#87 Sidney Crosby Milestone Thread - History will be made (1600 points)

[66-30-33]

Bruh, when they retire we may never see all time greats like this again here, or at least not for a very loooooong time. It will be a sad day when they both hang them up in a few years.

 

[Frosty415]

He's definitely heating up, we'll see if he picks it up a notch again in the playoffs

 

[daver]

So there its is ladies and gents, what you´ve been waiting for - the Sidney Crosby milestone thread

Change this to "Above a PPG" and he one point away from being the all-time leader.

 

[Voight]

Not for anything but the guys ahead of him and behind him played full seasons or close to it during their streaks. Significantly harder to average PPG over an entire year vs shortened seasons.

 

[Dessloch]

Not for anything but the guys ahead of him and behind him played full seasons or close to it during their streaks. Significantly harder to average PPG over an entire year vs shortened seasons.

You really think Sid would have missed PPG in any of his "shortened seasons", he would have had to fall of a cliff and produce like worse than he ever has done ever to even be close to missing out, thats why I find this argument rather irrelevant.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Sick.

 

[PensandCaps]

Not for anything but the guys ahead of him and behind him played full seasons or close to it during their streaks. Significantly harder to average PPG over an entire year vs shortened seasons.

not a single year where Sid was even close to not going over PPG, if anything getting hurt early on in the year during a slump was more threatening to the streak.

 

[orby]

The argument that Sid's point-per-game season streak was abetted by how much time he missed from 2010-13 doesn't hold much water, considering he had 1.57 points per game in 2010-11, 1.68(!!)points per game in 2011-12, and 1.55 points per game in the 2013 lockout season. He would have had to go unbelievably ice cold for the remainder of those seasons to be below a point per game. Hell, it wouldn't have even been possible in 2013 because he clinched a ppg scoring total with over a quarter of the season remaining. It's not as though he barely sniffed the mark and then lucked into keeping the streak alive through being injured. Quite the opposite; in terms of scoring per game, those were his peak seasons!

 

[Rengorlex]

You really think Sid would have missed PPG in any of his "shortened seasons", he would have had to fall of a cliff and produce like worse than he ever has done ever to even be close to missing out, thats why I find this argument rather irrelevant.

Not to mention there are quite a lot of players that have had injuries themselves. Weird how injury prone stars like Lindros didn't cheese their way into 20 consecutive p/gp seasons.

The idea that injuries helped him here is unsubstantiated.

 

[orby]

I fully understand that you can't laud a player for hypotheticals, but I've always though this was a significant "what if..."

Over the course of his "injury seasons" (2010-13), Crosby missed a total of 113 games. When he did play in those seasons, he averaged 1.61 points per game. Assuming he continued to score at the same rate, Crosby would have had 182 more points than he does now if he had stayed healthy for the duration of those 3 seasons. Even allowing for some missed time and scoring inconsistency, I think it's reasonable to say Crosby missed out on 150+ points during his prime years.

Sid is closing in on 1400 career points, but if he hadn't missed so much of his prime, it's reasonable to assume he'd be closer to 1600 today, likely with at least 3 years left in his career. He will likely finish with close to (if nor more than) 1700 career points, but I think that if not for his injury woes, Sid would have had an outside shot at 2000.

Again, you can't give him credit for points he hypothetically scored...but it makes me wish we got to see more of prime Crosby.

 

[tfwnogf]

I think that's really cool he and Malkin are tied I hope Sid can break that Gretzky record of most ppg seasons!

 

[Voight]

not a single year where Sid was even close to not going over PPG, if anything getting hurt early on in the year during a slump was more threatening to the streak.

Can't rule out that he would have gone on a cold streak or had a run of bad play. Unlikely? Maybe. But the thing with hypotheticals is they go both ways. There is also fatigue that could set in.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Can't rule out that he would have gone on a cold streak or had a run of bad play. Unlikely? Maybe. But the thing with hypotheticals is they go both ways. There is also fatigue that could set in.

What a joke lol. Just stop

 

[orby]

Can't rule out that he would have gone on a cold streak or had a run of bad play. Unlikely? Maybe. But the thing with hypotheticals is they go both ways. There is also fatigue that could set in.

Consider that in 2010-11, Crosby had 66 points in only 41 games. He would only have needed 16 points in the following 41 games to finish with 82. Does it really strike you as remotely realistic that he would have finished with less than a point per game that year?

In 2011-12, Sid had 37 in 22. That means he needed only needed 45 points over the next 60 games for an 82 point season. That's a bigger question mark, but considering Crosby has never even come close to as slow a scoring pace as .75 points per game over a 60 game span...again, do you really think it's realistic to imagine he'd have slipped below a point per game in that season?

 

[authentic]

Given the behaviour of Crosbys cohorts in the Ovi milestone thread i am tempted to make snarky comments about how pace is not actualy scoring points etc etc. But to be fair this is a pretty impressive feat anyways, perhaps especially given all the injury shortened seasons. Nicely done!

Pace is irrelevant here unless people are claiming he was going to hit 130+ points in his half seasons. There's no reason to think he ever would've dipped below a point per game in a full season.

 

[Rengorlex]

Can't rule out that he would have gone on a cold streak or had a run of bad play. Unlikely? Maybe. But the thing with hypotheticals is they go both ways. There is also fatigue that could set in.

Gretzky also had 45 and 48 game seasons during his streak, so he should be disqualified too based on this criteria. 99% of all players have had injuries, Crosby didn't have some special benefit from missing a few dozen games in seasons he was 100% going to score over a p/gp anyways..

 

[abo9]

I honestly don’t know why. It’s one of his only records that has seemed possible without a major increase in scoring.

I think it's all relative. Relative to his points total? Gretz has a 48% lead over second place - I can't describe how unfathomable I find it to beat that record.

But Gretz still has a solid 11% lead over 2nd place in goals scored, despite playing 280 less games than Howe. Before Ovechkin, Jagr was 3rd placed and again, played 246 more games than Gretz (3 more seasons). Obviously, it's more attainable than his points record, but this is a huge separation when you look at how close the rest of the list is!

To further the point: 894 goals over 18 seasons worth of games (like Gretzky did), is a 49 goals/season pace. Since 2005-2006, only 12 different players have score 50 goals in a season, and it happenned 22 times in total (8 of these are Ovechkin).

Just for fun, I summed up the goal totals from Rocket Richard Winners 2005 to last year (17 seasons worth): 908 goals.

So, over a period of 16 years, all the Rocket Richard winners together barely beat goalscoring record. Of course, the record is "possible" to beat assuming a player can consistently win the Rocket every year, or most years and plays a lot of games. But how freaking difficult is that? When we see most goalscorers score 50 goals once or twice in their careers....

And then, of course, you have the points record. Gretzky was a different animal

 

[filinski77]

Hugely impressive accomplishment for Sid. He's one of the most consistent players of all-time.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I have 14 for both Dionne and messier
fullName Point per games in a season
Wayne Gretzky 18
Gordie Howe 17
Mark Messier 14
Marcel Dionne 14
Dale Hawerchuk 13
Sidney Crosby 12
Joe Sakic 12
Stan Mikita 12
Ron Francis 12
Steve Yzerman 11

Messier scored 53 points in the 48 games lockout season of 94-95, Dionne scored 78 points during the 78 games season of 73-74 that would be easy miss.

And I have only 12 for Crosby I think, 10 time he scored over 82 points, 12-13 he had 56 in a 48 games schedule, 20-21 he had 62 in a 56 games one.

He missed in 19-20 to have 69 points or more, having 47 in 41

My stat was from an older post, and I think I was counting seasons of more than 1 PPG. Therefore Dionne didn't get credit for 1974 (78 points in a 78 game season) and Messier didn't get credit for 1994 (84 points in an 84 game season) - so both are at 13 seasons. Of course, it's debatable if we should be looking at "at least" or "more than" a point per scheduled game.

As for Crosby - you're right, he's currently at 12 seasons (this could be 13, if he's healthy the rest of the way). So he'd be tied for 3rd place, not in sole possession.

 

[Gunnersaurus Rex]

I fully understand that you can't laud a player for hypotheticals, but I've always though this was a significant "what if..."

Over the course of his "injury seasons" (2010-13), Crosby missed a total of 113 games. When he did play in those seasons, he averaged 1.61 points per game. Assuming he continued to score at the same rate, Crosby would have had 182 more points than he does now if he had stayed healthy for the duration of those 3 seasons. Even allowing for some missed time and scoring inconsistency, I think it's reasonable to say Crosby missed out on 150+ points during his prime years.

Sid is closing in on 1400 career points, but if he hadn't missed so much of his prime, it's reasonable to assume he'd be closer to 1600 today, likely with at least 3 years left in his career. He will likely finish with close to (if nor more than) 1700 career points, but I think that if not for his injury woes, Sid would have had an outside shot at 2000.

Again, you can't give him credit for points he hypothetically scored...but it makes me wish we got to see more of prime Crosby.

Ya, there's no chance Crosby would have kept up that pace during those shortened seasons. He has never come close to that pace in any of the years he played close to a full season. To believe he would have is wishful thinking.
Fact is, including Crosby in this unofficial record of consecutive PPG seasons is a stretch. 22 game "season" qualifies him?,...ya, okay.

 

[orby]

Ya, there's no chance Crosby would have kept up that pace during those shortened seasons. He has never come close to that pace in any of the years he played close to a full season. To believe he would have is wishful thinking.
Fact is, including Crosby in this unofficial record of consecutive PPG seasons is a stretch. 22 game "season" qualifies him?,...ya, okay.

While I stated in my post that I understand players cannot be anointed for hypotheticals...what suggests to you he couldn't have kept a similar scoring pace? Sid's lowest point-per-game figure in any season over that 3-year span was still >1.5 ppg. Is there some statistical reason you think he was destined to score way less than that in the remaining games of those seasons if he had stayed healthy?

I would get your argument if his point totals in those seasons were propped up by something like an unsustainable shooting percentage, but that's not the case. Crosby's shooting percentage was well above average in 2010-11, but in both of the other 2 seasons, he was actually shooting below his career average and still averaging over 1.5 ppg. I don't think his scoring in those seasons was an aberration.

 

[YippieKaey]

Pace is irrelevant here unless people are claiming he was going to hit 130+ points in his half seasons. There's no reason to think he ever would've dipped below a point per game in a full season.

Agreed

 

[Voight]

Gretzky also had 45 and 48 game seasons during his streak, so he should be disqualified too based on this criteria. 99% of all players have had injuries, Crosby didn't have some special benefit from missing a few dozen games in seasons he was 100% going to score over a p/gp anyways..

Didn't say Sid was disqualified, just said no guarantee he would continue the pace. It may have been very likely but you simply can't say he 100% would have, we'll never know.

Also the 48 game season..... was a lockout season and he played every game possible. It was a full season based on the circumstances at hand. As for the 45 game year.... thats more than 50% of a season vs Crosby's 20 games in 2012 which is 25%. Big difference.

 

[Smiggie Balls]

Here's my obligatory 'i used to work at the arena and Sid caught me stealing a pop one time and didn't care and I was just like oh hey Sid like it was no big deal' story. Oddly enough a year later I got a job doing snow removal and one of our stops was Sid's house. I know his gate code!

 

[Gunnersaurus Rex]

While I stated in my post that I understand players cannot be anointed for hypotheticals...what suggests to you he couldn't have kept a similar scoring pace? Sid's lowest point-per-game figure in any season over that 3-year span was still >1.5 ppg. Is there some statistical reason you think he was destined to score way less than that in the remaining games of those seasons if he had stayed healthy?

I would get your argument if his point totals in those seasons were propped up by something like an unsustainable shooting percentage, but that's not the case. Crosby's shooting percentage was well above average in 2010-11, but in both of the other 2 seasons, he was actually shooting below his career average and still averaging over 1.5 ppg. I don't think his scoring in those seasons was an aberration.

In those 3 partial seasons you mentioned, his PPG was 1.61. Excluding those, his career pace is 1.24 PPG. That's why it is unrealistic to think he would have been able to keep up that pace. He's never done that over a full season.
He may still have achieved the PPG those seasons but without playing a full season, you just never know. Maybe he'd be more like the 4 year run from 2014-2018 where he averaged 1.10 PPG