The Greatest

I am in Montreal just for the day, and the town is all agog over the news that the Habs are going to the playoffs. They did so in style, winning in OT (with a great sideshow from Marty Turco). Still, there was a time when this wouldn't even have been news. From 1971 to 1994 they went to the playoffs every year. The Montreal Canadiens used to define quality hockey.

But even Rome fell. It's been hit-or-miss in recent years. The miss in 1995 ended that great streak, then there was a terrible stretch from '99-'01. The team was much improved in the double-0ughts, but missed the show again in '03 and '07. It's not automatic anymore.

It reminded me of some recent consulting work I did on statistical predictors of success in hockey. So little has been done. We live in the age of quantification, and while baseball has Bill James, and Doctor X has pioneered the field of quantitative musicology, the rink still searches for its Galileo.

Some of this has to do with hockey culture itself. Where baseball has always been statistics-mad, and football coaches have systematically evaluated down-and-distance since the days of Tom Landry, hockey's appeal is more visceral. A friend and colleague who grew up Canadian is as analytically sharp as anyone I know, but if you ask him his assessment of the Sharks he's likely to say something like "they've got try harder to get in there and dig it out of the corners!" Hockey is a continuous and exacting test of skill, endurance, and courage. Putting a number on it sort of misses the point.

But, ironically, hockey has made one enormous statistical contribution to sports analysis - the Plus/Minus score. The concept is simple - if a player's team scores more goals than it gives up while he's on the ice, he gets a plus. If they give up more goals than they score, he gets a minus. Team play is recognized, flashy guys who don't play defense are penalized, and the basic yardstick - goals - is the actual object of the game (unlike, say, yards in football). The idea is so good it has been borrowed and adapted to many other sports.

Of course, the career leader in Plus/Minus is the same man who dominates so many other statistical categories in hockey, Larry Robinson.

Wait...what? Yes, Gretzky's #4 on this list, behind Robinson, Orr, and Bourque. I heard an interview with Doug Wilson on KNBR the other day and the host asked him who he thought the greatest hockey player was, and he offered the view that it was Orr. Gretzky was astonishing of course, and his on-ice awareness and single-minded devotion to the game are legendary. My favorite Gretky stat: if he had never scored a goal he would still be the all-time points leader. But remember, Orr got hurt early - this video gave me fresh respect for him.

But it did not convince me he was the greatest hockey player of all time. Sitting here in Montreal it has never been more apparent to me that the honor must devolve to Larry Robinson. That playoff streak? Robinson was there for almost all of it - including six Stanley Cups. While he was on the ice, the Montreal Canadians outscored their opponents by 730 goals. He and Orr are the only hockey players to ever have a Plus/Minus score of more than 100 in a single season.

Robinson was a defenseman, first and foremost. He was 6-4 and went 225 in the pre-steroid era. He could skate, he played a clean game (here's an example), and made sure the other team did, too. He personally ended the Philadelphia Flyers' "Broad Street Bullies" reign of terror by being bigger, faster, and better than they were.



Since it's hockey you're going to ask me if he could fight. In truth, it's a little hard to say because it's a small sample. No one really wanted to fight him after he gave a "New Sheriff" demonstration to the most notorious goon in the League. In Mister Robinson's neighborhood you had two choices - you could play good, clean, hockey, like God intended, or you could have a really horrible experience you would never forget. Most opponents opted for the former.

And he could put the puck in the net. At one end of the ice he is the burly cop with the cautionary hand on your shoulder. At the other end he's one of the League's top 10 scorers.

As I sit here watching the cold wind waft powdered snow down Rue Sherbrooke, it has never been more obvious to me what it means to be a great hockey player. You can have your flashy guys, they're fine for people who watch highlight films or like ballet. But I have seen the truth, and it is Larry Robinson. If we're picking teams, he is my first rounder.

I thought this video of his jersey retirement was quite moving. Here is a great video recap of his career: