1st overalls performance vs. expectations 2004-2024

[Michael Farkas]

I didn't realize this. I always thought with the Islanders he was THEIR star player but never a top top player. Maybe my memory is failing me.

Tavares was dealt a very bad hand and made a lot out of it. Now, in the context of this thread - maybe, maybe not...but Tavares was dragging a bunch of garbage along with him.

 

[MadLuke]

Is this really true of superstar players?

Specially them, it could be harder to peak at 22 if you enter the league at ~21 and do not get Full time Top 6-first PP units role right away.

Howe-Lindros-Yzerman-Crosby-Malkin-Ovechkin-Lemieux-Gretzky-McDavid if covid year and the 153 pts one end up being the big ones, it is not uncommon for superstar to have their biggest season in that window. Some will be later at 27 (P.Kane-Beliveau B.Hull).

Jagr it depend how one feel about the 62 goals 149 pts season versus 1999 if he peaked at 23 or 26 but that around that time, he did stay full-elite and relatively close for a long time too.

 

[Crosby2010]

Ovechkin and Crosby exceeded expectations. Even Crosby despite how hyped up he was. I mean, he is in his 20th season where he could get a point per game. Throw in the three Cups, the Olympic golds, and the fact he is on many lists as a top 5 player in NHL history, and how can this not be exceeding? Ovechkin leading the NHL in goals 9 times and approaching Gretzky's record is beyond expectations.

Johnson, Tavares, Hall, Nuge, Yakupov, Ekblad, Hischier, Dahlin have not met expectations. Johnson and Hischier were in historically lousy drafts where they weren't revered #1 overall picks like other years, but they still haven't thrived. Ekblad either. Maybe Nuge wasn't in a strong draft either, or Dahlin. But Tavares and Hall were supposed to do better. It is strange because Tavares could end up getting 600 goals and that's not too shabby. But I think it was expected he'd roll with the elite.

Kane, Stamkos, MacKinnon, McDavid, Matthews have all exceeded expectations. Even Stamkos. And I say this thinking that everyone of them at the time was going to be a top notch star and they were. The amount of hardware between all of them is epic.

Hughes and Lafreniere are both looking like they'll be gems for a long time.

 

[JackSlater]

Ovechkin and Crosby exceeded expectations. Even Crosby despite how hyped up he was. I mean, he is in his 20th season where he could get a point per game. Throw in the three Cups, the Olympic golds, and the fact he is on many lists as a top 5 player in NHL history, and how can this not be exceeding? Ovechkin leading the NHL in goals 9 times and approaching Gretzky's record is beyond expectations.

Johnson, Tavares, Hall, Nuge, Yakupov, Ekblad, Hischier, Dahlin have not met expectations. Johnson and Hischier were in historically lousy drafts where they weren't revered #1 overall picks like other years, but they still haven't thrived. Ekblad either. Maybe Nuge wasn't in a strong draft either, or Dahlin. But Tavares and Hall were supposed to do better. It is strange because Tavares could end up getting 600 goals and that's not too shabby. But I think it was expected he'd roll with the elite.

Kane, Stamkos, MacKinnon, McDavid, Matthews have all exceeded expectations. Even Stamkos. And I say this thinking that everyone of them at the time was going to be a top notch star and they were. The amount of hardware between all of them is epic.

Hughes and Lafreniere are both looking like they'll be gems for a long time.

Crosby's hard to judge in terms of meeting expectations. In terms of his peak level of play I'd say he clearly fell short, and leading the league in scoring only twice is well short of expectations. There were legitimate expectations that he could be a big four type player, and he wasn't. But for career value he's probably going to end up around where he would be expected to be and in terms of team performance I'd say he met expectations as well, possibly exceeded. You could also argue that the length of Crosby's time as the best player in the NHL met expectations, but the gap between him and the field definitely did not.

 

[seventieslord]

I basically agree with the op, although I would probably say McKinnon met expectations, and did not exceed them. That is not because I disagree about his level of performance, but because I disagree about what the expectations were.

 

[MadLuke]

Also for Crosby at one point expectation did look like there was 30%+ chance his career would be cut short because of head injury and he ended up winning 2 cups after that.

It is hard to fully replace ourselves before the expectation got lower and him beating those by a good margin, with the 2005 level expectation.

 

[jigglysquishy]

There was a non negligible amount of people who thought Crosby would be Gretzky level in 2005. He very much did not hit that level.

 

[NyQuil]

There was a non negligible amount of people who thought Crosby would be Gretzky level in 2005. He very much did not hit that level.

That’s crazy. I never got that impression at all.

He was the next one the way Lindros was before he fizzled out.

 

[jigglysquishy]

That’s crazy. I never got that impression at all.

He was the next one the way Lindros was before he fizzled out.

There were definitely people who thought Lindros would be a Gretzky level all time too.

 

[NyQuil]

There were definitely people who thought Lindros would be a Gretzky level all time too.

Gretzky lapped the competition so decisively that I never took any of these "generate excitement and hype for another Candian prospect" stuff seriously.

I don't think even Gretzky had Gretzky expectations.

Even Crosby and Lindros who were known as kids.

Aside from crazy uncles and hype generators, I don't think it resonated that far.

 

[The Panther]

Love Crosby, but history is written by the victors. He was a so-so contributor to the 2016 and 2017 finals. What if Pittsburgh had lost both of those series? Suddenly Crosby's career takes on a "peaked early, never reached those heights again" narrative.

I think Crosby's most impressive aspects are his personality and his longevity.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Yeah, everyone forgets that when Pittsburgh shamelessly tanked, it was for Ovechkin, not Crosby. Washington just happened to win the lottery that year, and Pittsburgh won Crosby the following year in the lockout lottery.

The Capitals shamelessly tanked, the Penguins were bad and had no money. Look at the records of the two teams in the last 2 months of that season.

Love Crosby, but history is written by the victors. He was a so-so contributor to the 2016 and 2017 finals. What if Pittsburgh had lost both of those series? Suddenly Crosby's career takes on a "peaked early, never reached those heights again" narrative.

I think Crosby's most impressive aspects are his personality and his longevity.

Dude, the games are on YouTube. This is just a blatantly false statement

 

[Garbageyuk]

I agree with most of your verdicts, especially the McDavid one - you nailed it there.

The one I don’t agree with is Crosby. People are going to get up in arms about this, but I’d say he underachieved. As a prospect, he was regarded as “The Next One” similar to how Lindros was as a prospect. The hype was unreal; he was called the best prospect ever and expected to become a player on par with Gretzky and Lemieux.

Was he that? No, I don’t feel that he was, not on that same level. You could maybe make the argument that he would’ve been closer to that had he not had so many injuries, but even then, we saw his peak briefly a couple different times and he was still a notch well below 99 and 66.

He’s much closer to guys like Jagr, Yzerman, Dionne, Sakic, Stastny than he is to Gretzky and Lemieux. That’s still tremendously impressive and he’s an all time great (in the 5-10 range all-time, imo), but relative to the hype, he did underachieve. I think people forget just how crazy the hype was.