Even-strength VsX

[Dennis Bonvie]

Next:

Top ES point-scorers per game from 1967-68 to 1978-79 (min. 150 games played):

0.95 Guy Lafleur
0.91 Bryan Trottier
0.87 Bobby Orr
0.86 Phil Esposito
0.83 Mike Bossy (note: only 153 games played)
0.82 Marcel Dionne
0.82 Bobby Hull
0.80 Jean Ratelle
0.78 Peter McNab
0.76 Daryl Sittler
0.75 Pierre Larouche
0.75 Gordie Howe
0.74 Gilbert Perreault
0.74 Steve Shutt
0.73 Bobby Clarke
0.73 Frank Mahovlich
0.73 Ken Hodge
0.73 Danny Gare
0.72 Jacques Lemaire
0.72 Jean Béliveau
0.71 Stan Mikita
0.71 Rod Gilbert
0.70 Dennis Maruk

Note Howe and Béliveau both making it again, late in their careers... Orr is the only defenceman on the list and is in 3rd place, which is hard to believe... I did NOT know Peter McNab was that prolific an ES scorer...

In 1967-68 Howe was 39 years old.

No player like him, ever.

 

[The Macho King]

I'm not an expert on hockey history but how does point 1 and 3 apply to Jagr and not to Cook? Cook only once tied for the team lead in postseason scoring and had a teammate double him in scoring both times he won a cup.

Forward pool was deeper (relatively) in the 30s than the late 90s IMO. Morenz, Boucher, Conacher, Jackson, etc. I would put over most of the late 90s cohort (outside of like... Sakic and that's it? Forsberg if healthy?). That was one probably the most competitive era in the league until the cap era.

Playoff performances - I mean assists were counted inconsistently at best at that time, and Cook likely would have potted some of those, so raw scoring is always tough to count - but playoffs are not a huge mark in Cook's favor which is fair. Which is why Cook is not higher in my ranking.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Next:

Top ES point-scorers per game from 1979-80 to 1995-96 (min. 150 games played):

1.33 Wayne Gretzky
1.13 Mario Lemieux
1.02 Mike Bossy
1.00 Eric Lindros
0.87 Jaromir Jagr
0.82 Steve Yzerman
0.81 Marcel Dionne
0.80 Jari Kurri
0.78 Peter Stastny
0.78 Teemu Selänne
0.77 Luc Robitaille
0.77 Mark Messier
0.77 Adam Oates
0.75 Sergei Fedorov
0.75 Gilbert Perreault
0.74 Alexander Mogilny
0.74 Pat Lafontaine
0.74 Blaine Stoughton
0.74 Joe Sakic
0.73 Mark Recchi
0.72 Bernie Federko
0.72 Brett Hull
0.71 Charlie Simmer
0.71 Real Cloutier
0.70 Bryan Trottier
0.70 Denis Savard
0.70 Dale Hawerchuk
0.70 Kent Nilsson
0.70 Pavel Bure


Michel Goulet, Pierre Turgeon, and Rick Middleton failed to make the 0.70 cut-off by the narrowest of margins... Gary Roberts didn't miss by much (Bobby Clarke, too... what a great ES producer he was!)... Gretzky was at a staggering 1.54 per game up to 1991, but then fell back... list shows how impressive Lindros's first four seasons were, when he was healthy... easy to forget Blaine Stoughton!

As a Whalers season ticket holder, I unfortunately can't forget Blaine Stoughton.

Eric Lindros was a monster (talent) when healthy.

 

[The Macho King]

All right, I'm gonna try to do this for a few periods here. I'm not going to count short-handed points, as I guess that skews it a bit towards offensive players who kill penalties (also I'm too lazy). The NHL.com site only has ES / PP / SH division of points going back to 1933-34, but that's probably a good place to start anyway, since from roughly that point we have a fairly stable set of rules, sizes of rinks, etc. (at least compared to prior).

So, to begin, this is the best I can do (apologies if any errors or oversights) for the...

Top ES point-scorers per game from 1933-34 to 1944-45 (min. 100 games played):

1.07 Maurice Richard (note: only 112 games played)
1.00 Bill Mosienko (note: only 114 games played)
0.99 Elmer Lach
0.94 Bill Cowley
0.90 Ted Kennedy (note: only 100 games played)
0.84 Syl Apps
0.81 Doug Bentley
0.81 Roy Conacher
0.80 Buddy O'Connor
0.78 Ab DeMarco Sr. (note: only 116 games played)
0.76 Toe Blake
0.76 Bryan Hextall Sr.
0.76 Gordie Drillon
0.76 Max Bentley (note: only 122 games played)
0.75 Milt Schmidt
0.75 Joe Carvath
0.74 Bobby Bauer
0.72 Clint Smith
0.71 Sweeney Schriner
0.71 Billy Taylor Sr.
0.71 Syd Howe


Someone who knows more than me about this era could interpret these results... Basically, as you'd expect, the "young guns" who played only a few years into the mid-40s, and particularly those (Richard, Lach, Bentley) who feasted on the war-weakened League early in their careers, do very well here. Conversely, someone like Milt Schmidt, who fought in the war, probably looks a bit worse than he would he had played right through those prime years (he still does very well).

Charlie Conacher doesn't make the list (quite), but I suspect he would if the available stats didn't cut off a couple of his early prime seasons. His brother, Roy, does very well here.

Of course, my cut off point of 1945 is arbitrary, and it cuts right into the primes of people like Elmer Lach.

Anyway, it is what it is...

Just a note on this era generally - @overpass noted in the ATD draft thread that power-play scoring info in a few locations (Boston and Detroit notably, I believe) seems way off from the rest of the league, so that may screw up the calculations of this era. Also assist counting was *very* unevenly distributed during this time (I found an article where basically the league president told teams to stop counting so many assists after Lach's 81 point season).

Not knocking your work generally or the takeaways from it - just noting that it is tough to get a clear picture of this era because the league was still fiddling with things.

 

[The Panther]

Next:

Top ES point-scorers per game from 1996-97 to 2021 (min. 250 games played):

0.96 Connor McDavid
0.81 Artemi Panarin
0.80 Sidney Crosby
0.78 Auston Matthews
0.74 Peter Forsberg
0.72 Evgeni Malkin
0.72 Patrick Kane
0.72 Leon Draisaitl
0.71 Jaromir Jagr
0.71 Pavel Bure
0.70 Nikita Kucherov
0.69 Mitch Marner
0.68 Alex Ovechkin
0.68 Eric Lindros
0.67 Johnny Gaudreau
0.67 Jake Guentzel
0.67 Joe Sakic
0.66 Mark Scheifele
0.66 David Pastrnak
0.66 Nathan MacKinnon
0.65 Steven Stamkos
0.65 Matthew Barzal
0.65 Mark Stone
0.64 Brad Marchand
0.63 John LeClair
0.63 John Tavares
0.62 Mats Sundin
0.62 Brayden Point
0.62 Taylor Hall
0.61 Pavel Datsyuk
0.61 Kyle Connor
0.61 Jonathan Toews
0.61 Alexsander Barkov
0.61 Pavol Demitra
0.60 Vladimir Tarasenko
0.60 Jack Eichel
0.60 Mikko Rantanen
0.59 Martin St. Louis
0.59 Jamie Benn
0.58 Jonathan Huberdeau
0.58 Alexander Mogilny
0.58 Joe Thornton
0.58 Sebastian Aho
0.58 Nikolaj Ehlers
0.57 Ilya Kovalchuk
0.57 Evgeny Kuznetsov
0.57 Keith Tkachuk
0.58 Ryan Getzlaf
0.58 Theoren Fleury
0.58 Nicklas Backstrom
0.57 Paul Kariya
0.57 Pierre Turgeon
0.57 Blake Wheeler
0.57 Brett Hull
0.56 Daniel Alfredsson
0.56 Henrik Zetterberg
0.56 Brock Boeser (note: only 253 games played)
0.56 Alex Tanguay
0.55 Dany Heatley
0.55 Alexei Yashin
0.55 Alexander Radulov
0.55 Teemu Selänne
0.55 Marian Hossa
0.55 Jarome Iginla
0.55 Matt Duchene
0.55 Alex DeBrincat (note: only 286 games played)
0.55 Anze Kopitar
0.55 David Krejci
0.55 Claude Giroux
0.55 Max Pacioretty

 

[The Panther]

Just a note on this era generally - @overpass noted in the ATD draft thread that power-play scoring info in a few locations (Boston and Detroit notably, I believe) seems way off from the rest of the league, so that may screw up the calculations of this era. Also assist counting was *very* unevenly distributed during this time (I found an article where basically the league president told teams to stop counting so many assists after Lach's 81 point season).

Not knocking your work generally or the takeaways from it - just noting that it is tough to get a clear picture of this era because the league was still fiddling with things.

Yes, I was under the impression that the entire pre-WWII era (if not a big after that, too!) was a bit sketchy in terms of consistency of point allocation.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

I was referring to VsX being somewhat ballooned, not him losing Art Rosses. I'm not interested in trophy counting.

You are implying that his weak and injured peers are ballooning Jagr’s 7-year VSX. I’m guessing that his five Art Ross winning seasons when the elite competition was weak and injured should influence his VSX a fair amount, but I don’t see any solid examples to that notion. He was outscoring all time great forwards in years when they were generally healthy.

 

[The Macho King]

You are implying that his weak and injured peers are ballooning Jagr’s 7-year VSX. I’m guessing that his five Art Ross winning seasons when the elite competition was weak and injured should influence his VSX a fair amount, but I don’t see any solid examples to that notion. He was outscoring all time great forwards in years when they were generally healthy.

VsX calculates based on benchmarks of how other point producers faired to control for outliers (obvious example is Gretzky throws everything way off). When the top point producers miss time, the benchmark is impacted.

Jagr is the best point producer of that era. Not disputing that. He wasn't the best player of that era though, and I take a very dim view of him in an all-time sense. I know I hold an unorthodox position, but that was one of the worst eras in hockey history and I feel like nostalgia-glasses desparately want something to hold onto as being not shitty about that era.

 

[jigglysquishy]

You are implying that his weak and injured peers are ballooning Jagr’s 7-year VSX. I’m guessing that his five Art Ross winning seasons when the elite competition was weak and injured should influence his VSX a fair amount, but I don’t see any solid examples to that notion. He was outscoring all time great forwards in years when they were generally healthy.

Ya, the numbers are available. All PPG numbers are for minimum 41 games players

1994-95: Second in PPG. Tied first in points. Second in EVP (1 back of Lindros)
1995-96: Second in PPG. Second in points. First in EVP.
1996-97: Third in PPG. Sixth in points. Fourth in EVP (first in EVP/G)
1997-98: First in PPG. First in points. Second in EVP.
1998-99: First in PPG. First in points. First in EVP.
1999-00: First in PPG. First in points. Second in EVP (5 points back of Bure in 11 less games)
2000-01: Second in PPG (those first in the shared games played). First in points. First in EVP.

If it was health, we would see it in the PPG stats. But in this 7 year peak he is out PPG'd three times by Lemieux and twice by Lindros. Amongst wingers, he is not outscored once in this 7 year stretch.

So including 05-06, he lead wingers in points and PPG for 8 seasons. I don't think a Selanne or Bure or Kariya are exactly all-time weak competition.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

VsX calculates based on benchmarks of how other point producers faired to control for outliers (obvious example is Gretzky throws everything way off). When the top point producers miss time, the benchmark is impacted.

Jagr is the best point producer of that era. Not disputing that. He wasn't the best player of that era though, and I take a very dim view of him in an all-time sense. I know I hold an unorthodox position, but that was one of the worst eras in hockey history and I feel like nostalgia-glasses desparately want something to hold onto as being not shitty about that era.

The page reloaded automatically and cleared my entire post, but @jigglysquishy pretty much spoke my mind. As for Jagr’s 7-year VSX being ballooned, I don’t see it. Peak Selänne-Kariya, career-year Sakic and 1998-99 Sakic-Forsberg when they were mostly healthy and actually playing on the same line 5v5, I don’t think that’s weak competition in most eras.

During the worst years of the DPE, Jagr wasn’t adding anything to help his 7-year vsx.

 

[daver]

VsX calculates based on benchmarks of how other point producers faired to control for outliers (obvious example is Gretzky throws everything way off). When the top point producers miss time, the benchmark is impacted.

Jagr is the best point producer of that era. Not disputing that. He wasn't the best player of that era though, and I take a very dim view of him in an all-time sense. I know I hold an unorthodox position, but that was one of the worst eras in hockey history and I feel like nostalgia-glasses desparately want something to hold onto as being not shitty about that era.

What era and who was better offensively (among forwards)?

 

[The Macho King]

What era and who was better offensively (among forwards)?

Read it again - it's pretty clear.

 

[MadLuke]

Which were the Art Rosses Jagr conceivably would have lost had the competition been healthier than him? I feel as if we’re looking at Lindros’ two games missed in 1995 and that’s it.

99-00 Art Ross to Joe Sakic/Bure if he play 80+ games, but Jagr missed time that year so I am not sure it fit the question.

Obviously Lemieux "health" but he is an all time outlier. Outside of that they seem rock solid at first glance.

 

[daver]

Read it again - it's pretty clear.

Not saying he didn't have flaws and weaknesses but not sure one of them was that he was beating "weak" competition in those seven years. He beats peak Lindros, Sakic and Forsberg, all of whom would challenge for Art Rosses from 2005/06b onwards and from 1979 backwards. His peak season of 98/99 is up there with the best non-Big Four season of all time.

 

[Dingo]

Next:

Top ES point-scorers per game from 1996-97 to 2021 (min. 250 games played):

0.96 Connor McDavid
0.81 Artemi Panarin
0.80 Sidney Crosby
0.78 Auston Matthews
0.74 Peter Forsberg
0.72 Evgeni Malkin
0.72 Patrick Kane
0.72 Leon Draisaitl
0.71 Jaromir Jagr
0.71 Pavel Bure
0.70 Nikita Kucherov
0.69 Mitch Marner
0.68 Alex Ovechkin
0.68 Eric Lindros
0.67 Johnny Gaudreau
0.67 Jake Guentzel
0.67 Joe Sakic
0.66 Mark Scheifele
0.66 David Pastrnak
0.66 Nathan MacKinnon
0.65 Steven Stamkos
0.65 Matthew Barzal
0.65 Mark Stone
0.64 Brad Marchand
0.63 John LeClair
0.63 John Tavares
0.62 Mats Sundin
0.62 Brayden Point
0.62 Taylor Hall
0.61 Pavel Datsyuk
0.61 Kyle Connor
0.61 Jonathan Toews
0.61 Alexsander Barkov
0.61 Pavol Demitra
0.60 Vladimir Tarasenko
0.60 Jack Eichel
0.60 Mikko Rantanen
0.59 Martin St. Louis
0.59 Jamie Benn
0.58 Jonathan Huberdeau
0.58 Alexander Mogilny
0.58 Joe Thornton
0.58 Sebastian Aho
0.58 Nikolaj Ehlers
0.57 Ilya Kovalchuk
0.57 Evgeny Kuznetsov
0.57 Keith Tkachuk
0.58 Ryan Getzlaf
0.58 Theoren Fleury
0.58 Nicklas Backstrom
0.57 Paul Kariya
0.57 Pierre Turgeon
0.57 Blake Wheeler
0.57 Brett Hull
0.56 Daniel Alfredsson
0.56 Henrik Zetterberg
0.56 Brock Boeser (note: only 253 games played)
0.56 Alex Tanguay
0.55 Dany Heatley
0.55 Alexei Yashin
0.55 Alexander Radulov
0.55 Teemu Selänne
0.55 Marian Hossa
0.55 Jarome Iginla
0.55 Matt Duchene
0.55 Alex DeBrincat (note: only 286 games played)
0.55 Anze Kopitar
0.55 David Krejci
0.55 Claude Giroux
0.55 Max Pacioretty

this is the list for me, thankyou!

only thing that could improve it for me is a cut off for age for the guys who declined and played a lot of games as oldtimers

 

[The Macho King]

Not saying he didn't have flaws and weaknesses but not sure one of them was that he was beating "weak" competition in those seven years. He beats peak Lindros, Sakic and Forsberg, all of whom would challenge for Art Rosses from 2005/06b onwards and from 1979 backwards. His peak season of 98/99 is up there with the best non-Big Four season of all time.

Show your work, because I don't think this is true. Sakic never won *any* Art Ross trophies and had two second place finishes (one of them an incredibly weak one with 87 points). Forberg did snag one, but it was a low total in a league even more watered down than the years prior (where second place was Markus freaking Naslund). Lindros was never a threat for an Art Ross because he was going to miss 15 games a season - it's telling that his only win came in a shortened season.

How are these guys winning Art Ross trophies over Lafleur and Trottier? Espo and Orr? Over Crosby, Ovechkin, and McDavid? None of these guys peaked against generational talents like Mario or Gretzky, or even Crosby and McDavid.

The 95-04 period was - outside of maybe the literal war years and maybe the early 70s - the worst talent pool for forwards in NHL history.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Eric Lindros was a monster (talent) when healthy.

Yes, people downplay and turn him into a caricature now, but he was such a dominating player at his best. Physically and on the scoreboard, too.

 

[daver]

Show your work, because I don't think this is true. Sakic never won *any* Art Ross trophies and had two second place finishes (one of them an incredibly weak one with 87 points). Forberg did snag one, but it was a low total in a league even more watered down than the years prior (where second place was Markus freaking Naslund). Lindros was never a threat for an Art Ross because he was going to miss 15 games a season - it's telling that his only win came in a shortened season.

How are these guys winning Art Ross trophies over Lafleur and Trottier? Espo and Orr? Over Crosby, Ovechkin, and McDavid? None of these guys peaked against generational talents like Mario or Gretzky, or even Crosby and McDavid.

The 95-04 period was - outside of maybe the literal war years and maybe the early 70s - the worst talent pool for forwards in NHL history.

Maybe you should show your work since you are the one making the claim (other than namedropping).

Why should we view any of Jagr's Art Rosses as being against a weaker field vs. any Art Ross win from post Espo/Orr?

 

[The Macho King]

Maybe you should show your work since you are the one making the claim (other than namedropping).

Why should we view any of Jagr's Art Rosses as being against a weaker field vs. any Art Ross win from post Espo/Orr?

Combination of Hart trophies (only one), low point totals, lack of dominance by overlapping players outside of Jagr's peak years all lend to the conclusion that his competition wasn't particularly noteworthy.

All of those guys who you say are his prime competition end up with a total of one Art Ross (and one tie *with* Jagr). And of course adding Kariya, Bure, or Selanne doesn't change that number at all. In fact they're all quickly overtaken by the "next generation" of Iginla, MSL, and Thornton - and we all (correctly) recognize them as a good but not particularly notable cohort of players in an all-time sense.

 

[MadLuke]

Combination of Hart trophies (only one), low point totals, lack of dominance by overlapping players outside of Jagr's peak years all lend to the conclusion that his competition wasn't particularly noteworthy.

Or a strong timing thing which can be hard to distinguish.

If I understand you, the player he did beat from 98-2001, no one in them were winning Art Ross before or after that windows anyway ? Forsberg being the exception but he won in a even weaker year ?

1.	J. Jágr	121
2.	J. Sakic*	118
3.	P. Elias	96

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

1.	J. Jágr	96
2.	P. Bure*	94
3.	M. Recchi*	91

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

1.	J. Jágr	127
2.	T. Selänne*	107
3.	P. Kariya*	101

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

1.	J. Jágr	102
2.	P. Forsberg*	91
3.	P. Bure*	90

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

It could be factual and it is hard to imagine Elias making a top 3 in 92-93 and Reechi best career finish happening at that time point toward that, but for some of those it could be timing.

Like Kariya-Selanne playing on the same line could have been all time average/good competition, it is just that Kariya got injured a lot after that, rookie Selanne was keeping up with the Oates, Yzerman, Gilmour and so on.

Sakic 2001 could have been all time good competition, it is just that he took a lot of time to fully hit is peak, it would be hard to show the work here I think.

 

[daver]

Combination of Hart trophies (only one), low point totals, lack of dominance by overlapping players outside of Jagr's peak years all lend to the conclusion that his competition wasn't particularly noteworthy.

At the age of 33, he put up a season that was quite strong for the post 2005 era and can easily be compared to Crosby's and OV's best full seasons within a few years after that.

No issue with pointing our he benefitted from his main competition (Lindros, Forsberg, Sakic) missing time leading a doominant VsX but there is no reason to view his PPG dominance over that time as not being reflective of his talent any less than any player from 1975 to today.

 

[MadLuke]

No issue with pointing our he benefitted from his main competition (Lindros, Forsberg, Sakic) missing time leading a doominant VsX but there is no reason to view his PPG dominance over that time as not being reflective of his talent any less than any player from 1975 to today.

Wonder how special that is too, Ovechkin benefitted from Malkin/Crosby/Stamkos missing time I would imagine, Lindros, Forsberg, Sakic, Forsberg, Bure, Kariya, Selanne/Mogilny benefited when they played and others did not or played quite injured, the early 90s people benefited from Gretzky injury, most from mid 80s to mids 2000s benefit from Lemieux missing time, early 80s benefit from Lafleur/Bossy and soviet not playing in the nhl, some people now are benefitting from Kucherov/Mackinnon missing so much of is special peak/team situation time to shine, it does feel true but it could be easy to be us hyper focused on an era about it

 

[The Panther]

Along with a modest scoring increase in the NHL, in general, over the past four or so seasons, the current period is starting to see some unusually high even-strength scoring results.

Last season, Connor McDavid went nuts, of course, including 68 ES points in 56 games played -- if projected to 82 games, that's a pace of 100 ES points. Who knows if he would have been able to reach that, but for reference, only six players in history have ever scored 100 even strength points in a season:
Gretzky x 10
Lafleur x 1
Lemieux x 1
Kurri x 1
Yzerman x 1
Bossy x 1

It's been discussed on the main board that the Flames' Johnny Gaudreau is having a major season in even-strength scoring, with 52 ES points in 47 games, meaning he's pacing for 91 ES points. Besides Gretzky, only 9 players have done that in history.

 

[Overrated]

Show your work, because I don't think this is true. Sakic never won *any* Art Ross trophies and had two second place finishes (one of them an incredibly weak one with 87 points). Forberg did snag one, but it was a low total in a league even more watered down than the years prior (where second place was Markus freaking Naslund). Lindros was never a threat for an Art Ross because he was going to miss 15 games a season - it's telling that his only win came in a shortened season.

How are these guys winning Art Ross trophies over Lafleur and Trottier? Espo and Orr? Over Crosby, Ovechkin, and McDavid? None of these guys peaked against generational talents like Mario or Gretzky, or even Crosby and McDavid.

The 95-04 period was - outside of maybe the literal war years and maybe the early 70s - the worst talent pool for forwards in NHL history.

What competition did Lafleur even have? Trottier, Dionne, Sittler, Clarke, Bossy? How is this better competition than in the DPE? Only one guy in the list I named (Mike Bossy) was on the level of Sakic, Forsberg, Selanne, Lindros, Fedorov or Bure and of course Bossy was likely better than Lafleur himself. Lafleur had a much weaker competition in the late 70s than Jagr. In fact back then in the late 70s the majority of the best forwards were in Europe.

 

[Felidae]

What competition did Lafleur even have? Trottier, Dionne, Sittler, Clarke, Bossy? How is this better competition than in the DPE? Only one guy in the list I named (Mike Bossy) was on the level of Sakic, Forsberg, Selanne, Lindros, Fedorov or Bure and of course Bossy was likely better than Lafleur himself. Lafleur had a much weaker competition in the late 70s than Jagr. In fact back then in the late 70s the majority of the best forwards were in Europe.

Clarke won 3 Hart trophies. Some against Orr.

Dionme has more point finishes than any of the players you listed from the 90s.

I'd say that's some pretty stiff competition.