It is bizarre that anyone thinks this is close.
I think what makes this close is mostly that Sakic was so good in the playoffs, had a couple of great playoffs when they won Cups, and didn't drop off much in playoffs against the better defensive teams.
If he doesn't miss time for suspension, Ovi probably wins two Rosses. If not for Lemieux & Jagr, Sakic wins two Rosses.
1. Lemieux
2. Jagr
7. Messier
9. Makarov
11. Sakic
12. Yzerman
I limited this to players who had 13 years or more of overlap in their professional careers with BOTH Sakic and Yzerman. This eliminated Gretzky but certainly you could count him too.
Ovechkin's era:
1. Ovechkin
2. Crosby
3. McDavid
4. Nobody else is even close
And I generously include McDavid who almost certainly will NOT have 13 years of overlap with Sid or Ovie. (Lidstrom had 7, Jagr had 10).
So the 11th and 12th best players of the nostalgia years (roughly '85-2005) are equal or superior to the best player (or at worst, a top 3 player) of the past two decades? -That's the assertion here.
So if you are siding with Yzerman and Sakic, or if you think this is a tough call, your claim is that despite the talent pool growing, elite players are actually significantly worse. And despite Ovechkin standing out from the crowd way the hell more than Sakic or Yzerman, there is some other reason why a comparatively far lesser player from a comparatively lesser talent pool somehow comes out ahead. Except nobody has a rational basis for why that would be.
It simply does not pass the smell test. I think some of you just need a little (or a lot) more time to digest the information and gather your thoughts.
Or maybe there is some other part of the equation that nobody wants to say out loud.
Let's look at the best peak/prime scoring forwards of each period. The overseas talent didn't fully integrate into NHL until 90s, so looking at two roughly equal periods:
1990 to Lockout
Some prime (but post-peak) Gretzky and most of Lemieux's peak years... so we'll say one outlier total
Jagr
Sakic
Forsberg
Selanne
Yzerman (about half of his peak years, so half credit)
Lindros
Oates
Messier (about half of his prime, so half credit)
Kariya
Francis
Recchi
Bure
Brett Hull
LeClair
Naslund
Lockout to Present
Roughly half of McDavid's expected best seasons, as well as Kucherov, Draisaitl & MacKinnon (so half of four equals two)
Crosby
Ovechkin
Kane
Thornton
Malkin
St. Louis (won Ross in 2004, but most of prime post-lockout.. so we'll split 50/50)
Stamkos
Iginla (won Ross in 2002, but most of prime post-lockout... so we'll split 50/50)
Backstrom
Giroux
Sedins (both)
Kovalchuk
Marchand
Datsyuk
So very roughly:
1990-Lockout: Equivalent of ~1 outlier and ~15 other top scorers
Lockout-Present: Equivalent of ~16 top scorers
Regardless of the exact cutoffs (in terms of players, seasons, etc.), once you have a decent sample size and compare apples to apples, it's pretty even between the periods.
When you start bringing historical greats at other positions (Hasek, Roy, Bourque, Lidstrom, etc.) into the equation, it gets more complicated. We may not see another see another Hasek in our lifetimes, so wondering why there isn't an equally good goalie in the post-lockout era seems futile. Roy won a couple Cups with underdogs and a couple more on Avs, there's just no equal to him at present. There's probably more very good goalies post-lockout, but nobody comes close to what he did. Take the long, consistent careers of goalies like Luongo or Lundqvist, but better and slightly longer... and combine that with the playoff peaks of goalies like Thomas AND Quick... and you approach Roy's career. We have to remember these are extreme outliers among NHL players, which are already the extreme end of the spectrum. There's no schedule for the extremes of the extremes.