Historical relevance of Kucherov and MacKinnon's 2024 season?

[WarriorofTime]

You have applied the eye test to determine - with some degree of confidence - a shortlist (I'm assuming not a complete and through ranking, which is fine - that would be incredibly difficult) of the top 25 (or more?) seasons since 1945. I'd like to know more about this process and what was determined.

Eye test reveals these are very special seasons each are independently having not that I have personally sorted every post World War II season out in my head. It is just one component for the “stats don’t tell whole story” crowd but empirical analysis is always at the forefront for both fairness and common sense.

 

[daver]

Stats, era-adjusted scoring, and as supported by eye test. They are completely dominating their teams in scoring which aren’t even filled with slouches. I’d like to hear your case against it. The only thing you can say is three guys doing it at once is a bit unlikely and scoring is up, but that’s never stopped Gretzky/Lemieux analysis. Sometimes things just converge like that.

They are not statistically dominating their peers (Top 5/10/25/50 scorers) in a way that places their seasons in the Top 25 of all-time. This includes some adjusting for league size.

As the OP points out, they are having "peak 2nd Tier player" while not necessarily being considered 2nd tier players coming into this season.

Off the top of my head, Wayne has 8 or 9 better seasons, Mario has 4 or 5, then Howe, Hull, Richard, Beliveau, Mikita, Esposito, Yzerman, and Jagr all have one or more seasons that would be arguably better.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Howe, Hull, Richard, Beliveau, Mikita, Esposito, Yzerman, and Jagr all have one or more seasons that would be arguably better.

That’s… 25th then lol

 

[TheStatican]

What is your case against it? What makes these seasons not historic?

I don’t care about pre WWII it’s just a long time ago and harder to apples to apples.

Hockey Reference adjusted scoring is great for anything post-expansion fyi.

Lol, hockey reference adjustments have long since been considered to be incredibly flawed figures. The fact that you are seemingly unware of its reputation speaks volumes about your position.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Lol, hockey reference adjustments have long since been considered to be incredibly flawed figures. The fact that you are seemingly unware aware of its reputations speaks volumes about your position.

Hockey reference has a fine reputation. Unless you mean amongst the ten or so regulars that post in this sub forum?

 

[Michael Farkas]

If we have "ten or so" regulars here - which is probably the heart or co-heart of the hockey historical community - than those H-R numbers must look really good to you haha

 

[MadLuke]

Kucherov and MacKinnon are both having top 25 all time seasons.

Forward alone or all included ?, if Lemieux-Gretzky-Hasek-Orr have at least 10 higher than them.

In a Top 15 others of those, competing with the lesser Gretzky season, McDavid-Jagr-Ovechkin-Yzerman-Sakic-lower Mario-Beliveau-Howe-Coffey-Bourque-Potvin, Esposito, it is possible.

Point is shooting 20%, playing on that powerplay has 86 pts, Mack has 50goals+ 137pts.. that a lot in comparison

+43% the 10th scorer

Jagr monster 1999 season he was also 43% higher number 10, no problem putting them in that rare class.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

Since we're lawyering the "when healthy" flag...Crosby bested McDavid in 2016.

McDavid still had the higher points per game, even in his rookie year.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Ooh, points per game is back! (Not that it's necessarily the case here...as they had the same points per game)

 

[WarriorofTime]

Forward alone or all included ?, if Lemieux-Gretzky-Hasek-Orr have at least 10 higher than them.

In a Top 15 others of those, competing with the lesser Gretzky season, McDavid-Jagr-Ovechkin-Yzerman-Sakic-lower Mario-Beliveau-Howe-Coffey-Bourque-Potvin, Esposito, it is possible.

Point is shooting 20%, playing on that powerplay has 86 pts, Mack has 50goals+ 137pts.. that a lot in comparison

+43% the 10th scorer

Jagr monster 1999 season he was also 43% higher number 10, no problem putting them in that rare class.

Forward only

Ooh, points per game is back! (Not that it's necessarily the case here...as they had the same points per game)

Crosby didn’t win the Art Ross that year. I understand McDavid didn’t either as a rookie.

 

[TheStatican]

Hockey reference has a fine reputation. Unless you mean amongst the ten or so regulars that post in this sub forum?

And who exactly do you think created hockey reference? Because I'll tell you who didn't; the NHL - It's a fan created page. A guy by the name of Sean Forman came up with the idea. There had always been a lot of paper publications that tracked a myriad of statistical data but the official web pages of the various sports leagues were severely lacking in statistical data or presented it in very a poor manner. Credit to him for realizing it was a niche that needed to be filled, but hardly makes him some sports arbitrator.

Besides that what does their overall reputation have to do with anything? My criticism was about a very specific metric they employ that they alone created without any approval from the official source. A metric that you claim is, and I quote "great for anything post-expansion" and yet, for example it comes to the preposterous conclusions that no less than 5 players had better seasons in 1998-99 than anyone other than Gretzky or Lemieux(only once) over a 7 year period from 1980 to 1987 And furtherance to that, apparently Alexei Yashin's 94 point season good for 6th place in scoring in 98-99 was just as good as the best non-WG/ML season in that entire 7 year stretch - Mike Bossy's 147 point season. If you still think that makes any sense at all, then perhaps you would be interested in some land I'm trying to offload in Florida...

No. They haven't.

I'll stop you right there.
This tread has nothing to do with Ovechkin.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Forward only

This is much more defendable. If we are looking at post-1945, it's probably something I would agree with.

It's when you bring in the defenseman, goalies, and everything 1893-1945 is when it loses the plot.

 

[Midnight Judges]

And who exactly do you think created hockey reference? Because I'll tell you who didn't; the NHL -

That matters not at all. The NHL is more than capable of producing incorrect data or tracking arbitrary data points.

Raw stats are often less indicative than adjusted stats, and the NHL tends to treat those as gospel.

 

[WarriorofTime]

And who exactly do you think created hockey reference? Because I'll tell you who didn't; the NHL - It's a fan created page. A guy by the name of Sean Forman came up with the idea. There had always been a lot of paper publications that tracked a myriad of statistical data but the official web pages of the various sports leagues were severely lacking in statistical data or presented it in very a poor manner. Credit to him for realizing it was a niche that needed to be filled, but hardly makes him some sports arbitrator.

Besides that what does their overall reputation have to do with anything? My criticism was about a very specific metric they employ that they alone created without any approval from the official source. A metric that you claim is, and I quote "great for anything post-expansion" and yet, for example it comes to the preposterous conclusions that no less than 5 players had better seasons in 1998-99 than anyone other than Gretzky or Lemieux(only once) over a 7 year period from 1980 to 1987 And furtherance to that, apparently Alexei Yashin's 94 point season good for 6th place in scoring in 98-99 was just as good as the best non-WG/ML season in that entire 7 year stretch - Mike Bossy's 147 point season. If you still think that makes any sense at all, then perhaps you would be interested in some land I'm trying to offload in Florida...

Stop stalling. What issue do you have calling these seasons historic?

 

[MadLuke]

They are not statistically dominating their peers (Top 5/10/25/50 scorers) in a way that places their seasons in the Top 25 of all-time. This includes some adjusting for league size.

They dominate the 10 scorer quite like Jagr did in 1999 I think and that was extremelly high in non Mario-Gretzky season, it was like prime not peak Gretzky-Mario

 

[Midnight Judges]

This is much more defendable. If we are looking at post-1945, it's probably something I would agree with.

It's when you bring in the defenseman, goalies, and everything 1893-1945 is when it loses the plot.

You can easily say that about raw data as well.

The goal of adjusted stats is not perfection, but rather improvement over the raw data.

 

[overpass]

Hockey-reference's adjusted stats are built on work done by others, such as Klein and Reif in their Hockey Compendium.

Yes, they're pretty good for forwards. I would say the biggest thing those stats can't account for is a change in coaching strategies that took place between 1985 and 1995. The change was managing forwards shifts to get the best scorers out for more minutes, in better offensive situations, supported by the best offensive defencemen. A result of this change was that bottom-six forwards played fewer minutes, shorter shifts, and were selected for their defensive skills more than their offensive skills.

The change happened because hockey coaching was becoming a profession, with coaching clinics and larger and larger coaching staffs.

Before 1970, forward lines played equally with every defensive pairing. Nobody was trying to leverage their top d-men with their top forwards. Third lines played regular shifts and scored like any other line. There were matchups and shadows but every line and pairing was basically playing the same game. Head coaches - with no assistant - set up the lines and matchups before the game and let things play out. Then you start seeing coaches like Bowman, Shero, and Neilson making changes within the game and finding edges in the 1970s. Phil Esposito, and later Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, play all the ice time they can handle. But by 1985, it's still not so different from 1970, with a few exceptions (see Gretzky and Lemieux). Lines 1-3 and pairings 1-2 are still basically playing the same game. In 1986-87, the #2 scorer has only 108 points.

By the late 90s, the changes is complete. Every team* is having their bottom 2 lines skate shorter shifts and try not to get scored on, and feeding their top lines all the best offensive minutes. Teams with more talent than money like Colorado and Pittsburgh save money on their bottom 2 lines by getting rid of offensive depth and riding their stars. And individual scoring became more and more detached from league scoring levels.

*except for Detroit, where Scotty Bowman is throwing it back spreading his talent and opportunity over 4 lines.

 

[Felidae]

With Kucherov breaking the all time assist record for wingers, and the only one to reach 90 assists and possibly 100, I think it's time to start considering whether Kucherov has the best playmaking peak of any winger ever.

He also has 3 of the top 6 highest assist seasons.

 

[Michael Farkas]

The list for that is getting pretty short at this point, eh? Jagr, Kane...Howe? What competition does he reasonably have at this point?

 

[jigglysquishy]

The list for that is getting pretty short at this point, eh? Jagr, Kane...Howe? What competition does he reasonably have at this point?

I think Howe is still in there, but Jagr is probably the best playmaker before Kucherov. Makarov is in the conversation.

If you look at most of the top 15 wingers of all time it's primarily goal scorers (Hull, Ovechkin, Richard, Cook, Bossy, Kharlamov, Geoffrion, Conacher) with a sprinkle of balanced scorers (Howe, Jagr, Lafleur, Lindsay, Bathgate). Kucherov is the best pass first winger we've seen. Makarov didn't become pass first until he was past his prime.

Maybe we can categorize Bathgate as pass first?

 

[Matsun]

With Kucherov breaking the all time assist record for wingers, and the only one to reach 90 assists and possibly 100, I think it's time to start considering whether Kucherov has the best playmaking peak of any winger ever.

He also has 3 of the top 6 highest assist seasons.

He also has the 2 highest assist totals for a winger in the playoffs.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Not sure where he fits in precisely but don’t forget St. Louis.

 

[Video Nasty]

Depending on how the rest of the season plays out for McDavid, we could be looking at 3 players cross 140 in a season that is still lower scoring than every single season where someone hit at least 130 (49 other instances before these 3 notched 130+) other than Esposito’s 133 in 1971-1972.

And some are saying these aren’t historic seasons or worthy of being recognized as potential top 25 all-time campaigns?

 

[jigglysquishy]

There's more to scoring than GPG. I get it, it's easy, there's no nuance required. But for top scorers it's more favourable than two years ago even if total goals are down.

It's not just those three. Panarin needs 4 points in 3 games to hit 120. Matthews can hit 70. Hughes and Makar are both going to hit 90 points.

We're going to have the most 40 goal scorers of any season outside 1993.

If everyone is feasting, maybe, just maybe, it's because they're serving a buffet.

 

[Offtheboard412]

There's more to scoring than GPG. I get it, it's easy, there's no nuance required. But for top scorers it's more favourable than two years ago even if total goals are down.

It's not just those three. Panarin needs 4 points in 3 games to hit 120. Matthews can hit 70. Hughes and Makar are both going to hit 90 points.

We're going to have the most 40 goal scorers of any season outside 1993.

If everyone is feasting, maybe, just maybe, it's because they're serving a buffet.

Yeah, I don't want to downplay what these players are doing. They are playing at an insane level. But when Panarin is close to matching McDavid's numbers when he won the Art Ross in 21/22, and he isn't even close to breaking into the top 3, you know things are getting crazy. Who would have thought we would see numbers like this 10 years ago?