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Does Ovechkin Pass Gordie Howe in all-time greatness if he breaks the goal record?

Does Ovechkin surpass Howe?

  • Yes

    Votes: 11 14.3%

  • No

    Votes: 66 85.7%
  • Total voters
    77
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x Tame Impala

x Tame Impala

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He’ll have won a Cup and a Smythe, Calder, Ross, 3x Hart Trophies, 3x Pearson, 9 Rocket Richards, 12x ASG selections and the first and only to break one of Gretzky’s major records since they were set.

He’s the all time goals scored leader and spent most of his long career being either the best or one of the best goal scorers. Across 3 separate eras of league changes.

I’ve never watched Howe so I sadly cant speak to his game. I just know he also transcended multiple eras and was a 6x Hart/Ross winner which is incredible
 
No, and it’s not close.

Howe was the greatest player in the first 70ish years (multiple generations) of hockey. Ovechkin - as great as he is - is probably not the best of his own generation and certainly not of multiple generations.
 
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Video Nasty said:
As always, the first domino to fall in the Big Four would be Mario.

The answer is no—he’s not remotely close.
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I don't think that's set in-stone. To me, the only certainty is Gretzky at #1, and you can argue the other 3 in any order. Although I acknowledge Mario is often 4th.

As for OP, of course not. What a ridiculous suggestion - not even close.
 
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Howe is firmly #2 after Gretzky IMO. Howe has no major weaknesses.

Lemieux and Orr are massively overrated because both have enormous weaknesses that are simply disregarded by most hockey fans. Lemieux’s penguins had the 13th most points out of 21 teams during his career and they missed the playoffs 9 times (interestingly they made the playoffs every season where Lemieux quit- ‘95, ‘98, ‘99, and ‘2000). Lemieux’s results don’t remotely match up with where his fans try to place him.

Orr played half a career.
 
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Video Nasty said:
As always, the first domino to fall in the Big Four would be Mario.

The answer is no—he’s not remotely close.
Click to expand...
Exactly as Mario is by far the weakest of the Big 4 if one does a deep dive.

As for the pill question.

Not
A
Chance
 
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Michael Farkas said:
So if Ovechkin scores 4 more goals, he leaps several players all time historically including Gordie Howe...if he scores 2 more goals, he just stays where he's at...?

This kind of reductive logic is just tough to get around...
Click to expand...

dr robbie said:
No...

He also doesn't magically leapfrog the other ~10 players ahead of him either.
Click to expand...

I like how Pens fans went directly from “no way in hell Ovie beats the record” to “it doesn’t matter if Ovie beats the record.”

Well played.
 
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That's not a representation of my point at all. What I'm saying is: AO is just as great as a player at 893 goals as he is at 895 goals.

If tomorrow, he goes, "out of respect for 99, I'm choosing to go back to Russia and not break his record." Would you - of all people - go, "well, I guess he wasn't a better goal scorer than Gretzky"...?

I'm just not bound to the constraints of numbers like that.
 
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Michael Farkas said:
So if Ovechkin scores 4 more goals, he leaps several players all time historically including Gordie Howe...if he scores 2 more goals, he just stays where he's at...?

This kind of reductive logic is just tough to get around...
Click to expand...

I kinda agree and I kinda don't

Who finished second to Usain Bolt in the 2008 100m sprint? No idea

If Ovechkin had another 10 goals and 10 points sprinkled throughout his career in the right spots, he has a couple more rockets/art Rosses and maybe even harts right?

Same for Crosby or Malkin or Mackinnon or Kucherov or whoever.

So yeah it's arbitrary. But it also matters.
 
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It only matters if our only choice is to read about the game. Since we have 100 years of game film, everything else is just a shorthand attempt to try to figure things out.

Not to say that it's not noteworthy to win an award or break a fabled record. It is. But that's all done to be a proxy for on-ice greatness.
 
x Tame Impala said:
He’ll have won a Cup and a Smythe, Calder, Ross, 3x Hart Trophies, 3x Pearson, 9 Rocket Richards, 12x ASG selections and the first and only to break one of Gretzky’s major records since they were set.

He’s the all time goals scored leader and spent most of his long career being either the best or one of the best goal scorers. Across 3 separate eras of league changes.

I’ve never watched Howe so I sadly cant speak to his game. I just know he also transcended multiple eras and was a 6x Hart/Ross winner which is incredible
Click to expand...
Is f*** NO! an option, or can we just laugh?
 
When OV finally breaks the Great Ones Goal record, it would be a serious discussion to put him as a top 5 player ever due to longetivity. The next man to surpass Wayne or OV most likely hasnt even been born yet.
 
As a player or as a career? As a career I guess you could argue it, but as a player no. It doesn't make sense to suggest that Ovechkin passes Howe because Gretzky didn't score X more goals.

Howe is a tough mountain to climb and probably not a good argument for Ovechkin in terms of their strengths. As suggested I think you could make a more compelling case for Ovechkin against Lemieux. I wouldn't agree with it, but you could at least make a coherent case if it is Lemieux.
 
If you want to rank him over him, I don't mind it, but I get why people wouldn't.

That said Ovechkin is one of the most unique athletes of all time.
 
Michael Farkas said:
So if Ovechkin scores 4 more goals, he leaps several players all time historically including Gordie Howe...if he scores 2 more goals, he just stays where he's at...?

This kind of reductive logic is just tough to get around...
Click to expand...
I'm not trying to defend that line of thinking, but it does happen rather frequently. McDavid wins one more game last year(game 7) with a Skinner shutout, and he's suddenly viewed as a winner and a top 5 player of all time.
 
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i understand that Howe or Gretzky were exceptional players. And comparaisons across times are always difficult.

Ovie is breaking the record, with goalies having fatter pads than ever
AND
You have the best hockey placers of the world, not only of Canada and USA !! much more competition.

So that makes it at least ... to be considered among the top players ever so far.

Who does not think that ... has no logic, nor sense of numbers and statistics, nor sense of fluidity of corps or descriptive arithmetic. Therefore, he deserves to be banned from hfboards until he catches up academically and appreciates Ovie to his correct level. He will also have to make a 10'000 USD or CAD ... EUR accepted as well donation to the fondation of cats without roof in Alabama.
 
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TheLegend27 said:
I'm not trying to defend that line of thinking, but it does happen rather frequently. McDavid wins one more game last year(game 7) with a Skinner shutout, and he's suddenly viewed as a winner and a top 5 player of all time.
Click to expand...
This is not a good comparison either, just like the 2008 silver medalist comparison earlier in the thread. Gretzky’s record is an accumulation of goals, rather than a victory/defeat type of scenario.

A good comparison would be if Kucherov missed the last 2 games of the regular season for whatever reason and MacKinnon ends up winning the Ross (Tampa Bay plays 2 games after Colorado 82th game). Kucherov wouldn’t get the accomplishment of being a Ross winner in 2025, but it wouldn’t make him a worse player and lower his all time rank. Just like getting the record isn’t making Ovechkin a better player than what we’ve seen throughout his career before that 895th goal, which is the primary criteria when ranking players in terms of greatness.
 
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