Henrik and Daniel: Plus-minus royalty among active players

Neither Sedin has ever won a plus-minus crown.  (Of all their Canucks teammates, who would have thought that Marek Malik would have beat them to it...) But ever since a combined -5 rating in their rookie seasons all 13 years ago, the Canucks duo have been plus players every year of their careers.  And from 2009-10 on, Henrik has been an annual staple on the league's plus-minus leaderboard -- ranking 8th, 14th, 15th and 11th in that span. Meanwhile, in that same four-year run, Daniel has come closer to the NHL's Plus-Minus Award, but has been a bit less consistent at 5th, 5th, 64th and 45th.

Henrik and Daniel at 3rd and 6th overall. See the note at the end
of the article for differences between our list and NHL.com's.

As a result the Sedins steady 5-on-5 play, Henrik enters the 2013-14 season ranked third among all active players in career plus-minus.  In some part to his current ironman streak, Henrik, as always, has an edge on Daniel at a career +200 to +172.  The only two above him?  Jaromir Jagr and Pavel Datsyuk -- one is likely the greatest offensive threat of his generation, while the other represents the best two-way forward of his.  In other words, Henrik stands among pretty heady company.  Daniel, meanwhile, ranks sixth* with Marian Hossa and Patrik Elias sandwiched between the twins.

(Borderline related: See BTD's January article on the Sedins' ranking among active players without a Stanley Cup.)

Sedins among the league's Cup-less best

**UPDATE: See this article get a shout out on CanucksArmy's "Afternoon Headshots: Januay 21st" (scroll to the bottom).

Way back in August, I posted an article regarding Roberto Luongo's standing among the most successful goalies in NHL history never to win a Stanley Cup.  Going by regular season wins, he ranks dubiously at the top among active goalies and third all-time.  So because playing in Vancouver for an extended period of time just tends to have this championship-less effect on players, how do the Canucks' other high-profile vets rank among active players without a ring?

The numbers are decidedly less striking than Luongo's, but at 747 career points, Henrik Sedin's production ranks him 9th overall in that regard.  Trailing him by 29 points is Daniel at 13th.

At the top of the list are Daniel Alfredsson (1,082 points), Joe Thornton (1,078) and Jarome Iginla (1,073) – three players who, like the teams they play for, have their very best years behind them.  So too may be the case for the Sedins, but I think consensus could be had around the league that Vancouver remains a higher probability for a Cup this season than Ottawa, San Jose or Calgary.

Who, then, among this list of mostly aging NHL stars,¹ stands the best chance of beating the Sedins to a championship?  If the past two decades of NHL hockey has taught us anything, it's that the Red Wings and Devils are to be considered near-annual contenders.  In that case, could Todd Bertuzzi do in Detroit what he couldn't as a member of the West Coast Express?  And not that Ilya Kovalchuk particularly cares about the NHL, but the Parise-less Devils aren't completely out of the question.

Nonetheless, it appears that Henrik and Daniel have the edge over their fellow luckless veterans.

If, for whatever reason, you need that statement quantified, you can look to any of the recently-updated betting odds online.  Bovada has the Canucks as 9:1 favourites, ranking them third behind the Penguins (8:1) and Rangers (8.5:1).  (The odds-makers clearly have a more positive take on the Canucks' second line than anyone in Vancouver does.)

But the fact that the Sedins are on this list at all underlines this slowly creeping notion that Vancouver's team is, to a certain degree, aging.  While Zack Kassian and Nicklas Jensen have been promising, any major contributions from them are still a few years out.  Giving Cory Schneider the crease certainly helps in lowering the core's average age, but the Canucks remain, undisputedly, the Sedins' team. 

Simply put, the Canucks live and die with the Sedins.  And life has been pretty good with the twins (when was the last time in team history Vancouver has been such routine Cup contenders), but they can't play at their current level indefinitely.  At 32 years of age, common wisdom suggests they have two or three elite-level seasons left in them.  Possibly more, but it is a rare breed of player that ages as such.

It is now...ish or never.

The Canucks' second line will inevitably return this season, at which point, the Sedins will have another legitimate shot at adding a championship to their already-prestigious NHL mantels.  The Daniel Alfredssons of the league are simply out of luck.

-HC

¹With the exception of 29-year-old Kovalchuk, all players on the list are 30-plus.

*Read the online discussion regarding this article on the Canucks.com forums here.

Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr...Henrik Sedin

Did everyone miss the headline at the end of the regular season last month?  With 67 assists in 2011-12, Henrik Sedin became just the 5th player in NHL history to lead the league in that category for three consecutive years.¹  The other four?  Joe Thornton (2005-08), Wayne Gretzky (1979-92..!), Bobby Orr (1969-72) and Stan Mikita (1964-67).  And if Henrik manages to out-assist the Crosbys and Thorntons of the league for a fourth straight go in 2012-13, the club shrinks to two – just him and Gretz. 

Pay special attention to the tasteful sign
behind held to Henrik's right.


You didn’t find it on NHL.com or The Vancouver Sun for two reasons.  The assist will always be the overlooked middle child of a player’s statline.  How the league can stand to award the Lady Byng every year, but not have any hardware for the top playmaker is a tragedy.  Secondly, unless he or Daniel hit 100 points again, no one really gets excited about these two players anymore. 



Now, there are admittedly countless schools of thought to disprove Henrik’s place (or Thornton’s for that matter) among the Gretzkys and Orrs of the game.  And rightfully so.  Bobby Orr led the league as a defenceman.  The Great One lasted a consecutive 13 years atop the league, more than quadruple Henrik’s current streak.  Also implicit in Gretzky’s monopolization of the league’s assists board over two decades is the fact that any other elite playmaker competing in this timeframe was overshadowed in this regard.  Think Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Ron Francis…to name a select, select few.  These players would have likely put together a run of several years themselves, had they played in any other era.

What about the fact that Henrik’s highest assists total in these three years, 83, ranks exactly 52nd all-time.  Not quite elite.  Many would also argue that his streak has largely benefited from an unhealthy Sidney Crosby.

All these things are true, but let’s give Henrik some credit where credit is sorely due.  It's derived from the simple fact that in this time and space in the history of the NHL, he has perennially dominated the league as a playmaker.  Yes, Crosby has been injured, but remember the year Henrik won the Art Ross?  The Pens captain had played a full season and was 25 assists Hank’s inferior.  And as Thornton’s play in San Jose has deteriorated in this same three-year span, the assists crown has not only been Crosby’s to lose, but Evgeni Malkin’s, Nicklas Backstrom’s and Pavel Datsyuk’s among many other arguably more high-profile players.

Also, a closer look at that 52^nd-best assists total reveals that Henrik’s 83 assists is the 21^st-highest achieved by any individual.²  That is a heavily underrated stat because among the 20 players ahead of him, only Thornton, Crosby and Jagr achieved their marks in the current dead-puck era (ie. post mid-to-late 90's).  Common wisdom dictates that Henrik might have racked up far more had he played in the freewheeling 80’s.

All things considered and in the grand scheme of NHL lore…no, you probably won’t see Henrik’s name alongside Gretzky and Orr ever again in perhaps more telling analyses.  But for these past three years in the current NHL, the elder Sedin is, statistically, the absolute best at what he does.  And that’s a headline the league should see much more often.

-HC

¹ For the full list of single-season assist leaders, see it on Hockey-Reference.com here.
² Only counting each unique player once, ie. players like Gretzky, Lemieux and Orr have multiple single-season assist totals in the top 50 or so, but in this regard we only count each player once. See the list on NHL.com here.

*See the discussion regarding this post on Canucks.com forum here.