Connor McDavid will go down as the 2nd best player of all-time

[BlueSeal]

Do you say the same about Gretzky?

Sure. I'd personally say that about almost anyone except for folks like Orr. Now there's a complete player and imo he's the bar.

 

[gotcha90]

McDavid is a FANTASTIC player. It's not a knock on him at all. But to say he's going to be the 2nd best player ever already is kind of silly. Lemieux and Gretzky hit peaks that frankly McDavid is not really even close to. He's already getting into his late 20s. If he hasn't hit them by now, he's not hitting them, likely.

He may not ever be the 2nd best but it's way too early to use age against him. He's 3 months past his 26th birthday and his last 100 game stretch was his best 100 game stretch. As a hockey fan, I'd rather watch with optimism than write him off already because of nostalgia.

Look at tennis as a counterpoint to the age discussion, it was thought to be a young man's sport even more so than hockey. Yet Novak Djokovic has accomplished more past age 26 than Pete Sampras, who was formerly regarded as the best ever, did in his entire career. For all we know that could happen with McDavid - he certainly has shown any signs of aging that I notice.

 

[wetcoast]

Mcdavid missed the playoffs that is the only reason he lost. He wasn't robbed everyone knows a huge criteria for the hart is making the playoffs. Mackinnon deserved that hart he was robbed. I'm just showing you that just because McDavid might finish with more harts or ross doesn't paint the full picture as he wasn't competing against prime Wayne f***ing gretzky

Well up until 88-89 Mario missed the playoffs too, so there goes one of your Harts for him if you want to be fair about it but he also won a Hart in another non playoff season.

Either way I count Hart worthy seasons, ie is there a strong argument for him winning this year.... and finalists as well.

Sometime the voters can get it wrong and Mario deserves credit for his 199 point Hart worthy season but that year Yzerman and Gretzky would get basically equal value for Hart for my terms of reference.

 

[wetcoast]

He finished second in voting though

That was a weird year for 3rd place though as that went to Mark Howe and then Howe finishes 2nd in Norris voting because Coffey had 138 points.

 

[crosbyshow]

What is mindblowing is that in the 88-89 season....Lemieux did 199 points in 76 games...with Bob Errey and Rob Brown as linemates

At the.time he was 23 years old injury free and he was a complete beast.

It's sad cause that when Jagr , Recchi arrived he was dealing with back surgeries and cancer.

The dude missed 5 1/2 seasons between 24 and 35 years old and he managed to score 700 goals !!

 

[wetcoast]

I'd take Doug Gilmour on my team before Mcdavid any day of the week. And the warrior. would destroy Mcdavid.......

I love Gilmour and for couple of seasons and 2 playoffs he was in his absolute pretty freaking good and under rated peak of the post expansion era but peak McDavid is the guy to take 9 days a week because 8 is not enough.

 

[bucks_oil]

The point was that you were comparing a guy that wasn't even the best goal scorer in the league up until now, and it's close. In Lemieux and Gretzky's primes, they were the best passers and goal scorers without even a doubt, for years on end.

Oh I do enjoy. I've never said McDavid isn't a great player. But you guys also need to not get offended when someone counters your points with other logical points.

You are free to make any point you wish, but either I'm missing it, or your first paragraph just didn't make any logical sense.

McDavid has gone his entire career up until this year being the 2nd best goal scorer on HIS OWN TEAM. How in the world is he at Gretzky's level? "skilled?" You mean like winning NHL skills competitions, not actually playing NHL hockey?

You criticize McD for being only the 2nd best goalscorer on his "own team" implying that diminishes his accomplishment, while ignoring the fact that:
1) we're talking about Draisaitl, who just happens to have scored more goals than anyone over the past 5 seasons... and
2) McDavid goal total this year is the 2nd highest in the last 25 years (and he could be first by season end)
3) Even the Great Gretzky was OUTSCORED by his own teammate in his greatest season (ie the greatest season in NHL history). It didn't detract one bit from Gretzky's best season, why then should we discount McDavid's accomplishment this year based on his goalscoring in previous years? And...
4) Don't look now but if you look at the last three seasons, McDavid has the most goals, so it certainly isn't a shortcoming.

So again... best goal scoring season in 25 years, most goals cumulative over the past three years, and being outscored (in goals only) by a HoF on your own team... That was also true in THE GREATEST season of all time. So what's the point you are making?

 

[wetcoast]

I trust the average message board poster over the average player for making a historical ranking.

Why would you trust either one as both really don't put the time and effort in to make a very good choice to begin with, instead for the most part people repeat what they have heard and the common consensus.

I'd much rather "trust" or at least respect thoughts that have been considered and challenged not just parroted.

 

[TopShelfYzerman]

Why would you trust either one as both really don't put the time and effort in to make a very good choice to begin with, instead for the most part people repeat what they have heard and the common consensus.

I'd much rather "trust" or at least respect thoughts that have been considered and challenged not just parroted.

Why not do your own research and live off that?

 

[psycat]

Doesn't matter as, according to alot of people in this thread, in 25-30 years his accomplishments will be worthless since the league will have moved on and a peak McDavid would maybe be able to crack the 3rd line, on a non-contender, at that point.

 

[Coffey]

What is mindblowing is that in the 88-89 season....Lemieux did 199 points in 76 games...with Bob Errey and Rob Brown as linemates

The insane 27 shooting percentage season.

 

[Hockeyholic]

Orr
Mario
Howe
Gretzky


Then the next tier- in no particular order
Stasny
Trottier
Bossy
Hawerchuk
Perrault
Jean Beliveau
Gainey
Dionne




Then the current crop
Crosby
O.V.
McDavid

In a few more years Crosby, O.V. and Conner will be competing to get into the second tier. They all make that level, but Mc David in particular needs a couple more seasons.

edit- I'm sure Ov, Sid and McDavid will be in the next tier, at the least, but I'm not putting them there until their careers are over.

Ovechkin and Crosby are better than every single player in that second tier. Although, Beliveau can be debated for sure.

Not one sane person would ever take the bolded guys over McDavid. But....Beliveau and Trottier are ahead for now. I do expect McDavid to surpass them eventually. I don't know about Dionne.

he won't even come close to Lemieux

This I agree with.

I'm not sure if many realize how dominant Lemieux was. The man missed half the season and still won a scoring title plus MVP. He had it all. Size. Shot. Passing. IQ.

McDavid is great. No question. He isn't like Lemieux was though.

 

[norrisnick]

Ovechkin and Crosby are better than every single player in that second tier. Although, Beliveau can be debated for sure.

Not one sane person would ever take the bolded guys over McDavid. But....Beliveau and Trottier are ahead for now. I do expect McDavid to surpass them eventually. I don't know about Dionne.


This I agree with.

I'm not sure if many realize how dominant Lemieux was. The man missed half the season and still won a scoring title plus MVP. He had it all. Size. Shot. Passing. IQ.

McDavid is great. No question. He isn't like Lemieux was though.

It's pretty common not to realize things that didn't occur.

It's hard for players to be better than myths...

 

[authentic]

What is mindblowing is that in the 88-89 season....Lemieux did 199 points in 76 games...with Bob Errey and Rob Brown as linemates

At the.time he was 23 years old injury free and he was a complete beast.

It's sad cause that when Jagr , Recchi arrived he was dealing with back surgeries and cancer.

The dude missed 5 1/2 seasons between 24 and 35 years old and he managed to score 700 goals !!

His back problems were really bad already in the second half of the 1988-89 season.

 

[KCC]

What is mindblowing is that in the 88-89 season....Lemieux did 199 points in 76 games...with Bob Errey and Rob Brown as linemates

At the.time he was 23 years old injury free and he was a complete beast.

It's sad cause that when Jagr , Recchi arrived he was dealing with back surgeries and cancer.

The dude missed 5 1/2 seasons between 24 and 35 years old and he managed to score 700 goals !!

He lived on the PP during his career but when McDavid does it for one measly season apparently it’s a bad thing. Lol. ppl pick the strangest fights and die on the weirdest hill’s.

 

[Coffey]

ppl pick the strangest fights and die on the weirdest hill’s.

That's the internet man.
Gotta be antagonizing, otherwise what's the point.

 

[Albatros]

He lived on the PP during his career

We're talking about the only player in history to score five different ways in a game.

 

[independent observer]

There, I said it.

The big 4 has been mythologized and deified but it’s been fine since no player has made a compelling argument to question the sanctity of it until now.

Crosby made an argument for 5th best of all-time but even without losing those three seasons of his prime, I don’t think he was ever a serious threat to Howe/Orr/Super Mario.

McDavid is peaking higher than Howe right now. He’s simply a better player and I’m done pretending that he’s not. (Insert Joker meme).

Howe has legendary longevity but Connor has been very healthy and shows no signs of slowing down. Even if he doesn’t match Howes’ longevity (who can) I value the peak more.

Also, far be it for me to discredit the OG’s, we simply have to factor into the equation that Howe played in a 6 team league against almost exclusively Canadians. We simply have to acknowledge how much more competition McDavid has. He’s being trailed in the scoring race by a German, Russian, and Czech. That simply didn’t happen in Howes’ day.

Connor isn’t nor will he peak higher than Mario or #4 but neither player reached even 1000 games.

If McDavid wins 7-8 scoring titles and 5-6 MVP’s and plays 1400 games I think you have to put him number #2 all-time.

Either way, it’s incredible what we are witnessing right now.

Thoughts? Will McDavid be #2 of all-time when the dust settles?

There is only a big 2. Gretzky is referred as the best, but probably only because of Lemieux‘s health issues… Lemieux had the highest peak ever. I am not sure how Gretzky would do in today‘s NHL but I am pretty sure that Lemieux would be more dominant.

McDavid is the most advanced player in skill in history, he never played in the high scoring era of the 80ies and competition is more advanced now. I am sure he would have dominated as well. But team success is missing so far.

I see Orr at the moment as a distant no. 3, and Howe as maybe no. 4…

However, it is almost impossible to compare players from different era‘s as even Jordan said in a famous interview. So, I would say Connor is the best player of his era… and I am curious to see whether the other Connor will be able to conquer him or not…

 

[wetcoast]

Why not do your own research and live off that?

An exchange of ideas and constructive criticism makes the world a clearer place......sometimes

The insane 27 shooting percentage season.

Plus rob Brown was a really skilled hockey player just didn't have the lunchbox to go with it.

 

[wetcoast]

We're talking about the only player in history to score five different ways in a game.

There are strong arguments for Mario and his place among the all time best but this isn't one of them it's literally trivial and no different than most 5 goal games by any player.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

There are strong arguments for Mario and his place among the all time best but this isn't one of them it's literally trivial and no different than most 5 goal games by any player.

Was voted the greatest moment in nhl history.....

 

[Albatros]

There are strong arguments for Mario and his place among the all time best but this isn't one of them it's literally trivial and no different than most 5 goal games by any player.

It's not all that trivial when he also led the league in goals, EV goals, PP goals, SH goals. Even empty net and penalty shot ones. Some claim Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer of all time and he has five SH goals in his career. Mike Bossy had eight. Lemieux had 13 in 1988/89 alone.

 

[wetcoast]

Was voted the greatest moment in nhl history.....

5 goals is 5 goals on the score sheet, like I said it's not a strong argument as he has many stronger points but also not surprising that some will hold onto that.

It's not all that trivial when he also led the league in goals, EV goals, PP goals, SH goals. Even empty net and penalty shot ones. Some claim Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer of all time and he has five SH goals in his career. Mike Bossy had eight. Lemieux had 13 in 1988/89 alone.

I highlighted the 2 strongest arguments here.

Dave Ganger actually holds the Oiler record for most points in a game that's part of my drift here.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

5 goals is 5 goals on the score sheet, like I said it's not a strong argument as he has many stronger points but also not surprising that some will hold onto that.


I highlighted the 2 strongest arguments here.

Dave Ganger actually holds the Oiler record for most points in a game that's part of my drift here.

Was named the greatest moment in nhl history.... fitting for the goat....

 

[Kingfan1967]

Howe and Orr played without Helmets, and no one was concerned about concussions, what were the average shift times in the 50's 60's 60-90 seconds? equipment was also much heavier. Teams traveled by train instead of planes, wanted to review a game it took a day or two and you had to watch it on film not on your phone.