Has Peak/Prime McDavid surpassed Peak/Prime Crosby and Peak/Prime Jagr already?

[MadLuke]

And other way to say it to take Crosby hot streak scoring a point on 50% of the penguins goals during the first half of the year.

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The Penguins go from 3.22 goal per games in the top 5 of the league down to 2.34 goal per games bottom 6 of the league the second half, when they miss Crosby-Malkin, 1.61ppg was 50% of the Penguins with their big 2, it was 69% of the second half of the year penguins offensive output.

Those 2 were not raking points because they were on a top 5 offense, they were turning a bottom of the league (lead by the Jordan Staal, Tyler Kennedy-Kunitz-Dupuis) into a top one by their play.

Which number tell us more of Crosby offensive capacity-output, the 50% of the points of the Penguins offense when he is on the team or 70% of the Penguins offense when there is not a Crosby having one of the best hot-streak of all time on the team ?

Are we sure the 1989 Penguins score more than 270 goals without Mario ? the Brown-Quinn-Errey-Cullen-Cunneyworth led forward group pens. What does the 199/347 tell us ?

To take Mario has an example here, the 1990 Penguins had significantly more talents, Cullen got better, Recchi-Stevens appear.

They scored 4.19 goals per games when Mario Lemieux was healthy, 3.38 goals per games when he was missing.

4.19 that top 3 in the nhl, 3.38 that was third worst in the whole league, we cannot talk as if the penguins scored significantly more than the average team that years was not corrolated to Mario scoring over 2 points per game and can we imagine what it would mean if scoring 2ppg did not have a big impact on a team scoring, how much time wasted on individual player this message board spent on.

is 2.08 / 4.19(50%) a good way to look at mario offensive output or the 2.08/3.38 (61.5%) and this is a good example about the how hard it is to go above 50%

Mario Lemieux scoring 2.08 ppg could have added 0.8 goal per games to his team easily (that exactly how many mores point per games he scored than John Cullen his elite replacement), thinking his scored over 2 ppg because he played ona stacked 4.2 goal per game offense, instead of him turning a perfectly normal offense into a top one is misplaced.

 

[authentic]

Yea the problem with using adjusted stats is the adjustment is based on league averages. Whereas the rule changes such as smaller goalie pads and the fact that it's a much less physical game now disproportionately helps the top end scorers. Power play efficiencies are sky high now across the league because of this (smaller goalie pads, no more net front battles) as well and the point producers are feasting. We had 29 ppg+ players last year, whereas in 15-16 only had 8. Nine 100+ scorers last year, only 1 in 15-16. In this scoring environment i have no doubt a 25 year old Crosby or Malkin clear 140.

That’s also not even getting into the massive increase in empty net points of which Kucherov had 14 last season.

 

[authentic]

Not sure I agree that P% is that meaningful, let alone something that takes a player's season up to the level of another player's season that was clearly more dominant.

I am not convinced that McDavid has reached a higher level offensively than peak/prime Jagr or peak/prime Crosby but it can be easily argued that he has had the greater first nine years than Crosby due to better luck with injuries, and that his 8 year prime is arguably better than Jagr's 7 year peak/prime and/or 8 best seasons.

What about McDavid’s playoff peaks in 2022 and 2024 in comparison to Crosby and Jagr?

 

[Vilica]

Not sure I agree that P% is that meaningful, let alone something that takes a player's season up to the level of another player's season that was clearly more dominant.

I am not convinced that McDavid has reached a higher level offensively than peak/prime Jagr or peak/prime Crosby but it can be easily argued that he has had the greater first nine years than Crosby due to better luck with injuries, and that his 8 year prime is arguably better than Jagr's 7 year peak/prime and/or 8 best seasons.

This got a bit unwieldy and so either I post it now or it gets lost in drafts. The main point I'm making is that (within the bounds of league average and P%) scoring does not change. Point totals are a function of games played and scoring environment, the underlying numbers don't budge.

First off, your second sentence is basically phrased exactly how I see it - with his results it can be argued that McDavid was marginally better than both Crosby and Jagr in his first nine years, but I see virtually no distance between his 46.5 P%, Jagr's 44.8 P%, or Crosby's 42.7 P% on a functional level. Elite seasons break that 40% barrier, and elite players put up as many of those seasons up as healthily possible. You can ignore the rest of this post if you don't want to get into the esoterica with regards to P%, as stated in your first sentence.

So, with regards to your first sentence, I want to introduce this evidence:

Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
Evgeni Malkin	11-12	PIT	75	50	59	109	273	218	1.252	0.183	0.399	97	112.37		114.06
Steven Stamkos	11-12	TBL	82	60	37	97	232	218	1.064	0.259	0.418	97	100.00		101.50
Jason Spezza	11-12	OTT	80	34	50	84	243	218	1.115	0.140	0.346	97	86.60		87.90
Sidney Crosby	13-14	PIT	80	36	68	104	242	219	1.105	0.149	0.430	87	119.54		108.33
Ryan Getzlaf	13-14	ANA	77	31	56	87	263	219	1.201	0.118	0.331	87	100.00		90.62
Jamie Benn	14-15	DAL	82	35	52	87	257	218	1.179	0.136	0.339	86	101.16		91.04
John Tavares	14-15	NYI	82	38	48	86	245	218	1.124	0.155	0.351	86	100.00		89.99
Sidney Crosby	14-15	PIT	77	28	56	84	217	218	0.995	0.129	0.387	86	97.67		87.90
Patrick Kane	15-16	CHI	82	46	60	106	234	219	1.068	0.197	0.453	89	119.10		110.41
Jamie Benn	15-16	DAL	82	41	48	89	265	219	1.210	0.155	0.336	89	100.00		92.70
Sidney Crosby	15-16	PIT	80	36	49	85	241	219	1.100	0.149	0.353	89	95.51		88.54
Connor McDavid	16-17	EDM	82	30	70	100	243	223	1.090	0.123	0.412	89	112.36		102.29
Sidney Crosby	16-17	PIT	75	44	45	89	278	223	1.247	0.158	0.320	89	100.00		91.04
Patrick Kane	16-17	CHI	82	34	55	89	240	223	1.076	0.142	0.371	89	100.00		91.04

Five different years, scoring level basically exactly the same all four years, yearly VsX fluctuates from 97 to 87 to 86 to 89, My stat of Average VsX thinks it should basically be 96 every year, and thinks the Malkin year was the best season, compared to VsX which thinks the Crosby and Kane years are tied as best. You also have the identical scoring years of Spezza in 11-12 and Crosby in 14-15 (84 points apiece in a 218 league) being the exact same in Average VsX compared to a 11 point difference in VsX. Going back to the Kane and Crosby years, you've got a 43% that's 10% above league average compared to a 45.3% that's 6.8% above league average, and an actual 2 point difference in point totals. You're not really able to differentiate between those two years in a meaningful fashion, whether you use their points, their P%, their VsX, or their Average VsX.

The other point I want to highlight (in partial response to MadLuke's newest post) is to look at Crosby's 14-15 through 16-17 seasons. He maintains around the same point total 84 85 89, but his P% drops as the Penguins score more goals. It goes from 38.7 to 35.3 to 32.0 as the Penguins go from 217 to 241 to 278 goals scored. He's the same player all 3 years, there's just that much randomness around the underlying numbers of his point totals. Part of that is going from Mike Johnston to Mike Sullivan, and the change in systems, part of it is adding Kessel, but most of it is just variance in season to season point scoring.

The last point I want to make is to look at all those 80 point years from that era. There's all sorts of variation in how % LA and P% converge to their final point totals, but it's in the area 0-25% above average, and 32-39 P%. Compare that with some newer seasons in our higher scoring era:

Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
Steven Stamkos	18-19	TBL	82	45	53	98	319	244	1.307	0.141	0.307	116	84.48		91.62
Aleksander Barkov	18-19	FLA	82	35	61	96	264	244	1.082	0.133	0.364	116	82.76		89.75
Patrick Kane	19-20	CHI	70	33	51	84	208	208	1.000	0.159	0.404	97	86.60		92.12
Nathan MacKinnon	20-21	COL	48	20	45	65	197	162	1.216	0.102	0.330	69	94.20		91.53
Mark Scheifele	20-21	WPG	56	21	42	63	170	165	1.030	0.124	0.371	69	91.30		87.10
J.T. Miller	21-22	VAN	80	32	67	99	246	255	0.965	0.130	0.402	115	86.09		88.56
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	22-23	EDM	82	37	67	104	325	258	1.260	0.114	0.320	113	92.04		91.95
Elias Pettersson	22-23	VAN	80	39	63	102	270	258	1.047	0.144	0.378	113	90.27		90.19
Erik Karlsson	22-23	SJS	82	25	76	101	233	258	0.903	0.107	0.433	113	89.38		89.30
William Nylander	23-24	TOR	82	40	58	98	298	253	1.178	0.134	0.329	120	81.67		88.36

It's the same bounds of variation, only now teams are scoring 320 goals for 25% above average instead of 275. Thus, you end up with a bunch of 100 point seasons instead of 85 point seasons. It's the same underlying offensive output, scaled for a higher scoring environment. It also showcases the utility of Average VsX, as you have the spread in VsX between 80-100 due to seasonal inconsistency in 2nd place, whereas Average VsX shows they're all around the same season, with a smaller spread between 88-92.

I can go back to any season in NHL history, and a point total whose Average VsX is in that 88-92 range is going to come from inputs in this range, whether it be from 1925, 1945, 1965, or 1985. I can grab about 50 seasons prior to expansion that fit the criteria, and they're all in that same range. High scoring season, low scoring season, 24 games, 50 games, 70 games, it does not matter.

 

[MadLuke]

but I see virtually no distance between his 46.5 P%, Jagr's 44.8 P%, or Crosby's 42.7 P% on a functional level

That seem to underrate how much one need to score to go from 42.7% to 46.5%

Take a 280 goals team with an Art Ross winner on it, that had 42.7% point of his team total, with a nice 120 pts art ross win season.

For that player to reach 46.5% of his team point total, how many more points does he need to score ? Would be around 20 more to reach about ~140, 140 pts on what became a 300 goals team because of his superior play.

The gap between 140 and 120 is quite a bit, specially in terms of points above first line replacement.

How many points would he have had to score to reach Lemieux-Gretzky type of 50% ? ~160 pts

the talk of 45% +/-5% being very similar can easily turn out to call 105 pts and 160 very similar, I feel like. We are looking at a log type curve where each % points are a lot of points to score and looking at them on a % number.

And how much would he need to reach 55%, almost 200.... in a league scoring were 120pts made you an all-time star, that why we will not see such numbers.

. Point totals are a function of games played and scoring environment, the underlying numbers don't budge.

And by a giant amount for the elite players, their own play, as we can clearly seen on the Penguins scoring with or without Mario, Gretzky impact on Kings scoring and so on.

Or the Pens with hot Crosby first half of the season vs without the second half.

Taking team scorings for RNH 104 pts season, sure, Gretzky having 50% of Oilers scoring 417 goals in 1982 as if that amount of goal was disconnected from Gretzky 200 pts season would just be strange.

To take a drastic example, imagine someone that would loo at quarterback offensive output and would use the percentage of team points the quarterback was involved in as if they were not the team offense. And concluding after all the elite quarterback reach a certain similar plateau with a small +/-% margin (that change just based on how much their defense scored and not counting that the team achieved to put a field goal because the quarterback advanced the offense enough to make it possible)....