The Puck Stops Here

I have written several posts about sabermetrics and hockey in the past. Mostly, this is a summer hobby because during the regular season there is so much going on in the NHL that I do not have to delve into the past to find an interesting topic for a post. However, a lively discussion in my recent I NOW consider Peter Forsberg a Hall of Famer post has led me to try to write something about when and why I consider a player a hall of famer.

The least satisfying explanation of when I consider a player a hall of famer (but the one that is closest to the truth) is that I consider a player a hall of famer as soon as it becomes more logical to do that then to explain why he is not a hall of famer.

One illuminating set of questions that is first written in a baseball context by Bill James. I cannot say that I exactly follow this list of questions, but it is close to my mindset.

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?

2. Was he the best player on his team?

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?

4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?

5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?

6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?

8. Do the player's numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?

9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?

10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?

11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?

12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go into the Hall of Fame?

13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?

14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?

15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

Of course these questions are somewhat baseball specific, but they give a rough idea of what one should consider about a potential hall of famer.

Another test is the calibration between different positions. Usually, a team dresses 12 forwards, 6 defencemen and 2 goalies. I see no reason not to imagine that in a perfect world, the number of Hall of Fame players should be in approximately that ratio. That means that we should have 60% forwards, 30% defencemen and 10% goaltenders. If we look at my list of currently active NHL players who belong in the Hall of Fame of fourteen players here:

Dave Andreychuk
Ed Belfour
Martin Brodeur
Chris Chelios
Peter Forsberg
Dominik Hasek
Jaromir Jagr
Brian Leetch
Mario Lemieux
Nicklas Lidstrom
Luc Robitaille
Joe Sakic
Brendan Shanahan
Steve Yzerman

We see 8 forwards, 3 defencemen and 3 goalies. If we want to pick 14 players in as close as possible to the 60-30-10% ratios, we would have 8 forwards, 4 defencemen and 2 goalies. This is pretty close to ideal.

Most of the players that have been suggested as additions to the list of current players who should make the Hall of Fame regardless of what they do (or do not do) in the rest of their careers in the Peter Forsberg comments are forwards. This is not suprising because the highest scoring era in NHL history was the later 80's and first half of the 90's. Many of the older current NHL players had their primes occur during this era and thus managed to pad their career totals. This is shown if we look at the top NHL scorers of all time (select NHL and points - I could not get a working link of the results). We can correlate the top 50 scorers of all time and their birth years:

1928 (Howe)
1931 (Beliveau, Delvecchio)
1935 (Bucyk, Ullman)
1938 (Mahovlich)
1939 (Bobby Hull)
1940 (Mikita, Ratelle)
1942 (Esposito)
1949 (Clarke)
1950 (Perreault, Sittler)
1951 (Dionne, Lafleur)
1956 (Federko, Stastny, Trottier)
1957 (Bossy)
1959 (Gartner)
1960 (Bourque, Ciccarelli, Goulet, Kurri)
1961 (Coffey, Gretzky, Messier, Murphy, Nicholls, Savard)
1962 (Oates)
1963 (Andreychuk, Francis, Gilmour, Hawerchuk, MacInnis)
1964 (Housley, Brett Hull)
1965 (Lemieux, Yzerman)
1966 (Robitaille)
1967 (Damphousse)
1968 (Recchi)
1969 (Sakic, Shanahan, Turgeon)
1970 (Modano, Roenick)
1971 (Sundin)
1972 (Jagr)

So if we break this down into five year periods, we find this:

1926-1930 - One player
1931-1935 - Four players
1936-1940 - Four players
1941-1945 - One player
1946-1950 - Three players
1951-1955 - Two players
1956-1960 - Nine Players
1961-1965 - Sixteen players
1966-1970 - Eight players
1971-1975 - Two players

The NHL has existed since 1917. In its early days, some of its players were born in the 19th century. These players cannot make the top scorers of all time list because they did not player enough games in the season. It was only after the season length become closer to what it is now that players started to emerge who make the current top 50 all time scorers list. Currently, there are NHL players who were born well into the 1980's, but they haven't had enough time to score enough points to make an all time scoring list. The most obvious thing we see is that the majority of the players on the list were born between 1956 and 1970 (and there may be a few players in the later part of this time period who will one day make this list but are not yet there). These are the players who played in the highest scoring era of all time. This shows the need for adjusted scoring stats when comparing players of different eras. The more recent players dominate the raw numbers, but after adjustment this is not neccessarily true. Most of the argument for the extra forwards hall of fame inductions come from looking at their raw numbers. Often, there is no question that if a player from the 1960's put up the career numbers of a Pierre Turgeon, Mark Recchi or Mats Sundin he would be a clear Hall of Famer, but in the era these more modern players it is not so clear. I wouldn't induct any of those players if their careers ended right now.