Anaheim's All-Time Team: Who centers the top line?

Well, before I get started on this All-Time Team challenge, I should first point out that the Chief at A2Y has written up his Rival Rating for the Ducks ("the Fowl"), and brings up a lot of the same reasons that I listed in my pre-sponse post, plus some new ones (the summer snatchings of Fedorov, Schneider, and Bertuzzi). There's actually some glowing references to our cumulative effort here at BoC, so here's to classily hatin' ya, Red Wings.

No real reason for the Bertuzzi picture, I suppose, other than it's an image I hadn't used yet and now seemingly my window for paparatuzzi is suddenly over. Still, this mc79 post is gold; see ya in hell, Bert.

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A sidenote about this BoC challenge (see Rudy's All-Time Kings and Chen's All-Time Sharks): We're not huge planners or schemers here at BoC, and it's very rare that a themed-set-of-posts idea moves from the "we should all do this" phase to reality, so this is pretty cool. Even so, in the summer Sleek tradition, I'm going to not quite follow instructions.

That is to say, instead of me just telling you my all-time team, I'm going to open one slot up for debate. Because really, that's what this Anaheim exercise boils down to. Top line wingers isn't much of a debate (see chart to the right), and in terms of top defensemen and a #1 goalie, the Ducks are at their peak right now -- they've never previously had the talents of a Niedermayer, Pronger, or Giguere.

But who is the #1 center for the Anaheim Sometimes-Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (what else would you call this mythical all-time team?)? That and a few more items I think are worth separate posts before I fully endorse a Sleek roster, so here goes. Before I list out the candidates, though, I guess I should lay out some ground rules, or at least what I think are some considerations for "All-Timey-ness":

1. Think about the player at their Anaheim peak -- things not to consider: Adam Oates as a Boston Bruin, Andy McDonald's career without Teemu Selanne, or Ryan Getzlaf's future potential. This all should be based on games already played in an Anaheim uniform.

2. That said, longevity and consistency are pretty useful -- players should provide some identity as an Anaheim fan favorite.

3. Just to confuse things a bit more, also consider how well the top-line center would fit with wingers Kariya and Selanne; as we don't want our team outscored by the Sharks' imaginary squad.

So here's five candidate centers, in somewhat chronological order. Be warned, I suspect I only have room for four of these guys on my final roster, so in addition to telling me who should center the top line, I'm also looking for who should be cut from the team entirely. If you're feeling generous, you can even rank all five.

Steve Rucchin
Seasons: 10 (1994-95 to 2003-04)
Reg: 79 gp, 19-48-67, +26 (1996-97)
Post: 21 gp, 7-3-10, -2 (2003)

Roochie is the guy who represents steadiness and longevity on this list. Counting against him, though, he may be the least talented individual of the bunch. Still, I could be happy with Rucchin on the top line; for years Ducks fans heard about how some new person was finally going to take the top-line center position from Rucchin (who was a bit slow to keep up with Kariya and Selanne), but every time Rucchin held his spot. Rucchin did lead the 2003 Ducks in playoff goals.

Adam Oates
Seasons: 1 (2002-03)
Reg: 67 gp, 9-36-45, -1
Post: 21 gp, 4-9-13, +2

Old man Oates only came to Anaheim for one season towards the end of his career, and was a top-line mainstay between Kariya and Sykora during the 2003 cup run, where he co-led the team in scoring. Oates was a wizard with the puck, floating aerial passes that make goal-scorers salivate. He was stunningly quick at times, also, to the point where "Old Man Oates" became a tongue-in-cheek nickname. Oates never played with Selanne, so we can only conjecture there, but I suspect his puck-dishing would blend in well with the Finn's finish. As a bonus, Oates probably beats out this group in the category of "player I most enjoyed watching play".

Sergei Fedorov
Seasons: 2 (2003-04 and five games of 2005)
Reg: 80 gp, 31-34-65, -5 (2003-04)

Fedorov isn't a guy who Ducks fans are particularly enamored with, but there's little question to his talent. Also, I'd argue that Sergei represents Anaheim's first ever summer blockbuster signing -- a superstar in their prime choosing to come to SoCal. Sergei never played with Kariya and only got five post-lockout games with Selanne, but he did become the first player not named Kariya or Selanne to lead the Ducks in scoring since the inaugural season. Fedorov's quick, puck-smart, and a vicious backchecker; despite never seeing an Anaheim postseason, could he be the best fit on the top line?

Andy McDonald
Seasons: 7 (2000-01 to 2007-08)
Reg: 82 gp, 34-51-85, +24 (2005-06)
Post: 21 gp, 10-4-14, +6 (2007)

Andy Mac played seven seasons for Anaheim, but really only two are worth talking about: the two post-lockout seasons he spent with Selanne on his wing. Aside from those two years, McDonald's career has been fairly pedestrian. Still, as this is an exercise about peaks and playing with superstar wingers, Andy Mac could be a front-runner. His 85-point season is the top performance for any of the Anaheim centers, and he did lead the 2007 squad in playoff goals. Andy Mac's downfall has been consistency, or at least the ability to produce without superstar wingers, but should that affect his place on Anaheim's All-Time Team?

Ryan Getzlaf
Seasons: 3 (2005-06 to 2007-08)
Reg: 77 gp, 24-58-82, +32 (2007-08)
Post: 21 gp, 7-10-17, +1 (2007)

Getzlaf almost by default should take this position in the next couple of years, but is he all-time-top-line-ready now? Getzlaf earned the 1st line center role in his third year this past season, and was stellar, leading the team in scoring while facing opponents' top defenders. Other than the power play, Getzlaf hasn't shared that much ice time with Selanne in his Anaheim tenure, though, as he's fulfilling an on-ice marriage with Corey Perry. Perry, by the way, is not making my all-time squad, if that matters in the Getzlaf ranking.


Who shall center the #1 line?

So there you have it. Five centers who have spent at least one season in Anaheim and are competing for a coveted Kariya-Selanne center position for these Anaheim Sometimes-Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Who gets the #1 spot? Who gets cut from the team completely? I'll take your rankings and justifications in the comments.

Go Ducks.

The time I nearly stumped the internet

Two weeks ago, I was working on a piece to anger Red Wings fans, and I wanted to research and write up ten playoff performances. However, I ran into a problem: I couldn't figure out how many points Scott Niedermayer had scored in the 1995 Cup Finals. This wasn't super-critical to the piece, but I was planning on breaking down ten playoff performances, and it seemed like an answerable question with the wide resources of the internet, right? Well, barely.

Sure it's easy enough to find out what Scotty scored in the entire 1995 playoffs, and the scores of those Finals games, and even a game-by-game re-telling. But I searched and I searched and I found nothing that could resolve what seems like a very answerable question.

Frustrated with fruitless web searches, I then turned to some of the biggest hockey minds around the blogosphere: notably die-hard Devils dude Wyshynski and the guys from Fanhouse -- McErlain, Mirtle, Gőlbez, Ciskie, J.P., etc., and the best I got from that group of hockey know-it-alls was either "Wait a day -- I'll check my hockey yearbook tonight" or "Why not write a nice-sounding letter to the league?"

I had nearly given up in the disbelief that a seemingly an easy answer was nowhere to be found on the web, when finally deep in a set of search engine results I was directed to The Professional Hockey Server: Hawaii's NHL Page, which is apparently hosted at the University of Hawaii in Hilo.

Fear not, mainlander. Hawaii has your answers.
So after a few more clicks, the answer I sought was found here, in a day-by-day scoresheet breakdown of the '95 playoffs, with the four games I cared about being the last four on the page. Question answered. Scott scored 1 goal and 3 assists in the '95 cup finals. Hawaii 1, Mainland 0.

And while that was helpful, it raised a whole new question: Why the hell is the only internet source for 1995 game logs maintained on the Hubble server of the University of Hawaii? According to the FAQ, it all appears to be the doing of one Richard A. Crowe, Ph.D., who was quite the busy fellow while compiling NHL stats in the late 90s:

"There are other things in life besides maintaining hockey statistics. In fact, I am an extremely busy individual. I teach physics and astronomy classes 6 hours a week, maintain a research program on spectroscopy and photometry of variable stars, manage a large education/research grant, sit on a division personnel committee as well as an outreach committee, serve as a member of the Board of Directors of a local networking organization, play clarinet in the Hawaii County Band 30 hours a month, regularly sing in the UH Hilo Chorus as well as practice piano, and support a young family of four."

Here's a peek at his process, back in the day:

"The scoring data is entered at the keyboard using a Fortran program (SCORESTATS) and then I run another Fortran program (BATSEARCH) which checks for consistency with the information available in the newspaper box scores. SCORESTATS simply puts in the number of games played by the respective teams rather than for individual players. BATSEARCH takes 180 minutes to execute, but when it is completed, both regscore03.html and scorerstat03.html are updated and list GP for individual players, not teams. The latter file will then also include Shots, Game-Winning Goals, and +/- statistics for individual players. The updated files should usually be available after 7:00 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time."

Sounds rigorous. At any rate, the point of this post is twofold:

1) To point out another resource on the internet for those interested in looking at basic boxscore stats going back in time. For the record, here's my list of resources:

• 2002-03 to current: NHL.com Statistics page. A really nice site for queries about the last five years.
• 1997-98 to 2001-02: Boxscore Central. You have to know/guess the date of any game in question, but the boxscores include basic +/- and shot stats for each skater.
• 1994-95 to 1996-97: Hawaii's NHL page. A bit difficult to navigate, but the answers are in there.
• pre-1994: Write a nice-sounding letter to the league.

2) There's an overriding theme at BoC about die-hard hockey fans emerging from non-traditional markets, but I don't even know if we're in the same ballpark of out-of-market fanticism as Dr. Crowe. Does anybody know the story of this guy? I'd love to hear it. Displaced Canadian? Spontaneous Hawaiian puckhead?

At any rate, I wasn't on the search for hockey stats back in 1995, but I certainly am grateful for this guy's decade-old effort nowadays. Congratulations, Dr. Crowe. In an era of an expanding NHL and an emerging internet, apparently the leader of real-time hockey statistics resided in the hockeyless paradise of Hawaii.

Take that, mainland traditionalists of the 90s (you know who you were)!

Great hockey un-retirements

Unless you suffered from a 24-hour coma, you've probably heard the news that Brett Favre retired from the game of football.

The first thing I did after I learned the news from Satan Skip Bayless and the WWL crew was send my buddy a text message that compared Favre to Tupac (faking his [football] death, not having a blood feud with an obese East Coast rival).

Not soon after, my thoughts turned to the great hockey un-retirements...which made me realize just how much more I have to learn about hockey history.*

In fact, I'd like to make an open challenge to NHL history guru Joe Pelletier to educate us young 'uns about the sure-to-be myriad hockey returns I don't know about. But for the sake of brevity, let me run briefly through the ones that come to mind and give each one a snarky rating at the end.

The near-simultaneous Teemu and Niedermayer de-tirements

Obviously since these "returns" happened just this year, we won't know where each reemergence ranks in hockey history until the playoffs take place. But I think I speak for non-Ducks fans everywhere when I call these returns "glorified vacations." Or, lame.

Rating: Somewhere between the trade-enforced return of Keith Van Horn and whenever oblivious 80's teen movie parents return from their vacation early to stumble upon their children's massive keg party.

Saku Koivu defeats cancer

There's a lot to like about Koivu, but most of all you really have to marvel at the guy's resiliency. If it weren't for the fact that Mario Lemieux won a friggin' Hart Trophy while recovering from chemo therapy, I think Koivu would get more credit for his stunning recovery. I also recall a player coming back from cancer in the late '90s, but his name escapes me. I'm definitely going to kick myself for forgetting his name.
Rating: A partial Lance Armstrong.

Mario Lemieux's return

Has there been a more special return, considering their run to the Eastern Conference Finals and the fact that both Jagr and Lemieux were in the top-3 in Hart Trophy voting that year? Of all the experiences in my life, I think that playoff/regular season run might be the moment I will never be able to judge objectively.

Rating: Jordan returning from baseball...and the world deleting any memory of his time wearing a Wizards jersey.

Gordie Howe's 5 million returns

The Gordie Howe hat trick might be one of Howe's lasting legacies, but the guy had more hockey lives than a cat. Any time you see some boxer keep coming back or witness some legend foolishly trying to rekindle the magic of the past, just point to Howe.

He played on a line with his SONS!

Rating: No comparison. Also, doesn't he sort of look like Chris Cooper in that photo? Gordie Howe kicks ass. He might be hockey's Ditka.

* I would like to mention that I didn't forget Ken Dryden, who might be the only hockey player to ever leave the sport early...for his education. If you consider yourself a good hockey fan and even slightly enjoy reading, "The Game" is absolutely required reading. This is non-negotiable.