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2025 Draft

GGpX said:
Top 4 d-men are basically indisputable in my mind:

Orr's #1, Bourque's #2, Harvey's probably #3, Lidstrom's #4.

I can switch Harvey & Lidstrom, I'm open to it. But #1 and #2 are set in stone for me.
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Bourque was incredible with minimal drop off even in his last few years
 
GGpX said:
Easily. The generational d-men have been: Harvey -> Orr -> Potvin -> Bourque -> Lidstrom -> Makar.

When a player has a HHOF resumé at 23 years old? And he hasn't fallen off, he's actually still getting better?

At 23, Makar has one Norris & one second place finish, one Conn Smythe, one First Team All-NHL, one Second Team All-NHL. That's a HHOF resumé already.

Only 13 players in hockey history have won the Norris more than once; Every single Norris winner except Subban, Giordano & Carlyle is either in the HHOF or headed there eventually. And had Subban's back not gone out, he would have played long enough to make it himself.

As we speak, Makar has 4 top-3 finishes in Norris voting and he's probably going to win the Norris this year. But let's stick at 4. There's only a handful of players with more:

Raymond Bourque (15!!!! with 5 wins)
Zdeno Chara (6, 1 win)
Chris Chelios (6, 3 wins)
Paul Coffey (6, 3 wins)
Bill Gadsby (5, no wins)
Doug Harvey (8, 7 wins)
Victor Heman (6, 1 win)
Niklas Lidstrom (11, 7 wins)
Al MacInnis (6, 1 win)
Bobby Orr (9, 8 wins)
Brad Park (7, no wins)
Pierre Pilot (6, 3 wins)
Denis Potvin (6, 3 wins)
Larry Robinson (6, 2 wins)

That's the list of all players throughout hockey history with more top 3 Norris finishes than Makar... And Makar's just turned 26. I don't think it's crazy to think he might end up with 8-10 top-3 Norris finishes.
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Holy shit
 
Bourque finished top-5 in Norris voting from the age of 19 as a rookie all the way to the age of 35.

That's 17 fucking years. Straight!

And after that, he finished 7th, 7th, 3rd, 7th and 2nd in Norris voting before retiring. He finished his career as the highest scoring d-men of all time and the 12th most points in NHL history.

Like, what the actual fuck? The complete and utter disrespect that some people have for Raymond Bourque is baffling to me.
 
GGpX said:
Top 4 d-men are basically indisputable in my mind:

Orr's #1, Bourque's #2, Harvey's probably #3, Lidstrom's #4.

I can switch Harvey & Lidstrom, I'm open to it. But #1 and #2 are set in stone for me.
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I have Raymond a distant 4th
 
GGpX said:
Bourque finished top-5 in Norris voting from the age of 19 as a rookie all the way to the age of 35.

That's 17 fucking years. Straight!

And after that, he finished 7th, 7th, 3rd, 7th and 2nd in Norris voting before retiring. He finished his career as the highest scoring d-men of all time and the 12th most points in NHL history.

Like, what the actual fuck? The complete and utter disrespect that some people have for Raymond Bourque is baffling to me.
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I remember when he played for the old Verdun Blackhawks. I lived in Verdun at the time and my dad and a bunch of us went to watch our Blackhawks play the Jr Canadiens with three Denis who had been stars in Verdun minor hockey. Verdun won like 10-2 that night and we were all cheering on the "local" team even though the road team played ten minutes up Atwater Avenue, Anyway, some of the dads were lauding Steve Kasper and Norman Aubin the scoring stars (Kasper had a decent NHL career, Aubin did not) but an old guy who ran my hockey organization in Verdun, John Holden, said nah, Bourque is the star and will be one. That he was. He is criminally underrated.

Verdun Black Hawks all-time player list at hockeydb.com

A sortable scoring list of all the players that ever played for the Verdun Black Hawks
www.hockeydb.com
 
GGpX said:
Bourque finished top-5 in Norris voting from the age of 19 as a rookie all the way to the age of 35.

That's 17 fucking years. Straight!

And after that, he finished 7th, 7th, 3rd, 7th and 2nd in Norris voting before retiring. He finished his career as the highest scoring d-men of all time and the 12th most points in NHL history.

Like, what the actual fuck? The complete and utter disrespect that some people have for Raymond Bourque is baffling to me.
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I thought he was pretty much universally acclaimed??
 
GGpX said:
Easily. The generational d-men have been: Harvey -> Orr -> Potvin -> Bourque -> Lidstrom -> Makar.

When a player has a HHOF resumé at 23 years old? And he hasn't fallen off, he's actually still getting better?

At 23, Makar has one Norris & one second place finish, one Conn Smythe, one First Team All-NHL, one Second Team All-NHL. That's a HHOF resumé already.

Only 13 players in hockey history have won the Norris more than once; Every single Norris winner except Subban, Giordano & Carlyle is either in the HHOF or headed there eventually. And had Subban's back not gone out, he would have played long enough to make it himself.

As we speak, Makar has 4 top-3 finishes in Norris voting and he's probably going to win the Norris this year. But let's stick at 4. There's only a handful of players with more:

Raymond Bourque (15!!!! with 5 wins)
Zdeno Chara (6, 1 win)
Chris Chelios (6, 3 wins)
Paul Coffey (6, 3 wins)
Bill Gadsby (5, no wins)
Doug Harvey (8, 7 wins)
Victor Heman (6, 1 win)
Niklas Lidstrom (11, 7 wins)
Al MacInnis (6, 1 win)
Bobby Orr (9, 8 wins)
Brad Park (7, no wins)
Pierre Pilot (6, 3 wins)
Denis Potvin (6, 3 wins)
Larry Robinson (6, 2 wins)

That's the list of all players throughout hockey history with more top 3 Norris finishes than Makar... And Makar's just turned 26. I don't think it's crazy to think he might end up with 8-10 top-3 Norris finishes.
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What fascinates me is that besides Potvin, none of the dominant defensemen of any of the draft eras were ever selected first overall.
 
GrandWazoo said:
I thought he was pretty much universally acclaimed??
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I've read universal acclaim, but I've seen so many people who kinda leave him as an afterthought in discussions. Sort of like, yeah we know he's great, but those others were better. Look at the rankings that are available online.

Personal opinion: Bourque has a better case for being the best d-man ever than any other player who has ever lived has a case for being the second best d-man ever. Also, it's almost inarguable to me that he's top-10 player of all time, but there aren't many lists that have him in the top-10.
 
GrandWazoo said:
What fascinates me is that besides Potvin, none of the dominant defensemen of any of the draft eras were ever selected first overall.
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It doesn't fascinate me at all, it kind of makes sense.

A forward's worth is heavily based around his numbers and most of the time, forwards put up numbers right away. It's hard to know how a d-man's going to play in the NHL because we don't know how their defensive play translates nor whether their offense translates. Also, d-men are rarely in the NHL at 18. Very, very rarely. You'll see 18 year old forwards every year, who are sheltered, play limited minutes, put in advantageous positions... It's much harder to do that with d-men.

And that's how it goes for goalies too. The greatest goalie ever was taken in the 10th round with most unorthodox and downright impracticable style possible.
 
GGpX said:
I've watched two games of Schaefer this year and I don't see it so far.

Porter Martone, on the other hand... Oh yeah. He's got it.
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Of course you go BPA but it would be tempting to go for a center with that top 10. What about Misa?
 
habs25th said:
Of course you go BPA but it would be tempting to go for a center with that top 10. What about Misa?
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Haven't watched Misa, don't have an opinion on him one way or the other.

My guy Boisvert says he doesn't know what to make of him yet. That there isn't one elite quality about him and he's a finesse player.
 
GGpX said:
It doesn't fascinate me at all, it kind of makes sense.

A forward's worth is heavily based around his numbers and most of the time, forwards put up numbers right away. It's hard to know how a d-man's going to play in the NHL because we don't know how their defensive play translates nor whether their offense translates. Also, d-men are rarely in the NHL at 18. Very, very rarely. You'll see 18 year old forwards every year, who are sheltered, play limited minutes, put in advantageous positions... It's much harder to do that with d-men.

And that's how it goes for goalies too. The greatest goalie ever was taken in the 10th round with most unorthodox and downright impracticable style possible.
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I get that defensemen are harder to project but you’d think that some of the best ones would stand out in juniors. Bourque was the 4th defenseman drafted in his draft and yet immediately made the NHL as a 18 years old and notched 65 points. You’d think it should have been a bit more obvious.
 
Part of it was bias. Drafted out of the Q where there were monster number producers every year and two of the d-men were drafted from a pro league with a higher level of competition, and they had good numbers too.

You just don't know. There are too many unknown factors for d-men.
 
GGpX said:
I've read universal acclaim, but I've seen so many people who kinda leave him as an afterthought in discussions. Sort of like, yeah we know he's great, but those others were better. Look at the rankings that are available online.

Personal opinion: Bourque has a better case for being the best d-man ever than any other player who has ever lived has a case for being the second best d-man ever. Also, it's almost inarguable to me that he's top-10 player of all time, but there aren't many lists that have him in the top-10.
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Top 10 is difficult depending on how one feels about the older legends. But I also think it’s very close between Bourque and Lidstrom.
 
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