Defensive defencemen are always going to be controversial inclusions in the Hall -- anybody who wasn't old enough to appreciate their careers only has boxscore stats to look at, which of course are much better at depicting offensive contributions.

One way to tease this out is to look at how contemporary observers rated them amongst their peers (which, itself is likely slanted towards offensive contributions). I'll use Norris award voting in this thread to reflect this 'opinion' of Dmen.

Now, Kevin Lowe has something interesting in that he has 4 different Top 10 finishes in Norris voting in his career. These happened between 1982 and 1989, topping out at 5th highest in 1988.

Now, how interesting is that? I'm going to construct a peer group for Lowe -- anyone that received a Top 10 Norris vote during Lowe's career is included, and then I'm going to sum their Top 10 finishes across *their* careers (not just in years that Lowe played).

Here's how that looks, in descending order of Top 10 Norris seasons:

Guys in bold are Hall of Famers, with the two newbies in red. You can see that Lowe's 4 is the lowest among this peer group, but right below his hallmate in Wilson's 5 and two behind Park and Housley's 6.

There are guys right around Lowe's number of Top 10's that aren't in the Hall yet -- Barry Beck & Eric Desjardins have 5 and aren't in. Gary Suter ties Lowe with 4 and still isn't in. Kevin Hatcher & Schoenfeld seem to be distant bells for the Hall but have 3 Top 10s.

BUT, of course, these guys don't have 6 Stanley Cups. Lowe won a Canada Cup in 84 and would've won another in 87 if he wasn't injured. He was clearly considered a top flight Dman in his era.

This is all to say that I think there's an argument to be made for Lowe's inclusion. He's on the low-end of highly regarded seasons but it's not like he was never acknowledged as a leading Dman by contemporaries.