Better Goal Scorer.....66 or 8?

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

A healthy Crosby had 84, 85, 89, 89 points in four straight seasons from ages 27-30. Kind of feels like that mic drop alone just kind of negates this whole line of argument.

Look at the "talent" he was playing with during those seasons. Rust never had a 60 point season in his career, and averaged 55 points per 82 games. Kunitz averaged 50 points per 82. Hornqvist averaged 49 points. Dupuis only 39. These 4 players combined for 2 career 30 goal seasons. To me, the fact that these middle 6ers were the best wingers the Pens could get for Crosby until Guentzel came through the draft feels like it proves my point that there was less talent in the league.

 

[psycat]

Ovechkin’s peak goal scoring season is equal or better than Lemieux’s.

This “compiling past a vastly superior peak” talk is pure history revision.

Players who lead the entire league 9 times are not compilers.

If you care to read the post again that was in regards to him being greater or not than Gretzky(as a goalscorer).

Not that I think everything should be taken at face value, but id rather do that than crappy adjusted stats.

Anyway if we wan't to talk about better, not greater, we could start with the fact that Ovi couldn't muster 100 pts in any year for over a decade, sure he scores the goals because he always shoot but a better goalscorer(ie Lemieux) would score more goals if he never looked for a pass. Volume shooter vs complete player who scores just as many goals per game, even adjusted.

Now I will grant that Ovi is, obviously, a phenomenal goalscorer and arguably the greatest one of all time(since he put up the career numbers) but in terms of most effective or best goalscorer? No way. That's like saying someone with 200 soft hits is a better hitter than someone who have 195 which all of them ends up with the opposing player flat on the ice. Hyperbole of course but you get the idea.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I believe the scoring talent of the players in the league is what led to the scoring levels changing, not the baseless assumption that it was "harder to score".

Which we all understand is a terrible opinion. Because if anything increased talent leads to lower scoring as we can see across multiple sports as better talents make fewer mistakes and mistakes are what mostly lead to goals.

 

[authentic]

"decline" years like coming back from cancer and scoring 76 points in 43 games?

People don’t realize he would also have played like 200-300 more games in his prime scoring around 2 points per game. He likely still would’ve ended up with a very similar points per game overall, just look at Gretzky.

 

[authentic]

Which we all understand is a terrible opinion. Because if anything increased talent leads to lower scoring as we can see across multiple sports as better talents make fewer mistakes and mistakes are what mostly lead to goals.

I’ll never fathom how people automatically attribute lower scoring to worse talent, especially when scoring rises after things like goalie equipment reduction, crack down on obstruction, rise in empty net goals, and expansion (scoring has literally always gone up with expansion teams added thinning out the depth of talent amongst teams).