Is Nathan MacKinnon Better Than Prime Yzerman?

[VanIslander]

Several great hockey players saw a lot of action in WWI ("The Great War" as it was known before WWII), none with more gravitas due to his [edit: war efforts] than Bill Cook, a top-5 Ranger ever.

 

[The Pale King]

Hockey has changed, so has war. Maybe I don't want them "in my foxhole," but I do want a videogame-savvy guy like a Patrick Laine or an Olli Juolevi piloting the drones on my side.

Sure you could teach a guy like Mark Messier how to fly a UAV, but I think it would just go over his head.

Back on topic, give me Yzerman's prime over Mackinnon's.

 

[The Panther]

Hockey has changed, so has warfare. Maybe I don't want them "in my foxhole," but I do want a videogame-savvy guy like a Patrick Laine or an Olli Juolevi piloting the drones on my side.

Thanks to this comment, I just burst out laughing on the Tokyo JR train, causing commuters to look at me disapprovingly.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Now I’m trying to decide if I somehow had another concussion today, but I have to admit that I’m enjoying the thread.

 

[HFpapi]

SY would probably have a couple of Harts if Mario and Wayne wasn’t in his era. Scoring 150, for a bad team, and not getting the Hart says something about the competition

Playing against prime 99 & 66 obviously hurts anyones career but let's also not forget that in Stevie Y's best season, 38 of the top 50 scorers were Canadian.

Last season only 17 of the top 50 were Canadian.

Same reason I maintain people overrate Howe vs McDavid, we have to consider the global competition.

Noone is winning Ross or Hart vs 99 or 66 but also there were no Germans, Swedes, Americans, or Czechs winning or seriously competing for the Ross in the 80's.

 

[The Panther]

No one is winning Ross or Hart vs 99 or 66 but also there were no Germans, Swedes, Americans, or Czechs winning or seriously competing for the Ross in the 80's.

Global competition is a thing, sure, but there was also a period when global competition wasn't very strong as compared to Canadian talent. Things were evening out by the 1980s, to be sure, but the motivation for European-trained players to sacrifice comfort and family-security, etc., to move to North America only became a big thing with the salary explosion from the late-70s through (and esp.) the early-90s.

As to no Euro/American competition for the Art Ross in the 80s, two of the top-three scorers of the 1980s were Europeans. In a non-Gretzky world, Peter Šťastný would have won the 1983 Art Ross.

Europeans / Americans active in the NHL of the 1980s:

Notable Europeans
Vaclav Nedomansky
Peter Stastny
Anton Stastny
Marian Stastny
Kent Nilsson
Peter Ihnacak
Petr Klima
Frantisek Musil
Stefan Persson
Thomas Gradin
Kent-Erik Andersson
Mats Naslund
Bengt-Ake Gustafsson
Patrick Sundstrom
Anders Kallur
Borje Salming
Jorgen Pettersson
Tomas Jonsson
Hakan Loob
Jan Erixson
Ulf Samuelsson
Michael Thelven
Kjell Dahlin
Frederik Olausson
Calle Johansson
Willy Lindstrom
Anders Hedberg
Miroslav Frycer
Tomas Jonsson
Tomas Sandstrom
Petri Skriko
Pelle Eklund
Pelle Lindberg
Jari Kurri
Ilkka Sinisalo
Risto Siltanen
Matti Hagman
Kari Eloranta
Esa Tikkanen
Reijo Ruotsalainen
Mikko Makela
Kari Takko
Christian Ruuttu
Uwe Krupp

Notable Americans:
Brian Lawton
Reed Larson
Joe Mullen
Brian Mullen
Brett Hull
Phil Housley
Mike Ramsey
Mark Johnson
Dave Christian
Neal Broten
Aaron Broten
Bob Mason
Mark Pavelich
Joel Otto
Tom Kurvers
Nick Fotiu
Mathieu Schneider
Gordie Roberts
Ken Morrow
Mark Howe
John Vanbiesbrouck
Wayne Presley
Kelly Miller
Al Iafrate
Kevin Hatcher
Jimmy Carson
Chris Nilan
Bob Carpenter
Jack O'Callahan
Phil Bourque
Tom Barrasso
Paul Fenton
Steve Leach
Bob Sweeney
Doug Brown
Gordie Roberts
Chris Chelios
Tom Fergus
Mike O'Connell
Mike Zombo
Ed Olcyzk
Craig Ludwig
Gary Suter
Craig Janney
Scott Young
Jeff Norton
Kevin Stevens
Darren Turcotte
Jeremy Roenick
Mike Modano
Tony Granato

With the exception of the last 6 or 7 Americans listed above, all of these players were active by the mid-1980s, if not much earlier (some in the 1970s). These include many of the best players of the whole era.

I don't deny that global competition (in a more moneyed-NHL) is a factor in degree of competition; I just deny that fewer Europeans players (in a 34% smaller NHL than today) necessarily makes it easier to win Art Rosses or whatever. I guess the question is: Besides Makarov and maybe Krutov, which Europeans who weren't in the NHL were going to offer competition to Gretzky and late-80s' Lemieux for scoring titles?

 

[WarriorofTime]

Playing against prime 99 & 66 obviously hurts anyones career

No, it doesn't. If anything, reputation wise, everyone gets an unearned boost for lacking hardware/stat placements, etc. because of the Demigod status of "99 & 66", even in the case of a player like Yzerman who had a finish that would result in exactly one Art Ross Trophy if the two best Forwards in a 21-team League just magically don't exist. Nobody else from any other era gets that type of benefit of the doubt compared to the halo effect boost of playing at the same as Gretzky and Lemieux.

 

[Gorskyontario]

result in exactly one Art Ross Trophy

So... More than MacKinnon?

 

[WarriorofTime]

So... More than MacKinnon?

So.. his zero actual Art Rosses equals MacKinnon's zero actual Art Ross.

 

[Midnight Judges]

The all-or-nothing nature of trophy counting misrepresents here.

McKinnon was what, 3% off of Kucherov this season? Does that not count for something? Same goes for Yzerman.

 

[GMR]

The lamest-looking goal ('cuz he had only one good leg) earned Yzerman the goal that put him over Howe careerwise. ... You cannot replay that goal without the CONTEXT of the video above linked.

Prime Yzerman may have been the youngster scoring 100+ points a year in a conference Edmonton owned.

But prime Yzerman to me is a leg down, yet gonna win...

Dan Cloutier really had trouble with those Yzerman wraparounds.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The all-or-nothing nature of trophy counting misrepresents here.

McKinnon was what, 3% off of Kucherov this season? Does that not count for something? Same goes for Yzerman.

Adjusted Point Totals

MacKinnon 2023-24: 138
Yzerman 1988-89: 128
Yzerman 1992-93: 111
MacKinnon 2019-20: 110
Yzerman 1989-90: 106
MacKinnon 2022-23: 105

It's safe to say they are very close. A third straight monster season would go a long way for MacKinnon.

 

[DFC]

Probably pretty close. Always hard to compare Yzerman because there's a good argument that he became a better player in his 30s even if he wasn't putting up the numbers.

 

[Gorskyontario]

So.. his zero actual Art Rosses equals MacKinnon's zero actual Art Ross.

Yes, thanks for confirming this.

 

[The Panther]

Probably pretty close. Always hard to compare Yzerman because there's a good argument that he became a better player in his 30s even if he wasn't putting up the numbers.

In my opinion, Yzerman was at his best from age 22 to 29, and then more sporadically was at his best from age 29 to 32. But there's no way he was overall better in his 30s.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Yzerman was a loser much longer despite having better talent around him. Makar and Rantanen are good but they're not as good as Lidström and Fedorov.

 

[Hippasus]

Yzerman was a loser much longer despite having better talent around him. Makar and Rantanen are good but they're not as good as Lidström and Fedorov.

Lidstrom and Fedorov didn't come into their own until after Yzerman's offensive peak years were over. It's hard to call Yzerman a loser before 94-95. 93-94 and 94-95 Fedorov was good, but that was before Detroit built the team they became known for in the 90s and 00s.

 

[MadLuke]

92-93 Wings were quite stacked they scored more goals than anyone including Mario Penguins and no one won more games in the west, so were the 94 Wings (again scored the most goals in the whole league), Bowman coaching at that point with Lidstrom-Chiasson-Konstantinov-Howe-Coffey for your backcourt , Osgood in nets, Hart Fedorov-Yzerman-Primeau center line, no one in the west had a better team and they finished with the most points in the regular season for a reason.

Once Coffey arrive before Lidstrom become a big star was no slouch and since his rookie year Lidstrom was still quite the player to have, was just underrated.

 

[tabness]

Lidstrom and Fedorov didn't come into their own until after Yzerman's offensive peak years were over. It's hard to call Yzerman a loser before 94-95. 93-94 and 94-95 Fedorov was good, but that was before Detroit built the team they became known for in the 90s and 00s.

Wings in general were strong as a team since 1991-1992, "Poised for Glory" as the season recap video said, next year even better. Had a few issues with consistency though for sure.

1993-1994 Wings were generally a step back before as I've called out earlier, Bowman maybe feeling the team out a bit and not doing too much coaching, probably also a factor of somewhat of a power struggle with Murray.

Obviously Lidstrom was a while away from the Lidstrom of the late nineties. He had a great rookie year but had a real tough sophomore year until the great Paul Coffey showed up and righted that ship a bit.

Fedorov though was top notch by his sophomore year. He just needed the opportunity more for that last bit of consistency that sometimes waned, but he was basically right there in terms of play as 1993-1994 the two years prior. Points about deployment apply to Fedorov as well.

Of course, your point stands, Yzerman hardly played with Fedorov like MacKinnon does with Rantanen, or for that matter even Coffey as MacKinnon does Makar. The stacked units were just not a thing for Bryan Murray.

Points together stats showcase this real well

 

[The Panther]

Some people try to over-simplify this too much, as in "the team sucked... then the team was stacked!" It's almost never this simple and it doesn't go in such a straight line.

This is how I'd say Yzerman's first half of career went, in terms of his team:

1983-84 & 1984-85
Wings were poor-ish, but not totally terrible. Some decent players, but the bottom half of the line-up was crap. (Still weird to think of Yzerman playing with Brad Park and Ivan Boldirev.)
1985-86
Wings were one of the worst teams of all time. (Yzerman broke his leg or something and anyway scored at a poor 66-point pace.)
1986-87 & 1987-88
Two impressive years under Jacques Demers. By 1987-88, they were in the top-five teams in the League. Conference Finals both seasons. Formula was: Yzerman + strong defence.
1988-89 to 1990-91
Three transitional / disappointing seasons under Demers and then Bryan Murray. Demers opened up the team's offence a bit (led to Yzerman's 155 points) but the losses piled up. Murry tried to implement his defence system but the horses weren't really there yet in 1990-91. Using six goalies in one season didn't help either.
1991-92 & 1992-93
The "90s' Red Wings" arrive, with Lapointe, Kozlov, Lidstrom, Fedorov. Murry now has them near the top of the League, and defence is finally way better. But the 1993 loss to Toronto did some damage and heads had to roll... Anyway, the team is finally 'stacked' with talent for the first time in Yzerman's career (starting in his year nine).
1993-94 and 1995:
Bowman arrives but -- just like Murray before him -- it took one entire season before his the players adapted to his defensive system. Another playoff loss in round one, this time a choke-job vs. San Jose. In the short 1995 season, everything works and the Red Wings are 1st overall and win the West in the playoffs (well, works until the Finals).


Anyway, at no time were the Red Wings an impressive line-up of players until Yzerman's ninth season.

 

[wetcoast]

Yzerman on one leg ruled a playoffs.

Against my Canucks:

And Yzerman has a Smythe but it's arguable that Mack has been the better and more consistent playoff performer.

The 2002 playoffs is laso where the series totally changed with Lidstrom scoring on Cloutier who fell apart after that goal.

I took Mack as I think he has been the better player through age 28 and I think that he will age well enough to be seen as better than Stevie Y but time will tell.

Also I'm wondering what people are using as prime?

I usually use best 7 years although Yzerman has an extended prime but the only problem is that he has 2 down years in that prime.

It's pretty close though.

 

[VanIslander]

Trying to horseshoe a player's career into a "prime" assumes there is a consistent trajectory of years. .... Patrick Roy was EXCEPTIONAL in the playoffs, ... over different parts of his career.

Cutting up careers by 3-year, 5-year, whatever year spans is just the beginning of analysis. Useful to begin. Awful to finish on. Unless you are in a hurry, and don't gaf much about. Like flash frying an egg for breakfast.

 

[MadLuke]

Here it is particularly useful because we cannot talk about Mack career yet and their prime has been about exactly the same length and continuous, making it relatively straight forward.

 

[VanIslander]

No. Yzerman before Bowman was great offensively, after Bowman great defensively, all round. So, "prime" would be what? Scoring stats? ... Who doesn't think Yzerman wasn't better later in his career?

Why are we comparing Stevie to Nathan?

Apples & oranges.

Next we will compare Ted Kennedy to

 

[MadLuke]

Who doesn't think Yzerman wasn't better later in his career?

Double negative could make a bit of a trap, but almost everyone that answered the question did not think about 97-02 (3 cups after all....).

You think the 96 Wings loose to the Avs with 1989 Yzerman playing for them instead of 1996 Yzerman ? Their change of winning 3 or more cups goes down with the lates 80s earlys 90s Yzerman instead of the late 90s and early 00s Yzerman....

If you give each other their teams situation, old Yzerman in the 80s-90s do more win the those WIngs and the young Yzerman do less with the 97-03 Wings ? Obviously one can say no, the 80s wings needed the young Yzerman more than the old one and vice versa and being what you need for a great teams to win cups is better than what a bad team need to reach the playoff from time to time and win nothing...

But feel like using end result 2017 Ovechkin > 2010 Ovechkin because he won type.