Crosby is a great player.
Ove is on another level.
How many career NHL records has Crosby broke?
Right?
Zero.
Youngest 100 point season. Youngest Art Ross/Lindsay winner. Top 5 all time in playoff points. First who didn't play for the Oilers dynasty. Most point per game seasons, beating out Gretzky a few weeks ago. Could creep to top 3 if the Pens trade him. Likely going to finish top 5 in points all time. Era adjusted is already fourth.
As good as Ovi is, Gretzky's goal record was a lot less untouchable than his points and playoff points ones. With the new expansions creating waves of higher offense you're going to see a lot of new 700 goal scorers in the future. No one is likely to catch Ovy but you're underselling Crosby massively by fixating on a single stat.
Crosby's essentially better at every single of aspect of hockey except goals and hits and led his team to way more success. Crosby is the modern Beliveau while Ovy is Rocket.
I guess all these modern players are lucky seasons weren't 82 games in the past because there's no way they'd ever pass guys from the 1920s. Newsy Lalond put up 125 goals in 99 games. Including the GOAT season in NHL history of 47 points in 23 games with 37 goals. Secondary assists didn't exist in his time. Considering this factor, his points per game and goals per game is better than any Gretzky season. It's pretty Just looking at modern metrics his 10 primary assists would have likely meant an additional 15 secondary ones. So 62 points in 23 games. Nearly three points per game and two goals per game.
Joe Malone 44 goals in 20 games, 4 assists. Again no secondary assists back then and primary assists had to directly contribute to the goal, not just passing anywhere on the ice at any point.
Gretzky's best goal scoring year was the 18th best in league history eliminating outliers like Poehling's one game three goal year. Seasons were only 20-24 games long in the early days though, and all of those guys crushed Greztky's goals per game. Denneny, Dye, Noble, Broadbent, Joliat, The entire era no respect because of how few games played.
Even now Maurice Richard gets no respect for starting in an era where there were only 50 games played. It's called 50 in 50 for a reason. He'd still have the record if his prime was 82 games. Even just adjusting his first seven years excluding rookie season to 82 games adds 125 goals to his career. Do the rest and he's going to pass Greztky. The problem is the way more people calculate it is by taking career goals per game, which is ridiculous because Richard's prime was in 50 game seasons and his twilight was in 70 game seasons, absolutely murdering his career goals per game. He was closer to 0.62 goals per game than the .5 he ended at, which is above everyone except Lemieux, Bossy, and Matthews (who is going to drop). The difference is Richard did have the longevity and health to hit actual numbers if they'd been available. Unlike Lemieux and Bossy who retired from injury and played in the peak scoring era.
Anyways I'm off topic. Ovy is undeniable the GOAT goal scorer because he actually did it. But circumstantially he's alone in the position because of factors that held down previous generations prior to the mid-50's Howe started his peak right as the league increased the schedule and is still ahead of Gretzky in era adjusted goals. Jagr is nearly a hundred era adjusted ahead because he didn't play in the ridiculous 80s. Selanne is close to Gretzky despite never really being thought of as the elite goal scorer in the league.
Crosby was just straight up the better player and best player in the league for a longer period of time. Not only that, but even as other players passed him offensively, they haven't replicated his all around on-ice impact. Tampa are absolutely stacked and made the playoffs even when Kucherov missed the entire season.
McDavid has made the finals once and is now dealing with Crosby's issue of missing to many games to win more trophies. If you cut them off today Crosby's individual trophy case is better to me, two Conn Smythe's makes up for the two art ross. Not to mention at the same age Crosby already lost at least three Art Ross' to injury, while McDavid's just been outscored by peers. Mackinnon hasn't won an Art Ross at an age where Crosby should have had seven.
Crosby likely wins in 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15 if he plays 82 games. In the latter two it's essentially guaranteed as he was 8 and 5 games played back of the winner and only four and three points back. 10-11 he missed half the year and put up the highest points per game since the outlier 92-93 season save Mario and Jagr. The only guys to pass it since are all in the last two years and era adjusted are way lower.
Crosby essentially would have been a seven time art ross winner if he played the games. There's never a point in his career where he goes 5 points with a point so you can't even argue real points vs imaginary in this case. Even in a slump at 0.5 points per game (obviously not the 41 game season, where even a point per game the rest of the season beats out Daniel Sedin) his numbers push him in all those years. Which puts him above Mario and Jagr in Art Ross trophies. Even in Henrik's Art ross year Crosby sat a game. Which you can say is ridiculous but Henrik Sedin's game 82 was a 4 point game that put him from 1 behind Crosby to Art Ross. Crosby put up 5 points in game 81. Who knows if he could have put up 3 points if he played one more.
That whole generation is going to be super disrespected just because it's the absolute GOAT era for goalies. There will never be another era with multiple goalies as good as Price, Lundqvist, Luongo, Rinne, Rask, Miller, Thomas, Holtby, etc all playing in the same league. But HFBoards is pretty ridiculous about this. Era adjusted stats don't count for forwards, but we can discredit goalies for playing in lower scoring eras. Despite the direct correlation that good goaltending ad defensive systems are what stifled offense and the modern numbers are from a regression in goaltending due to rule changes, equipment nerfs, and expansion diluting the overall talent pool.
Crosby was far and away the best player in the era. Lockout to goalie nerf era 05-06 to 18-19 Crosby was 1.29 points per game to Ovi's 1.12 while being much better defensively, playing a more important position, and putting up 1.16 points per game in the playoffs to Ovi's 0.97. Not to mention just the raw number of playoff game differential between the two despite both of their teams being good.
I would argue too that the Caps supporting cast was stronger than the Pens, who largely went in with replacement level players in their bottom six/bottom four every single year. Directly swap Ovy and Crosby and I think the Caps are the ones with three+ cups. I don't think Malkin/Ovy wins a cup with bums like Colby Armstrong, Maxime Talbot, and Tyler Kennedy. Staal being third on the team with 49 points during their first cup playing as the 3C tells you all you need to know. Letang was not even close to a 1D at that point. In the years where Washington's depth got gutted to the Pens level they simply didn't make the playoffs. Even Mike Milbury as GM could have won a cup with the Pens if given 15 years with Crosby (given the condition he's not allowed to trade him).
09-10 Caps that got Halak'd had 5 non-Ovy/Backstrom players outscore the entire Pens non-Crosby/Malkin 08-09 roster. And two more that would have tied Staal if they played 82. The difference is Crosby made others around him better while Ovi didn't. Crosby turned Kunitz into an olympian. 15 point Pascal Dupuis got 62 playing with Crosby. This is the true effect and difference between center and winger. You see it now with Mackinnon and everyone he plays with. Drouin, Lehkonen, Rantanen, Necas, Nichuskin, Burakovsky. Everyone who gets to play with him has career numbers. The third wheel to Ovy/Backstrom never got that boost. Guys like Oshie, Williams, Brouwer, etc put up the same numbers with their prior or subsequent teams. After leaving Crosby most guys couldn't even hang in other teams fourth lines.
And I would have argued the exact opposite ten years ago because of how much I disliked Crosby. But the argument has fallen apart. Statistically he's putting up better seasons now but era adjusted he's clearly fallen off and just doesn't get enough credit for what he did when he was young.
Nothing wrong with being the second best. Crosby is just better as an individual and team player. He's above McDavid if you are doing a career draft. And honestly probably you only take Lemieux and Gretzky ahead of him all time to build a team. Orr won two cups but generally speaking dmen can't impact the game enough to build a roster around. He still had a top 10-20 center all time on his team in Esposito. And yes I know Esposito didn't put up the same stats when Orr retired, but he also changed teams and led the very bad Rags in scoring and was already 33. He also wasn't super hot in Chicago, but his explosion in Boston came before Orr's did so you can't just say it was all Orr.
I just don't see the argument for Ovy anymore, the only thing you can point to is the goal scoring record. Are goals the only aspect of hockey? Does Ovy's 250 goals in 150 more games played on Crosby eliminate every other lead Crosby has? Crosby's 37 hanging just outside (1 point) the top 10 in scoring. For centers he's still top 5 in scoring and among those in front of him I honestly don't think I see the argument for Eichel being better than him currently considering the team differences.
Has anyone ever been a top 5 center in the league for 20 years with about 10+ of those being the clear #1? That was the whole argument for Yzerman/Sakic in all time lists and they didn't have close to Crosby's consistency or even peak as the best center in the league. Messier was a middle six center for at least the last six years of his career, and was never the best in the league. Sakic was good for slightly less time than Crosby, but lower peak. Yzerman the same; offensive peak is a debate.
Jean Beliveau, 18 years in the league, objectively the best center in most of them. Maybe the only non-big two guy who is above Crosby, but still for less time than Crosby did it. Second to Howe in scoring in that era, but most years highest scoring center, won the most cups, essentially the first two-way forward. Led centers in scoring 5 times, finished second multiple times, never finished outside top 10 for pace. Pretty universally considered the first modern idea of a true 1C in the league. Retired over a point per game as the 70s were bringing in a new, higher scoring era.
I don't think Crosby's ever been lower than the fourth best center, as a player, since his rookie season though.
Specifically for 30s even, Crosby's been a top 3 center nearly the entire time, maybe dropping to 4th more recently, while Ovy's had several years where he wasn't a top 5 winger, and even some where he wasn't top 10.
That's unfathomable.
