Quote:
Originally Posted by vadim sharifijanov
can someone make an argument for turgeon being that much better than bernie nicholls to warrant vaulting from the hall of very good to the hall of fame? i don't see it.
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I'll give it a shot.
I don't believe Turgeon is a slam dunk hall of famer but he wouldn't be the worst inductee. I don't advocate his induction. As I said earlier in this thread, Turgeon's offensive record is such that, if it was just a little stronger, or if he just had something else to his game or his resume that strengthened his case, he would be in.
I think we can all agree that Denis Savard was better than Pierre Turgeon. But, I have always maintained that Turgeon's production was pretty comparable to Savard's. And I think He's closer to Savard (an unquestioned HHOFer) than he is to Nicholls (a guy who no one advocates)
There are a few "vs. #2" offensive dominance methods floating out there, and although the ATD section has been full of discussion about which is best lately, the truth is that they are all very similar, and any adjustments made to any model will affect most players very similarly anyway. My method is to assign each player a percentage score based on how close they were to the #2 scorer (once Lemieux and Gretzky and anyone they benefitted directly are removed - plus 1989 Yzerman and 1996 Jagr). it is really a very forgiving system to 1980s stars of Savard's ilk, because more outliers are removed from 1981-1989 than any other years.
Here are Savard's best 10 scores:
108 100 95 86 86 83 79 75 65 63
if we take his two injury-shortened seasons and become more concerned with "the level he was playing at" instead of "the points he compiled" then his best 10 scores are this:
108 100 100 95 86 86 84 83 79 65
Here are Turgeon's best 10 scores:
93 89 86 85 84 83 83 80 75 70
if we do the same thing for him and forgive him for getting injured a few times:
110 103 100 93 89 86 85 83 83 80
The two bolded lines are based on nothing more than the assumption everything else happens as it did, but Turgeon doesn't miss a combined 67 games in 1994, 1998 and 2000, and Savard doesn't miss a combined 42 games in 1989 and 1990. Which makes it a bigger what-if for Turgeon, but also his scores come out higher too (a total of 6 poitns higher by "best 5" seasons and a total of 25 higher by "best 10" seasons)
If I were to adjust Turgeon's scores to only reflect 42 games that he didn't play instead of 67, these two would be practically identical in relative production in each of their best 9 seasons.
Linemates are a consideration. Savard had Steve Larmer for practically his entire prime. Larmer was a great "hall of very good" player. Turgeon had Benoit Hogue, Derek King, and a cast of wingers throughout his career that Mats Sundin would likely scoff at. That Turgeon did what he did with these guys looks better for him, but at the same time, let's not be too quick to dismiss Savard here, because for all we know, he got Larmer 20-30 points than his raw skill dictated he should have. The sample size we could use to prove or refute that, is really quite poor.
Then Savard would still get the edge (but really, a small one) by being a more competitive player. He was not loaded with intangibles himself, but Turgeon was almost the anti-intangibles. Neither were factors defensively, nor were they ever singled out as liabilities.
then you have the playoffs. Savard got into a lot more playoff games and scored more points per game in them. The 1980s can explain a lot of this (higher scoring, nearly impossible to miss the playoffs), but not all of it. Savard was known as a great playoff player. Turgeon wasn't, although his mostly DPE production levels suggest that was on the unfair side.
The average league playoff GPG was 3.15 during Savard's playoff career and 2.67 for Turgeon's playoff career. Multiply Turgeon's career playoff PPG by 1.17, and both come out the same: 1.04. (a properly weighted number would give us a more accurate result but this should be very close) Which would still give Savard the edge for doing it for 55% more games, but about that...
This hasn't been talked about much, but I think Turgeon did his part in most of the playoffs he competed in, but got screwed over by abysmal goaltending. Rather than just go over the names he had on his team over his career, let's just look at the season and the performance levels of the goalies on his team, (which is a pretty sorry list) expressed in points above or below the league playoff average. I've included Savard's too.
| Year | Savard GP | Savard goalies | Turgeon GP | Turgeon goalies |
| 1981 | 3 | 2 | | |
| 1982 | 15 | 13 | | |
| 1983 | 13 | -4 | | |
| 1984 | 5 | 2 | | |
| 1985 | 15 | -13 | | |
| 1986 | 3 | -69 | | |
| 1987 | 4 | -8 | | |
| 1988 | 5 | -6 | 6 | -13 |
| 1989 | 16 | 16 | 5 | 0 |
| 1990 | 20 | -3 | 6 | -48 |
| 1991 | 13 | 3 | 6 | -54 |
| 1992 | 11 | 7 | | |
| 1993 | 14 | 33 | 11 | -12 |
| 1994 | | | 4 | -81 |
| 1995 | 16 | 30 | | |
| 1996 | 10 | 14 | 6 | 0 |
| 1997 | 6 | -47 | 5 | 10 |
| 1998 | | | 10 | -6 |
| 1999 | | | 13 | -17 |
| 2000 | | | 7 | -36 |
| 2001 | | | 15 | 9 |
| 2002 | | | | |
| 2003 | | | 5 | 0 |
| 2004 | | | 5 | -73 |
| 2006 | | | 5 | -4 |
| Totals/weighted averages | 169 | 5 | 109 | -17 |
Yes, this means that in the average playoff game Denis Savard played in his career, his goalie was likely to be about 5 sv% points above the average and Turgeon's goalie was likely to be about 17 points below. In a .905 environment that would be .910 for Savard and .888 for Turgeon. Tough to advance and boost your playoff GP and points totals when your goalies are pooping the bed!
Anyway, don't want to convince anyone Turgeon was superior but to show he is extremely comparable. If I had a gun to my head I'd take Savard but they aren't so far apart.
Nicholls, on the other hand:
Here are his best percentage scores:
136 88 80 80 79 77 73 64 63 52
two things: 1989 is clearly a spike, and we know why. 1990 is partially a spike for the same reason. and he starts to taper off after his best 7 seasons. Let's not throw out 1989 and 1990 entirely but try to take a common sense approach to what his actual talent level would have produced in those seasons.
I'll assume 1989 was his absolute peak as a player. To get 150 points, it had to be, Gretzky or not. So let's assume he was about 10% better than he was in the average of the seasons before and after it.
In 1988 he was a 1.20 PPG player. In 1990 he was a 1.16 PPG player once out of LA. Average is 1.18. Multiply by 1.10 and we have 1.30. So let's say he is worth 103 points in 1989 on his own merits. That would give him a score of 93% for that year. And 1990 becomes a 91-point year if we assume he plays it all in New York and not LA. Which is a score of 72. After those adjustments, his percentage scores are as follows:
93 80 80 79 77 73 72 64 63 52
after extending the same courtesy for him that we did for Pierre and Denis, we have this:
93 80 80 79 79 77 74 73 72 71
which is after crediting him for a combined 96 missed games in 1988, 1991, 1992, and 1996.
by this metric he has nothing on Turgeon and the only thing he has on Savard is that his 9th and 10th-best seasons were better.
after injury adjustments:
Sum of best 5 scores: Turgeon 495, Savard 489, Nicholls 411
Sum of best 10 scores: Turgeon 912, Savard 887, Nicholls 778
Nicholls probably has the best intangibles of the three (he was much chippier than Savard, maybe a little better defensively and killed about 50% more penalties) but not enough to get him into their league.
In the playoffs, Nicholls, like Turgeon, is one of the all-time best producers to never make the finals, in the league of Federko and Stastny. He averaged 0.97 PPG in his career. If we slightly adjust his average to fit Savard's career span (like we did for Turgeon) it would average out to 0.99, the least impressive playoff production record of the three, but not by far.
Conclusion: Turgeon is fairly comparable to Savard if ultimately inferior. Nicholls is far behind both. Turgeon resides in a very special wing of the "hall of very good". Nicholls sits in the normal wing with the Phil Goyettes and Dave Andreychuks and Vincent Damphousses.
