Who really belongs in the Hall of Fame?

Does George Hay Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Whether or not you think George Hay belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame depends a lot on how much weight you put on a player scoring at a point-per-game pace in the Western Canada Hockey League. It’s worth noting that Hay lost the scoring race to both Duke Keats and Bill Cook in different WCHL seasons – i.e. he was never clearly the best offensive player in the WCHL/WHL. Nor was he ever a true star in the NHL: His brief NHL career isn’t particularly distinguished compared to the careers of his contemporaries, given the size of the NHL at the time.

Listen to us talk about George Hay:

Hart Trophy Part 9: The Best Players by MVP and Best Player Award

In our final episode of our series on the NHL’s Hart Trophy, we compare our list of the players to win the MVP (and our own best player award) to the actual list of Hart Trophy winners.

Then we enjoy rehashing the worst Hart Trophy awards of the last 100 years.

Listen here:

Reevaluating the Hart Part 8: The Present Day

In Part 8 of our Hart Trophy series we examine the Hart Trophies awarded since the 2013 lockout and we guess about who should win in 2020.

Reevaluating the Hart Part 7: Lockout to Lockout

In Part 7 of our Hart Trophy series we examine the Hart Trophies awarded between the cancelled season and the 2012-13 lockout.

31 Worst Toronto Maple Leafs Trades Ever

For our list of the Top 25 Best Trades in Toronto Maple Leafs History, we used Hockey Reference’s Point Shares, an attempt to value a player’s contribution to team points won. (You can read about it at in the Top 25 list.)

The cut off for that list 22 net Point Shares, though we included some honourable mentions at just over 20 net Point Shares.

Because, by net Point Shares, there have been a few more bad trades in Leafs history than good ones, this list is longer.

All Point Share data as of March 11, 2020

Reevaluating the Hart Part 6: The Dead Puck Era

In Part 6 of our Hart Trophy series, we examine the Hart Trophies awarded between the strikes of 1995 and 2004, much of which is colloquially known as “The Dead Puck Era” due to the low scoring of the late ’90s and early ’00s

Listen here:

Reevaluating the Hart Part 5: Merger to First Lockout

In Part 5 of our series on Hart Trophy winners, we focus on the years between the merger of the WHA and NHL in 1979 to the first lockout in 1994.

Spanish Flu Cancels Stanley Cup

Just over 100 years ago another pandemic cancelled sports. In this episode, we discuss what happened and why.

Reevaluating the Hart Part 4: Expansion to Merger

In Part 4 of our series on Hart Trophy winners, we focus on the years between the expansion of the NHL to 12 teams in 1967-68 and the merger with the WHA in 1979.

The 25 Best Trades in Toronto Maple Leafs History

This list is an attempt at a semi-objective ranking of best trades made by the Toronto Maple Leafs. It makes use of Hockey Reference’s Point Shares metric to rank the trades.

A Point Share is a player’s share of the points his team earns in the regular season. (There are numerous problems with Point Shares, some of which we have listed at the end of this list.)

In order to rank the trades we took the total Point Shares players acquired by the Leafs accumulated for the Leafs and then subtracted the Point Shares the players sent out from the Leafs accumulated for the other team in the trade. We included all trades since the franchise came into existence but please let us know if we missed any.

We did this calculation for only the franchises involved in the trade so Point Shares accumulated for other franchises later on in the career, or if a player returned to the team later, do not count. (Again, the problems with this approach are discussed at the end.)

By our estimation the Leafs have given up way more in regular season Point Shares than they’ve ever received in return. (Though they’ve made a lot of money!) We estimate that, through trades and the waiver wire, the Leafs have given up over 820 Point Shares more than they’ve received. Gretzky is the career leader in Point Shares at 251. So, basically, the Leafs have given up over 3 Gretzkys in terms of regular season wins over the course of the last 100 years.

So the list of best 25 trades is a bit of stretch. It was a lot easier to find the bad ones.

Here they are: the 25 best trades in Leafs history ranked by Point Shares.

All Point Share data as of December 30, 2019