Crosby 20 straight ppg+ vs Howe 20 straight top 5 in pts?

[Midnight Judges]

22 goals in 30 games
23 goals in 25 games

Is that 2 straight 20 goal seasons or is it invalid because I used the term seasons?

It's not analogous because there is no per-game extrapolation or assumption there. There is no credit implied for goals not scored.

I certainly wouldn't call those a .73 GPG season and a .92 GPG season - nor would I feel like I needed to unless for some reason I wanted to pump up a certain player beyond what he actually accomplished (at the expense of other player's actual accomplishments).

 

[Midnight Judges]

The term you're looking for is "full season." The word you keep using, "season" is synonymous to league year, and he was PPG+ in the 2011/12 season.

Google Search

 

[Romang67]

Google Search

You seem confused. I was not asking how many games are in a full NHL season. I'm saying a season is synonymous with a league year. And in the season you were talking about, Crosby put up over a point per game.

He did not put up PPG over a full season, and no one claimed he did. You're arguing against a point that no one made.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Howe was a big fish in a small pond.

Crosby is a big fish in the ocean.

But there’s not a pond vs ocean difference between the leagues. More like a pond vs 2-3 ponds.

Maybe the biggest fish in the 2-3 ponds is the biggest of all. Maybe not. Superficially, there’s about a 25-33% chance the biggest fish comes from the first pond.

 

[authentic]

But there’s not a pond vs ocean difference between the leagues. More like a pond vs 2-3 ponds.

Maybe the biggest fish in the 2-3 ponds is the biggest of all. Maybe not. Superficially, there’s about a 25-33% chance the biggest fish comes from the first pond.

Wouldn’t it be more like 5 or 6 ponds though with all of Europe and American players compared to primarily Canadians from 2 provinces back then?

 

[tarheelhockey]

Wouldn’t it be more like 5 or 6 ponds though with all of Europe and American players compared to primarily Canadians from 2 provinces back then?

It depends on when the “back then” was… 20 years is a long time

I was thinking of it in terms of Canada being about half the global talent pool by the end of the 60s. So that’s one additional pond to be accounted for, then throw in another representing the “global” population growth since that time.

That said, I do think the economic element has rolled back the talent pool a lot more than we’d like to admit. Gordie Howe wouldn’t have even played hockey if he were a kid today… couldn’t afford it. There’s no telling what kind of natural hockey talents are playing soccer, or basketball, or video games.

 

[Midnight Judges]

You seem confused. I was not asking how many games are in a full NHL season. I'm saying a season is synonymous with a league year. And in the season you were talking about, Crosby put up over a point per game.

He did not put up PPG over a full season, and no one claimed he did. You're arguing against a point that no one made.

I didn't google "full NHL season." I googled "season."

A season is not some nebulous thing. A season does not shorten just because a player is unavailable. The games keep going. You can call what Crosby did a "point per game played." Just don't call it a season - cause it isn't. It's a 37/82 or .45 of a PPG season.

Putting up a PPG over a full season is more difficult than doing it for a fraction of a season - hence why there would need to be a reasonable standard. A "PPG season" is a higher bar than a "PPG 22 games." One is far more common (and easy) than the other.

I suppose one could argue that Richard Kromm led the NHL in PPG for the '92-93 season:

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Personally, I would assert it was actually Mario Lemieux and I think it is much more indicative, reasonable, and meaningful.

This will be my last post on this.

 

[Pablo El Perro]

Hard to compare

 

[Romang67]

I didn't google "full NHL season." I googled "season."

A season is not some nebulous thing. A season does not shorten just because a player is unavailable. The games keep going. You can call what Crosby did a "point per game played." Just don't call it a season - cause it isn't. It's a 37/82 or .45 of a PPG season.

Putting up a PPG over a full season is more difficult than doing it for a fraction of a season - hence why there would need to be a reasonable standard. A "PPG season" is a higher bar than a "PPG 22 games." One is far more common (and easy) than the other.

I suppose one could argue that Richard Kromm led the NHL in PPG for the '92-93 season:

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Personally, I would assert it was actually Mario Lemieux and I think it is much more indicative, reasonable, and meaningful.

This will be my last post on this.

But no one is arguing that Crosby put up over a PPG over a full season? Who are you arguing against?

One could sure claim that Richard Kromm was over PPG in the NHL in the 92-93 season. And one should, because one would be correct.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Not quite though, because that assumes a top 5 finish makes someone a legit MVP candidate in the 06 era. But some of the finishes weren’t that close to the leaders. He didn’t receive any Hart votes in the ‘55 for instance where the Art Ross winner had 21% more points. In ‘61 he was beaten by the Art Ross winner by 32%. That said, it’s not uncommon for big leads over 5th place today either. Kucherov had a 31% lead over Pastrnak last year. I think there needs to be some context for the league, but I agree that 27 is way too big

I think the logic holds up in that Gordie Howe was always a legit MVP candidate, regardless of the natural ups and downs. Say he had an off-year, that doesn’t mean he simply stopped being Gordie Howe, any more than such logic would apply to Gretzky or Crosby. Over the long haul these players stayed at the top of the league for an entire generation.

Using the logic of the post I responded to, I can extrapolate the increase in league size to determine that there are now several “Gordie Howe” level players running around the league. And several “Maurice Richards”, and several “Red Kellys”, and so forth until we have 27 players of this quality.

But that’s not how MVP voting works. Looking at the league today, there is still a fairly clear cut tier of maybe 5 players who are head and shoulders above the rest, who perennially compete for the Hart. The 27th best player in the league is very unlikely to jump up and knock any of those guys out, unless one of those guys has an off year in his own right (as in Howe ‘55).

Just to illustrate, I see that NHL.com said the league’s 27th best player coming into this season was Adam Fox. At no time has Fox ever been a serious Hart contender, having only one vote to his name so far. In fact, looking at the whole group of players ranked 20+ (Forsling, Hellebuyck, Vasilevskiy, Kaprizov, McAvoy, Fox, Pettersson, Nylander, Miller), none of them are serious Hart contenders. Only one of them has ever had a top-5 Hart finish, Robertson with a one-off 4th place.

The operating principle here is that MVP voting is concentrated at the top, regardless of the size of the league. Adding a bunch of players doesn’t change who the best players are, even if it somewhat increases the chance that a rando will have a flukishly good season.

 

[authentic]

It depends on when the “back then” was… 20 years is a long time

I was thinking of it in terms of Canada being about half the global talent pool by the end of the 60s. So that’s one additional pond to be accounted for, then throw in another representing the “global” population growth since that time.

That said, I do think the economic element has rolled back the talent pool a lot more than we’d like to admit. Gordie Howe wouldn’t have even played hockey if he were a kid today… couldn’t afford it. There’s no telling what kind of natural hockey talents are playing soccer, or basketball, or video games.

You bring up a great point here. This has been an issue for a few decades now but over the past decade I can only imagine how much more of a problem this is with the cost of living now. It’s basically an exclusively rich person sport now.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Wouldn’t it be more like 5 or 6 ponds though with all of Europe and American players compared to primarily Canadians from 2 provinces back then?

See this thread (and specifically post 48). My analysis goes back to 1956 (the first year I have the relevant data from Statistics Canada). I estimate the global talent pool to be approx 2.2M people during Howe's peak. The talent pool is around 3.4M people today (roughly 50-60% larger). There are more Europeans (and Americans) in the talent pool today, but that's offset by a significant reduction in Canadians (who have historically produced the majority of the league's players. Even still, the competition per roster spot was higher during Howe's peak than it was today (it would be roughly equivalent of the NHL shrinking to 9 or 10 teams in 2025).

 

[authentic]

See this thread (and specifically post 48). My analysis goes back to 1956 (the first year I have the relevant data from Statistics Canada). I estimate the global talent pool to be approx 2.2M people during Howe's peak. The talent pool is around 3.4M people today (roughly 50-60% larger). There are more Europeans (and Americans) in the talent pool today, but that's offset by a significant reduction in Canadians (who have historically produced the majority of the league's players. Even still, the competition per roster spot was higher during Howe's peak than it was today (it would be roughly equivalent of the NHL shrinking to 9 or 10 teams in 2025).

This is crazy if true, I’m not saying it isn’t, that just seems surprising to me.

What about the 90s and 2000s? More or less the same as today?

 

[Hockey Outsider]

This is crazy if true, I’m not saying it isn’t, that just seems surprising to me.

What about the 90s and 2000s? More or less the same as today?

Sorry the numbers I quoted were wrong. The tables in that thread are broken, so I was reading the wrong column. But the graph (copied above) still works.

To be clear - based on my research, the global talent pool has never been higher than it is today. (It's about 50-60% larger now compared to Gretzky's prime, not Howe's). As a rough ballpark, it's about triple the size compared to the Original Six Era. But the number of roster spots increased at a much faster rate, so the talent concentration (ie players in the talent pool divided by the number of roster spots) was higher seventy years ago.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

How does the consecutive PPG+ (or PPG even as this thread is titled) group look?

I know the next guy is Gretzky (even in the PPG even race he is at 19 (for PPG+ Gretzky is at 15 seasons).

Most consecutive seasons scoring more than 1 point per game

• Crosby - 19 (this will possibly be 20)
• Gretzky - 15 (1980 to 1994 - 1995 doesn't count since he "only" scored exactly 1 PPG)
• Lemieux - 15 (1985 to 2003 - as long as we're excluding all the seasons he missed entirely)
• Dionne - 15 (1973 to 1987)
• Hawerchuk - 13 (1982 to 1994)
• Bourque - 13 (1982 to 1994)
• Messier - 12 (1986 to 1997)
• Howe - 11 (1956 to 1966)
• Coffey - 11 (1982 to 1993)
• Jagr - 11 (1993 to 2003)

Crosby and Howe are the only players on the list who didn't play in the 1980's or early/mid 1990's.

 

[authentic]

View attachment 999325
Sorry the numbers I quoted were wrong. The tables in that thread are broken, so I was reading the wrong column. But the graph (copied above) still works.

To be clear - based on my research, the global talent pool has never been higher than it is today. (It's about 50-60% larger now compared to Gretzky's prime, not Howe's). As a rough ballpark, it's about triple the size compared to the Original Six Era. But the number of roster spots increased at a much faster rate, so the talent concentration (ie players in the talent pool divided by the number of roster spots) was higher seventy years ago.

This is honestly not so surprising to me now that I think of it based on the games I’ve watched from that era. They seemed more modern to me than many of the games from the 70s and 80s in terms of pace and time and space players seemed to have.

 

[Regal]

You bring up a great point here. This has been an issue for a few decades now but over the past decade I can only imagine how much more of a problem this is with the cost of living now. It’s basically an exclusively rich person sport now.

Which is actually something that I think isn’t even accounted for when we only look at minor hockey registration. I think there’s much smaller pool than just basic minor hockey kids because you also need to time and money to commit to the high level teams and the amount of travel. Very few kids are going to make it these days without massive commitment and money from their parents. Kerfoot’s parents have a freakin rink in their house. Hard for a kid who might be a little more talented to compete with that

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Based on G%/P% conversions between eras, here's how Gordie's points ranks translate from his era to the post-lockout era.

Year	Howe Pts Rank O6	Year	Howe Pts Rank Lockout
49-50	3	05-06	17
50-51	1	06-07	4
51-52	1	07-08	3
52-53	1	08-09	1
53-54	1	09-10	2
54-55	5	10-11	10
55-56	2	11-12	3
56-57	1	12-13	1
57-58	4	13-14	3
58-59	4	14-15	3
59-60	5	15-16	6
60-61	5	16-17	8
61-62	3	17-18	11
62-63	1	18-19	5
63-64	5	19-20	10
64-65	3	20-21	10
65-66	5	21-22	16
66-67	4	22-23	29
67-68	3	23-24	10
68-69	3	24-25	4

The point totals generally hold up, but you can see where there's a bit more fall off in the back half of Howe's career. Instead of his top 5 finishes maintaining top 5 finishes, they're more like top 10 finishes. It's still remarkably consistent production.

Looks similar to Crosby but with a lower peak

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Yeah except you take all the Canadians and Americans in the league and throw them on 6 teams now. The worst dmen youre playing are guys that are top 3 types on every team, youve got a line or two of Olympic quality guys on every single team. You didn't get to roll into Phoenix on a Tuesday night and put up a 5 piece in Howes time like you could in Crosbys

Its not just as simple as multiplying by the number of teams

Americans? Lol which Americans were playing in the NHL during Howe's prime?

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Whatever is accurate is what I would point out.

22 games is not a "season."

One reasonable standard would be 82 points (or 1 point for however many games that player's team had that season).

Another standard could be akin to MLB's batting title wherein 550 at-bats is required (which is roughly 90% of the at-bats a top player would have. So 90% of a season to qualify, or in the case of an 82 game season that would be 74 points.

But there is no reasonable way to pretend 22 games or 37 points counts as a PPG "season" when the player's team played 82 games. That's just pretending. Key word "season" for the Pens fans who will jump in, hurl insults, and then deliberately mischaracterize the perfectly reasonable point I'm making.

Let us know when you become in charge of NHL records. You can change the rules then

 

[wetcoast]

Which is actually something that I think isn’t even accounted for when we only look at minor hockey registration. I think there’s much smaller pool than just basic minor hockey kids because you also need to time and money to commit to the high level teams and the amount of travel. Very few kids are going to make it these days without massive commitment and money from their parents. Kerfoot’s parents have a freakin rink in their house. Hard for a kid who might be a little more talented to compete with that

I think there is a problem looking at overall numbers instead of quality of numbers.

British Columbia is a case in point as we've had hockey here since the old PCHA days and the number of NHLers was non existent through most of NHL history then a small trickle in the 60s and 70s to recent times were the last 2 #1 picks spent all or most of their developmental years in BC and there has been a huge increase in the quality of elite talent.

Russia is another example taking young kids and growing their hockey supremacy in a short period of time to compete with Canada in the 70s.

That didn't happen because of sheer numbers but rather concentrated skill and player development.

The poll question is asking us to compare 2 different feats of hockey eliteness but the unasked question is "are the 2 players actually competing within the same environments and have the same factors of competition" to make a real apples to apples comparison and the answer to that is a big no.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

So if Crosby had a season where he had two points in one game then got hurt for the rest of the season, would that also be added to his “record”?

I love how the default assumption for some people is that Crosby would not get to a PPG. He's done it for 20 straight years! I'm supposed to believe that he got lucky he was injured in his age 24 season?

 

[Crow]

I love how the default assumption for some people is that Crosby would not get to a PPG. He's done it for 20 straight years! I'm supposed to believe that he got lucky he was injured in his age 24 season?

I don’t see where I assumed he wouldn’t but I see you assuming he would have.

 

[Crow]

It’s just a bullshit “record”. Crosby has enough accolades. This isn’t a meaningful one.

 

[Nathaniel]

24 year old peak crosby scores 37 points in 22 games. Proceeds to spend the next 13 years above ppg. Yeah ill take the bet that he would be just fine the remaining 60 games.