Two amazing things on this list, IMO:

1) the presence of a defenseman, in Nick Lidstrom. That’s phenomenal.

2) the presence of Alex Kovalev on any sort of ‘leaders’ list.

Well timed post James-yesterday Pratt and Taylor were discussing how Sakic wasn’t an “elite” player. Dicks.

Rod Brind’Amour: -15 over the last 15 years!!!

Pardon the off topic. I just had to point that out, even if before this year, that number was around a +30.

What a monster Jagr is….And imagine if he didn’t mail it in through some of his Washington years (in his prime).

Of course everyone knows how amazing, and how amazingly consistent Lidstrom’s been, but seeing his name up here with these others still just makes me shake my head in … well, amazement. That +/- number, geez, even though I hate the stat, it’s pretty damned impressive.

And I have to add, despite the overall numbers I’d have preferred Joe on my team over Jaromir at every single opportunity, no hesitation.

His two Cup winning years, he was just incredible. In ‘96 I fully expected him to break the single playoff season goal scoring record… he was so close going into the SCF, and I was mildly shocked when that didn’t happen. And in ’01 he just owned the Devils.

Those facts, and 8 playoff OT goals, say it all really.

The thing is, goals do not correlate with excitement. It’s not something you can quantify. Yes, the Dead Puck Era as we know it, occurring roughly between the two lockouts, saw a sharp decline in scoring after the high-flying 70s and 80s, but really, that period was the true aberration. The Gretzky-Orr era was the highest-scoring one since the League’s first decade, fuelled by overexpansion, dilution of the talent base by two leagues, the abdication of good team defence, whether by lack of talent (the expansion Capitals) or lack of interest (Gretzky’s Oilers, particularly in the early days), and if we’re being perfectly honest, kind of bad goaltending. Say what you will about the pads, but goalies are still fitter, faster, bigger, and more positionally sound than they’ve ever been.

The Dead Puck Era, much like the Dead Ball Era in baseball, was about a style of play more than numbers. It was about teams dumping and chasing, clogging the neutral zone, and clutching and grabbing as much as they could get away with, which is to say, almost all the time. Just looking at the numbers, though, it was simply a correction (though clearly an overcorrection) of a trend that had seen NHL scoring hit eight goals per game in the early 80s. Let’s look back at the Original Six era, and take the year 1957-58, a year that saw Rocket Richard in decline, Gordie Howe in his prime, and Bobby Hull as a rookie. NHL offence that year: 5.59 GPG. Hell, go back a couple of years, to 1955-56, and the NHL GPG was just 5.07. Was the Original Six era another Dead Puck Era? I don’t think so; to hear those that were there tell it, it was the Golden Age of hockey.

If ever there was a Dead Puck Era prior to the interlockout period, it was in the late 1920s, when a series of rule changes led to the NHL’s lowest-ever offensive output. For example: 1927-28 saw just 3.8 GPG scored, with the highest-scoring team being the Montreal Canadiens, with just 116 goals in 44 games, the equivalent of 216 goals per game today. They were the only NHL team to average more than 200 goals/82 GP. That, my friends, is a Dead Puck Era.

So while the NHL’s numbers aren’t exactly up to the Gretzky-Orr era for pure offence, the game is visibly better than it was before the lockout, and that’s what’s really important, not some perceived notion that the goal-per-game output must be this high.