A look back at Sidney Crosby's defense over the past decade

[NoMessi]

The problem with Crosby is that our media has had a desperate desire to have him as the hands down best player in the league from before he came into it until they found the next Canadian hockey God in McDavid.

First it was that he was a winner, when Ovechkin was clearly better.

Then they werent as hard on partial seasons as usual.

Then, when he was the best player they painted the gap between him and the next best as enormous when it wasnt.

Then the selke votes and defensive talk started up when his production was no longer best.

This.

 

[HangFromRafts]

@Hockey Outsider

Thank you for your contributions showing the EV GF and GA tables.

Regarding the R-ON and R-OFF analysis, I'm not sure that it allows specific and fully definitive comparisons across players on different teams. R-OFF essentially could be interpeted as a strength of team indicator (when a player is off the ice). As an example, Mark Messier would be impacted by his R-OFF (as his off ice teammate is Wayne), which I don't think conclusively illustrates Messier was a weaker player because Gretzky wasn't his linemate, relative to say, another star player on another weaker team. Hope that I was able to explain that clearly and if my interpretation of R-OFF is correct.

Is there any reason why Datsyuk was left off the analysis? Maybe the data wasn't there for him? You had verified the OP's numbers for EV GA so I would assume they would be correct for Datsyuk as well.

When I scanned the OP, Bergeron displayed an impressive gap vs. Crosby, Toews, Kopitar, etc... and then you look at Datsyuk and his gap on Bergeron was bigger than Bergeron's vs. The pack.

 

[Dingo]

Why bump a three year old thread

oh, i didn’t even notice..... but you dont need to exaggerate, lol.

 

[Brucelenok]

Ovy's fan here. Ovy is not on the same level defensively as Crosby yet Crosby has always been overrated defensive player period. It is a joke that some claimed that he should have serious Selke consideration in some seasons.

 

[tacogeoff]

Ovy's fan here. Ovy is not on the same level defensively as Crosby yet Crosby has always been overrated defensive player period. It is a joke that some claimed that he should have serious Selke consideration in some seasons.

yup. both are not very good at playing defensive hockey. who knew.......well most fans know lol.

 

[Brucelenok]

yup. both are not very good at playing defensive hockey. who knew.......well most fans know lol.

I mean Ovy is a winger and Crosby is a center, so just based on this alone Ovy shouldn't be critiqued hard about defense even though for a winger he is above average. And for Crosby as I mentioned people overrated him a lot after 2010 season. Not sure if because he brought gold to Canada in Olympics or whatever other reason.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I mean Ovy is a winger and Crosby is a center, so just based on this alone Ovy shouldn't be critiqued hard about defense even though for a winger he is above average. And for Crosby as I mentioned people overrated him a lot after 2010 season. Not sure if because he brought gold to Canada in Olympics or whatever other reason.

LMAO

 

[LightningStorm]

Ovy's fan here. Ovy is not on the same level defensively as Crosby yet Crosby has always been overrated defensive player period. It is a joke that some claimed that he should have serious Selke consideration in some seasons.

Sums it up well how I've always thought about Crosby's defense in general and compared to Ovechkin.

His defense becoming overrated really took off when he was no longer competing for scoring titles, as some media and fans were desperate to keep him in the conversation for the NHL's best player. This led to his 2016 Conn Smythe being essentially a lifetime achievement award.

In the context of this thread, I don't think anyone tried to argue he was on the level of Kopitar, Bergeron, or Toews defensively. It's more that they thought his defense was good enough to close the gap between him and McDavid after Connor became the annual Art Ross favorite and Sid was hardly a contender anymore.

To be fair to Crosby though, there is some important context with regards to his ES GA/60. The Pens as a team usually haven't been as good defensively as the Bruins, Hawks and Kings. Not only due to MAF being an inconsistent goalie, but also with the Pens not having a d-man on the level of Chara, Keith, or Doughty. This was the reasoning I gave in a thread for why I thought the Hawks and Bolts rank above the Pens for multi cup winners in the last 10 years.

Also fair pointing out that his defensive metrics still look better than Ovechkin despite Ovy playing 4 seasons for Trotz this past decade. And I'm a bigger fan of Ovy than Sid.

 

[Kenneth C Russell]

Crosby: "why haven't I won a Selke yet? I'm the 'Greatest Player in the world!'"

Datsyuk: " Hold my beer."

Couture: "Awwww (bleep!)"

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

A dude really just said Ovechkin is an above average winger on the defensive side.

I’m going to log off for a couple days.