As of 2021 - is Crosby vs Ovechkin's all-time ranking finalized, or can one still surpass the other?

[Voight]

Ovechkin having 3 Hart trophies is something that is rarely mentioned. Only players with more are Gretzky/Howe/Shore and hes tied with Lemieux/Clarke/Orr/Morenz. Pretty elite company.

I'd argue it adds context to Crosby's dominance. As in from an all time great perspective there's no one outside of Ovechkin and McDavid that stands out. He dominated, but he did it against decidedly weak top end competition.

Like you said, it also shows how unreal McDavid is and tells me that McDavid is going to end up easily a step ahead of anyone else on that list.

The fact that McDavid already has 600 points, 3 Art Ross' (as much as Sid+Ovy combined) and 2 Hart trophies at 25 is insane. I can only imagine what his accomplishments will be when hes 30.

If Crosby was healthy from 2011-2013, I suspect we would be inundated with Howe vs. Crosby threads instead of Ovechkin vs. Crosby.

If you assume everything stays the same, except Crosby puts up 39 points in 26 additional games in 2011 and 6 points in 4 additional games in 2013, he would have had 4 Art Rosses and 4 Harts.

The case of Crosby vs. Beliveau/Mikita/Morenz/Esposito would become much clearer and Crosby would have been the consensus #5.

But he didn't so we are left with what we're left with.

On the other end of this, Ovechkin adds an Art Ross in 2009 as well as a Hart/Richard/Art Ross in 2010.

Gretzky did get an undeserved hart. Forgot which year it was but Lemieux got robbed in one of those years he won it.

Gretzky is the GOAT and the BOAT lol.

He's greater and better than Lemiuex al time

I do think Lemieux was better than Howe but not the greater player.

Orr is Better than Lemieux and Greater as well imo

Overall rankings I'd still go

1. Gretzky
2. Howe
3. Orr
4. Lemiuex
5. McDavid

McDavid will end up top 5 all time and I see draisaitl ending top 15 as well with how dominant he is

'89 is the year you are thinking of.

However I wouldn't say its undeserved. He did lead the Kings to a 20+ point improvement and completely revitalized the team. Yes, Lemieux had his best season ever and would have been a fine choice but Its a stretch to say Gretz was undeserving. FWIW the voting wasn't very close; he won by a large margin.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Ovechkin having 3 Hart trophies is something that is rarely mentioned. Only players with more are Gretzky/Howe/Shore and hes tied with Lemieux/Clarke/Orr/Morenz. Pretty elite company.



The fact that McDavid already has 600 points, 3 Art Ross' (as much as Sid+Ovy combined) and 2 Hart trophies at 25 is insane. I can only imagine what his accomplishments will be when hes 30.



On the other end of this, Ovechkin adds an Art Ross in 2009 as well as a Hart/Richard/Art Ross in 2010.



'89 is the year you are thinking of.

However I wouldn't say its undeserved. He did lead the Kings to a 20+ point improvement and completely revitalized the team. Yes, Lemieux had his best season ever and would have been a fine choice but Its a stretch to say Gretz was undeserving. FWIW the voting wasn't very close; he won by a large margin.

It is crazy to think about.

Like you said, he's only 25 and already has more Ross wins than Crosby and had many Harts, Pearsons and AS-1s.

 

[VanIslander]

It is crazy to think about.

Like you said, he's only 25 and already has more Ross wins than Crosby and had many Harts, Pearsons and AS-1s.

But gimpy Crosby had missed 183 NHL regular season games by that age due to injury.

 

[The Panther]

except this is more like his compete level over the majority of his career.

What a dick Milbury is here! Yes, Ovechkin was having a rough season and (that night) a particularly poor period of hockey, but in the grand scheme of things, he's a legend and Milbury is a quite forgettable NHL player, and the worst GM of all time.

Milbury, of course, never played less than a perfect hockey game. Oh, here's a night where he went -4 on home ice against Buffalo: Buffalo Sabres at Boston Bruins Box Score — November 30, 1976 | Hockey-Reference.com
Ovechkin should get video of this game, and film himself ripping into Milbury!

Here's another night where Milbury went -4, against Quebec: Quebec Nordiques at Boston Bruins Box Score — January 5, 1984 | Hockey-Reference.com
-4 at St. Louis: Boston Bruins at St. Louis Blues Box Score — February 15, 1986 | Hockey-Reference.com
-4 in a 10-2 loss to Hartford (!): Boston Bruins at Hartford Whalers Box Score — March 5, 1987 | Hockey-Reference.com
-4 in a 6-2 loss to Chicago: Chicago Blackhawks at Boston Bruins Box Score — December 20, 1986 | Hockey-Reference.com

Why, I can't understand how Milbury didn't win the Norris every year!

You know, it's one thing to criticize a player as a TV analyst. It's quite another to rip into him in a character assassination.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Ovechkin having 3 Hart trophies is something that is rarely mentioned. Only players with more are Gretzky/Howe/Shore and hes tied with Lemieux/Clarke/Orr/Morenz. Pretty elite company.
199 points is the mvp point blank period


The fact that McDavid already has 600 points, 3 Art Ross' (as much as Sid+Ovy combined) and 2 Hart trophies at 25 is insane. I can only imagine what his accomplishments will be when hes 30.



On the other end of this, Ovechkin adds an Art Ross in 2009 as well as a Hart/Richard/Art Ross in 2010.



'89 is the year you are thinking of.

However I wouldn't say its undeserved. He did lead the Kings to a 20+ point improvement and completely revitalized the team. Yes, Lemieux had his best season ever and would have been a fine choice but Its a stretch to say Gretz was undeserving. FWIW the voting wasn't very close; he won by a large margin.

 

[VanIslander]

There was a guy in my middle school, my chatwingman in Grade 8 English, who went on to cool-ly host the only good local rock radio station (this was the 1980s, pre-Internet). He was on top of the world at age 20. ... I knew it was his ceiling. Over a decade later he cleaned office buildings after dark. I doubt he has done much more.
.

 

[daver]

It is crazy to think about.

Like you said, he's only 25 and already has more Ross wins than Crosby and had many Harts, Pearsons and AS-1s.

It's also crazy that by age 25, McDavid is tied for 95th in playoff points with Colton Sissons*

* (presuming "crazy" means the inability to apply context)

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

It's also crazy that by age 25, McDavid is tied for 95th in playoff points with Colton Sissons*

(presuming "crazy" means the inability to apply context)

Colton Sisson, noted NHL playoffs BEAST.

 

[The Panther]

Ovi had his chance, here, to strangle Sid...

 

[Zuluss]

Crosby's top3/top5/top10 finishes have been thrown around a lot in this thread and that makes me wonder why. These are not Olympic medals in individual competitions; no player really cares if he finishes 4th or 6th. I have definitely seen players try super hard at the end of the season to get Rocket or Art Ross, so if one wins by even 2 points/goals, you can at least say the runner-up tried his best and could not keep up. 3rd in points, 5th in points? The people who could compete for this placement probably did not give a hoot and just coasted the final few games if their team locked in its desired seeding or was out of playoffs.

Of course there are exceptions to that - e.g., in 2019/20 the goal-scoring race was between Ovechkin, Pastrnak, and Matthews, and Matthews 3rd place is an achievement - it was "them three vs. the rest". In 2009/10, H.Sedin, Ovechkin, and Crosby were at the top of the scoring race, with #5 being 14 points behind, so that's an achievement too. "top3 finishes" like Crosby's 2014/15 or 2015/16, when he was 3 points ahead of #5? Duh, who cares. They could have been top5 or even top10 finishes easily, they have the same value.

Counting top3/top5/top10 finishes makes sense to measure the length of prime. For example, Gretzky has 8 top5 finishes in goals and Richard has 12, Richard was a top-end goal-scorer for longer. The implicit assumption here is that Gretzky's goal-scoring really took a dive outside of those 8 top5 seasons - and it did, even if you count top20 finishes in goals, Gretzky has 11 of those, and the difference between his worst top5 season and his best season outside of top10 is close to 50%.

Ovechkin's prime has been very, very long. He has 14 top20 finishes in points, and in many seasons when he was out of top10 in points, he won a Rocket, was on quite a few Hart ballots and made an All-star team (2015/16, 2018/19 are just two examples). In fact, there were seasons when Ovechkin was out of top10 and Crosby was in top10 in points, but Ovechkin got more Hart votes (2018/19), just as there were seasons when Ovechkin was out of top3, and Crosby was top3 in points, and Ovechkin got more Hart votes too (2014/15) - while the opposite examples do not exist.

So all those counts of Crosby having x top5 finishes more or y top10 finishes more is a very deceiving way to pretend Crosby's prime was longer. It was not.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Crosby's top3/top5/top10 finishes have been thrown around a lot in this thread and that makes me wonder why. These are not Olympic medals in individual competitions; no player really cares if he finishes 4th or 6th. I have definitely seen players try super hard at the end of the season to get Rocket or Art Ross, so if one wins by even 2 points/goals, you can at least say the runner-up tried his best and could not keep up. 3rd in points, 5th in points? The people who could compete for this placement probably did not give a hoot and just coasted the final few games if their team locked in its desired seeding or was out of playoffs.

Of course there are exceptions to that - e.g., in 2019/20 the goal-scoring race was between Ovechkin, Pastrnak, and Matthews, and Matthews 3rd place is an achievement - it was "them three vs. the rest". In 2009/10, H.Sedin, Ovechkin, and Crosby were at the top of the scoring race, with #5 being 14 points behind, so that's an achievement too. "top3 finishes" like Crosby's 2014/15 or 2015/16, when he was 3 points ahead of #5? Duh, who cares. They could have been top5 or even top10 finishes easily, they have the same value.

Counting top3/top5/top10 finishes makes sense to measure the length of prime. For example, Gretzky has 8 top5 finishes in goals and Richard has 12, Richard was a top-end goal-scorer for longer. The implicit assumption here is that Gretzky's goal-scoring really took a dive outside of those 8 top5 seasons - and it did, even if you count top20 finishes in goals, Gretzky has 11 of those, and the difference between his worst top5 season and his best season outside of top10 is close to 50%.

Ovechkin's prime has been very, very long. He has 14 top20 finishes in points, and in many seasons when he was out of top10 in points, he won a Rocket, was on quite a few Hart ballots and made an All-star team (2015/16, 2018/19 are just two examples). In fact, there were seasons when Ovechkin was out of top10 and Crosby was in top10 in points, but Ovechkin got more Hart votes (2018/19), just as there were seasons when Ovechkin was out of top3, and Crosby was top3 in points, and Ovechkin got more Hart votes too (2014/15) - while the opposite examples do not exist.

So all those counts of Crosby having x top5 finishes more or y top10 finishes more is a very deceiving way to pretend Crosby's prime was longer. It was not.

It's a longer and better prime

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I've always found the "trophy count" argument for Ovechkin to be misleading.

There's a trophy that recognizes Ovechkin's specialty (goal-scoring), but there isn't a trophy that recognizes the contributions of a more well-rounded player. Ovechkin, of course, very well could be the greatest goal-scorer in NHL history, but specialization doesn't necessarily equal a greater overall performance.

Example 1: in 2016, Ovechkin wins a trophy, but Crosby doesn't (in the regular season at least - he won the Conn Smythe, but I've stated many times that it was one of the weakest Smythe's in the NHL history). Crosby outscored Ovechkin by nearly 20% in the regular season (before someone says it was due to secondary assists, Crosby is still by 14% if we only look at primary points). He finished higher in Hart voting (2nd vs 6th - Crosby got nearly 4x as many voting points). And he finished higher in Selke voting as well (10th - Ovechkin didn't get any votes) which supports the notion that he was a better two-way player. If you look at it from the perspective of being most valuable to their team (the literal definition of the Hart), I'll point out that Crosby led his team in scoring by 17 points, and Ovechkin was 17 points away from leading his own team. But Ovechkin gets a trophy for that season, and Crosby doesn't.

Example 2: the same thing happened in 2019. Ovechkin wins a trophy, but Crosby doesn't. Crosby finished higher in Hart voting (2nd vs 7th - with Crosby getting more than 3x as many voting points). He outscored Ovechkin by 12% (and if we pretend secondary assists don't count, Crosby would still be ahead by 9%). And Crosby is once again well ahead in Selke voting (he finished a career-high 4th - Ovechkin wasn't named on any ballots). Crosby led his team in scoring by 18 points, and Ovechkin led his team by 15 points (not that this is a big advantage for Crosby, but Ovechkin doesn't make up any ground here either). But Ovechkin gets a trophy for that season, and Crosby doesn't.

If you're just trophy-counting, Ovechkin is up 2-0 in 2017 and 2019 (in the regular season, at least). But Crosby was the better player, and had the better regular season, both years. Some trophies (such as the Rocket Richard - the Selke would be another good example) award specialization. And of course, we should consider the Richard when talking about the greatest goal-scorer (or the Selke when talking about the best defensive forward). But it's a mistake to simply add up "specialist" trophies with "generalist" trophies (Hart, Art Ross, Norris, etc) and treat them all as equal.

I know Ovechkin fans don't like hearing this, but maybe an example with two other players will make it clearer. Compare Howie Morenz and Charlie Conacher. (I know this is going back a while, but I did this intentionally to compare two players that nobody reading this could possibly have a vested emotional interest in). Morenz has six trophies (three Harts, and he would have won two Art Rosses and one Rocket Richard - which are statistical trophies and we can count those retroactively). Charlie Conacher won five Rocket Richard trophies and two Art Ross trophies (retroactively). (Note - if you want to include the retroactively-award Conn Smythe trophies from THN, each player gets one).

So, using the "trophy counting" argument, Conacher has seven major awards, and Morenz only has six. (Or if you count the retro Conn Smythe's, it's 8-7). This suggests that Conacher was better than Morenz. But Morenz was considered by far the better player by the people who watched both of their careers unfold (they debuted six years apart) - there's plenty of documentation on the History forum to support that position. I've done a lot of reading on that period, and I can't recall ever seeing anybody suggest that Conacher was a better player (or had a better career) than Morenz. According to the HOH top 100 list, they're not even close (Morenz was ranked 11th, Conacher 55th). Yet simple trophy-counting has Conacher ahead. Conacher, of course, was one of the greatest goal-scorers in NHL history, and all of those (retro) Richard trophies count in assessing his legacy in that department. But it's a mistake to add specialist trophies with generalist trophies, and pretend that it's anything other than an apples-to-oranges comparison.

(I'll let someone else count things up, but if you're comparing the "generalist" trophies of Ovechkin and Crosby - Calder, Art Ross, Smythe, Hart, Lindsay - I suspect they're about even. Doesn't that much more closely reflect how their careers unfolded, rather than a metric showing that Ovechkin won 7-8 more trophies?)

 

[Zuluss]

It's a longer and better prime

No. Ovechkin has 14 seasons when he was top20 in points; Crosby has not even played 14 healthy seasons yet.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

No. Ovechkin has 14 seasons when he was top20 in points; Crosby has not even played 14 healthy seasons yet.

Crosby has been top 10 in scoring 12 times. Top 3 8 times. Top 5 9 times. Ovechkin has been Top 10 8 times and that's with perfect health. It's easy to see who's better

 

[Zuluss]

If you're just trophy-counting, Ovechkin is up 2-0 in 2017 and 2019 (in the regular season, at least). But Crosby was the better player, and had the better regular season, both years. Some trophies (such as the Rocket Richard - the Selke would be another good example) award specialization. And of course, we should consider the Richard when talking about the greatest goal-scorer (or the Selke when talking about the best defensive forward). But it's a mistake to simply add up "specialist" trophies with "generalist" trophies (Hart, Art Ross, Norris, etc) and treat them all as equal.

At a certain point, one has to stop comparing seasons one-by-one and keeping score, as if it was a boxing card.
At a certain point, you have to look at the entirety of a career - and then specialization matters. Take HOF induction of Bob Gainey as an extreme example - his offensive output is really subpar, he hardly ever was on a Hart ballot, but he has most Selkes ever, so he is in.
Take Bure as a less extreme example - neither 400ish career goals nor 700ish career points scream HOF, a single Hart nomination and two top3 finishes in points are not too rich either - but 3 Rockets and the fact that Bure can be argued to be a top10 goal-scorer all-time based on his peak got him in.

The fact that Ovechkin will likely hold all sorts of goal-scoring records, including the main one, by the time he retires, the fact that he is the best goal-scorer ever and his 9 Rockets beat Bobby ****ing Hull's by 2, the fact that he is the best (or "co-best") LW ever - all those facts are a big thing when considering the career in its entirety. The whole is often more than just a sum of the pieces.

I know Ovechkin fans don't like hearing this, but maybe an example with two other players will make it clearer. Compare Howie Morenz and Charlie Conacher. (I know this is going back a while, but I did this intentionally to compare two players that nobody reading this could possibly have a vested emotional interest in). Morenz has six trophies (three Harts, and he would have won two Art Rosses and one Rocket Richard - which are statistical trophies and we can count those retroactively). Charlie Conacher won five Rocket Richard trophies and two Art Ross trophies (retroactively). (Note - if you want to include the retroactively-award Conn Smythe trophies from THN, each player gets one).

But that's not what is happening in Ovechkin vs. Crosby case. Morenz beats Conacher badly in "major"/"generalist" trophies (3 Harts + 2 Art Rosses vs 2 Art Rosses). The fact that Conacher has no Harts despite winning Art Ross + Rocket twice tells us something.

Ovechkin and Crosby are tied in "major"/"generalist" trophies (OV: 3x Hart, 3x Lindsay, 1x Art Ross; Crosby 2x Hart, 3x Lindsay, 2x Art Ross). The question is then whether Ovechkin's historical collection of Richards is worth more than a bunch of extra Hart nominations for Crosby (some of which, like the one from 2019, makes one shake one's head: Crosby over McDavid in 2019? Really??)

 

[Zuluss]

Crosby has been top 10 in scoring 12 times. Top 3 8 times. Top 5 9 times. Ovechkin has been Top 10 8 times and that's with perfect health. It's easy to see who's better

Read my post about top3/top5/top10 finishes again.

A top3 finish is not worth any more than a top5 finish if the top3 finish comes with a 3-point lead over #5, and Crosby has at least three top3 finishes of this sort.
The difference between top10 finish and top20 finish is 5-7 points, a gap easily closed by scoring more goals, dishing out more hits, etc.

The reason why we often count top10 finishes to compare players is that in many cases players start finishing like 50th after they are done with collecting their top10 finishes.
Ovechkin has been an exception; he has 14 top20 finishes in points to Crosby's 11 irrc, and the gap will likely be even larger after this season is over.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Read my post about top3/top5/top10 finishes again.

A top3 finish is not worth any more than a top5 finish if the top3 finish comes with a 3-point lead over #5, and Crosby has at least three top3 finishes of this sort.
The difference between top10 finish and top20 finish is 5-7 points, a gap easily closed by scoring more goals, dishing out more hits, etc.

The reason why we often count top10 finishes to compare players is that in many cases players start finishing like 50th after they are done with collecting their top10 finishes.
Ovechkin has been an exception; he has 14 top20 finishes in points to Crosby's 11 irrc, and the gap will likely be even larger after this season is over.

Listen top 20 doesn't impress me or anybody. I've never heard anybody talk about top 20 finishes

 

[Zuluss]

Listen top 20 doesn't impress me or anybody. I've never heard anybody talk about top 20 finishes

HockeyReference season leaderboards go up to #20.
I personally don't care about top10 placements either - they are a very lazy way to describe a player.
I also don't care about top3 finishes either unless they come with a big distance from #5/#10. Take last season: I remember that McDavid lit up everyone and Drai was a distant second. Who was #3? Idk, there was a bunch of guys all within 5-7 points of each other - Matthews, Marner, Kane, Marchand.
I actually went and checked - Marchand was #3 in points last season. Do you think anyone remembers that or cares about that? Same with half of Crosby's top3 finishes, or anyone's.

 

[VanIslander]

I think less of Crosby due to his constant injuries.

I think less of Ovechkin due to his play relative to Malkin.

A disappointing generation.

(Gawd I'm getting old.)

 

[YippieKaey]

I honestly feel like goalscoring is undervalued here. Crosby has +40 goals twice. Ovi has done it 11 times. Ovi is probably the best goalscorer the game has ever seen, and might even break Gretzkys raw goal totals in the modern salary cap era. That is insane and if anyone has "made up their mind" that Crosby is better they haven´t thought enough about it. Crosby is great, but not clearly better.

 

[daver]

I honestly feel like goalscoring is undervalued here. Crosby has +40 goals twice. Ovi has done it 11 times. Ovi is probably the best goalscorer the game has ever seen, and might even break Gretzkys raw goal totals in the modern salary cap era. That is insane and if anyone has "made up their mind" that Crosby is better they haven´t thought enough about it. Crosby is great, but not clearly better.

Playmaking, all around play, the ability to carry a line offensively, and leadership are reasons why Crosby gets more value than his raw goal totals in Hart and Lindsay voting.

From simply an offensive production perspective, I am not sure that OV gets that many extra points for his goalscoring as Crosby, at his peak, was a goalscoring machine himself but then could become a playmaking machine the next season. He is argubly the #2 goalscorer of his era while argubly being the #1 playmaker.

Crosby may go down as the best offensive player that had the least talented linemates throughout his career. It is his calling card that he could carry a #1 line with any caliber linemate which made a huge difference in creating depth for the Pens.

OV, at his peak, was a one man wrecking crew, but, IMO, Crosby still brought more at his peak, to say nothing of his 2-way game.

 

[YippieKaey]

Playmaking, all around play, the ability to carry a line offensively, and leadership are reasons why Crosby gets more value than his raw goal totals in Hart and Lindsay voting.

From simply an offensive production perspective, I am not sure that OV gets that many extra points for his goalscoring as Crosby, at his peak, was a goalscoring machine himself but then could become a playmaking machine the next season. He is argubly the #2 goalscorer of his era while argubly being the #1 playmaker.

Crosby may go down as the best offensive player that had the least talented linemates throughout his career. It is his calling card that he could carry a #1 line with any caliber linemate which made a huge difference in creating depth for the Pens.

OV, at his peak, was a one man wrecking crew, but, IMO, Crosby still brought more at his peak, to say nothing of his 2-way game.

Crosby was a better playmaker, and had more of a two way game. But both of those things are connected to him being a centre. He is supposed to be. And secondary assist really shouldn't be valued the same as goals. I also don't agree that a guy with only two 40+ goal seasons can be called the second best goalscorer of his era. That seems a bit biased. Many players have more 40 goal seasons over a similar time period.

 

[daver]

Crosby was a better playmaker, and had more of a two way game. But both of those things are connected to him being a centre. He is supposed to be. And secondary assist really shouldn't be valued the same as goals. I also don't agree that a guy with only two 40+ goal seasons can be called the second best goalscorer of his era. That seems a bit biased. Many players have more 40 goal seasons over a similar time period.

NHL Stats

#2 in goals scored
#3 in GPG (among Top 50 goalscorers)
Two Rocket Richards
One 50 goal season
#2 in playoff goals scored
T1 in most goals in a single playoff run

 

[Zuluss]

NHL Stats

#2 in goals scored
#3 in GPG (among Top 50 goalscorers)
Two Rocket Richards
One 50 goal season
#2 in playoff goals scored
T1 in most goals in a single playoff run

Thanks for a good laugh. Now I saw someone who thinks Crosby is a better goalscorer than Stamkos - all because Stamkos is three years younger than Crosby, and if we start counting in 2005, Crosby has more goals.

 

[bobholly39]

Thanks for a good laugh. Now I saw someone who thinks Crosby is a better goalscorer than Stamkos - all because Stamkos is three years younger than Crosby, and if we start counting in 2005, Crosby has more goals.

I agree with you that Stamkos should be considered a better goal-scorer than Crosby, but it's still really close.

Crosby's career pace is 38 goals per 82 games. Stamkos's is 42 goals per 82 games. Crosby the much better playoff goal-scorer, with both players with 2 rockets. Not exactly a huge gap?

I think Stamkos's career trajectory as a goal-scorer looked to be much better than Crosby at one point, but he slowed down tremendously due to injuries. So in the end - it's fairly close.