ScottM

I like what Montreal is getting more than what Nashville is, since I'm higher on Weber generally speaking than Subban, but I understand what the Preds were probably going for. Subban is three years younger and has a bit more offensive ability, a la support for Rinne. Still, I think Montreal wins. Better leadership, and far more consistent play.

41 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

Truer words never spoke, lets use Scotty Bowman as an example. The award was first given in 1974, Montreal was an elite team, from 76-79 the Habs won every year, the winners those 4 years were:

76: Don Cherry....77....Bowman....78 Bobby Kromm.....79 Al Arobour

1991 taking over the Pens for the dying Badger Bob Johnson and winning the cup the Adams went to Brian Sutter of the Blues.

1997 and 1998 the Wings won back to back cups, the Adams award winners were Ted Nolan in Buffalo and Pat Burns in Boston.

In 2002 Bowmans final record breaking cup he did not win again, instead it was won by the immortal Bobby Francis of the Coyotes.

In short the greatest coach in the history of the game who coached pretty much continuously from 1974 through 2002 win exactly 2 Adams, in 1977 and again in 1996 when the Wings had the best record but did not win the cup.

  He won 7 cups since the inception of the Adams, (2 previously) and only won the Adams once in a cup winning year. It proves Buck's (and your) point quite nicely.

  Another case in point is Joel Quinneville who is arguably the greatest active coach in the game today, during his three cup wins with the Hawks has lost every single one of those years to the likes of Bob Hartley, Paul Maclean and Dave Tippett. Quinneville did win once, back in 1999-00 when he coached the Blues. They were a bit of an upstart, but did not win the cup.

If you want to say the greatest coach of al time is Arbour instead of Scotty, then fine, he won it once, in 1979, the Isles did not win the cup that year, Bowman's Canadiens did.

I feel like I have hijacked your comment a bit, no offense if I did so, Very good point you made, just wanted to back it up with a bit of evidence.

I don't think you hijacked it at all. That's a very detailed, researched post that makes the case very well. In fact, if anything, I think it proves that the idea is even more pronounced than I would have thought.

I didn't include the Lady Byng or Jack Adams in my post, but I'll remark about them here. O'Reilly is a great candidate for the Lady Byng, but wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if he won it? Everyone seemed ready to throw him under the bus before the season, and now he could win that award? Incredible turnaround.

As for the Adams, I'll throw something Buck Showalter said at the press event I was in the other night into the discussion. Someone asked him about his AL manager of the year awards, and he said he looks at it as more of an organizational award than anything. Basically, he said that he thinks they tend to give it to the manager whose team had the greatest improvement, and overlook guys who keep their teams consistently at the top. Do we tend to do that with the Jack Adams as well? I don't ask that to discredit Ruff, because I think he's a great pick. He's built that team up in a hurry, and last year was a big part of that too. Still, in general, do we (and the voters) tend to do what Showalter said?

On 1/9/2016 at 0:58 AM, ScottM said:

There are several reasons to think that we will never see this record broken. First, even if we use a lower threshold of 70 goals, we find that only eight players have reached that milestone at any point in their NHL careers. Raise the bar to 76 goals, and that number falls to just six. If we lower the target to 60 goals, we find that 20 players have reached that mark, but such seasons have become much rarer in recent years. Since the 1995-96 season when Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr both eclipsed 60, only two players have managed to get to the mark. One of those is Ovechkin, who has already established himself as one of the greatest goal scorers in the history of the NHL, and some believe may end up as the greatest goal scorers ever. Even when he had his peak season, he fell short of 76 by a full 11 goals. Add to those facts that this is a record that can only be broken by a rookie, and this record seems untouchable.

This is a key part of the original post. Again, I can't stress enough that I'm not trying to take anything away from Selanne. He had a season for the ages that year no matter how you slice it. Also note, I'm not arguing that Selanne should be considered ineligible that season. The only thing I said that might could be taken that way was the comment that if he had been from North America, he would've been in the NHL before that season. We all know that's true. That's why I pointed out that he wasn't in the same boat as an 18 or 19-year-old breaking into the league. But I also took care to point out that he's not in the same category as Makarov. I do believe that Selanne should've been Calder eligible, because he was still young, and it was a big step up. The Gretzky thing could be debated all day depending on your views of the WHA as a "major league," but I won't get into that here, because this is meant to be a tribute to Selanne's record.

Selanne deserves all the credit in the world for what he accomplished in 1992-93, the only reason for bringing up his previous play in the Finnish Elite League was to fully demonstrate the perfect storm that it would take for this record to be broken. It would take someone with a similar pre-NHL background, a similar level of talent, and a similar drive. One thing I'd encourage everyone to keep in mind: these posts aren't meant to tear down these records, but to honor them. I do try to give an accurate background that explains how the records happened for the sake of context, but I also explain why they won't be broken.

18 minutes ago, radoran said:

So, in 1992 the Finnish Elite League was pretty much just the same as the NHL was?

Not really buying that argument.

The WHA at the time is a different kettle of fish.

I'm not saying that at all, but a few years of play there had certainly developed Selanne more than a typical 18-year-old rookie would have been. That's all I'm suggesting. Nothing more.

11 minutes ago, BluPuk said:

I'm just agreeing with what Scott said. He was already an established pro, not a true rookie. IMHO that's why he has the 'record'.

I'm also saying I agree that using whatever the NHL's 'criteria' was, Gretzky should have won in his rookie year as Scott also said. Typical NHL.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Selanne's season, because that was a remarkable campaign for anyone at any age, but yes, the fact that he was already a pro in Europe helped him. That has to be considered to get the full view of the record.

I also agree that there's inconsistency between him and Gretzky, but by the same token, had Gretzky been considered a rookie in 1979-80, there would have to be a bit of an asterisk on his "rookie season" for the same reason we're saying that about Selanne.

In the end, it is what it is, and the record belongs to Selanne, but those factors are part of what makes this so unassailable.

3 hours ago, JagerMeister said:

Not to denigrate Teemu Selannes rookie season. But considering time period, higher scoring. I think Ovechkins rookie season could be debated as equally impressive.

While you may have a point, Ovi still came nowhere close to this record, and I don't think we'll see anyone do so unless there are some MAJOR changes ahead. Ovi's rookie year helps to show why this record is so unbreakable.

It has been over two decades that the NHL has seen a player post a 70-goal season. Mario Lemiuex's goal scoring pace in 1995-96 would have been good enough to break Gretzky's record of 92 over the course of a full season, but since cancer limited him to just 60 games that season, he finished with "only" 69 goals. Because of that, you have to go back to 1992-93 to find a player that reached the 70 mark. That season, Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne both accomplished the feat. The most shocking thing about it is, of course, that Selanne was a rookie. Today's unbreakable record is his rookie record of 76 goals.

Now, to be fair, Selanne was not a rookie in the sense that we think of an 18 or 19-year old player breaking into the NHL. He was 22 years old and was already established as a skilled player in his native Finland, playing for Jokerit Helsinki, and had played in the Olympics in 1992. By the same token, however, he was not in the same class as Sergei Makarov who won the Calder at age 31 either. So, while Selanne would not have been a rookie that season had he been born in North America, it should be noted that he was still an eligible "Calder rookie."

It goes without saying that Selanne won the Calder that season. It also goes without saying that he shattered the NHL rookie goal scoring record. Besides Selanne, among players eligible for the Calder under the current rule, only Mike Bossy (53 goals in 1977-78), Alex Ovechkin (52 goals in 2005-06), and Joe Nieuwendyk (51 goals in 1987-88) have ever scored at least 50 goals in their debut NHL season. If you choose to ignore the fact that Gretzky was ineligible for the Calder because of his WHA season, you can add him to the list, but no matter how you look at it, the list is short indeed.

There are several reasons to think that we will never see this record broken. First, even if we use a lower threshold of 70 goals, we find that only eight players have reached that milestone at any point in their NHL careers. Raise the bar to 76 goals, and that number falls to just six. If we lower the target to 60 goals, we find that 20 players have reached that mark, but such seasons have become much rarer in recent years. Since the 1995-96 season when Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr both eclipsed 60, only two players have managed to get to the mark. One of those is Ovechkin, who has already established himself as one of the greatest goal scorers in the history of the NHL, and some believe may end up as the greatest goal scorers ever. Even when he had his peak season, he fell short of 76 by a full 11 goals. Add to those facts that this is a record that can only be broken by a rookie, and this record seems untouchable.

What would it take to break the record? First, there would have to be a significant increase in scoring. Such a change would probably require a rule change such as smaller goalie pads or larger nets (and the latter would cheapen goal scoring records in my mind). Additionally, any player that would be capable of scoring so many goals would have to be much more than a "generational talent." It would take the type of player that only comes along once or twice in a lifetime. Further, I suspect it would have to be a European player, as any North American player of that caliber would undoubtedly be in the NHL at age 18, and even a once in a lifetime player would be highly unlikely to perform such a feat at 18. Most Europeans of that level would also be in the NHL at 18, but there is more chance that they might play in another professional league to develop than that a North American would. Take all the facts together, and I highly doubt I'll see this one chance only record broken in my lifetime.

IIRC, that's the website that JR posted some links to in the shoutbox a little while back. I looked over it a bit, and there's some really cool stuff on it. A thread for it is a good idea.

In fairness, draft picks are the definition of unproven. Not saying I'm in love with the trade...

Very true, but two unprovens give you a better shot than one unproven.

I don't understand that trade at all. It seems like too much of a risk from Edmonton's viewpoint. Reinhart is totally unproven. I'd be ecstatic if I were an Isles fan. Edmonton may have one-upped Buffalo.

I remember reading about this but can't remember the details.

 

Edit: just looked it up and I got the excluded city right. Would never have gotten the owner or team name.

Feel free to go ahead and give the answer if you'd like.

I think I'll revive this since it has just been sitting here for a good while without a new question.

The NHL was formed from the NHA to exclude a particular team owner. Who was it and what was the name of his team?

I voted for Hull's 86. When Gretzky is the only guy to top it, it's rather impressive. In my mind, the three straight Finals appearances have a bit of an asterisk next to them because of the playoff format.