Ovechkin played in the largest talent pool era so far. Ovechkin's competition is 3x what it was for Bobby Hull, 4-5x what it was for Maurice Richard, and greater than 50% larger than it was for Mike Bossy:
There have been hundreds (and probably thousands) of posts on HOH that discuss the size of the NHL's talent pool. The data that's needed to determine the talent pool (youths actively involved in organized hockey) has never been maintained with any rigour or consistency, across countries and...
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The scoring environment for Bossy was quite weak. His 50 goal seasons equate to about 38 goals in Ovechkin's era.
Adjusted for era, Mike Bossy has a paltry two 50 goal seasons, compared to Ovechkin, who has ten 50 goal seasons:
Checkout the latest stats of Mike Bossy. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, trade, draft, salary and more on Hockey-Reference.com
www.hockey-reference.com
Checkout the latest stats of Alex Ovechkin. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, trade, draft, salary and more on Hockey-Reference.com
www.hockey-reference.com
Additionally, Ovechkin does not have any weak rockets.
The 'times led NHL' is quite indicative of their relative prime accomplishments, and that's generously only focusing on prime and ignoring the gargantuan difference in longevity (868 goals to 573. Although adjusted goals are more indicative: 970 for Ovechkin to 461 for Bossy). In other words, Ovechkin has provided more than double the goal scoring value for his team.