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Top 12 lines in Devils/Rangers/Islanders History


mfitz804

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5 hours ago, Nicomo said:

Bunch of guys I’ve never heard of ahead of the A-Line and the dynasty era Isles...

fvck the Rags

I mean... i can agree with fvck the rags and that the Islanders line should be first but bias aside, they do deserve the 2nd spot... And to be fair, if you've never heard of Jean Ratelle and Rod Gilbert that's kind of on you and certainly not cause they are scrubs lol They are very well known and established legendary players. I mean Ratelle is one of the best scorer of all time, i didnt check but he must easily still be somewhere in the top 40 or 50 in goals and points. And Gilbert... i feel is well known as the top scorer for the Rangers franchise just like Elias is for the Devils. And Hadfield is probably equivalent to Sykora.

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I met Rod Gilbert once at a charity event, I was probably in college. I got his autograph because he was sitting there signing autographs, and I made things right by saying “Rangers Suck” as I walked away from the table. 

Edited by mfitz804
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9 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

And to be fair, if you've never heard of Jean Ratelle and Rod Gilbert that's kind of on you and certainly not cause they are scrubs lol They are very well known and established legendary players. I mean Ratelle is one of the best scorer of all time, i didnt check but he must easily still be somewhere in the top 40 or 50 in goals and points. And Gilbert... i feel is well known as the top scorer for the Rangers franchise just like Elias is for the Devils. And Hadfield is probably equivalent to Sykora.

Ratelle is 38th overall in points in the history of hockey. Ahead of a slew of Hall of Famers. I believe when he retired he was #6. Plus we all made fun of his number getting retired 30 years after he stopped playing lol. 

Gilbert scores over 1,000 points and was nearly PPG for his career, granted back then that probably wasn’t as big a deal. 

Hadfield as Sykora is probably a good comparison, but add to that he had a 50 goal season once, 30+ goals twice, and multiple 20+ goal seasons. 

BUT, those motherfvckers loved water fountains and we all know why. 

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10 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I met Rod Gilbert once at a charity event, I was probably in college. I got his autograph because he was sitting there signing autographs, and I made things right by saying “Rangers Suck” as I walked away from the table. 

 

E8E8E11A-93D1-4AAE-9156-7FBFC59FE276.gif

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9 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

I mean... i can agree with fvck the rags and that the Islanders line should be first but bias aside, they do deserve the 2nd spot... And to be fair, if you've never heard of Jean Ratelle and Rod Gilbert that's kind of on you and certainly not cause they are scrubs lol They are very well known and established legendary players. I mean Ratelle is one of the best scorer of all time, i didnt check but he must easily still be somewhere in the top 40 or 50 in goals and points. And Gilbert... i feel is well known as the top scorer for the Rangers franchise just like Elias is for the Devils. And Hadfield is probably equivalent to Sykora.

If only you could make money playing devil’s advocate online...

you could probably buy your own team lol

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4 hours ago, mfitz804 said:

Ratelle is 38th overall in points in the history of hockey. Ahead of a slew of Hall of Famers. I believe when he retired he was #6. Plus we all made fun of his number getting retired 30 years after he stopped playing lol. 

Gilbert scores over 1,000 points and was nearly PPG for his career, granted back then that probably wasn’t as big a deal. 

Hadfield as Sykora is probably a good comparison, but add to that he had a 50 goal season once, 30+ goals twice, and multiple 20+ goal seasons. 

BUT, those motherfvckers loved water fountains and we all know why. 

This went over my head...

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Can't argue much with that list, all 3 teams deserve to have basically the 3 best lines for each of their teams in the conversation for the top 3 on that list of 12.  As much as I liked and respected the A line, I feel like the Isles bunch was just a bit better.  Those guys brought them 4 Cups.  Our guys brought us basically 3 finals trips in 4 years, granted in a more competitive era.  The Rangers line was effective as well, and the numbers don't lie.  

All in all, it's quite close for those 3 lines. 

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1 hour ago, MB3 said:

If there's one thing I hate more than anything in the world, it's comparing players across different eras as if they're on the same sheet of ice. I don't give a good damn that someone was a PPG player for a decade, if that era had nearly half the fvcking league playing at a PPG pace for their careers. The fact that it was recent makes it easy for us to throw away Johnathan Cheechoo's 56 goals in that one weird season where teams weren't allowed to play defense and goalies all had to dress like Marty, but for some reason hockey fans won't look with the same quizzical and critical set of eyes when evaluating stats of players in the 60s and 70s. Gilbert putting up 70 points while a dozen players are scoring over 100 in a league with 18 teams just doesn't interest me. 

It's like people talking about all the winning the UCLA mens basketball team used to do. Wow, they had 3498304243 Final Fours in a row! That's so impressive until you also mention that half of those final fours were in NCAA tournament fields of 8 and 16 teams! 

While I agree it's not the most logical thing to compare players across eras because it's impossible to quantify since no one has a time machine and it'll never be proven or seen how the players would truly stack up against each other, it doesn't necessarily mean it's not interesting (to some people) or even mildly fun and entertaining (to some people).  I can see why people are intrigued by the idea of comparing some of the league's all-time greats.  

Also, while I certainly agree that the 70s and 80s featured a game that was pretty different than today's, and some of those differences attributed to inflated stats here and there (unathletic goalies, poor/less equipment, less-strict rules, etc), I don't really think it's fair to squawk at anyone, regardless of era, being a point-per-game player for their career.  I mean, that's still essentially the imaginary bar for a player's production and success.  It has been and remains sort of the gold standard by which the "elite" players of all-time are measured (at least for players on offense, anyway).  If you look at the list of all-time points-per-game players, Teemu Selanne rounds out the list at #50 with 1.004 points-per-game.  Your point about eras where nearly every player achieved that mark isn't really valid because there really hasn't been an era or decade where that happened - it's still a rare feat.  I can't find the exact number, but estimates are that there have been around 15,000 players to play at least one game in the NHL since it started, and if only 50 players can say they've averaged a point per game for their career, that's less than half of one percent. 

If there's one group of players that the differences in eras was likely to have an effect on, it's probably the lower-tier caliber players, guys who played 50-100 games in the NHL.  If those guys played in today's game, rather than sticking around for a few dozen games and notching 200 or 300 points, maybe they only notch 40 or 50 in today's era, or perhaps they don't even make it at all.  I think (most of) the players who were great (the point-per-game guys) were/are great, and would have been regardless of the era they played in. 

I can see where you might have a slightly different opinion of the point-per-game mark if you're looking at guys who achieved that average over just 300 career games, or maybe even 600, as compared to guys who were able to play for 1,000, or even 1,400+, because at that point it makes sense to wonder whether those guys would have been able to keep up those numbers for the same duration, but to discount it because of the era I don't think is entirely fair. 

 

EDIT: To your point about teams (in any sport) winning a lot of championships, either in a row or just many in a given time, I agree with the notion that it's less impressive when you take into account that they were way less teams back then.  The fact that the Montreal teams (Canadiens/Maroons/Wanderers - whatever the hell else they were called) has 24 Cups isn't really all that magical, when many of them came when there were 4 or 6 teams in the league.  At that point it's pretty much just probability.  It's a lot harder to win consecutive championships, in any of the 4 major sports in the U.S., when the league's have so much parity today, and it's across 30-some teams instead of just a handful.  That's why since I was a kid I always wanted the Devils to win back-to-back Cups, and why I was impressed that the Pens did it a few years ago - I really didn't think it would happen for a while. 

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19 minutes ago, NJDfan1711 said:

The fact that the Montreal teams (Canadiens/Maroons/Wanderers - whatever the hell else they were called) has 24 Cups isn't really all that magical, when many of them came when there were 4 or 6 teams in the league.  

See, I told you that you mention Montreal all the time. 

EDIT: never mind, wrong member ;)

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Agree with MB3 in that I've never been a big fan of trying to measure everyone for all eras by the same stick.  I think the most anyone can truly hope to be is one of the best of their respective era. 

1 hour ago, DevsMan84 said:

I read that article too and was expecting the A-line and the Gillies-Trottier-Bossy like to be either in the #1 or #2 position.  I get the GAG line was pretty big back in the day, but I would certainly put them at #3 behind the other two.

As fun as the A-line was to watch in 1990-00 and 2000-01, man did they drop off in 2001-02...especially on the road.  Somehow they became home-ice wonders:

 

Elias:

Home  39 GP, 20 G, 24 A, 44 Pts, 90 Shots, 22.2 S%

Away  36 GP, 9 G, A, 16 Pts, 109 Shots, 8.3 S%

 

Arnott (of course some of this sample came as a Dallas Star):

Home  35 GP, 21 G, 15 A, 35 Pts, 107 Shots, 19.6 S%

Away  38 GP, 4 G, 5 A, 9 Pts, 90 Shots, 4.4 S% 

 

Sykora:

Home  37 GP, 15 G, 18 A, 33 Pts, 108 Shots, 13.9 S%

Away  36 GP, 6 G, 9 A, 15 Pts, 86 Shots, 7.0 S%

 

Was off how much their shooting%s fell off on the road.  It would be one thing if one of them saw that kind of drop (bad luck, it happens), but all THREE saw their numbers just plummet in road games.  

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16 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Agree with MB3 in that I've never been a big fan of trying to measure everyone for all eras by the same stick.  I think the most anyone can truly hope to be is one of the best of their respective era. 

As fun as the A-line was to watch in 1990-00 and 2000-01, man did they drop off in 2001-02...especially on the road.  Somehow they became home-ice wonders:

 

Elias:

Home  39 GP, 20 G, 24 A, 44 Pts, 90 Shots, 22.2 S%

Away  36 GP, 9 G, A, 16 Pts, 109 Shots, 8.3 S%

 

Arnott (of course some of this sample came as a Dallas Star):

Home  35 GP, 21 G, 15 A, 35 Pts, 107 Shots, 19.6 S%

Away  38 GP, 4 G, 5 A, 9 Pts, 90 Shots, 4.4 S% 

 

Sykora:

Home  37 GP, 15 G, 18 A, 33 Pts, 108 Shots, 13.9 S%

Away  36 GP, 6 G, 9 A, 15 Pts, 86 Shots, 7.0 S%

 

Was off how much their shooting%s fell off on the road.  It would be one thing if one of them saw that kind of drop (bad luck, it happens), but all THREE saw their numbers just plummet in road games.  

Could be that the other teams figured how to defend them better and getting the last change was key to containing them.

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I agree to an extent, but Jean Ratelle PPG'd his way to be the 38th highest scorer in the history of the game. And at the time he retired, he was 6th. 

That's still a pretty significant stat in my opinion. Does it compare with being a PPG player now? No it doesn't. 

Also, still fvck the Rangers. 

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51 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I agree to an extent, but Jean Ratelle PPG'd his way to be the 38th highest scorer in the history of the game. And at the time he retired, he was 6th. 

That's still a pretty significant stat in my opinion. Does it compare with being a PPG player now? No it doesn't. 

Also, still fvck the Rangers. 

True, but he retired, what, 40-50 years ago?  His drop from 6th all time to 38th is more to do with time and the league doubling in age than anything else.   Technically you could go through that time span and not have many players retire with a point per game average, but all things being equal, you're gonna have some.  If he dropped 32 places in 50 years, that's less than 1 player per year retiring with that average, which I think speaks for itself.  

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54 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

Could be that the other teams figured how to defend them better and getting the last change was key to containing them.

Yeah that's the simplest explanation and I'm sure that getting the last change had a little something to do with it, but it's amazing that it seems like damned near EVERYONE they played suddenly figured them out in road games.  I almost wish I could watch the 2001-02 season over just to see how much of their lack of road production was due to freakishly bad luck (Arnott shooting 4.4% ?!), how much of it was due to coaches knowing which of their personnel could shut them down, and how much of it was due to them simply not playing well on the road.  

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4 hours ago, NJDfan1711 said:

Can't argue much with that list, all 3 teams deserve to have basically the 3 best lines for each of their teams in the conversation for the top 3 on that list of 12.  As much as I liked and respected the A line, I feel like the Isles bunch was just a bit better.  Those guys brought them 4 Cups.  Our guys brought us basically 3 finals trips in 4 years, granted in a more competitive era.  The Rangers line was effective as well, and the numbers don't lie.  

All in all, it's quite close for those 3 lines. 

Arnott was gone for the last one. 

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1 hour ago, NJDfan1711 said:

True, but he retired, what, 40-50 years ago?  His drop from 6th all time to 38th is more to do with time and the league doubling in age than anything else.   Technically you could go through that time span and not have many players retire with a point per game average, but all things being equal, you're gonna have some.  If he dropped 32 places in 50 years, that's less than 1 player per year retiring with that average, which I think speaks for itself.  

I'm not sure whether you are agreeing with me or disagreeing with me, but that said, if you retire and you are the 6th highest in a positive stat like points in the history of your sport, you were a pretty damn good player. If you are still 38th 50 years later, then you were a pretty damn good player. 

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