kliq

I don't disagree, but I'm not the one who brought up Coffey as someone Kelly is better then. His stats were insane on the Oilers.

I actually didnt know he switched to Center, that is impressive. Yes I did mean 1961, which actually means I used the wrong GPG in that particular part. Either way, the stats from 1951 are accurate, so my point still stands. I will edit later tonight to correct my mistake. You do know that in 1961 the average goals per game was 3...right? The average last year for example was 2.97. You're making it seem like scoring was so far down back then, it wasn't. The d-men were just not as good offensively, again why you can't compare era's.

I remember he played for the Bruins in the early 2000's.

I wasn't going to get into stats, but if you are going to excuse me of not understanding something, I will do a deep dive to show you that is not true. Lets use your Coffey/Kelly example: In 1971, Kelly's best offensive year where he got 70 points, the average goals scored per game was 3.12. In 1986, Coffey's best offensive year where he got 138 points, the average goals scored per game was 3.97. Now lets compare years. 1986 showed an increase in goals over 1971 by about 27%. So even if we add 27% to Kelly's best offensive season, that puts him at 89 points. So even using inflation, Coffey still out produced Kelly by 51 points. Maybe you will counter that I am using a season late in Kelly's career. Well if you take the best season in the first half of his career, here is what the stats show: in 1951, Kelly's best offensive year in the first half of his career he got 54 points, the average goals scored per game was 2.71. If we compare this to Coffey's best year, 1986 showed an increase in goals by about 47%. So even if we add 47% to Kelly's 54 point season, that puts him at 79 points. So again, even using inflation, Coffey still out produced Kelly, but this time by 61 points. I don't think most hockey historians put Kelly above Paul Coffey, most historians rank him in respect to his era, because there is no way to compare a player who played that long ago to the players of the modern era. To give you an exact example, if you have ever read "Best of the Best, Ranking the greatest players of all time" by Scott Morrison, Kelly is ranked #3 in the original era, while Coffey is ranked #6 in the modern era. Point being, they are not ranked together. You talk about how D-men were not as offensive back then, which given that he scored 71 points seems a bit hard to believe. But even excepting that logic, if you are saying it was an entirely different game, how can you say that he is better then then top guys of the modern era? What is your criteria outside of nostalgia and bias? I highly doubt you watched Kelly play. (my apologies if I'm wrong) This is why I disagree with you saying he is "top 10 all time" because if you use stats (even with inflation) he doesn't hold up. I admit that is not fair, my point being its better to compare players in respect to their era's. Now if you want to talk about point production in comparison to other players in their era, I guess we can do that, but I dont think Kelly will end up top 10 from what I have seen, and that's not even factoring in the fact that he was not playing against the best of the best. I will say this, Kelly was a top 5 D-man of the original 6 era.

With all due respect, that's not helping your argument. With those players playing with him, he should have if he was top 10 all time.

Even more the reason why players are going to have inflated stats. Imagine the type of numbers Crosby would put up if he had say Kane and Ovie playing on the Wing. It just wasn't balanced back then, put all the good players on one team and of course its going to look that way. Not sure I agree with the 5 or 6 HOFers thing either, just look at the 2002 Wings with Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Hasek, Hull, Robitaille, Shanahan, Chelios,and Larionov, that's 9 right there. Hard to say if any teams in 2018 will have that many, have to wait 10-20 years to see. Though if you look at the Pens from just a few years ago, I would guess Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, and Letang all make it, 4 is not that far off from 5-6. Either way, we can keep going back and forth but I think we can both agree that you just can't compare era's.

Agreed, that is why you shouldn't say someone from that era is "top 10 all time" because there is no way to accurately compare them. Most historians have two lists, "original 6 era" and "modern era" as comparing the actual skill of the players is of course silly, athletes today are just stronger, faster etc. I've said this before, and I eluded to this is my previous post, my biggest knock on that era is lack of competition. Imagine how good players like Doughty, Crosby, McDavid, Matthews, Weber etc. would be if you removed every European player from the league and replaced them with AHL players. That's what guys like Lindsay, Howe, Kelly etc. essentially played with. Not their faults, but if we are going to give them credit for domination, its only fair we explain why. More the reason to have two lists as its too easy to be bias towards original six era players.

Subjective, I find it very hard to compare players of that era to players of today's era, especially considering in was just North Americans back then. Glad he's getting his due though.

Is Kelly in the HOF? Nevermind, I found a list. He is. https://www.hhof.com/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/LegendsPlayersByTeam.jsp?team=Detroit+Red+Wings

Redden? Or the posters in this thread?

Tiesgo2vets right?

I wish you sent this a day earlier lol, just seeing your message now. I would have been down. Game was ok, crappy way to end it, but I enjoyed myself. Really cook seeing Chowolski score hist first goal.

Im pretty pumped! I got tickets and I'm super excited to see the kids in their debuts!

Exactly. I dont think he will, but with injuries you never know. Jun 24, 2018: DET 2019 conditional 7th round pick* *Conditions: Detroit receives the 2019 7th round pick if Robbie Russo plays in 30 NHL games. ARI

Not necessarily, if nobody claims him and he is assigned to their farm team, he could always be called up later in the season if there is an injury.