Crosby's career goalscoring legacy

[filinski77]

What a weird argument to make to somehow devalue Crosby's similar goalscoring contributions to his team over his first 12 seasons. Crosby won an Art Ross as a child. He put up one of the best playoff goalscoring performances in the last 30 years as a child. Stamkos won a Rocket as a child. OV put up 50 goals as a child.

If anything, he should get credit for being the 13th best goalscorer over his first four seasons and a Rocket winner at age 22 vs. ONE 15th place finish for Pasta and ZERO Top 15s for Draisaitl by the age of 22.

And since you brought it up, it can be argued that Crosby's goalscoring peak started at age 22 thru age 23 until his concussion. Over the course of 119 games, he was scoring at a rate that was more dominant than any pace that McDavid, Pasta or Draisaitl ever achieved. The irony is that after his concussion, he then goes and puts up assists at a rate that was as dominant as McDavid did over the next 160 games.

The other poster said it best - on a part time basis, Crosby was one the best goalscorers in the league during his prime. If that was his full time job, he could have been among the very best of the past 25 years but it served the Pens very well for him to be an all around offensive force and reliable defensively.

Your argument is all over the place here.

I gave some facts for the current top-10 finishes, and cited I think those few players have a good change of passing Crosby as goal scorers all-time.

You say "Here is the ironic thing, all three had a chance to win a Rocket against Crosby in 16/17, " And are insinuating that just because some 20 year olds didn't beat Crosby in that ONE year, that they can't surpass him for a whole body of work (ie career).

It's the equivalent to me saying that Crosby had the chance to beat Lecavalier for the rocket in 2007 but didn't - and then use that to imply that Crosby can't be a better goal scorer all-time than Lecavalier.

You made a non-sense comment, just eat it lol. If you're going to debate in bad faith and keep moving the goal posts like that I'm out.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Here is the ironic thing, all three had a chance to win a Rocket against Crosby in 16/17, one of the "weakest Rocket wins in the last 25 years" according to you.

Not following. What does this mean? Is 2016-17 the definitive NHL season of all time to determine goal scoring? What is "ironic"?

 

[Video Nasty]

Brace yourselves.

I’d say his goal scoring legacy is pretty damn good.

He won a couple of Rockets, and though his other higher finishes are a little sparse, he seems primed to finish with around 675, which would be good enough for 13th all-time, where half of the players ahead of him started between the years of 1979-1986.

His season by season totals are not sexy. He hit 50 once. He crossed 40 just two other times, but he does have twelve 30 goal seasons. Like a lot of his career, he may not have actually done it all that much, but he clearly had the capacity to go out and score 35-45 goals while still finding the time to hand out 60-70 assists, and though often over-exaggerated, handling his other responsibilities.

He’s never going to be known as one of the best goal scorers of all-time, but after being feared that he wouldn’t have much of a career left in that 2011 and 2012 range, it’s wildly impressive that he would go on to score another 450 goals since.

 

[Crosby2010]

I'd argue the opposite. Players that are great enough (like Crosby, Beliveau, McDavid, etc) win Rockets because of being that much better than the rest of the league, not because they are great goal scorers.

But wouldn't that still make them great goal scorers if they are doing it better than anyone else in a particular season?

 

[WalterLundy]

Crosby's one of the few players who goes under the radar in one skill bc he's too busy being great at another. Really wish we'd seen his 2011 season pan out completely. We might've been comparing that rocket to pretty much everything that's happened this century. Either way, definitely a great goal-scorer, just more of a part time rocket candidate so it’s hard to compare him to top tier guys who made their living that way.

As of January 5th 2011 when Crosby’s 2010-11 season ended he led the NHL by one goal. Steven Stamkos had 31 goals to Crosby’s 32 and both in 41 games played. He was lighting it up for that half season but there is really no guarantee at all he hits 60 goals. I definitely think he wins the rocket and gets above 50 that season though.

I don’t think of Crosby as a goal scorer but he has been a very good goal scorer for his career. I say this as someone who screams for him to shoot several times every game and wishes he’d listen. He has really good goal scoring capabilities and he could have so many more by now if he thought that way.

 

[daver]

Your argument is all over the place here.

I gave some facts for the current top-10 finishes, and cited I think those few players have a good change of passing Crosby as goal scorers all-time.

And I cited facts that show Crosby contributed goalscoring to his team earlier in his career and later in his career which needs some recognition as it brings his career numbers up to the level of noted "goalscorers" all-time and puts him level with current ones at the same stage of their careers.

As many others have noted, strictly limiting his resume to Top 10 finishes in the regular season ignores his ability to effectively become a "goalscorer" at various times in his career which won him two Rockets, earned him arguably the best playoff goalscoring performance of the era in 2009 (he set the NHL playoff record for first goals in a game in only three rounds) along with another great goalscoring performance in 2017.

What makes these even more impressive is that all of these performances happened without him having anything close to an elite playmaker on his line save for Malkin on the PP. During his peak in '10 to'11, he was the leading ES scorer with Chris Kunitz, a 39 year old Bill Guerin, and Pascal Dupuis on his line. He was the best ES scorer in his 2nd Rocket win with noted playmakers Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust, Patric Hornquist, and a rookie Jake Guenzel on his line.

He is also Team Canada goals leader, and overall leader, over the last three Best-on-Best Tournaments.

Ranking him solely by his four Top 10 regular season finishes (which completely ignores his 10/11 season) is significantly underrating his ability to put pucks in the net . And none of those statistically comparable "goalscorers", either all-time or current, brought anything close to Crosby's all around game while only McDavid can wear the superstar playmaker hat too.

IMO, his goalscoring legacy is that while he won't be rated among the greatest goalscorers of all-time, he loses zero ground to any player rated above him like Hull, Richard and Ovechkin in an overall assessment of career legacies . He was an all around offensive force who elevated notably weak linemates and was a winner on all fronts.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Crosby isn't the victim of a weak supporting cast - no matter how many times his fans try to pretend it.

In roughly 200 games without Sidney Crosby, the Penguins have a winning percentage well over .600.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Crosby is/was a very good goal scorer. But outside of a couple seasons was not his main focus. He has always been a playmaker. He is just that good he can focus on an aspect and lead the league twice and 3 without injuries. Fact he has 12 top 10 point finishes and 4 top 10 goal finishes shows this.