Stevens had a strange career, offensive super star's to defensive all-around superstar's with best hitter in the history of the game.
Hard to define cleary prime stevens and compare him to chara. Are we talking about washington Stevens or Devil's Stevens ?
This is a myth. Stevens was voted best bodychecker as soon as 1984. On the other hand putting 25-30 points during dead puck era could be considered same output as output from solid offensive defensman. It's same with Chara: he is the best defensive defensman but it's not like he is terrible in offensive zone, in fact, there are not many offensive defensmen putting year by year 40-50 points.
And missed calls never happen, whatever as I said its my opinion.
We're talking about an entire career, not just a single game or even a season. By your logic, they missed elbow calls on him except for those 7 minutes for his entire career?????
Its close. I think Stevens was more intimidating, even though he was smaller. Rarely do you see Chara stepping up like he did. He changed the way players played the game in the neutral zone. Not a lot of dangling around the blueline when he was out there. Chara is so big that he's easy to spot and he can't change direction like Stevens could to cut into players.
Chara's already got a norris, so he gets my vote by a mile.
Stevens 1993-94 (led the league in even strength points by a D, led the second best team in the NHL in scoring, led the league in +/-) was better than any regular season Chara had. Stevens lost the Norris to one of Ray Bourque's best seasons in the closest vote ever
If I wanted to win a series, I would take Devils-era Scott Stevens over just about anyone this side of Orr/Bourque. 1993-94 Stevens didn't win a Norris, but it's still one of the very top seasons from a defenseman since Orr retired.
Stevens, quite easily. Amazingly enough, the player in this poll that stands 6'1 and weighs in at 215 pounds intimidated opponents in a way that the 6'9, 255 pound player never could.
under what year's rules? I have a feeling stevens would be spending a ton of time being suspended under current rules
I don't like this assumption, and I don't think it's valid. Stevens was not an automaton programmed to play a certain way and incapable of changing his style. In fact, changing his playing style to benefit his team is one of the things he is most famous for.
I am confident that if Stevens played today, he would be able to harness his Hall of Fame talent and modify his game to stay effective and intimidating but clean, within today's rules.
First of all, LOL @ Harry Neale saying Nieds "fell all by himself" near the start of the vid.
Corrects himself later, though.
Anyways, I've never seen Chara go absolutely ballistic the way Stevens did after this hit. Don't see too many captains get that animated after a cheap, dirty hit from an opposing player.
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He was extremely dirty he loved to target heads and throw elbows.
CLUELESS.
Quote:
Known for his open ice checks, Stevens was known just the same for executing them cleanly, accruing just four elbowing penalties in the regular season over his NHL career.
The only real advantage you can give to Chara in this comparison is that he arguably has had a better string of consecutive regular seasons relative to his peers. Stevens has clearly the best single regular season among the two of them, and I'd argue that his regular seasons were probably better than Chara's for the most part, but in a deeper league and so they didn't always result in as high of finishes in the Norris trophy voting. Stevens also absolutely blows Chara away in terms of playoff performances, although for the most part Stevens' best playoff seasons did not coincide with his best regular seasons.
The only real advantage you can give to Chara in this comparison is that he arguably has had a better string of consecutive regular seasons relative to his peers. Stevens has clearly the best single regular season among the two of them, and I'd argue that his regular seasons were probably better than Chara's for the most part, but in a deeper league and so they didn't always result in as high of finishes in the Norris trophy voting. Stevens also absolutely blows Chara away in terms of playoff performances, although for the most part Stevens' best playoff seasons did not coincide with his best regular seasons.
That's an advantage to Chara, but Stevens was lining up with numerous hall of fame talents in his best years (including two of the top-5 Dmen of all time in Bourque and Lidstrom).
When Stevens dished out an vicious open ice hit, a lot of times the player was down for the count. The guy was a monster. Even though i hated his check on Kariya, which game him a concussion.
When Stevens dished out an vicious open ice hit, a lot of times the player was down for the count. The guy was a monster. Even though i hated his check on Kariya, which game him a concussion.
I'm not sure that's true. I can't find any publications to confirm this. He never named Stevens in his anti-concussion rant, and immediately following the hit was saying (paraphrased) "this is what Scotty does. He times his hits so well, although I think it was a bit late"
No offense to Zdeno Chara, but Stevens' mastery of the open-ice hit and how long his prime was seal it for me. Stevens was more intimidating than Chara too...and Stevens wasn't too bad offensively either (956 career points).
Put Chara up against Bourque, Chelios, Leetch and Coffey in their primes and see how many Norris trophies he wins.
I wonder how a 6'9 defenceman that can shoot the puck at 110mph would have done. The players have gotten bigger, faster and stronger. Chara would have fared out quite well!
I wonder how a 6'9 defenceman that can shoot the puck at 110mph would have done. The players have gotten bigger, faster and stronger. Chara would have fared out quite well!
There's more to defense than height and slapshots. Stevens' positional play was far better than Chara's.
Even though i hated his check on Kariya, which game him a concussion.
