Does Mark Howe Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

When Mark Howe was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame there was some controversy: They inducted who???

But Mark Howe was one of the elite NHL defensemen of the 1980s. Before that, he was one of the best forwards in the WHA.

We talk about Mark How’s case in our latest episode. Listen here:

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Mark Howe’s stats:

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Does Georges Buck Boucher Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Georges Boucher aka Buck Boucher was among the very best defencemen of the NHL’s first decade and a half. Where does he rank all time?

Listen here:

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Does Scott Niedermayer Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Obviously he does deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. The question is more, “where does he rank all time among great NHL defencemen?”

We discuss that here:

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Does Chris Chelios Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Chris Chelios has one of the most impressive resumes of any American defenseman. He might have the most impressive resume.

So the question isn’t so much whether or not he belongs in the Hall of Fame, but where does he rank among the greatest NHL defenders ever.

Listen here:

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Does Herb Gardiner Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Herb Gardiner may have been one of the premier defencemen of his era, and was awarded the Hart Trophy as a result.

But how good was he really? Can we even know? How do we evaluate defencemen from the 1920s who didn’t score a lot? Can we trust Hart trophy wins from the past when we know they sometimes awarded them for controversial reasons?

Listen to us talk about Herb Gardiner here:

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Is Nicklas Lidstrom the 2nd Best Defenseman of All Time?

If you judge strictly on the basis of Norris Trophy wins, Nicklas Lidstrom is the second best NHL defenseman of all time.

Obviously Norris wins are not the only criteria we should use when evaluating NHL D, so in this episode we look at his entire career and try to figure out where he ranks all time.

Listen to us talk about Nick Lidstrom here:

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Defensive Defensemen

Since the position of defenseman was created, there have been defenders who contributed to the team’s offense and there have been players who didn’t much. But this difference was exacerbated by the expansion of the NHL in 1967 and the phenomenon of Bobby Orr, who destroyed scoring records for defenders, and showed that teams could expect scoring from the back-end in ways they never imagined.

This change essentially created a dichotomy between “offensive” defensemen, who scored a lot, albeit not quite as much as Bobby Orr, and “defensive” defensemen, who didn’t score much at all. For our purposes, we’ve arbitrarily assumed that a “defensive defenseman” is a defender which manged .35 adjusted PPG or less throughout their NHL career.

The Hall of Fame’s attitude towards defensively inclined defenders also changed since expansion. The Hall of Fame has inducted six NHL defensemen from that era who scored less than .35 adjusted PPG (of a total of 16 legitimate candidates they could have inducted). But the Hall of Fame has inducted exactly one player who fits the bill, Rod Langway, to play the majority of his career since expansion.

This leads to three possible conclusions:

  • Rod Langway was the best defensive defenseman since expansion, significantly better than any other, and he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame while no other player with a similar skill set deserves the honour. OR
  • There are other players of Rod Langway’s ability who have been forgotten or overlooked because they didn’t get the awards votes (Norris and Hart) that Langway got, and they deserve to be in. OR
  • Rod Langway’s awards votes are a historical curiosity that won’t happen again and he didn’t necessarily deserve them, nor do other players who fail to contribute offensively, and no defensive defensemen should be inducted into the Hall of Fame going forward.

How do we sort out this problem?

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Sprague Cleghorn

Sprague Cleghorn has one of the all time great hockey names. But was he good enough to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

In this episode, we talk about Sprague and where he ranks among the old timer D of his era. Listen here:

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Does Chris Pronger Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Chris Pronger was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame even while under contract to an NHL team. What was the rush inducting while he was still technically active? Was he really that good.

In this episode we discuss Pronger’s career and his HOF case.

Listen here:

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Does Sergei Zubov Belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

by Eric Wallace from Plano, Texas, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Sergei Zubov was one of the best defencemen in the NHL for nearly two decades yet, when he recorded this episode, he was not yet in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Why did it take so long? Was it because he’s Russian? Was it because he played most of his career in Dallas and wasn’t watched enough?

In this episode, we marveled at how Zubov was not in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Of course, since then the Hall of Fame corrected their mistake. Still, it’s a fun episode.

Listen here:

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