Echolalia

I agree, and its the way that most posters here evaluate players between generations as well. I disagree that it accurately answers "the best of all time" though, because "all time" doesn't put asterisks on previous generations to make up for the advances that have happened in the game since then. "All time" is a singular term, encompassing the entirety of the league existence as a single unit, and not fragmented the way that most of the experts and fans approach it today. That's why I feel like a more accurate question to people who bring forth that argument is "who most handedly dominated their respective era", because as you said, its clear that most players from the past, particular the farther back you go would struggle today. But that's not to say they weren't revolutionary or great athletes. I think Orr dominated his generation more than Lidstrom did. But I think if Lidstrom and Orr were on the ice together it wouldn't even be close who was the better of the two.

I wouldn't be surprised if thats what happens every year around this time. That or the league knows he'll turn them down and so they request someone else go. I mean hes only been selected to go twice right? 2007 and 2008, and he didn't end up going either time.

Thats entirely fine, but its a different debate. Best of all time and who most handedly dominated their respective era are two different discussions.

Again, that bolded is largely due to a product of the era he played in and wouldn't be nearly so easy for him to recreate today. Coaches know how to defend against offensive defensman now. Consequently its not unrealistic to suggest he wouldn't be able to put up nearly the same numbers today as he did back then. As for the second half, once again its irrelevant to the discussion. The question isn't who, theoretically, would have been the best defensman in history had they had access to all the modern technologies, insights to the game, so on and so forth and still wasn't remotely hampered by the overall increase in skill level and knowledge of competition that happens with fast forwarding 40-50 years, the question is who is the best defensman of all time. Period. No qualifiers or "well if he had this or if that was different then maybe blah blah blah". Thats not reality. Thats DickieDunn fantasy land.

More or less I would agree with that

I'm reviving this because Mabus promised us some juicy stuff and never delivered. And seeing as how hes a mod it should be in his best interest to do what he can to bring life to the watercooler. THUS I CALL YOU OUT BRO

There's no guarantee that they'd be successful in today's NHL even with the same benefits. Maybe Orr doesn't have quite the work ethic that's needed to even get to the NHL let alone thrive in it. Maybe his commitment to the game isn't as extreme as it needs to be to be successful today. Maybe he isn't interested in getting strong enough to play today and following the strict diet and exercise regiments required of players today. Maybe he wouldn't gel with how the game is coached and played today. One of the biggest reasons Orr was so successful is that he made a living exploiting a weakness in the way the game was played back then, which no longer exists today. Orr wouldn't be flabbergasting opposing coaches if he continuously joined the rush on breakouts (or led them), or acted as a fourth forward on a drive to the net if he did it today. Those things aren't at all unusual to see today and the league has adapted accordingly. So that niche that made him so successful to begin with is no longer there waiting for him to exploit it. But all that imo is irrelevant because we're just talking hypotheticals now, and the reality is he played the game in a time where the dedication, technology, knowledge, physical requirements, etc were not as high as they are today and that put a limit on what he was capable of. Its a limit that doesn't exist today (or more accurately its a limit that is significantly reduced today). So if we're looking at the question of who is the best defensman to lace up the skates in this reality that we all live in, and not based on a hypothetical scenario where everything comes up Millhouse, Orr is a longshot IMO. This reality didn't gift him with all the advancements in the game that we have today. Not a knock on him at all. But I personally don't think he's even close to the best defensman of all time, unless you define best of all time as "best of his generation" or "most significantly dominated his respective generation". He has compelling arguments for both of those titles, but the much more generalized "best of all time" I don't think is close, even if its blasphemous or controversial to say.

Overall I think players today are better than previous generations. There's way more resources available and expectations are much higher for players to be in peak physical condition, study the game, etc than in the past. I think a prime Bobby Orr would struggle in today's NHL, but that's more a testament to how the league has changed than it is to Orr's skillset. The guy was a revolutionary figure for the way defensemen play and was a generational talent.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/blue-jackets-cut-curtis-mcelhinney-after-poor-start-vs-rangers-171459550.html 2.39 GAA .924 save percentage and 5-2 in seven games this season. Blue Jackets waived him.

As you know I think the Wings are a playoff team under a more competent coach, but until we get some franchise talent I don't think they're winning the cup anytime soon. Larkin might be that guy, Mantha might be that guy, AA might be that guy, or maybe combined they'll be enough to anchor our forwards for the next decade (cap problems maybe down the road), but we have nobody on defense, and its looking less and less likely that Mrazek will be that guy in net, so I'm not against stockpiling draft picks at this point to get some talent that we can develop alongside Larkin and co.

No sale indeed. We know Holland isn't shy about walking away from a deal he doesn't find to his liking.

I mean, if I'm a GM looking to get these guys on the cheap, I'm bringing up their production over the last two years and then following that up with a low offer.

Mantha is now tied for the team lead in goals and plus/minus, fourth in points, second in points per game, and first in goals per game. The first three of those stats are especially impressive considering he's only played half the season (but then made slightly less impressive when part of his team lead also has to do with other players performing way below expectation)

And what's exactly wrong with that? I don't dump my very finite time and money into the franchise (or anything for that matter) without expecting something in return. Hockey before all else is a form of entertainment and if I'm not entertained then I'm better off spending my resources elsewhere. The name for that is savvy consumer. And to clarify, I said I wouldn't spend the money to go see a game live, not that I'm just going to stop watching like you said. I'll definitely have some Wings' games on tv at home as I do now, provided I have the opportunity to watch and nothing else is going on. And I'll still be posting here as well.

I wouldn't be against it, but I don't think his history with the Wings would necessarily be a benefit to the team over any other candidate without the personal history of coaching here. In other words I wouldnt give him any special treatment during an interview process/candidate hunt.

If the Red Wings are this disappointing next year I personally won't be going to see a game live. It'll be nice to be in a fancy new building but I'm ultimately dedicating my time and money into the on ice product entertaining me. I don't think sitting in more comfortable seats or not having to piss in a pig trough will be enough to make me feel I got my money's worth.

lol Smith was the last one to realize he scored

lol okay mickey redmond

I don't know whether to be pissed at Blashill for using Ott on the pp or relieved that he's finally trying something different to get the power play going.

Because a Mrazek/Coreau combo would have made this season, and quite possibly subsequent seasons brutally unwatchable which defeats the entire purpose of NHL hockey games, although I know you mentioned that's more or less the type of hockey you would prefer to see. And again your table is still dropping data, and when measuring for variance it's altogether inferior to sd. On a side note, it's also misleading to say that the data below .85 or whatever arbitrary point doesn't matter. Your claim that a save percentage less than .85 can be written off as a loss is exaggerating. Yeah the chances go down as your percentage drops, but just looking at Mrazek's sub .850 games this year, 29% of them were wins. They account for almost a quarter of all the wins Mrazek has had this year. Someone could get pulled after allowing two goals on three shots for a save percentage of .333 and it's not remotely farfetched that the team could overcome a two-goal deficit and win the game. It's not data worth writing off, and considering the past few seasons where one single win was the difference between playoffs and not, I wouldn't be content with tossing that data away and labeling it the same. And when it comes to simply measuring variation from the mean to calculate consistency as was my original purpose, your method is overall subpar.

good gravy I left before the 3rd began and it was 1-0, and came back to see the Wings lost in OT 5-4

Who said anything about keeping Howard? Jesus Buppy I don't know what the deal is but every single post you make brings up a point irrelevant to the discussion or assumes that I take a stance on something that I never said. Also, standard deviation means everything when talking about consistency. By definition it is the measurement of consistency to the mean, and thus is the ideal tool to use when asking whether a goalie's play is consistent relative to how his peers play. And while your point about deviation being more heavily influenced by low values than high because there are more possible values below the average than above it, it doesn't matter when comparing to other players because everyone's numbers are affected similarly because the same equation is being used across the board, and that's ultimately what I'm interested in. Lumping the data sets as you did into broader categories is a less precise and way more arbitrary way of looking at the data. You're consolidating the entire spectrum of save percentage into 5 points, whose margins could have been made a ton of different ways (and thus different results when you plug in the same raw data). You're losing lots of information doing that.

So are they going to go through 100 introductions?

I totally forgot the Wings were doing this.

Of course variation is a part of what makes an average, but the level of Mrazek's variation is higher than most, and doing a random comparison of some other goalies his variation was higher than all. I just pulled five other goalie's career game logs from nhl.com and compared the deviation from mean of save percentage to Mrazek's. Goalies were selected semirandomly, with the only criteria being that I selected a goalie roughly every 10 spots on the current save percentage ranking all the way down to where Mrazek is so I wasn't cherry picking either the top goalies or the scrubs, and I wanted to look at some goalies who had more games played than Mrazek, and others who had less or similar games played. I also wanted to have at least a couple of the goalies around Mrazek's age too. I copied their career game logs into excel, used average and standard deviation equations (deviation from mean shown below) on save percentage and compared the results. I also added Howard in there for s***s and giggles. I know how much you like comparing him and Mrazek so I thought you'd like to see his data too But to be fair if you looked at the last three years of Howard's data his numbers would be much higher than what his career is. Mrazek: .084 Holtby: .073 Lehner: .060 Vasilevskiy: .059 Allen: .083 Pickard: .070 Howard: .066 Jake Allen was damn close so at the very least what Mrazek is doing isn't revolutionary, but at least from the goalies I looked at, the data with Mrazek and where he ends up on the spectrum of deviation from the mean is consistent with what I'd expect it to be, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has watched him play the past few years. edit: I actually wanted to see what Howard's deviation from his career average is between now and through the 2013-14 season. Its .074