ESPN article that clearly states Housley's deficiencies was written by an intellectual incompetent and the ESPN article which you feel is supportive of your case was written by an absolute savant. And if the aforementioned columnist is a "CalGary" guy that means he saw him smack dab in the middle of his career as Phil had his start in Calgary at 30 and played in 11 more seasons from his start with the Flames, not at the end of his career as you state. Well to be fair, I guess, 11 might be a bit of a stretch as he only played four games in his last season with Toronto but he ended off on a "positive" note.
He played for the Flames in total, a season and a quarter (102 games) in the "smack dab in the middle of his career"...which considering he entered the league at 18, wasn't even the middle. The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career. Regardless, I don't know why you put so much stock in newspaper columnists...or fantasy "writers" which is what Rotoworld is anyway (and really, you had to resort to citing a benching of a player in his final season via a fantasy hockey writer...ok). Unless it's "hard news" like injuries or contract info, why would you read columnists for analysis?...you seem to have a heightened opinion of your hockey knowledge, so what do you need a newspaper columnist (who writes for the casual fan) for?. Team fan blogs have greater analysis than the majority of newspaper columnists. Anyway, no offense, but if you did have a "doctorate in statistics" you'd probably be a bit more computer savvy (what with the spreadsheets and StatMat software and all) and thus, you'd know how to post a hyperlink, or italicize a quote, or more importantly, use just one single relevant statistic so you wouldn't have to use so many macro-level examples such as AS Game selections or some strawman "consensus" fodder while citing articles from the end of star player's career....not to mention, you wouldn't have to resort to sophomoric namecalling, stating individuals "don't have a clue what you're talking about" as the result of one's inability to hypothesize with relevant data to anyone why Howe was so much better than Housley throughout a multitude of posts. Since you know, statisticians are all about data. Curious that you didn't slag off Point Shares too....or perhaps you didn't because George also used them...so they're ok.
Oh, and stop using "we" to support your arguments because I don't believe "we" have many people stumping for you in this discussion as of yet.
it wasn't even written in that manner...but in technical terms we = a speaker or writer and one other person or people. In this case it's at least 2-3 others who agreed Housley was the superior of the two. You don't need to piggyback George. He's stated his case for Howe with relevance and I respect his opinion because at least I know he watched the peak of Howe's career on a regular basis.
If the consensus opinion about Housley was that he was an elite offensive defenseman (which he was) and an above average offensive defenseman (which he wasn't) he'd already be in the HOF. And that's all the proof "we" need thus far.
Ah again, the unsubstantiated "consensus"....and by your logic, at this time last year, Mark Howe who retired 8 years prior to Housley, wasn't worthy of the HOF. <sarcasm>
George
Second, you missed the sentence that said GVT and PS are heavily weighted toward scoring points.
I've already acknowledged that with GVT earlier in this thread. Offensive value is weighed greater throughout the game in general. If it wasn't, Gretzky wouldn't be considered the greatest player off all-time by most fans, Lidstrom would trump Orr, and Dave Bolland would be making more money than Dany Heatley.
Third, you missed the fact that Housley was not a primary PK unit defenseman for most of his career. While that does not say he was bad defensively, it does say that his coaches thought his skills were best used elsewhere.
I never said he was a "primary PKer". I said he was used on the PK. It wouldn't make any sense for a coach to use him on a 1st PK unit. You wouldn't want him out there blocking shots and risking injury on a first unit when his primary value is in his speed/skating/passing/shooting ability. You'd try to bring him out on the final PK shift to help skate the puck out of the zone and transition to offense.
Other conclusions: Stats in any form can be deceiving. Observation is better. Howe went unnoticed by the HHOF committee because he didn't score 30+ goals, he played out the last seven years of his career in shortened injury riddled seasons, and the Flyers had good teams without a lot of flash. I would like to look at Doug Wilson, Al MacInnes and Larry Robinson in this method.
true to an extent, but it depends where the "observation" is coming from. Considering people like Mike Milbury get paid to "observe" and "analyze". Do you care what he has to say in regard to evaluating talent with his track record as a GM? Unless you're Alexei Yashin, probably not. What does Pierre Maguire add with any depth. Every player either has "such a high skill level", or "he's one tough hombre". or "he's all kinds of nasty". If it comes down to where the player is from, or where he went to school, then he's usually spot on. That's his party trick. The stats that are more team oriented are those that have to be weighed with subjection...such as goals against while a given player is on the ice. If the GAON of Howe from the WHA were available, both players would likely be around the same total. If you averaged 90 per season which is about what he was around for a full season in the NHL, Howe would probably have a few more over the course of their respective careers....but you can be Lidstrom, and if the donut that is Steve Mason of the last two years, or a stiff like Brian Elliott or Peter Budaj is sitting behind you, it's not going to make much difference. Lidstrom had a goalie whose basic numbers were under league average in Howard behind him, and that led to a -2 and his second worst Defensive Point Shares of his career yet he still won a Norris. As for the what we've been debating in Housley vs Howe, it comes down to what the difference in value is between the two players' strengths. By either measure of metrics that we've used, Housley's superior offensive ability is numerically greater than Howe's edge on defense (with the acknowledged tilt to offensive value we've already discussed) Really this is the only value that can be argued. Obviously you feel Howe's all-around game made him the superior player, and I think Housley's large edge in offensive ability + his lesser quality of teammates throughout their careers outweighs his deficit on the defensive side.
<< <i> I've already acknowledged that with GVT earlier in this thread. Offensive value is weighed greater throughout the game in general. If it wasn't, Gretzky wouldn't be considered the greatest player off all-time by most fans, Lidstrom would trump Orr, and Dave Bolland would be making more money than Dany Heatley. >>
After the word "thread". you needed a new paragraph and in the next sentence change the word weighed to valued. I would not want to mix a somewhat flawed statistical method with how skills are perceived by fans, coaches, scouts, etc.
<< <i>
Third, you missed the fact that Housley was not a primary PK unit defenseman for most of his career. While that does not say he was bad defensively, it does say that his coaches thought his skills were best used elsewhere.
I never said he was a "primary PKer". I said he was used on the PK. It wouldn't make any sense for a coach to use him on a 1st PK unit. You wouldn't want him out there blocking shots and risking injury on a first unit when his primary value is in his speed/skating/passing/shooting ability. You'd try to bring him out on the final PK shift to help skate the puck out of the zone and transition to offense.
>>
You were arguing that Housley was above average defensively. Most stud defensemen who are above average defensively are 1st unit penalty killers. Did I say most? I probably should have said all.
<< <i> true to an extent, but it depends where the "observation" is coming from. Considering people like Mike Milbury get paid to "observe" and "analyze". Do you care what he has to say in regard to evaluating talent with his track record as a GM? Unless you're Alexei Yashin, probably not. What does Pierre Maguire add with any depth. Every player either has "such a high skill level", or "he's one tough hombre". or "he's all kinds of nasty". If it comes down to where the player is from, or where he went to school, then he's usually spot on. That's his party trick. The stats that are more team oriented are those that have to be weighed with subjection...such as goals against while a given player is on the ice. If the GAON of Howe from the WHA were available, both players would likely be around the same total. If you averaged 90 per season which is about what he was around for a full season in the NHL, Howe would probably have a few more over the course of their respective careers....but you can be Lidstrom, and if the donut that is Steve Mason of the last two years, or a stiff like Brian Elliott or Peter Budaj is sitting behind you, it's not going to make much difference. Lidstrom had a goalie whose basic numbers were under league average in Howard behind him, and that led to a -2 and his second worst Defensive Point Shares of his career yet he still won a Norris. As for the what we've been debating in Housley vs Howe, it comes down to what the difference in value is between the two players' strengths. By either measure of metrics that we've used, Housley's superior offensive ability is numerically greater than Howe's edge on defense (with the acknowledged tilt to offensive value we've already discussed) Really this is the only value that can be argued. Obviously you feel Howe's all-around game made him the superior player, and I think Housley's large edge in offensive ability + his lesser quality of teammates throughout their careers outweighs his deficit on the defensive side. >>
Housley did not have a large edge in offensive ability. In their NHL careers Goals/Assists/Pts per game were 0.23/0.60/0.82 and 0.21/0.59/0.80. Who was who? Looks like a pick'em. You keep saying that Housley had lesser quality teammates. Please elaborate. Aside from 79-80 with his dad and 82-83, 83-84 with tail ends of Sittler, Clarke and Barber, what HHOF'ers did he play with? The teams Housley played on were good teams. The way I was looking at the +/- was defined to evaluate relative to the team itself, not the competition against the team.
The data base for the 2011 is not fully in the Hockey reference web-site, but I will say this based on what I can see. Perhaps Lidstrom this year was not quite so deserving. Overall, the team was a plus and he was a minus. Occassionally subjective awards are not awarded objectively and past perfromance and repution is taken into account.
Also, you never answere whether you saw Howe play in anything other than a Red Wings uniform.
"He played for the Flames in total, a season and a quarter (102 games) in the "smack dab in the middle of his career"...which considering he entered the league at 18, wasn't even the middle."
Actually, he played two stints with the Flames for a total of 328 games. You stated he didn't play with the Flames until the very end of his career, I was simply correcting you because you seem to have no qualms about lying and subsequently deflecting the conversation rather than admitting mea culpa when you throw around misinformation as fact. There hasn't been an instance in this entire discussion where you've been able to take issue with any of the facts from my side of the debate. For someone using "logical" analysis you seem to quite often blur the lines between fiction and reality. It obvious how weak your argument is that you didn't even bother to comment on these points, specifically the second argument. I'll even italicize it for you:
"Understandably you've ignored the SI article with Bowman's comments regarding Phil I linked to earlier where he compared Phil's skill-set to Park, Potvin, and even Orr. I can see why arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport (who coached Housley in his prime) opinion doesn't matter to you."
First of all, I didn't notice you posted the link until you made an additional reference. Second of all, upon looking I discovered the article was written on October 25th, 1982, about 20 days days or so into Phil Housley's career. I realize there's never been hyperbole about rookies before (insert sarcasm) and Bowman was responsible for drafting him so he wouldn't have any reason whatsoever to be biased towards Phil's skill set and potential (again, insert sarcasm). I'm sure if you contact Bowman in the present day he'll stand behind his comparison of Housley to Park, Potvin and "even" Orr. Oh, and that three sentence article you linked from from the NYT (written by unknown) is certainly a definitive argument. It could have been written by you for all we know.
"You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time."
I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just trying to point out to the rational people on here that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advanced statistical analysis (e.g. GVT) is not the definitive tool that you pretend it to be, especially for defensemen as illustrated in this case. You state Housley's defensive GVT value was +69.4 and argue this is statistically precise when relating his value as a defensive contributor. If that's the case his career 267.7 GVT value must also be precise. In turn, this means Langway's career 128.9 GVT value must also be accurate. By this mathematical assessment you are determining Phil Housley's career to be 2.1 times (rounding up) more valuable than Langway's. I would be very surprised if you would find many that would chose Housley over Langway as an "all-time" defenseman, let alone to say he was 2.1 times as valuable.
"The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career. Regardless, I don't know why you put so much stock in newspaper columnists...or fantasy "writers" which is what Rotoworld is anyway (and really, you had to resort to citing a benching of a player in his final season via a fantasy hockey writer...ok). Unless it's "hard news" like injuries or contract info, why would you read columnists for analysis."
You make the above comment after attempting to previously use this as proof of Housley's skills as a "two-way" defenseman:
Not only that, you also feel Bowman's hyperbolic opinion after the first couple weeks of Housley's career is completely valid but the opinion of a sportswriter near the very end of Housley's career, after we've had proper time to evaluate the impact of nearly his entire "body of work", is completely invalid. Huh? That's just too funny! Anyhow, I digress. You state I use "Rotoworld" as the source material about Housley's benching. The source of that comment was actually the Toronto Sun. They would have been the source commenting on his poor defensive zone coverage. In such an example Rotoworld would simply repeat the sentiment of said newspaper. Not that it would matter to you but perhaps you should read it again:
"Anyway, no offense, but if you did have a "doctorate in statistics" you'd probably be a bit more computer savvy (what with the spreadsheets and StatMat software and all) and thus, you'd know how to post a hyperlink, or italicize a quote, or more importantly, use just one single relevant statistic so you wouldn't have to use so many macro-level examples such as AS Game selections or some strawman "consensus" fodder while citing articles from the end of star player's career..."
Let's pretend for a second I do have the ability to evaluate this debate on microstatistical level. This would take a great deal of effort and what would the net benefit be for me? Satisfaction that I have quantifiable proof that you're wrong? You wouldn't accept or perhaps understand the truth no matter how persuasive my results. To think you're knowledgeable because you have the ability to recite some output data from a spreadsheet is quite amusing. And it appears you're too stubborn to even realize the limitations of your statistical analysis. Even some who are very supportive of GVT caution that it is difficult to quantify defensive ability using this measure:
"I think the goals versus threshold system is most limited by its lack of ability to quantify defensive play. The over-abundance of goaltenders at the top is another topic for further discussion."
"It is clear that defence is underrated in the goals versus threshold system, as the defensive contribution of individual players is hard to measure. This also affects forwards, who have considerable defensive value, which is not a good description of any of our three Hart Trophy nominees."
It really doesn't matter what I say, you're going to believe (incorrectly) that you feel the GVT numbers are validating and all-encompassing. I think your problem is that because sabermetrics work so well for baseball you feel a comparable analysis must be equally valuable for hockey. Phil Housley was not a valuable defensive contributor and the fact that GVT indicates he was simply indicates the limitations of GVT analysis. Not to worry though, Phil will likely get his place in the HOF because as time goes by his staggering point totals as a defenseman will likely become a focal point and the memory of his defensive deficiencies will diminish. Perhaps even the skewed perspective provided through GVT analysis will help to speed up the process.
Edited to add:
"The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career."
Again, misinformation as you continually decide to leave out details not supportive to your position. I just took the time to follow the links myself and it states:
BIOGRAPHY
George has been giving his opinion on the games people play - both good and bad - in the Herald since 2001. Prior to that, he covered the Calgary Flames for 16 seasons at the Calgary Sun, and has also written hockey in Edmonton and Winnipeg.
During three decades in the sportswriting dodge, he has covered three soccer World Cups, six Olympic Games, three Calgary Flames runs to the Stanley Cup final and numerous other Cup finals and NHL All-Star Games. He is co-author of three books - Bluelines and Bloodlines, Quest for the Cup and Football's Greatest Stars - and has written for ESPN Magazine, ESPN.com, the NHL All-Star Game Magazine and various other hockey publications. He was the recipient of Sports Media Canada award for Outstanding Sportswriting in 2006.
He has seen Italy lift a World Cup, Muhammad Ali win a World Heavyweight title and heard Sinatra sing in Vegas. Everything from here on in is a bonus.
You were arguing that Housley was above average defensively. Most stud defensemen who are above average defensively are 1st unit penalty killers. Did I say most? I probably should have said all.
I'll have to disagree. Maybe on a shallow roster they're 1st pair. But in Chicago there was Brian Campbell who is above average defensively, and he was on the second pair due to Keith/Seabrook on the first pair. I'm sure Detroit fans would cite Kronwall. In Pitt you had Letang on the second pair behind Orpik and Z. Michalek on the PK...and before Crosby and Malkin got hurt, Letang was the leader in the Norris clubhouse. Those are three off of the top of my head.
Housley did not have a large edge in offensive ability. In their NHL careers Goals/Assists/Pts per game were 0.23/0.60/0.82 and 0.21/0.59/0.80. Who was who? Looks like a pick'em.
If you're using those numbers from second tier of HR data, you do realize those are adjusted numbers right? Even with WHA years and numbers included, Howe played in 1355 games and Housley in 1495. Housley +141 in goals scored, 894 - 841 in assists, 428-195 in Goals Created, +70 in PPP, 202-111 in even strength goals, 48-24 in Game Winning Goals. You don't consider those large deficits in generally every key offensive stat aside from assists? If you were to only use the HR adjusted numbers, by that logic, you'd be saying Dale Hawerchuk was better than Bobby Hull offensively. 1.186 vs 1.101.
You keep saying that Housley had lesser quality teammates. Please elaborate. Aside from 79-80 with his dad and 82-83, 83-84 with tail ends of Sittler, Clarke and Barber, what HHOF'ers did he play with? The teams Housley played on were good teams. The way I was looking at the +/- was defined to evaluate relative to the team itself, not the competition against the team.
It's quality of TEAMmates...not quality of HOFers around him. Lowe played on 7 - 100+ point teams in his NHL career (3 or 4 of them 110+ teams). Housley played on one 100+ team in his 20 year career. Yes there were some solid teams in BUFF with 2 or 3 of them terrible teams, his cup run in WASH, a couple good, but largely so-so teams in WINN, and largely terrible teams in CalGary where the Flames never topped 80 points. I assume you know 80-82 points is generally a team with a .500 record depending on ties. Would you not say playing on 7 100+ point teams in a 16 year career is pretty advantageous?
The data base for the 2011 is not fully in the Hockey reference web-site, but I will say this based on what I can see. Perhaps Lidstrom this year was not quite so deserving. Overall, the team was a plus and he was a minus. Occassionally subjective awards are not awarded objectively and past perfromance and repution is taken into account.
yes, but you're not taking into account quality of competition faced, where Lidstrom was #1. That's why the +/- stat means very little to a lot of people because it doesn't factor that in. That's why I pay more attention to Relative +/-. btw, HR does not keep a QUAL of COMP stat, which is why I favor the GVT metric. And without a clear-cut winner this year, his past reputation certainly didn't hurt. But he did have the 2nd highest point total (62), behind Visnovsky (68) among defensemen. He may have not been totally deserving, but you can't really say either Chara or Weber had an advantage. Half way through the season it was Letang's award to lose, and he did just that when his point total washed out when Crosby and Malkin went down.
Also, you never answere whether you saw Howe play in anything other than a Red Wings uniform.
I didn't know that was directed toward me. I thought you were talking to the other poster who chose Housley over Howe. Regularly? No. I'm not from Philly. I saw him a few games over the last few years with Philly and then a number of games with the Wings. Maybe 40-50 total.
You must be linking to a different article because there's nothing in the fantasy hockey link you posted that maintains it's from the "Toronto Sun". I also like how you refer to this Kuklas Korner fellow as an "author". That's pretty generous....and I'm sure he's a fantastic author, what with his theorem being a bias towards goalies (which I've already pointed out) without realizing this is the result of goalies playing 59-60 mins per night and the metrics that GVT uses are based on various scoring and defensive averages per 60 mins + quality of linemates and competition when obviously top defenseman play 25-28 mins or forwards 19-22 mins. He's not exactly cracking the code there. This has all been reverse engineered by far more credible analysts including the two gentlemen who engineered them. This is why I always separate goalies from forwards and defensemen when using this metric. Regardless, I don't understand why you're linking to this. It's not as though he's opposed to GVT, and it's not as though he fully understood it either. Obviously there are always going to be discrepancies and deficiencies in evaluating defense. You can say that for any defensive stat including basic +/- or team dependent GAON. 52 other players were evaluated to be more valuable than Lidstrom in the draft etc etc.
As for the Bowman link comments, by your logic, because it was said only 20 games into his career, it's just "hyperbole". As if when BUFF or any other team is scouting a draftee, they spend more than a quarter of an NHL season watching a single player. So when they're committing millions to a 1st round draft pick, it's not based on their skill-set they analyzed in the 5-10 or so games they may have scouted that player, it's just "hyperbole".
"The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career." Again, misinformation as you continually decide to leave out details not supportive to your position. I just took the time to follow the links myself and it states:
haha, no you didn't, because there is no link to his full bio in that faux-ESPN article. Are you Canadian? Maybe you're allotted extra links us Americans do not receive.... Anyway, I'll give you that one. Johnson covered his other 2 years in Calgary. That wasn't noted in the article. He's entitled to his opinion. It doesn't mean I'm going to automatically ignore what Bowman, Chelios, Suter, and others have said about him, and agree with this guy. I'm not Canadian, and I don't read Calgary newspapers so I wouldn't know who this guy is. It's not like I'm going to go back through his columns to decide if he's a knowledgeable analyst, or if he's just an archetypal columnist. The key is columnist...and even in the 3rd largest city in the country, we have a columnist who spent his entire career covering college and pro football on the beat. Now he's writing random hockey columns (poorly) and continuing to fail in understanding the NHL salary cap. One of many area journalists who paid no attention to the Hawks until Toews and Kane arrived and now they're experts. Anyway, I guess this cancels out the NYT/Calgary Herold links, so when you have something else relevant statistically, or that isn't from a blogger, lmk. Until then...you're free to maintain your "consensus" position...and you know where I stand. It's now really time to move on when citing bloggers and inventing links enters the fray.
Once again, address this statement. I'll even repeatedly italicize it for you:
"You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time." I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just trying to point out to the rational people on here that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advanced statistical analysis (e.g. GVT) is not the definitive tool that you pretend it to be, especially for defensemen as illustrated in this case. You state Housley's defensive GVT value was +69.4 and argue this is statistically precise when relating his value as a defensive contributor. If that's the case his career 267.7 GVT value must also be precise. In turn, this means Langway's career 128.9 GVT value must also be accurate. By this mathematical assessment you are determining Phil Housley's career to be 2.1 times (rounding up) more valuable than Langway's. I would be very surprised if you would find many that would chose Housley over Langway as an "all-time" defenseman, let alone to say he was 2.1 times as valuable.
"I like how you always ignore replying to your errors/inaccuracies that are pointed out, and then try to highlight those of others. I'm guessing you weren't a journalism major either then aye? <rhetorical> Anyway, you must be linking to a different article because there's nothing in the fantasy hockey link you posted that maintains it's from the "Toronto Sun"."
Again, here's the link. The comment is sourced from the Toronto Sun:
You like how I always ignore replying to my errors/inaccuracies? Point out one statement where I lied or provided misinformation. Each of my replies to your increasingly absurd comments is devoted to correcting your errors/inaccuracies and misinformation. In each of your follow-ups you continue on the same path and I spend my time constantly attempting to correct you.
"I also like how you refer to this Kuklas Korner fellow as an "author". That's pretty generous....and I'm sure he's a bright enough dude..."
Every single reference source that continues to prove the invalidity of your argument is immediately discredited. Your debating technique is to simply indicate, "no this person is stupid, I still win" when presented with a counterpoint. I could devote even more time to the contradictory debate you're also having with "George" but this is already long-winded enough at this point. I think the lingo "facepalm" was specifically invented for your personality type. Nonetheless, here's what the "author" of Hockey Prospectus and the creator of GVT Tom Awad has to say when discussing its merits:
"Defense is by far the most difficult value to assign value to in the game of hockey. It is not particularly well-measured statistically."
But, I'm sure in your mind, he's an idiot now too or somehow the context of such a comment is inconsequential. If you really prefer, I'll try to contact him directly and attempt to get him to weigh in on the subject with a direct quote regarding Housley's defensive capabilities as represented through GVT analysis. Is it time for you to now move on when even Tom Awad acknowledges he believes there are limitations with GVT regarding defensive statistical measurements? Somehow, I think you'll keep going and the fact that you do reveals your limited knowledge of the data being applied here.
This is my last post with this. I've already pointed out the deficiencies in measuring GVT, and no matter what you opinion of it is, it's still the best tool available for measuring players across different eras currently available. When something better comes along, then I'll take a look at that as well. No amount of blogger faux "analysis" is going to change that opinion. We get it, you're pro-Howe. Your vote has been tallied. Move on.
<< <i>Housley did not have a large edge in offensive ability. In their NHL careers Goals/Assists/Pts per game were 0.23/0.60/0.82 and 0.21/0.59/0.80. Who was who? Looks like a pick'em.
If you're using those numbers from second tier of HR data, you do realize those are adjusted numbers right? Even with WHA years and numbers included, Howe played in 1355 games and Housley in 1495. Housley +141 in goals scored, 894 - 841 in assists, 428-195 in Goals Created, +70 in PPP, 202-111 in even strength goals, 48-24 in Game Winning Goals. You don't consider those large deficits in generally every key offensive stat aside from assists? If you were to only use the HR adjusted numbers, by that logic, you'd be saying Dale Hawerchuk was better than Bobby Hull offensively. 1.186 vs 1.101. . >>
??? Where are you getting your numbers from? The Goals/Assists/Pts per Game numbers I provided are unadjusted. The first group was Housley (1495 GP, 338 G, 894 A, 1,232 Pts) and the 2nd was Howe (929 GP, 197 G, 545 A, 742 Pts - NHL only). When you say Housley is +141 in goals scored it is because you forgot to add Howe's 208 goals scored in the WHA. The goals created number given to Howe of 195 was his WHA total. His NHL total was 256 for a combined 451. +70 in PPG becomes +23 (129 for Housley and 106 combined for Howe), 202 Even strength against 248 (111 NHL, 137 WHA), 48 to 43 in GWG with no stats for 3 of the WHA seasons in which Howe scored 108 goals (19 in the 3 seasons with stats when he scored 100 goals). Ignored is that Howe had 52 (28 NHL and 24 WHA) shorthanded goals compared to Housley's 7. My point here is that Howe was used more extensively to PREVENT goals from being scored.
<< <i>
The data base for the 2011 is not fully in the Hockey reference web-site, but I will say this based on what I can see. Perhaps Lidstrom this year was not quite so deserving. Overall, the team was a plus and he was a minus. Occassionally subjective awards are not awarded objectively and past perfromance and repution is taken into account.
yes, but you're not taking into account quality of competition faced, where Lidstrom was #1. That's why the +/- stat means very little to a lot of people because it doesn't factor that in. That's why I pay more attention to Relative +/-. btw, HR does not keep a QUAL of COMP stat, which is why I favor the GVT metric. And without a clear-cut winner this year, his past reputation certainly didn't hurt. But he did have the 2nd highest point total (62), behind Visnovsky (68) among defensemen. He may have not been totally deserving, but you can't really say either Chara or Weber had an advantage. Half way through the season it was Letang's award to lose, and he did just that when his point total washed out when Crosby and Malkin went down. . >>
You may have missed the point of what I was trying to calculate with the plus minus. Whether the team was awesome or terrible was not relevant. I was comparing how the team performed at even strength when the player was on the ice versus off the ice. If a team sucks and is -60 but the player is only -20, that means when the player is not playing the rest of the team is -80. I think that does say something about that player. Housley's stats from 82-83 to 92-93 indicate that at even strength his team performed slightly better when he was off the ice than on.
Comments
<< <i> The fact that you don't even realize Housley's second all-star team selection is voted upon by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season and not the fans tells me your knowledge of the game simply isn't that extensive
it means I put about as much weight into the voting of the PHWA as I do the majority of the members of the BBWAA. In the 80's & 90's - pre-Internet feeds/NHL Center Ice/Cable Sportsnet packages, like yourself, in all likelihood, the non-Buffalo, or the non-Winnipeg writers saw Housley play in roughly 0.1-0.5% of his career games. That doesn't mean you/they can't have their opinion, it just means the vast majority of them saw about as many of Housley's games per year as Reds' BBWAA writer Hal McCoy watches the Padres play (6 games) each year before placing his MVP/Cy Young/ROY vote. Besides, if the Islanders and Rangers voters don't care about their voters, why should I? >>
No, it actually means when you're proven to be wrong and have lack of knowledge you constantly "shift the goal posts" in an attempt to avoid some perceived embarrassment. Because of the discussion we're having here I'm very aware that your hockey knowledge is limited. I'm just piping up because I don't want others to be influenced by your misinformation. In simple terms, if you believe Housley was above average defensively based on GVT calculations you simply don't know what you're talking about. For example, here is a link from ESPN debating his HOF worthiness. And I quote:
Pros
Longevity. Superb passer of the puck. Will soon pass Larry Murphy (1,216) and move into third place on the all-time scoring list for defensemen, trailing only Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey. Racked up 60 or more points in first 11 seasons of his career. Is the highest-scoring U.S.-born defenseman.
Cons
Has only been past the first round of the playoffs in two of his 20 seasons -- which says as much about the teams he's played on as Housley; still, he's a common thread. Small, highly suspect defensively. Notoriously one-dimensional, no one will ever be accused of nicknaming him "Ol' Blood and Guts." Eddie Shore would be appalled.
http://a.espncdn.com/nhl/s/2002/1103/1455263.html
I'm sure their opinion is now worthless to you as well as it doesn't align with your sentiments.
Text
<< <i>
Seriously, Howe was very underrated. Before he began having trouble with his back in the late 80's he was most likely the 2nd best defenseman of the decade. Next to Coffey, he was the best skater. The main thing was that he was very smart. I really don't recall him having a bad game or really ever getting beat or caught out of position. Those Flyers teams were not stacked with HOF'ers like the Isles or Oilers, yet they put together 100 points seasons and two trips to the finals. Having that stud first pairing anchored by Howe was the key factor in their success. It was because other teams had to wait until Marsh and Crossman stepped onto the ice in order for them to score.
When I said that I think that Howe may have been the best player to play for the Flyers, that was not a casual statement. Clarke won 3 Hart Trophies, but having watched Clarke win those three Harts and Howe play dominantly from 82 through 88, I would choose Howe. Bill Meltzer, who writes articles for NHL.com (Accross the Pond), the Flyers web-site and Hockeybuzz, is one of the best analysts I've ever read and he shares that opinion of Howe.
Oh, and I would take Howe over Federov seven days a week. >>
I agree 100% about Mark Howe. But he wasn't the 2nd best defenseman of the decade behind Paul Coffey.
Ray Bourque was the best defenseman of the 1980's. Larry Robinson and Dennis Potvin were still pretty darn good in the
early 80's too.
<< <i>[
But he wasn't the 2nd best defenseman of the decade behind Paul Coffey.
Ray Bourque was the best defenseman of the 1980's. >>
Sorry, I did not mean to imply Coffey was 1st. Bourque would have been first. I would take Howe over Coffey every day of the week.
With regard to cardsnbeads, if you saw Howe play, did you ever see him in anything other than a Red Wings uniform?
Seriously, Housley over Howe?
I don't think you can say Howe was better then Doug Wilson, or any of those other guys. They were all great hockey players. To say that one was better then the other is a little foolish imo. All great players.
1. Phil Housley Regular-Season GVT: 267.7 Playoff GVT: 14.7
Housley has the highest regular-season GVT of any player not in the Hall of Fame. In era-normalized statistics, Housley is the fifth-highest scoring defenseman in league history, behind only Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey, Al MacInnis and Nicklas Lidstrom. Housley also was important as one of the first major American stars in the league, and set the records for games, assists and points by a U.S.-born player; he still owns the assist record. He played for the U.S. in the Canada Cup/World Cup in 1984, 1987, 1996 and 2002. The one thing that seems to work against Housley is his lack of a Norris trophy, due to the peak of his career overlapping with Bourque, Coffey and MacInnis (he was a runner-up in 1992), Undersized at 5’10” and 185 pounds, Housley relied on savvy, vision, and anticipation to ward off would-be attackers and when they made a mistake, he was there to capitalize in the form of a goal or assist. Scotty Bowman was never shy to use him on the penalty kill due to his knack for eliminating shooting and passing lanes, and altering a forward's path. Whatever the issue is with voters, Housley's career numbers are too impressive to overlook.
Understandably you've ignored the SI article with Bowman's comments regarding Phil I linked to earlier where he compared Phil's skill-set to Park, Potvin, and even Orr. I can see why arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport (who coached Housley in his prime) opinion doesn't matter to you. That's fine. Again, you're not going to change my opinion. I disagree. You disagree and that's fine. You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time. Also it would help your credibility in having a reasonable discussion without continually throwing around "misinformation" and "flawed stats" like others are just making things up. Your opinion is yours. We're entitled to ours, and quite frankly, for the stats guy that you say you are, you haven't backed anything up with relevant stats. You don't buy into GVT, that's fine. Show us something better. Earn yourself an engineering degree or MS/PhD in statistics and go through his career shift charts and scoring sheets. Run the numbers for quality of competition he faced, and his quality of teammates opposed to Howe and Langway. Formulate the Relative +/- for each player...and while doing so create your own model of the CORSI ratings for these players (I'll guarantee you Housley's CORSI trumps both of theirs by large margins). Finally tally their GAON and GFON per 60 minutes using your own models. Then get back to me and using your logic, I'll promptly say your models are flawed simply because I don't agree with them.
With regard to cardsnbeads, if you saw Howe play, did you ever see him in anything other than a Red Wings uniform?
Seriously, Housley over Howe?
yeah George, seriously...and if you're using that logic, how many games did you see of Housley's career other than those BUFF vs Philly games? Zero to one per year. We get it, you're a Flyers fan and saw a lot of the second half of his career. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. It doesn't make it anymore right or wrong than the other 3 or 4 posters who disagree with you. Perhaps instead of throwing up a facepalm emoticon, you can back up your assertion with some relevance. Maybe try to evaluate why it's taken him so long for Howe to get the nod. Perhaps use the leading reason he hasn't gained entry earlier....quality of teammates on those 100+ point teams he played on in 6 or 7 of his years in Philly. You can start by using the - working backwards through +/- example I used on page one where I showed how relevant Jeff Schultz's +50 rating was last year in relation to his piggybacking his quality of linemates. Or maybe you're just asserting Howe was so Lidstrom-esque defensively that it automatically makes up the -141 deficit in goals scored, or the 428-195 deficit in Goals Created, or the -70 gap in PPP, or that Housley basically doubled him up in both even strength goals (202-111) and Game Winning Goals (48-24) between them. These are WHL number inclusive. Howe may have been very good defensively, but there's nothing in the advanced metrics to suggest he was Lidstrom in his own end. Howe deserves the HOF nod, but he wasn't as deserving as Housley.
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
True Howe had great years in the WHA, but that was against lesser players.
The guys who always said Bobby Orr was better then Gretzky would say that Orr played against the best in the original six early in his career, while Gretzky played in a watered down NHL in the early 80's.
Orr and Gretzky were both great, but Mario had the best skill set.
Mark Howe was an excellent defensman, so was Housley, but Doug Crossman was not a solid NHL defensmen.
<< <i>
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
True Howe had great years in the WHA, but that was against lesser players.
The guys who always said Bobby Orr was better then Gretzky would say that Orr played against the best in the original six early in his career, while Gretzky played in a watered down NHL in the early 80's.
Orr and Gretzky were both great, but Mario had the best skill set.
Mark Howe was an excellent defensman, so was Housley, but Doug Crossman was not a solid NHL defensmen. >>
Just curious how you can tell that Mario had a better skill set than Orr?
<< <i>yeah George, seriously...and if you're using that logic, how many games did you see of Housley's career other than those BUFF vs Philly games? Zero to one per year. We get it, you're a Flyers fan and saw a lot of the second half of his career. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. It doesn't make it anymore right or wrong than the other 3 or 4 posters who disagree with you. Perhaps instead of throwing up a facepalm emoticon, you can back up your assertion with some relevance. Maybe try to evaluate why it's taken him so long for Howe to get the nod. Perhaps use the leading reason he hasn't gained entry earlier....quality of teammates on those 100+ point teams he played on in 6 or 7 of his years in Philly. You can start by using the - working backwards through +/- example I used on page one where I showed how relevant Jeff Schultz's +50 rating was last year in relation to his piggybacking his quality of linemates. Or maybe you're just asserting Howe was so Lidstrom-esque defensively that it automatically makes up the -141 deficit in goals scored, or the 428-195 deficit in Goals Created, or the -70 gap in PPP, or that Housley basically doubled him up in both even strength goals (202-111) and Game Winning Goals (48-24) between them. These are WHL number inclusive. Howe may have been very good defensively, but there's nothing in the advanced metrics to suggest he was Lidstrom in his own end. Howe deserves the HOF nod, but he wasn't as deserving as Housley. >>
Over the course of Housley's career I probably saw him play approx. 75 games between regular seaso, play-off, Canada and World Cup games. I am not saying that Housley wasn't good, just that Howe was better (definitely peak and arguably career although Housley played longer and had fewer injury impaired seasons). The reasons Howe was not in the HHOF already is that he only had 9 peak seasons in the NHL before injuries impaired both his playing time and effectiveness, he played his first six seasons in the WHA which negates the comparabilty of his stats versus the NHL, and, to at least some extent, the bias against the fact that he chose to start his career in the WHA versus the NHL.
Was Housley a more talented offensive player than Howe? I think so.
But let's look at some stats. I looked at multiple years for both players, but for this purpose, I will look at the players' best PS (Point Shares) from Hockey-Reference.com for Howe it is 82-83 and 85-86 and for Housley it is 89-90 and 91-92.
At even strength, in 82-83 Howe was on ice for 40.6% (108/266) of the Flyers' goals for and 34.1% (61/179) of the goals against. (FYI, that season Howe was Lindstromesque in that Howe was +47 and his partner, the immortal Glen Cochrane, was +42. Howe was a 1st team All-Star but was robbed of the Norris due to an infatuation that season to Langway)
In 85-86, those stats were 58.2% (142/244) on goals for and 33.5% (57/170) on goals against. Howe was again a 1st Team All-Star but the Norris went to Coffey because he set some sort of scoring record for defenseman or some non-sense.
In 89-90, Housley was on for 44.0 (91/207) for and 42.1% against and in 91-92 38.1% (61/160) for and 37.5% (66/176) against. In 91-92, Housley earned his only post-season All-Star award on the 2nd Team.
Most of the PS and GVT stats are more heavily weighted towards point totals. Housley killed on the PP and was a great quarterback. Howe was good on the PP he didn't play as many minutes as he was used more at even strength and PK, plus the Flyers tended to cycle their back end PP units morre with Doug Crossman and a forward at the point. Housley really did not begin to rack up PK minutes until after his first few seasons in Winnipeg.
Main point is that Howe at peak level was better than Housley as an all-around defensemen. I would take him ahead of Howe on my PP unit but that is all. At even strength and PK, Howe would be the guy.
Point Shares - 95.1 for Housley, 89.8 for Howe
Offensive Shares - 53.7 for Housley, 41.1 for Howe
Defensive Shares - 41.4 for Housley, 48.7 for Howe
Goals Created Per Game (10 year total) - 3.80 for Housley, 3.04 for Howe
if you were to cherry pick the top 5 years from each player you'd have
Point Shares - 55.9 for Housley, 55.7 for Howe
Offensive Shares - 31.8 for Housley, 25.2 for Howe
Defensive Shares - 24.1 for Housley, 30.5 for Howe
Goals Created Per Game (5 year total) 1.90 for Housley, 1.72 for Howe
So even cherry picking their primes with Housley at a disadvantage over the ten year peak, and not even factoring in Howe's advantage in quality of teammates, Housley still comes out on top aside from the total defensive value which I think we already knew anyway.
As I figured, the ESPN article that clearly states Housley's deficiencies was written by an intellectual incompetent and the ESPN article which you feel is supportive of your case was written by an absolute savant. And if the aforementioned columnist is a "CalGary" guy that means he saw him smack dab in the middle of his career as Phil had his start in Calgary at 30 and played in 11 more seasons from his start with the Flames, not at the end of his career as you state. Well to be fair, I guess, 11 might be a bit of a stretch as he only played four games in his last season with Toronto but he ended off on a "positive" note.
"Phil Housley played one shift last night, and then didn't see the ice again, reports the Toronto Sun.
His poor defensive zone coverage in the first two games of this series has led to his benching. Apr 15, 12:44 PM"
Source: http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nhl/16/phil-housley
"Understandably you've ignored the SI article with Bowman's comments regarding Phil I linked to earlier where he compared Phil's skill-set to Park, Potvin, and even Orr. I can see why arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport (who coached Housley in his prime) opinion doesn't matter to you."
First of all, I didn't notice you posted the link until you made an additional reference. Second of all, upon looking I discovered the article was written on October 25th, 1982, about 20 days days or so into Phil Housley's career. I realize there's never been hyperbole about rookies before (insert sarcasm) and Bowman was responsible for drafting him so he wouldn't have any reason whatsoever to be biased towards Phil's skill set and potential (again, insert sarcasm). I'm sure if you contact Bowman in the present day he'll stand behind his comparison of Housley to Park, Potvin and "even" Orr. Oh, and that three sentence article you linked from from the NYT (written by unknown) is certainly a definitive argument. It could have been written by you for all we know.
"You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time."
I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just trying to point out to the rational people on here that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advanced statistical analysis (e.g. GVT) is not the definitive tool that you pretend it to be, especially for defensemen as illustrated in this case. You state Housley's defensive GVT value was +69.4 and argue this is statistically precise when relating his value as a defensive contributor. If that's the case his career 267.7 GVT value must also be precise. In turn, this means Langway's career 128.9 GVT value must also be accurate. By this mathematical assessment you are determining Phil Housley's career to be 2.1 times (rounding up) more valuable than Langway's. I would be very surprised if you would find many that would chose Housley over Langway as an "all-time" defenseman, let alone to say he was 2.1 times as valuable.
"Earn yourself an engineering degree or MS/PhD in statistics and go through his career shift charts and scoring sheets. Run the numbers for quality of competition he faced, and his quality of teammates opposed to Howe and Langway. Formulate the Relative +/- for each player...and while doing so create your own model of the CORSI ratings for these players (I'll guarantee you Housley's CORSI trumps both of theirs by large margins). Finally tally their GAON and GFON per 60 minutes using your own models. Then get back to me and using your logic, I'll promptly say your models are flawed simply because I don't agree with them."
Quite an arrogant statement to assume you know my level of education. For all you know I may have a statistics doctorate, have spent much time researching GVT and find it to be a flawed analysis. You regurgitate some output data and pretend to be knowledgeable. For you to even think I would waste hours upon hours analyzing input data for you to just "shift the goal post" once again is just silly. If you really want to be able to evaluate players properly you need to refine your biggest weakness, your narrow focus. GVT is not definitive, get over it. You keep harping on the fact that you feel many people have only seen Housley play a very small percentage of his games and are, thus, not qualified to comment on his skill set. How do you think scouts and all others who evaluate potential talent operate? Do you think Scotty Bowman watched every game Housley played before he drafted him and made those comments approximately 20 games into his career? I would estimate he watched the low percentage you continually reference and in your opinion that would make his opinion unqualified.
"yeah George, seriously...and if you're using that logic, how many games did you see of Housley's career other than those BUFF vs Philly games? Zero to one per year. We get it, you're a Flyers fan and saw a lot of the second half of his career."
Oh, and stop using "we" to support your arguments because I don't believe "we" have many people stumping for you in this discussion as of yet.
If the consensus opinion about Housley was that he was an elite offensive defenseman (which he was) and an above average offensive defenseman (which he wasn't) he'd already be in the HOF. And that's all the proof "we" need thus far.
<< <i>solid post, and maybe you're right about the "peak" individual years, but a peak generally entails a 8-10 consecutive year run. Not individual cherry picked seasons. If you're going to base this on HR's PS system, let's look at each player's first 10 years of their NHL careers. Obviously Howe will have a huge advantage here since he entered the NHL in his prime at age 24, while Housley was an 18 year old rookie.
Point Shares - 95.1 for Housley, 89.8 for Howe
Offensive Shares - 53.7 for Housley, 41.1 for Howe
Defensive Shares - 41.4 for Housley, 48.7 for Howe
Goals Created Per Game (10 year total) - 3.80 for Housley, 3.04 for Howe
if you were to cherry pick the top 5 years from each player you'd have
Point Shares - 55.9 for Housley, 55.7 for Howe
Offensive Shares - 31.8 for Housley, 25.2 for Howe
Defensive Shares - 24.1 for Housley, 30.5 for Howe
Goals Created Per Game (5 year total) 1.90 for Housley, 1.72 for Howe
So even cherry picking their primes with Housley at a disadvantage over the ten year peak, and not even factoring in Howe's advantage in quality of teammates, Housley still comes out on top aside from the total defensive value which I think we already knew anyway. >>
I will try to keep this short.
First off, I did look at multiple seasons for both players but for brevity, showed only two. I was trying to cherry pick their best seasons.
Second, you missed the sentence that said GVT and PS are heavily weighted toward scoring points. Those will favor players that actually recieved points compared to those that significantly contributed to the circumstances leading to a goal or the prevention of a goal.
Third, you missed the fact that Housley was not a primary PK unit defenseman for most of his career. While that does not say he was bad defensively, it does say that his coaches thought his skillset did not lend itself to penalty kiling.
I took a deeper look into my initial analysis of play at EVEN strength. I have a bit of data but will only summarize the methodology and the results.
What I did was take the +/- data for the player and his team for that season (GF less PPGF for Net Goals For ["NGF"] and GA less PPGA for Net Goals Against ["NGA"] that provides net +/-). Consequently, you then have that data for when the player was and was not on the ice. NGF/NGA provides a scoring ratio for the team, player and team w/o the player. Winning teams will almost always have ratios over 1::1 (perhaps a team that has at least a 25+ differential in their special teams will be over .500) and losing teams below 1::1. Once I got that data, I kept both the raw spread of their on/off performance and the ratio of the on/off performance. Hopefully the examples below will present in a readable fashion. The expectation at EVEN strength is that a good player will have a higher NGF/NGA ratio than the team has when he is not on the ice. This would apply to a bad team as well. For eaxample if a team gives up one goal for every 0.90 goals it scores then a really good player on that team may have a 0.93 ratio and the rest of the team a 0.88 ratio.
Year/Team/Player Player GF/PPGF/NGF GA/PPGA/NGA +/- Team GF/PPGF/NGF GA/PPGA/NGA +/- W/O NGF/NGA NGF/NGA Ratio Team Player On/Off Spread % Spread
85-86/Flyers/Howe 188/46/142 93/36/57 +85 335/91/244 241/71/170 +74 102/113 1.435/ 2.491/0.902 1.589 2.76
88-89/Buff/Housley 148/65/83 92/15/77 +15 291/78/213 299/86/213 +0 130/136 1.000/ 1.078/0.956 0.122 1.13
86-87/Bos/Bourque 168/59/109 98/33/65 +44 301/65/236 276/60/216 +20 127/151 1.093/ 1.677/0.841 0.836 1.99
70-71/Bos/Orr 258/79/179 85/30/55 +124 399/80/319 207/53/154 +165 140/99 2.071/ 3.255/1.414 1.840 2.30
84-85/Edm/Gretzky 249/61/188 127/37/90 +98 401/74/327 298/76/222 +105 139/132 1.473/ 2.089/1.053 1.036 1.984
I looked at Howe from 79-80 through 87-88 (nine seasons), Langway from 82-83 through 88-89, Coffey and Gretzky while at Edmonton, Bourque's whole career and Orr from 67-68 through 74-75. Also Housley from start of career through Winnipeg.
Thus, looking at Booby Orr's line, in 1970-71 he was on the ice for 258 Boston goal, 79 were PP goals for a NGF of 179. He was on the ice for 85 goals against, 30 of them while shorthanded for a NGA of 55. His +/- was a record +124 (179-55). Boston scored a total of 399 goals, 80 of which were on the PP for a NGF of 319. The team had 207 GA, 53 of them shorthanded for a NGA of 154 and a team +/- of +165 (319-154). When Orr was not on the ice, the team had a NGF of 140 (319-179) and a NGA of 99 (154-55). At even strength, the Bruins outscored their opponents by 2.071::1 (319/154). When Orr was on the ice, they outscored their opponents 3.255::1 (179/55) and when he was not they outscored their opponents 1.414::1 (140/99). When Orr was on the ice at even strength, the Bruins were 1.84 goals better than when he was not (3.255-1.414) or 2.3x more productive (3.255/1.414).
Thoughts about even strength performance:
Coffey was as I expected - very slightly above the rest of the team some years and below in others. He looks good in the other metrics in that his play was directly more than indirectly responsible for goals (goals and assists). It doesn't hide the fact that his team often did better at outscoring an opponent at even strength when he was not on the ice.
Housley was similar to Coffey. In this evaluation he only had two seasons that would rank with Howe's two worst (79-80 when he was a forward and 83-84). Of course, those two worst were really good seasons, though.
Bourque was amazingly consistent. Only at the end of his Boston tenure did the team perform better with him off the ice. His career spread was 0.373 goals. The nine years I looked at for Howe, his spread was 0.496.
Langway was up and down. Amazingly, in his Norris trophy year, the rest of the team very slightly ouperformed him at even strength. However, the Caps were something like 87% on the PK, primarily due to Langway. Howe still should have won the Norris.
Orr was simply amazing. Of the group I looked at, other than Howe, he was the only player to have a ratio 2x the rest of the team, but he did it 4 times. His spread for the years looked at was 1.031 goals.
Gretzky was also amazing, although his numbers don't jump off the page like Orr's. I think this is because the stats I'm looking at favor defensemen (or at least stud defensemen) in that they typically have more Time on Ice (TOI), can influence the flow of play a bit more and +/- probably underweights ACTUAL points (although I believe to a lesser degree than GVT and PS overweight points). For example, in the 84-85 stats above, Gretzky was on the ice for 249 Edmonton goals. He had POINTS on 208 of THEM!!!
If anyone wants the spreadsheet with the data, feel free to PM me.
Other conclusions:
Stats in any form can be deceiving. Observation is better. Howe went unnoticed by the HHOF committee because he didn't score 30+ goals, he played out the last seven years of his career in shortened injury riddled seasons, and the Flyers had good teams without a lot of flash.
I would like to look at Doug Wilson, Al MacInnes and Larry Robinson in this method.
Also, when the topic diverges from collecting, I'll do my part to try to move the thread over to the Sports Discussion board.
My apologies.
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
Some Russians never played in the NHL and are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>It's obvious that they look at a player's overall professional hockey career and not JUST their NHL career. That is how a guy like Howe gets in. He had 4 really good seasons in the WHA on top of his NHL career. Look at all the Russian players who have made it with minimal NHL years and stats. That is why it's called the HOCKEY Hall of Fame and not the NHL Hall of Fame. >>
True Howe had great years in the WHA, but that was against lesser players.
The guys who always said Bobby Orr was better then Gretzky would say that Orr played against the best in the original six early in his career, while Gretzky played in a watered down NHL in the early 80's.
Orr and Gretzky were both great, but Mario had the best skill set.
Mark Howe was an excellent defensman, so was Housley, but Doug Crossman was not a solid NHL defensmen. >>
Just curious how you can tell that Mario had a better skill set than Orr? >>
It's like comparing a Chick-fil-A sandwich to a chicken sandwich at McDonald's. They're both delicious.
He played for the Flames in total, a season and a quarter (102 games) in the "smack dab in the middle of his career"...which considering he entered the league at 18, wasn't even the middle. The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career. Regardless, I don't know why you put so much stock in newspaper columnists...or fantasy "writers" which is what Rotoworld is anyway (and really, you had to resort to citing a benching of a player in his final season via a fantasy hockey writer...ok). Unless it's "hard news" like injuries or contract info, why would you read columnists for analysis?...you seem to have a heightened opinion of your hockey knowledge, so what do you need a newspaper columnist (who writes for the casual fan) for?. Team fan blogs have greater analysis than the majority of newspaper columnists. Anyway, no offense, but if you did have a "doctorate in statistics" you'd probably be a bit more computer savvy (what with the spreadsheets and StatMat software and all) and thus, you'd know how to post a hyperlink, or italicize a quote, or more importantly, use just one single relevant statistic so you wouldn't have to use so many macro-level examples such as AS Game selections or some strawman "consensus" fodder while citing articles from the end of star player's career....not to mention, you wouldn't have to resort to sophomoric namecalling, stating individuals "don't have a clue what you're talking about" as the result of one's inability to hypothesize with relevant data to anyone why Howe was so much better than Housley throughout a multitude of posts. Since you know, statisticians are all about data. Curious that you didn't slag off Point Shares too....or perhaps you didn't because George also used them...so they're ok.
Oh, and stop using "we" to support your arguments because I don't believe "we" have many people stumping for you in this discussion as of yet.
it wasn't even written in that manner...but in technical terms we = a speaker or writer and one other person or people. In this case it's at least 2-3 others who agreed Housley was the superior of the two. You don't need to piggyback George. He's stated his case for Howe with relevance and I respect his opinion because at least I know he watched the peak of Howe's career on a regular basis.
If the consensus opinion about Housley was that he was an elite offensive defenseman (which he was) and an above average offensive defenseman (which he wasn't) he'd already be in the HOF. And that's all the proof "we" need thus far.
Ah again, the unsubstantiated "consensus"....and by your logic, at this time last year, Mark Howe who retired 8 years prior to Housley, wasn't worthy of the HOF. <sarcasm>
George
Second, you missed the sentence that said GVT and PS are heavily weighted toward scoring points.
I've already acknowledged that with GVT earlier in this thread. Offensive value is weighed greater throughout the game in general. If it wasn't, Gretzky wouldn't be considered the greatest player off all-time by most fans, Lidstrom would trump Orr, and Dave Bolland would be making more money than Dany Heatley.
Third, you missed the fact that Housley was not a primary PK unit defenseman for most of his career. While that does not say he was bad defensively, it does say that his coaches thought his skills were best used elsewhere.
I never said he was a "primary PKer". I said he was used on the PK. It wouldn't make any sense for a coach to use him on a 1st PK unit. You wouldn't want him out there blocking shots and risking injury on a first unit when his primary value is in his speed/skating/passing/shooting ability. You'd try to bring him out on the final PK shift to help skate the puck out of the zone and transition to offense.
Other conclusions: Stats in any form can be deceiving. Observation is better. Howe went unnoticed by the HHOF committee because he didn't score 30+ goals, he played out the last seven years of his career in shortened injury riddled seasons, and the Flyers had good teams without a lot of flash. I would like to look at Doug Wilson, Al MacInnes and Larry Robinson in this method.
true to an extent, but it depends where the "observation" is coming from. Considering people like Mike Milbury get paid to "observe" and "analyze". Do you care what he has to say in regard to evaluating talent with his track record as a GM? Unless you're Alexei Yashin, probably not. What does Pierre Maguire add with any depth. Every player either has "such a high skill level", or "he's one tough hombre". or "he's all kinds of nasty". If it comes down to where the player is from, or where he went to school, then he's usually spot on. That's his party trick. The stats that are more team oriented are those that have to be weighed with subjection...such as goals against while a given player is on the ice. If the GAON of Howe from the WHA were available, both players would likely be around the same total. If you averaged 90 per season which is about what he was around for a full season in the NHL, Howe would probably have a few more over the course of their respective careers....but you can be Lidstrom, and if the donut that is Steve Mason of the last two years, or a stiff like Brian Elliott or Peter Budaj is sitting behind you, it's not going to make much difference. Lidstrom had a goalie whose basic numbers were under league average in Howard behind him, and that led to a -2 and his second worst Defensive Point Shares of his career yet he still won a Norris. As for the what we've been debating in Housley vs Howe, it comes down to what the difference in value is between the two players' strengths. By either measure of metrics that we've used, Housley's superior offensive ability is numerically greater than Howe's edge on defense (with the acknowledged tilt to offensive value we've already discussed) Really this is the only value that can be argued. Obviously you feel Howe's all-around game made him the superior player, and I think Housley's large edge in offensive ability + his lesser quality of teammates throughout their careers outweighs his deficit on the defensive side.
<< <i>
I've already acknowledged that with GVT earlier in this thread. Offensive value is weighed greater throughout the game in general. If it wasn't, Gretzky wouldn't be considered the greatest player off all-time by most fans, Lidstrom would trump Orr, and Dave Bolland would be making more money than Dany Heatley. >>
After the word "thread". you needed a new paragraph and in the next sentence change the word weighed to valued. I would not want to mix a somewhat flawed statistical method with how skills are perceived by fans, coaches, scouts, etc.
<< <i>
Third, you missed the fact that Housley was not a primary PK unit defenseman for most of his career. While that does not say he was bad defensively, it does say that his coaches thought his skills were best used elsewhere.
I never said he was a "primary PKer". I said he was used on the PK. It wouldn't make any sense for a coach to use him on a 1st PK unit. You wouldn't want him out there blocking shots and risking injury on a first unit when his primary value is in his speed/skating/passing/shooting ability. You'd try to bring him out on the final PK shift to help skate the puck out of the zone and transition to offense.
>>
You were arguing that Housley was above average defensively. Most stud defensemen who are above average defensively are 1st unit penalty killers. Did I say most? I probably should have said all.
<< <i>
true to an extent, but it depends where the "observation" is coming from. Considering people like Mike Milbury get paid to "observe" and "analyze". Do you care what he has to say in regard to evaluating talent with his track record as a GM? Unless you're Alexei Yashin, probably not. What does Pierre Maguire add with any depth. Every player either has "such a high skill level", or "he's one tough hombre". or "he's all kinds of nasty". If it comes down to where the player is from, or where he went to school, then he's usually spot on. That's his party trick. The stats that are more team oriented are those that have to be weighed with subjection...such as goals against while a given player is on the ice. If the GAON of Howe from the WHA were available, both players would likely be around the same total. If you averaged 90 per season which is about what he was around for a full season in the NHL, Howe would probably have a few more over the course of their respective careers....but you can be Lidstrom, and if the donut that is Steve Mason of the last two years, or a stiff like Brian Elliott or Peter Budaj is sitting behind you, it's not going to make much difference. Lidstrom had a goalie whose basic numbers were under league average in Howard behind him, and that led to a -2 and his second worst Defensive Point Shares of his career yet he still won a Norris. As for the what we've been debating in Housley vs Howe, it comes down to what the difference in value is between the two players' strengths. By either measure of metrics that we've used, Housley's superior offensive ability is numerically greater than Howe's edge on defense (with the acknowledged tilt to offensive value we've already discussed) Really this is the only value that can be argued. Obviously you feel Howe's all-around game made him the superior player, and I think Housley's large edge in offensive ability + his lesser quality of teammates throughout their careers outweighs his deficit on the defensive side. >>
Housley did not have a large edge in offensive ability. In their NHL careers Goals/Assists/Pts per game were 0.23/0.60/0.82 and 0.21/0.59/0.80. Who was who? Looks like a pick'em.
You keep saying that Housley had lesser quality teammates. Please elaborate. Aside from 79-80 with his dad and 82-83, 83-84 with tail ends of Sittler, Clarke and Barber, what HHOF'ers did he play with? The teams Housley played on were good teams. The way I was looking at the +/- was defined to evaluate relative to the team itself, not the competition against the team.
The data base for the 2011 is not fully in the Hockey reference web-site, but I will say this based on what I can see. Perhaps Lidstrom this year was not quite so deserving. Overall, the team was a plus and he was a minus. Occassionally subjective awards are not awarded objectively and past perfromance and repution is taken into account.
Also, you never answere whether you saw Howe play in anything other than a Red Wings uniform.
Actually, he played two stints with the Flames for a total of 328 games. You stated he didn't play with the Flames until the very end of his career, I was simply correcting you because you seem to have no qualms about lying and subsequently deflecting the conversation rather than admitting mea culpa when you throw around misinformation as fact. There hasn't been an instance in this entire discussion where you've been able to take issue with any of the facts from my side of the debate. For someone using "logical" analysis you seem to quite often blur the lines between fiction and reality. It obvious how weak your argument is that you didn't even bother to comment on these points, specifically the second argument. I'll even italicize it for you:
"Understandably you've ignored the SI article with Bowman's comments regarding Phil I linked to earlier where he compared Phil's skill-set to Park, Potvin, and even Orr. I can see why arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport (who coached Housley in his prime) opinion doesn't matter to you."
First of all, I didn't notice you posted the link until you made an additional reference. Second of all, upon looking I discovered the article was written on October 25th, 1982, about 20 days days or so into Phil Housley's career. I realize there's never been hyperbole about rookies before (insert sarcasm) and Bowman was responsible for drafting him so he wouldn't have any reason whatsoever to be biased towards Phil's skill set and potential (again, insert sarcasm). I'm sure if you contact Bowman in the present day he'll stand behind his comparison of Housley to Park, Potvin and "even" Orr. Oh, and that three sentence article you linked from from the NYT (written by unknown) is certainly a definitive argument. It could have been written by you for all we know.
"You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time."
I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just trying to point out to the rational people on here that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advanced statistical analysis (e.g. GVT) is not the definitive tool that you pretend it to be, especially for defensemen as illustrated in this case. You state Housley's defensive GVT value was +69.4 and argue this is statistically precise when relating his value as a defensive contributor. If that's the case his career 267.7 GVT value must also be precise. In turn, this means Langway's career 128.9 GVT value must also be accurate. By this mathematical assessment you are determining Phil Housley's career to be 2.1 times (rounding up) more valuable than Langway's. I would be very surprised if you would find many that would chose Housley over Langway as an "all-time" defenseman, let alone to say he was 2.1 times as valuable.
"The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career. Regardless, I don't know why you put so much stock in newspaper columnists...or fantasy "writers" which is what Rotoworld is anyway (and really, you had to resort to citing a benching of a player in his final season via a fantasy hockey writer...ok). Unless it's "hard news" like injuries or contract info, why would you read columnists for analysis."
You make the above comment after attempting to previously use this as proof of Housley's skills as a "two-way" defenseman:
I Can Has Hyperlink!
Not only that, you also feel Bowman's hyperbolic opinion after the first couple weeks of Housley's career is completely valid but the opinion of a sportswriter near the very end of Housley's career, after we've had proper time to evaluate the impact of nearly his entire "body of work", is completely invalid. Huh? That's just too funny! Anyhow, I digress. You state I use "Rotoworld" as the source material about Housley's benching. The source of that comment was actually the Toronto Sun. They would have been the source commenting on his poor defensive zone coverage. In such an example Rotoworld would simply repeat the sentiment of said newspaper. Not that it would matter to you but perhaps you should read it again:
I Can Has Hyperlink Twice!
"Anyway, no offense, but if you did have a "doctorate in statistics" you'd probably be a bit more computer savvy (what with the spreadsheets and StatMat software and all) and thus, you'd know how to post a hyperlink, or italicize a quote, or more importantly, use just one single relevant statistic so you wouldn't have to use so many macro-level examples such as AS Game selections or some strawman "consensus" fodder while citing articles from the end of star player's career..."
Let's pretend for a second I do have the ability to evaluate this debate on microstatistical level. This would take a great deal of effort and what would the net benefit be for me? Satisfaction that I have quantifiable proof that you're wrong? You wouldn't accept or perhaps understand the truth no matter how persuasive my results. To think you're knowledgeable because you have the ability to recite some output data from a spreadsheet is quite amusing. And it appears you're too stubborn to even realize the limitations of your statistical analysis. Even some who are very supportive of GVT caution that it is difficult to quantify defensive ability using this measure:
"I think the goals versus threshold system is most limited by its lack of ability to quantify defensive play. The over-abundance of goaltenders at the top is another topic for further discussion."
Source
The same author continues on to state:
"It is clear that defence is underrated in the goals versus threshold system, as the defensive contribution of individual players is hard to measure. This also affects forwards, who have considerable defensive value, which is not a good description of any of our three Hart Trophy nominees."
Source
It really doesn't matter what I say, you're going to believe (incorrectly) that you feel the GVT numbers are validating and all-encompassing. I think your problem is that because sabermetrics work so well for baseball you feel a comparable analysis must be equally valuable for hockey. Phil Housley was not a valuable defensive contributor and the fact that GVT indicates he was simply indicates the limitations of GVT analysis. Not to worry though, Phil will likely get his place in the HOF because as time goes by his staggering point totals as a defenseman will likely become a focal point and the memory of his defensive deficiencies will diminish. Perhaps even the skewed perspective provided through GVT analysis will help to speed up the process.
Edited to add:
"The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career."
Again, misinformation as you continually decide to leave out details not supportive to your position. I just took the time to follow the links myself and it states:
BIOGRAPHY
George has been giving his opinion on the games people play - both good and bad - in the Herald since 2001. Prior to that, he covered the Calgary Flames for 16 seasons at the Calgary Sun, and has also written hockey in Edmonton and Winnipeg.
During three decades in the sportswriting dodge, he has covered three soccer World Cups, six Olympic Games, three Calgary Flames runs to the Stanley Cup final and numerous other Cup finals and NHL All-Star Games. He is co-author of three books - Bluelines and Bloodlines, Quest for the Cup and Football's Greatest Stars - and has written for ESPN Magazine, ESPN.com, the NHL All-Star Game Magazine and various other hockey publications. He was the recipient of Sports Media Canada award for Outstanding Sportswriting in 2006.
He has seen Italy lift a World Cup, Muhammad Ali win a World Heavyweight title and heard Sinatra sing in Vegas. Everything from here on in is a bonus.
Source
I'll have to disagree. Maybe on a shallow roster they're 1st pair. But in Chicago there was Brian Campbell who is above average defensively, and he was on the second pair due to Keith/Seabrook on the first pair. I'm sure Detroit fans would cite Kronwall. In Pitt you had Letang on the second pair behind Orpik and Z. Michalek on the PK...and before Crosby and Malkin got hurt, Letang was the leader in the Norris clubhouse. Those are three off of the top of my head.
Housley did not have a large edge in offensive ability. In their NHL careers Goals/Assists/Pts per game were 0.23/0.60/0.82 and 0.21/0.59/0.80. Who was who? Looks like a pick'em.
If you're using those numbers from second tier of HR data, you do realize those are adjusted numbers right? Even with WHA years and numbers included, Howe played in 1355 games and Housley in 1495. Housley +141 in goals scored, 894 - 841 in assists, 428-195 in Goals Created, +70 in PPP, 202-111 in even strength goals, 48-24 in Game Winning Goals. You don't consider those large deficits in generally every key offensive stat aside from assists? If you were to only use the HR adjusted numbers, by that logic, you'd be saying Dale Hawerchuk was better than Bobby Hull offensively. 1.186 vs 1.101.
You keep saying that Housley had lesser quality teammates. Please elaborate. Aside from 79-80 with his dad and 82-83, 83-84 with tail ends of Sittler, Clarke and Barber, what HHOF'ers did he play with? The teams Housley played on were good teams. The way I was looking at the +/- was defined to evaluate relative to the team itself, not the competition against the team.
It's quality of TEAMmates...not quality of HOFers around him. Lowe played on 7 - 100+ point teams in his NHL career (3 or 4 of them 110+ teams). Housley played on one 100+ team in his 20 year career. Yes there were some solid teams in BUFF with 2 or 3 of them terrible teams, his cup run in WASH, a couple good, but largely so-so teams in WINN, and largely terrible teams in CalGary where the Flames never topped 80 points. I assume you know 80-82 points is generally a team with a .500 record depending on ties. Would you not say playing on 7 100+ point teams in a 16 year career is pretty advantageous?
The data base for the 2011 is not fully in the Hockey reference web-site, but I will say this based on what I can see. Perhaps Lidstrom this year was not quite so deserving. Overall, the team was a plus and he was a minus. Occassionally subjective awards are not awarded objectively and past perfromance and repution is taken into account.
yes, but you're not taking into account quality of competition faced, where Lidstrom was #1. That's why the +/- stat means very little to a lot of people because it doesn't factor that in. That's why I pay more attention to Relative +/-. btw, HR does not keep a QUAL of COMP stat, which is why I favor the GVT metric. And without a clear-cut winner this year, his past reputation certainly didn't hurt. But he did have the 2nd highest point total (62), behind Visnovsky (68) among defensemen. He may have not been totally deserving, but you can't really say either Chara or Weber had an advantage. Half way through the season it was Letang's award to lose, and he did just that when his point total washed out when Crosby and Malkin went down.
Also, you never answere whether you saw Howe play in anything other than a Red Wings uniform.
I didn't know that was directed toward me. I thought you were talking to the other poster who chose Housley over Howe. Regularly? No. I'm not from Philly. I saw him a few games over the last few years with Philly and then a number of games with the Wings. Maybe 40-50 total.
You must be linking to a different article because there's nothing in the fantasy hockey link you posted that maintains it's from the "Toronto Sun". I also like how you refer to this Kuklas Korner fellow as an "author". That's pretty generous....and I'm sure he's a fantastic author, what with his theorem being a bias towards goalies (which I've already pointed out) without realizing this is the result of goalies playing 59-60 mins per night and the metrics that GVT uses are based on various scoring and defensive averages per 60 mins + quality of linemates and competition when obviously top defenseman play 25-28 mins or forwards 19-22 mins. He's not exactly cracking the code there. This has all been reverse engineered by far more credible analysts including the two gentlemen who engineered them. This is why I always separate goalies from forwards and defensemen when using this metric. Regardless, I don't understand why you're linking to this. It's not as though he's opposed to GVT, and it's not as though he fully understood it either. Obviously there are always going to be discrepancies and deficiencies in evaluating defense. You can say that for any defensive stat including basic +/- or team dependent GAON. 52 other players were evaluated to be more valuable than Lidstrom in the draft etc etc.
As for the Bowman link comments, by your logic, because it was said only 20 games into his career, it's just "hyperbole". As if when BUFF or any other team is scouting a draftee, they spend more than a quarter of an NHL season watching a single player. So when they're committing millions to a 1st round draft pick, it's not based on their skill-set they analyzed in the 5-10 or so games they may have scouted that player, it's just "hyperbole".
"The ESPNC borrowed article from the Calgary Herald by this Johnson fellow was dated when Housley was 38 and the link extension says he covered the Flames for the Herold starting in 2001 which would be the end of Housley's career." Again, misinformation as you continually decide to leave out details not supportive to your position. I just took the time to follow the links myself and it states:
haha, no you didn't, because there is no link to his full bio in that faux-ESPN article. Are you Canadian? Maybe you're allotted extra links us Americans do not receive.... Anyway, I'll give you that one. Johnson covered his other 2 years in Calgary. That wasn't noted in the article. He's entitled to his opinion. It doesn't mean I'm going to automatically ignore what Bowman, Chelios, Suter, and others have said about him, and agree with this guy. I'm not Canadian, and I don't read Calgary newspapers so I wouldn't know who this guy is. It's not like I'm going to go back through his columns to decide if he's a knowledgeable analyst, or if he's just an archetypal columnist. The key is columnist...and even in the 3rd largest city in the country, we have a columnist who spent his entire career covering college and pro football on the beat. Now he's writing random hockey columns (poorly) and continuing to fail in understanding the NHL salary cap. One of many area journalists who paid no attention to the Hawks until Toews and Kane arrived and now they're experts. Anyway, I guess this cancels out the NYT/Calgary Herold links, so when you have something else relevant statistically, or that isn't from a blogger, lmk. Until then...you're free to maintain your "consensus" position...and you know where I stand. It's now really time to move on when citing bloggers and inventing links enters the fray.
"You keep bringing up Howe and Langway like I've said they don't deserve to be in the HOF. I never said that they didn't. I just said their individual total worth wasn't greater than Housley and you're not going to change my mind on that so don't waste your time." I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just trying to point out to the rational people on here that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Advanced statistical analysis (e.g. GVT) is not the definitive tool that you pretend it to be, especially for defensemen as illustrated in this case. You state Housley's defensive GVT value was +69.4 and argue this is statistically precise when relating his value as a defensive contributor. If that's the case his career 267.7 GVT value must also be precise. In turn, this means Langway's career 128.9 GVT value must also be accurate. By this mathematical assessment you are determining Phil Housley's career to be 2.1 times (rounding up) more valuable than Langway's. I would be very surprised if you would find many that would chose Housley over Langway as an "all-time" defenseman, let alone to say he was 2.1 times as valuable.
"I like how you always ignore replying to your errors/inaccuracies that are pointed out, and then try to highlight those of others. I'm guessing you weren't a journalism major either then aye? <rhetorical> Anyway, you must be linking to a different article because there's nothing in the fantasy hockey link you posted that maintains it's from the "Toronto Sun"."
Again, here's the link. The comment is sourced from the Toronto Sun:
Link
You like how I always ignore replying to my errors/inaccuracies? Point out one statement where I lied or provided misinformation. Each of my replies to your increasingly absurd comments is devoted to correcting your errors/inaccuracies and misinformation. In each of your follow-ups you continue on the same path and I spend my time constantly attempting to correct you.
"I also like how you refer to this Kuklas Korner fellow as an "author". That's pretty generous....and I'm sure he's a bright enough dude..."
Every single reference source that continues to prove the invalidity of your argument is immediately discredited. Your debating technique is to simply indicate, "no this person is stupid, I still win" when presented with a counterpoint. I could devote even more time to the contradictory debate you're also having with "George" but this is already long-winded enough at this point. I think the lingo "facepalm" was specifically invented for your personality type. Nonetheless, here's what the "author" of Hockey Prospectus and the creator of GVT Tom Awad has to say when discussing its merits:
"Defense is by far the most difficult value to assign value to in the game of hockey. It is not particularly well-measured statistically."
Source
But, I'm sure in your mind, he's an idiot now too or somehow the context of such a comment is inconsequential. If you really prefer, I'll try to contact him directly and attempt to get him to weigh in on the subject with a direct quote regarding Housley's defensive capabilities as represented through GVT analysis. Is it time for you to now move on when even Tom Awad acknowledges he believes there are limitations with GVT regarding defensive statistical measurements? Somehow, I think you'll keep going and the fact that you do reveals your limited knowledge of the data being applied here.
<< <i>Housley did not have a large edge in offensive ability. In their NHL careers Goals/Assists/Pts per game were 0.23/0.60/0.82 and 0.21/0.59/0.80. Who was who? Looks like a pick'em.
If you're using those numbers from second tier of HR data, you do realize those are adjusted numbers right? Even with WHA years and numbers included, Howe played in 1355 games and Housley in 1495. Housley +141 in goals scored, 894 - 841 in assists, 428-195 in Goals Created, +70 in PPP, 202-111 in even strength goals, 48-24 in Game Winning Goals. You don't consider those large deficits in generally every key offensive stat aside from assists? If you were to only use the HR adjusted numbers, by that logic, you'd be saying Dale Hawerchuk was better than Bobby Hull offensively. 1.186 vs 1.101. . >>
??? Where are you getting your numbers from? The Goals/Assists/Pts per Game numbers I provided are unadjusted. The first group was Housley (1495 GP, 338 G, 894 A, 1,232 Pts) and the 2nd was Howe (929 GP, 197 G, 545 A, 742 Pts - NHL only). When you say Housley is +141 in goals scored it is because you forgot to add Howe's 208 goals scored in the WHA. The goals created number given to Howe of 195 was his WHA total. His NHL total was 256 for a combined 451. +70 in PPG becomes +23 (129 for Housley and 106 combined for Howe), 202 Even strength against 248 (111 NHL, 137 WHA), 48 to 43 in GWG with no stats for 3 of the WHA seasons in which Howe scored 108 goals (19 in the 3 seasons with stats when he scored 100 goals). Ignored is that Howe had 52 (28 NHL and 24 WHA) shorthanded goals compared to Housley's 7. My point here is that Howe was used more extensively to PREVENT goals from being scored.
<< <i>
The data base for the 2011 is not fully in the Hockey reference web-site, but I will say this based on what I can see. Perhaps Lidstrom this year was not quite so deserving. Overall, the team was a plus and he was a minus. Occassionally subjective awards are not awarded objectively and past perfromance and repution is taken into account.
yes, but you're not taking into account quality of competition faced, where Lidstrom was #1. That's why the +/- stat means very little to a lot of people because it doesn't factor that in. That's why I pay more attention to Relative +/-. btw, HR does not keep a QUAL of COMP stat, which is why I favor the GVT metric. And without a clear-cut winner this year, his past reputation certainly didn't hurt. But he did have the 2nd highest point total (62), behind Visnovsky (68) among defensemen. He may have not been totally deserving, but you can't really say either Chara or Weber had an advantage. Half way through the season it was Letang's award to lose, and he did just that when his point total washed out when Crosby and Malkin went down.
. >>
You may have missed the point of what I was trying to calculate with the plus minus. Whether the team was awesome or terrible was not relevant. I was comparing how the team performed at even strength when the player was on the ice versus off the ice. If a team sucks and is -60 but the player is only -20, that means when the player is not playing the rest of the team is -80. I think that does say something about that player. Housley's stats from 82-83 to 92-93 indicate that at even strength his team performed slightly better when he was off the ice than on.