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

[Video Nasty]

So weird how the 1C on a cup winning team the past 15 years plays a 2-way game and are often in the running for a Selke (and therefore sacrifices points for a more complete team game). Off of memory:

2023-Jack Eichel (Totally bought into the 2-way game that playoffs, should have won Smythe)
2022-Nathan MacKinnon (should have won Smythe)
2019-Ryan O'Reilly (won Smythe, also Patrice Bergeron in the finals)

2018-Alex Ovechkin (should have won Smythe, from what I know played different and more responsible under Barry Trotz)

2016/2017-Sidney Crosby (won Smythe, could have gone to Letang in 2016, 5th in selke voting if memory serves right)

2015-Jonathan Toews
2014-Anze Kopitar
2013-Jonathan Toews (also Patrice Bergeron in the finals)
2012-Anze Kopitar
2011- Patrice Bergeron (Also Ryan Kesler in the finals)
2010-Jonathan Toews (won Smythe)
2008-Henrik Zetterberg (won Smythe)

Btw, points are just naked stats like plus/minus. Says nothing without linemates, usage, opposition, era i.e. context. So those McDavid vs Crosby playoff stats might aswell be apples and oranges at this point.

Also to rank Gretzky, Lemieux, McDavid, Crosby, Orr, Howe and the rest after that is a fools errand anyway. Different eras, teams, playstyles, health, what have you.

Edit: McDavid! On pace to win a Stanley Cup. On pace to 2nd all time.

Now do a deep dive into these teams that had goalies who fulfilled their end of the bargain.

 

[McVespa99]

Connor McDavid! The hockey player we grade on based on points, except when points don't work in his favor!

Except points pretty much always work in his favor. Especially playoffs

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Here their career impact on their team with and without:

	team P% with	team P% w/o
Connor McDavid	.574​	.452​
Sidney Crosby	.612​	.634​

Ovi influence is even bigger than McDavid's (the post I'm quoting was about leadership)

	team P% with	team P% w/o
Alex Ovechkin	.612​	.464​
Connor McDavid	.574​	.452​
Sidney Crosby	.612​	.634​

what is this based on? just this season? season by season prove that PIT is worse with Crosby in and better without because this really means nothing I can make up numbers too

He's already surpassed Crosby what are you guys on about....compare him to other greats because Sid is already in the rearview mirror

disagree, what has McDavid done to put himself above Crosby? one's a true leader with 3 cups and the other sure he is better offensively but as a complete package..... Crosby wins

 

[Randyne]

what is this based on? just this season? season by season prove that PIT is worse with Crosby in and better without because this really means nothing I can make up numbers too

Entire career. Numbers are real, I'm not a sidfan.
PIT played 213 games without Sid. 121-64-28 = .634 P% = PIT is 100% the PO team without Sid.
EDM played 52 games without McDavid. 19-24-9 = .452 P%.
WSH played 56 games without Ovi. 24-28-4 = .464 P%, = 100% miss the PO.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

Right on sounds like we agree on this. And I hate to be the guy to denigrate Crosby when discussing McDavid but that 2016 win was the definition of "well we have to give the award to *somebody* and its not the first time nor will it be the last where the Conn Smythe winner didn't really have a playoff performance for the ages.

I could see if McDavid had a pile of lackluster playoffs to date but he's literally been the best player in the world the past two post seasons so when I see someone has the opinion that he's not a winner or he can't lead I can't help but simply dismiss their opinion.


The Crosby vs McDavid arguments are silly now and are going to look even more silly in 15 years.

In OVs prime he scored at a 1.42p pace in the playoffs, in a lower scoring environment. It’s easier to score in the first couple rounds. Obviously McDavid is one of the best playoff performers ever, but so is Crosby, I think it’s silly to think they aren’t similar level playoff performers.

 

[Frank Drebin]

In OVs prime he scored at a 1.42p pace in the playoffs, in a lower scoring environment. It’s easier to score in the first couple rounds. Obviously McDavid is one of the best playoff performers ever, but so is Crosby, I think it’s silly to think they aren’t similar level playoff performers.

Thats a very good point about the early rounds. Mackinnon lit it up in the early rounds at the beginning of his career as well.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Entire career. Numbers are real, I'm not a sidfan.
PIT played 213 games without Sid. 121-64-28 = .634 P% = PIT is 100% the PO team without Sid.
EDM played 52 games without McDavid. 19-24-9 = .452 P%.
WSH played 56 games without Ovi. 24-28-4 = .464 P%, = 100% miss the PO.

I dont even care I would take Crosby over McDavid guys a real winner a champion. something McDavid is not. or isn't yet but so far he's not ahead of Crosby and FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR from 2nd best all time

 

[Hank Plank]

Cant forget that Conn Smythe in 2016 where Crosby finished 6th in playoff scoring with 19 points in 24 games. But was very solid defensively.

Conn Smythe trophy is objectively a joke compared to the other awards.

That's because your guy didn't win it.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

what is this based on? just this season? season by season prove that PIT is worse with Crosby in and better without because this really means nothing I can make up numbers too

The "Pittsburgh does better when Crosby is out of the lineup" argument has been debunked a number of times. See this post for a more detailed response.

At a high level, the reason it (appears) to show that the Pens do worse when Crosby is because Crosby's win percentage is dragged down by the horrendous 2006 team (Crosby only missed a single game, and Pittsburgh only won 22 games that year). Essentially, Crosby is getting penalized for playing on a really bad team at the start of his career. We see the same thing happen with players in similar circumstances. Over the course of Steve Yzerman's career, the Red Wings had a better win percentage in the games he missed (because he was very healthy when Detroit had a terrible team, and he missed most of his games when the team was good. The same thing happens with Denis Potvin.

What you need to do is either look at a player's on-ice impact (ie what is the team's goal differential when they're on the ice vs off the ice). And, as I already showed, by this metric, Crosby has among the best results in NHL history (top 1-2%).

The other way to look at it is to examine the data on a season by season basis. That way, we're isolating the impact of the player. Combining 19 seasons worth of data is meaningless. Using that approach - there were seven seasons where Crosby missed 7+ games (granted, not a huge sample size, but we'll work with what we have). Pittsburgh did worse in the games that Crosby missed six of those seven seasons (and in three of those seasons, the Pens were significantly worse in the games that he missed). That's pretty clear evidence that Crosby helped his team.

I've probably devoted 300 words to a shockingly obvious conclusion (Pittsburgh does better when Crosby plays!). I have no problem if people argue that Ovechkin or McDavid are better than Crosby. But I can't accept plainly misleading arguments. The suggestion that a consensus top ten player all-time somehow made his team worse is so obviously wrong, it deserves a response.

 

[Randyne]

Crosby is because Crosby's win percentage is dragged down by the horrendous 2006 team

Sure it's our overhyped Sid, how can anyone count his entire career? Remove his worst season immediately.
So Sid's arrival elevated P% of this horrendous team even by a fraction? No.
Before Sid's arrival PIT P% was .354. And in 2006 with Sid PIT P% was exactly .354. Didn't go up even by .001.
And even you subtract Sid's horrendous season (but why? WSH before Ovechkin arrival was the same horrendous with .360 P% and first year with Ovi WSH P% increased to .427, which is still bad but better than w/o him), then PIT w/o Sid still better than with Sid: .634>.630

Crosby only missed a single game

Funny, PITs P% that day was better than entire season with Sid =.500>.354

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Sure it's our overhyped Sid, how can anyone count his entire career? Remove his worst season immediatly.
So Sid's arrival elevated P% of this horrendous team even by a fraction? No.
Before Sid's arrival PIT P% was .354. And in 2006 with Sid PIT P% was exactly .354. Didn't go up even by .001.
And even you substract Sid's horrendous season (but why? WSH before Ovechkin arrival was the same horrendous with .360 P% and first year with Ovi WSH P% increased to .427, which is still bad but better than w/o him), then PIT w/o Sid still better than with Sid: .634>.630


Funny, PITs P% that day was better than entire season with Sid =.500>.354

Normally, I'd say you can't draw a meaningful conclusion from a sample size of one game (which is what you're doing in the bolded sentence). But let's think through the logic here.

First, your data is wrong. In 2006, Crosby missed one game - Feb 2nd against Ottawa. Link. Pittsburgh got destroyed 7-2, one of their worst losses of the season. By your own logic (where, apparently, you can draw meaningful conclusions from one game), this means that Crosby singlehandedly improved Pittsburgh's win percentage by more than 35%! They earned 0% in the game he missed, and they were 35.8% in the games he played! By your own logic - and I'm doing nothing more than correcting the error in the data - in 2006, Crosby had one of the most impactful seasons in NHL history!

Second, in previous posts, you've criticized Crosby for missing time. That's a fair point, and I've made the same criticism. Here, you're telling me that, somehow, Crosby's teams did better in the games he missed. Therefore, following your own logic, shouldn't we be praising Crosby for missing so many games during his peak? You've said that Crosby is overrated because he missed a lot of games... but it's good for his team when he misses games. These are completely self-contradictory positions.

Third, I guess we're ignoring playoffs in this analysis. Pittsburgh went 8-2 in the last ten playoff series they played before 2011. They went 11-4 and in the first fifteen playoff series after 2011 (for a combined 19-6 series record). What happened in 2011, the one playoff series Crosby didn't play in? They lost (and, in fact, were upset by a lower-seeded team). From 2007 to 2017, the Penguins won 76% of the playoff series Crosby played in, and 0% of the playoff series Crosby missed. By your own logic, doesn't this mean Crosby is one of the greatest playoff performers of all time?

Feel free to write a rebuttal, but I'm going to bow out of the conversation here. (And for the record, I think a case can be made for Ovechkin > Crosby. But it's not through such an obviously self-defeating argument).

 

[authentic]

Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe were better all around players than Crosby.

Yep I wouldn’t argue with those two. Crosby might just be next in line though, he has managed to be very good to elite in nearly every skill or attribute in a hockey player from board work to deflections, backhand, edgework, speed , strength, stickhandling, IQ, vision, face offs, leadership, defensive play improved to well above average over the course of his career, etc.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Wait what Patrick Kane on DET. Isn't he lighting it up in Motown?

 

[authentic]

In OVs prime he scored at a 1.42p pace in the playoffs, in a lower scoring environment. It’s easier to score in the first couple rounds. Obviously McDavid is one of the best playoff performers ever, but so is Crosby, I think it’s silly to think they aren’t similar level playoff performers.

Crosby had 28 points in his first 17 games in a lower scoring era through 3 rounds. Doesn’t quite matchup with 33 points in 16 games but it’s not as far off as people imagine. At their very best McDavid looked slightly better than Crosby to me in the playoffs who are both ahead of any other non Gretzky Lemieux player I’ve seen at their best in the playoffs. I normally wouldn’t say that about a player who hasn’t even been to the Cup finals over someone with Crosby’s resume but truthfully he was just that good.

 

[RDTBay4]

I agree. Kucherov is definitely the best player of this era.

 

[bobbyking]

what is this based on? just this season? season by season prove that PIT is worse with Crosby in and better without because this really means nothing I can make up numbers too


disagree, what has McDavid done to put himself above Crosby? one's a true leader with 3 cups and the other sure he is better offensively but as a complete package..... Crosby wins

mcdavid has significantly more dominant stats to his name, crosby missed too much . he's overrated career wise

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Meanwhile Jamie benn wont go down at all.

That’s it, that’s my contribution.

.. ok fine, Gretz vs Mario will still be #1-2, Howe/Orr get #3/4, and the best player of all time can’t crack our hero worship/inability to under progression.

He won’t finish as #2, but he is far and away the best to have played. Others would have to prove themselves in the modern game, because bullshit Gretz wasn’t facing lesser overall competition. Maybe he’d still have that same magic and would find a way to score 150+ per season, but I doubt it. Dude accelerated the skill of the game, but it’s only increased further since he retired.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

This thread eliminates either Gretzky, Mario, or Orr.

You can't. This is foolish.

 

[pekka55]

Except points pretty much always work in his favor. Especially playoffs

And what has he done with all those points? Nothing.

Seems like the whole Edmonton team thinks that this is the 70's or 80's. Hockey has evolved, you can't win with one player. You need a team.

 

[Calderon]

What's with McDavid lately, stringing together measly one point games? Especially the Ottawa game was puzzling: how can McDavid only have one point when his linemate scores a hattrick and Bouchard racks up three assists. He'd better heat up as Kuch and Mack are getting used to the idea of being able to keep a healthy McDavid at bay.

 

[Montreal Shadow]

Sure it's our overhyped Sid, how can anyone count his entire career? Remove his worst season immediately.
So Sid's arrival elevated P% of this horrendous team even by a fraction? No.
Before Sid's arrival PIT P% was .354. And in 2006 with Sid PIT P% was exactly .354. Didn't go up even by .001.
And even you subtract Sid's horrendous season (but why? WSH before Ovechkin arrival was the same horrendous with .360 P% and first year with Ovi WSH P% increased to .427, which is still bad but better than w/o him), then PIT w/o Sid still better than with Sid: .634>.630


Funny, PITs P% that day was better than entire season with Sid =.500>.354

You'd think a Flyers fan of all teams wouldn't advance such a ridiculous argument given how badly Crosby has torched them historically but here we are.

 

[crowfish]

What's with McDavid lately, stringing together measly one point games? Especially the Ottawa game was puzzling: how can McDavid only have one point when his linemate scores a hattrick and Bouchard racks up three assists. He'd better heat up as Kuch and Mack are getting used to the idea of being able to keep a healthy McDavid at bay.

McDavid has been unreal in the last few games. In the Ottawa game he easily could have had 3-4 points with the chances he created. They stole 2 points from him in the Chicago game with trash-disallowed goal calls. Kucherov and MacKinnon are only slightly leading in pts/game, and that's with McDavid playing around 1/3 of his games injured and producing the lowest points of his career during that stretch. MacKinnon has had nearly 1.5 minutes of extra powerplay time on ice per game this year as well, so if the NHL ever wants to start calling penalties fairly for the Oilers it will be GG for the scoring race as McDavid will win by 15 points minimum.

 

[The don godfather]

Not even close super Mario has that spot locked.

 

[McVespa99]

And what has he done with all those points? Nothing.

Seems like the whole Edmonton team thinks that this is the 70's or 80's. Hockey has evolved, you can't win with one player. You need a team.

And is McDavid the Gm of the team? Your post is very lame

 

[keglu]

Entire career. Numbers are real, I'm not a sidfan.
PIT played 213 games without Sid. 121-64-28 = .634 P% = PIT is 100% the PO team without Sid.
EDM played 52 games without McDavid. 19-24-9 = .452 P%.
WSH played 56 games without Ovi. 24-28-4 = .464 P%, = 100% miss the PO.

That is heavily skewed by distribution of missed games. Like McDavid missed 70% of his games in first season when Oilers were bottom feeder.