Top 50 Canucks of All-Time - #33

[-AJ-]

Phew, we almost needed a tie-breaker for our tie-breaker, but Kurtenbach finally pulled ahead by two, and won the spot for 31st. As per precedent, Skriko was given the #32 position.

 

Because two players were voted, in I'd normally add two players from the nominations, but here's the thing...68% of all the nominations went to Rota. He had 15 nominations and no one else had more than two, so I don't feel it's honest to add two players from the last poll.

 

As such I will be adding two players from the nominations on this thread to the next poll. The list for #33 will only contain nine options, but we will get back to 10 on #34 unless one player dominates the nominations in the same way again. Please only nominate once--the second place player in nominations will be added as well as the first place one.

 

Reminder to both vote and nominate another player to be added as a voting option!

 

For those of you who haven't seen these kinds of polls before, the way they work is you vote for who you think is the greatest/top Canuck at the position. As for what is meant by "Greatest" or "Top", I will leave that to each individual. I have my own interpretations, but others may define it differently. Worth noting, that I do want to keep this to their tenures with Vancouver and as players, thus a player like Neely would only be considered for his Vancouver time and guys like Quinn and Crawford would only be considered for their playing careers, not their coaching careers.

 

The List:

#1 - H. Sedin

#2 - D. Sedin

#3 - T. Linden

#4 - P. Bure

#5 - M. Naslund

#6 - S. Smyl

#7 - R. Luongo

#8 - K. McLean

#9 - T. Gradin

#10 - A. Edler

-------------------

#11 - T. Bertuzzi

#12 - M. Ohlund

#13 - R. Brodeur

#14 - A. Burrows

#15 - R. Kesler

#16 - H. Snepsts

#17 - T. Tanti

#18 - A. Mogilny

#19 - J. Lumme

#20 - S. Salo

-------------------

#21 - B. Morrison

#22 - A. Boudrias

#23 - D. Lidster

#24 - K. Bieksa

#25 - C. Ronning

#26 - D. Lever

#27 - D. Kearns

#28 - E. Jovanovski

#29 - P. Sundstrom

#30 - G. Adams

-------------------

#31 - O. Kurtenbach

#32 - P. Skriko

[Kevin Biestra]

Vote Tiger Williams.

 

Nominate Gary Smith.  Pretty much the reason we have one banner at all to hang in the rafters from the 1970s.  6th place for the Hart Trophy in 1974-75, 3rd for NHL Goalie of the Year.

 

 

 

 

[-AJ-]

I'm voting for Geoff Courtnall and nominating Dennis Ververgaert.

 

I realize a lot of fans around my age won't know Ververgaert, so I'll put some info here about him. Ververgaert spent 5 1/2 seasons in Vancouver in the mid-to-late 70s and was an integral part of the team's offense during those days. He tied for the team lead in goals in 1973-74 as a 20-year old with 26 goals and finished 4th in Calder voting. In 1974-75, he scored at a 72-point pace (for 80 games), while injured for 23 games.

 

In 1975-76, Ververgaert led the entire team in scoring with 71 points and his 37 goals were only one shy of the Canuck record of 38 goals at the time.

[Gurn]

Vote for Tiger

nominate Curt Fraser

[Rick Blight]

Voted Courtnall and was gonna nominate Ververgaert but I goota stop looking like I am copying A.J. I will go with my next player and nominate Curt Fraser.

[Master Mind]

Voting Courtnall

 

Nominating Rick Lanz

[smithers joe]

g courtnall

 

p reinhart

[Wilbur]

Voted Butcher

Nominating Ververgaert

[Captain Canuck #12]

Not sure which of this lot to vote for yet, but nominating Gary Smith.

[CaptKirk888]

Voted Courtnall, nominating Suitcase Smith

 

[Coconuts]

Courtnall

 

Nominating Dave Babych

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Coconuts

[GB5]

vote Bo

 

Nominate Aucoin very good d=man during some dark times for Canucks fans. 23 goals one year for us.

[Kevin Biestra]

3 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

Courtnall

 

Nominating Dave Babych

 

I'd also have Brashear ahead of Williams

 

Babych is already nominated and deservedly so.

 

As to Brashear vs. Williams, you have a right to your opinion, but Tiger was a huge part of the 1982 Cup run, as well as an All-Star for the Canucks.  He got ejected from the game with Roger Nielsen for standing beside him with a towel raised as well.

[-AJ-]

6 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

Courtnall

 

Nominating Dave Babych

 

 

Babych is already a voting option.

[-AJ-]

2 minutes ago, Kevin Biestra said:

 

Babych is already nominated and deservedly so.

 

As to Brashear vs. Williams, you have a right to your opinion, but Tiger was a huge part of the 1982 Cup run, as well as an All-Star for the Canucks.  He got ejected from the game with Roger Nielsen for standing beside him with a towel raised as well.

Williams also had some offense to his game (even though it was largely just in one season in Vancouver). Brashear was all fists and not much else.

[Coconuts]

3 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

Babych is already a voting option.

Curt Fraser

[Kevin Biestra]

Just now, -AJ- said:

Williams also had some offense to his game (even though it was largely just in one season in Vancouver). Brashear was all fists and not much else.

 

Williams also had a 30 goal season for the Leafs, and as I've said once or twice elsewhere, he has more career goals than Henrik Sedin in 300-400 less games.

 

Ten seasons with 15+ goals.  241 goals in total.  I might suggest that "some offense" flirts with understating things.

[-AJ-]

1 minute ago, Kevin Biestra said:

 

Williams also had a 30 goal season for the Leafs, and as I've said once or twice elsewhere, he has more career goals than Henrik Sedin in 300-400 less games.

 

Ten seasons with 15+ goals.  241 goals in total.  I might suggest that "some offense" flirts with understating things.

I think his 35-goal season skews some views of his offense. He was a fringe 20-goal scorer outside of that one year (in Vancouver), which in the 80s was more of a third liner. In my mind, he was better as a Maple Leaf and scored a bit more with them, as well as playing longer with the Leafs. He did have ten 15+ goal seasons, but only three of those were with the Canucks.

 

I also think it's very misleading to use Henrik's goal total as a measuring stick for a goal scorer when goal scoring wasn't even remotely his specialty. 

[Kevin Biestra]

1 minute ago, -AJ- said:

I think his 35-goal season skews some views of his offense. He was a fringe 20-goal scorer outside of that one year (in Vancouver), which in the 80s was more of a third liner. In my mind, he was better as a Maple Leaf and scored a bit more with them, as well as playing longer with the Leafs. He did have ten 15+ goal seasons, but only three of those were with the Canucks.

 

I also think it's very misleading to use Henrik's goal total as a measuring stick for a goal scorer when goal scoring wasn't even remotely his specialty. 

 

Does his 35 goal season skew it that much when he has another 30 goal season immediately preceding it?

 

How is it misleading to use Henrik's goal total when I'm talking about his goal scoring?  I didn't say Tiger was the better passer and then point to his penalty minutes.

 

I think most people that didn't see Tiger play immediately assume he was like Gino or Troy Crowder, just there to rack up penalty minutes, when he was closer to Clark Gillies than Troy Crowder.  I point to a 35 goal season and it's called an outlier.  I point to another 30 goal season and it doesn't count.  I point to ten 15 goal seasons and he's just a fringe 20 goal scorer and not enough of them were with the Canucks.

 

[-AJ-]

2 minutes ago, Kevin Biestra said:

 

Does his 35 goal season skew it that much when he has another 30 goal season immediately preceding it?

 

How is it misleading to use Henrik's goal total when I'm talking about his goal scoring?  I didn't say Tiger was the better passer and then point to his penalty minutes.

 

I think most people that didn't see Tiger play immediately assume he was like Gino or Troy Crowder, just there to rack up penalty minutes, when he was closer to Clark Gillies than Troy Crowder.  I point to a 35 goal season and it's called an outlier.  I point to another 30 goal season and it doesn't count.  I point to ten 15 goal seasons and he's just a fringe 20 goal scorer and not enough of them were with the Canucks.

 

His 30-goal season before it was mostly with Toronto, so it's not relevant for his ranking on this list.

 

Using Hank's goal total as a comparison to me almost sounds like you're comparing the two as offensive players, when Hank was obviously far superior. Being a better goal-scorer than Henrik isn't that much of an accomplishment, given it wasn't what he was known for. I think if you wanted to go by career totals, a better comparison would be to compare him to someone like Darcy Rota, who scored 256 goals in his career and was actually primarily a goal-scorer, like Williams.

 

I think it's also worth noting that this list is exclusive to their times as a Canuck, hence why Larionov and Reinhart aren't on the list yet. I'm not saying Williams' other years don't mean anything in general, but they are irrelevant for this list specifically. Williams scored 83 goals and 165 points as a Canuck. His closest comparables in terms of offensive production and longevity are guys like Ron Sedlbauer and Bobby Lalonde, who haven't been mentioned at all. I think what does bump Williams up substantially was his physical presence and willingness to drop the gloves for his team, which also made him a big fan favourite, far above guys like Sedlbauer and Lalonde.