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 1961, Kelly's best offensive year where he got 70 points, the average goals scored per game was 3. 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 1961 by about 32%. So even if we add 32% to Kelly's best offensive season, that puts him at 92 points. So even using inflation and (*edit* playing center in 1961) Coffey still out produced Kelly by 46 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. *EDITED* Accidentally used stats from 1971, meant to use 1961. Now accurate.

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?

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.

I never knew that as a child he looked like JTT lol.

Honestly, who cares. When you are a re-building team, cap doesnt matter, in fact some teams take cap on when they are re-building to acquire assets. Its when you are contenders that you have to be careful with the cap. I understand the optics of it, but ultimately it really doesn't matter. Once our core is in place, that is when cap management becomes so important. If in 2018 Chris Illitch is netting a few million less, I cant say that hurts my feelings.

I feel it was fairly obvious that this was going to happen at some point, however what shocks me is that it is happening now. I always thought that this was going to happen after TB won their cup and began to regress 5-6 years down the road. After today, I can't imagine a scenario where he is not our GM in 2 years or less.

Copy and pasted from Craig Custance's Twitter: Craig Custance Retweeted · 9m BREAKING: Steve Yzerman told #TBLightning players in a meeting today he’s stepping aside as GM to be in advisory role, per source. BriseBois taking over as GM.

Tatar is on Montreal! Wow! That's shocking, after his playoff run (or lack there of) I thought LV was going to be stuck with that contract for years to come. Why the hell would Montreal make that deal? Trading a star away and taking on a bad contract, and getting a 2nd rounder (likely in the 50-60 range) doesnt make sense unless Suzuki is the real deal. Is Nick Suzuki anything special? I feel like this is a guy @LeftWinger used to talk about alot prior to his draft.

Well I guess we have a timeline for when we acquire that 1A d-man . Perfect timing to coincide with the development of the kids.

The final page of this thread was good for a laugh. #Tiesgo2vets

“He’s never tried skating, but if he trained for six months, he says, he could probably crack the NHL.” This was from the article. Guys just a s*** talker, can't take anything he says seriously.

Its funny seeing a pic of a GM who is 53 years old standing next to an elite level athlete, and the 53 year old looks as if he would kick the 29 years old's ass with no problem lol.

To be fair, we never would have drafted Andrei Vasilevskiy as we didnt need a goalie that year. Realistically we missed out on Olli Maatta.

No taking the ice after his last game, but I'm sure there will be an on ice ceremony at some point.

Pretty much. After I wrote what I did, I read that Z wont be able to play without his offseason training program. So I guess that is the reason.