Hall of Fame Standards for the Major-League Era (Part Two)

This year's new edition of the Hockey Abstract includes a lengthy chapter on the Inductinator, which is a system I devised to determine implicit standards for the Hall of Fame, trying to figure out why each Hall of Fame player was selected as such. It may not be that the best or most deserving players are inducted according to your personal standards or indeed mine, but the Inductinator proceeds with the assumption that the Hall of Fame Selection Committee acts in a reasonably rational manner, and has a reason for each of its selections, even if the justification for using such a reason might be weak.

Last time we had a look at goaltenders and defencemen who played in what I call the Major-League Era, specifically the years 1912 to 1929 when the Stanley Cup became the domain of only a top few hockey leagues. Today we'll be looking at the forwards from this era. Remember that the system is designed so that every player with an Inductinator score of 100 or more meets the implicit Hall of Fame standards.

For most players, the criteria are pretty straightforward. If we look at the top man as an example, Newsy Lalonde. He earns 22 points for the senior-level hockey games he played in excess of 200, and another 42 points for the points he scored in excess of that number. He earns 67 points for his senior career points-per-game average; anyone in excess of 0.95 gets points for this, up to a maximum of 70. Lalonde receives 43 points for his 19 seasons of senior hockey; 14 is the minimum number to earn any points in this category. Newsy earns a ridiculous number of points for his top-four finishes in major-league scoring. He led a major league in scoring three times, was second once, third once and fourth four time, resulting in 112 points. Only Joe Malone (with four) and Fred Taylor (with five) led a major league in scoring more often during this period. Lalonde also served as a player-coach in the major leagues for nine seasons, and earns 60 points for that, giving him a total of 346. He was also head coach in the NHL for seven seasons after his playing career was over, but only those players with at least nine such seasons earn any points for it. It may seem odd to reward a player for something that happened after his playing career, but without this category there would be no way to explain Jack Adams' induction into the player category in 1959.

This isn't the only post-career accomplishment that has to be considered in this era to explain some player selections. You might notice Conn Smythe on the list below, with 60 points on the scale despite playing literally only a handful of senior games. All of these points come from the fact that he was the coach of a Canadian Olympic hockey team (in 1928). Without this massive amount of points, you could not explain Frank Rankin's induction; he was the coach of the 1924 team. Ranking was quite a good player, but had a very short career. His high career points-per-game gives him 47 points, and the other 60 come from the Olympics. It's even worse in the case of Steamer Maxwell, who is recognized as the coach of the 1920 Olympic team, and receives 100 points on the Inductinator scale for this. You can explain the extra 40 points either because he was the first Olympic coach, or because he had a longer senior career than Rankin or Smythe. Once again, Maxwell was a good player in his day, though he never played professionally. He was an extremely fast rover, but he used his speed largely in defence, and never scored very much. He's nowhere near the Hall of Fame purely as a player.

There are some other kludgy work-arounds needed in this era, awarding a large amount of points to a player for an accomplishment that would not seem to be worth that much at first glance. Shorty Green is probably the best example. Based on his playing career alone, his Inductinator score would be precisely zero. He was a decent player, but nothing special. There are two things for which he might be renowned, both of which arise from his captaincy of the 1924/25 Hamilton Tigers. This was the first (and to date, only) NHL club that went from worst to first in the span of a single season. Green was also the leader of the Hamilton player strike before the 1925 playoffs, which earned them a good deal of fame. So we can assign arbitrary values to these events, and give Short Green 50 points for each of them to get to the Hall. It's not terribly satisfying, but it works.

Rusty Crawford is another one. Based purely on his career numbers, despite his very long career Crawford would score only a 50. The only thing that sticks out about him at all, that other players cannot match, is the range of his major-league career. He is the only player from this, so far as I can tell, to have played for a major-league team in every Canadian province that had such a team (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Québec). He played for the Vancouver Maroons, Calgary Tigers, Saskatoon Crescents, Toronto Arenas, Ottawa Senators and Quebec Bulldogs in his career. I can't find anyone else who meets this criteria. Newsy Lalonde missed out Alrberta and Tommy Dunderdale didn't play in Ontario. They're Hall of Famers nonetheless. Art Gagne and Eddie Oatman both also hit four provinces, but not five; Gagne missed BC and Oatman, Saskatchewan. So if we give Crawford 50 points for this feat, his induction makes sense.

Rewinding a bit, there are a number of things that Newsy Lalonde missed out on for Inductinator points. Players who won at least three Stanley Cup championships earn points for the feat, while Lalonde had only one. Captaining a Stanley Cup championship, and scoring a Cup-winning goal also garner points. Playing and scoring goals in the Olympics are also rewarded, as are Allan Cup accomplishments. The Hart and Byng awards are also valuable, though they arrived relatively late in this time period.

As you can see from the table below, there are a number of players who could just as easily be Hall-of-Famers as not. Bernie Morris, Corb Denneny, Harry Smith and Dubbie Kerr are all only a few points off of the 100 threshold. Personally I would have put each of these men in before Rusty Crawford among others, but the Inductinator is not about merit, about who should be in the Hall of Fame. It's about explaining who is in the Hall. It's an attempt to shed some light on history, not to call down the efforts of the selection committee.

We'll finish up our look at the Inductinator next week, when we examine the Hall-of-Fame players from the Challenge Era, up to 1911.

FORWARD	HoF	SCORE	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM
Newsy Lalonde	yes	346	344	443	94	537	806
Joe Malone	yes	277	278	345	73	418	221
Fred Taylor	yes	242	206	218	110	328	219
Frank Nighbor	yes	231	438	255	119	374	324
Didier Pitre	yes	231	344	313	79	392	457
Cy Denneny	yes	177	398	310	90	400	450
Dick Irvin	yes	160	324	367	93	460	409
Ernie Russell	yes	151	100	176	16	192	299
Duke Keats	yes	150	301	234	117	351	764
Frank Fredrickson	yes	145	366	246	112	358	499
Harry Broadbent	yes	141	385	224	63	287	829
Frank Foyston	yes	140	367	255	82	337	206
Tommy Dunderdale	yes	140	302	260	74	334	609
Mickey MacKay	yes	138	422	274	118	392	334
Jack Walker	yes	138	444	262	99	361	129
Hobey Baker	yes	130	41	65	33	98	2
Billy Burch	yes	127	412	166	73	239	255
Jimmy Gardner	yes	120	169	90	29	119	431
Frank Rankin	yes	107	21	63	0	63	0
Scotty Davidson	yes	107	49	52	18	70	150
Harry Watson	yes	106	60	94	20	114	2
Gord Roberts	yes	106	171	207	44	251	325
Tommy Smith	yes	105	213	365	33	398	359
Jack Darragh	yes	104	258	208	73	281	355
George Hay	yes	102	410	208	118	326	145
Jack Adams	yes	102	297	249	56	305	518
Babe Dye	yes	101	281	216	48	264	221
Moose Goheen	yes	101	143	65	15	80	0
Barney Stanley	yes	101	265	190	94	284	257
Steamer Maxwell	yes	100	37	20	12	32	63
Shorty Green	yes	100	126	75	18	93	183
Rusty Crawford	yes	100	303	165	69	234	435
Harry Hyland	yes	100	155	192	34	226	398
Bernie Morris	no	99	237	202	83	285	139
Corb Denneny	no	98	350	225	72	297	365
Harry Smith	no	92	112	246	8	254	229
Dubbie Kerr	no	91	166	191	45	236	340
Eddie Oatman	no	85	320	198	101	299	456
Tony Conroy	no	84	186	54	14	68	80
Art Gagne	no	82	395	179	90	269	434
Louis Berlinguette	no	80	346	92	57	149	304
Odie Cleghorn	no	77	299	231	65	296	444
Herb Drury	no	72	294	59	16	75	205
Cully Wilson	no	65	355	204	85	289	814
Fred Harris	no	61	282	175	81	256	449
Conn Smythe	no	60	5	2	0	2	0
Bert McCaffrey	no	52	321	103	49	152	202
Jack McDonald	no	34	244	195	59	254	179
Carson Cooper	no	33	341	215	74	289	97
Ty Arbour	no	31	370	137	69	206	184
Don Smith	no	27	189	189	27	216	359
Billy Boucher	no	25	252	116	41	157	442
Sibby Nichols	no	21	99	102	27	129	150
Harry Meeking	no	17	274	106	41	147	330
Charley Tobin	no	14	201	154	39	193	139
Jimmy Herbert	no	11	238	89	33	122	255
Ken Mallen	no	10	182	182	27	209	277
Harry Scott	no	9	123	178	7	185	182
Alf Skinner	no	9	257	117	32	149	432
Carl Kendall	no	8	67	33	19	52	52
Skene Ronan	no	5	138	108	25	133	244