Is Peter Forsberg underrated?

[daver]

MVP votings are completely irrelevant when evaluating a player who only had three 75+ games played seasons his entire career. And you can’t even take for granted that those three seasons coincided with his highest level of play. Remarkably enough Forsberg managed to be voted 1st team all star 3 times aka best center in the league (one of those he only played 72 games).

We seriously need to rank the "Best 9 game starts to a season in NHL history" as Forsberg clearly isn't getting the recognition he deserves.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

As someone who has been on this board for entirely too long, the thought of Peter Forsberg being underrated is f***ing hilarious.

I mean he probably is slightly underrated by the hockey community at large, but here? I don't think Christians love Jesus half as much as this place worshipped Forsberg.

 

[tabness]

We seriously need to rank the "Best 9 game starts to a season in NHL history" as Forsberg clearly isn't getting the recognition he deserves.

brother don't you make a lot out of Crosby's like 20 game 2011-2012 season crunching all the numbers and all that?

glass houses and all that...

 

[SladeWilson23]

I can't take anyone seriously who thinks he's better than Ovechkin or Jagr.

 

[Ben White]

We have already gone through this exercise,

A healthy Forsberg:

94/95 - Sakic 4th in PPG, Forsberg 19th
95/96 - 5th in PPG, Sakic 4th
96/97 - 5th in PPG, Sakic 0.01 lower before he was injured
97/98 - Forsberg 3rd in PPG, Sakic 17th
98/99 - About the same but Sakic has the higher PPG.
99/00 - Sakic had 2nd best PPG, Forsberg N/A
00/01 - Sakic easily better, Forsberg is 21st in PPG before injury, finishes 4th

More seasons than not, a prime Sakic is outplaying a prime Forsberg

You are basing your whole argument on a 9 game stretch of games in 03/04 and 21 game stretch in 05/06.

How dishonest is this post? You’re excluding Forsberg’s entire peak from 2002 to 2005 cause it doesn’t overlap with Sakic’s prime. Be real. This basically disqualifies your entire argument. But for the sake of it, let’s do some in depth with what you put here.

94/95 - Sakic 4th in PPG, Forsberg 19th
You absolutely can not compare an NHL veteran in his prime to a rookie
95/96 - 5th in PPG, Sakic 4th
Forsberg’s sophomore season. Wasn’t considered Avs’ #1C yet, yet already almost produced at peak Sakic level.
96/97 - 5th in PPG, Sakic 0.01 lower before he was injured
97/98 - Forsberg 3rd in PPG, Sakic 17th
Forsberg is 1st team all star
98/99 - About the same but Sakic has the higher PPG. -Forsberg is 1st team all star though
99/00 - Sakic had 2nd best PPG, Forsberg N/A Forsberg came straight out of back surgery and sitting out the first half of the season.
00/01 - Sakic easily better, Forsberg is 21st in PPG before injury, finishes 4th
Forsberg still wasn’t his old self after the surgery and clearly needed to rest up, which he did the next regular season and the rest is history (which you happened to exclude in your post).

You should seriously be ashamed of yourself for posting such dishonest content.

 

[Ben White]

When it comes to the Forsberg vs Sakic comparison, here are som cold hard facts when it comes to their production:

In Sakic best stretch of seasons (his prime) 1989-90 to 2000-01 it looks like this:

In Forsberg’s prime 1995-06 to 2003-04 it looks like this:

Despite playing the entirety in the DPE with MUCH lower scoring than in Sakic’ stretch from ‘89 to ‘94 Forsberg has him beat in both league ranking and per game numbers when comparing prime vs prime. And this is including two seasons where Forsberg was clearly affected from a back surgery which made his numbers drop drastically for 1,5 season + playing through injuries, playing half injured a lot more in general which hurts his per game numbers.

Let’s look at the playoffs. First Sakic’ prime:

Remarkably enough Forsberg still has him beat despite including his rookie season and playing exclusively in the DPE vs Sakic being in his prime and partly playing in a much higher scoring era.

Let’s look at Forsberg’s prime:

Sakic is doing fine but Forsberg has him clearly beat.


And this is only production. I think we all can agree that Forsberg was the better defensive player and physical presence.

And even if we don’t care about +\-, Forsberg leads the entire league in his prime whereas Sakic is nowhere to be found in his. However since +\- is partly a team stat we can exclude the Quebec days, but still Sakic is only at place 14 when only including his prime years in Colorado.

I think we can end the discussion about who was better between the two now. Feel free to share this post whenever you get tangled up in a Sakic vs Forsberg discussion.

 

[Albatros]

Denis Chassé is a name I didn't anticipate seeing, turns out he was money in his only playoff series.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

MVP votings are completely irrelevant

Because they don’t fit your argument.

when evaluating a player who only had three 75+ games played seasons his entire career.

Why did you choose the number 75, I wonder? Forsberg has played 72+ games five times in his prime, yet has a glaring lack of hardware. Auston Matthews won the Hart recently with 73 games played, against McDavid no less.

 

[Ben White]

Because they don’t fit your argument.

Then explain how it’s relevant in this context. One outlier 73 GP Hart from Matthew’s doesn’t change the argument. It’s very difficult to challenge for Hart with 72 GP if you’re up against another worthy candidate who has 82. In 1998 Forsberg is defensively giving Jagr a run for his money for Hart had he played closer to 82.
I would also argue that sophomore Forsberg in ‘96, not yet deployed as Avs’
#1C, is not prime Forsberg in the sense that you could expect him to win a major award. And in 2001 he was clearly affected from his back surgery that had him sit out half of the prior season, I wouldn’t call that version of Forsberg “prime Forsberg”. He could’ve won it in 1999 - no excuses there. But he was voted 1st team all star as best center in the league and had a Conn Smythe worthy playoff run that year. I withhold that it’s unreasonable to think that lack of more hardware is something that can be held against Forsberg given the cards on hand.

In his prime, when healthy, Forsberg only had two seasons, and one borderline (72 GP), where it was realistic for him to even sniff any hardware given the amount of games played. Still he won:
1 Hart Trophy
1 Art Ross
1 Calder
1 plus/minus award
1 Selke runner up
3 times 1st team all star as the leagues best center
2 times unofficial playoff scoring champ (despite not playing in the finals)

Tell me how this resume can be held against him?

 

[daver]

How dishonest is this post? You’re excluding Forsberg’s entire peak from 2002 to 2005 cause it doesn’t overlap with Sakic’s prime. Be real. This basically disqualifies your entire argument. But for the sake of it, let’s do some in depth with what you put here.

You absolutely cannot compare an NHL veteran at their peak to a post-prime player. This basically disqualifies your entire argument.

 

[Ben White]

You absolutely cannot compare an NHL veteran at their peak to a post-prime player. This basically disqualifies your entire argument.

Eh, no, I never ever suggested we should compare overlapping seasons. It was you who suggested that. Overlapping seasons comparisons is only relevant between players of the same age. Check my post above where I compare prime vs prime. This is just ridiculous.

 

[daver]

Eh, no, I never ever suggested we should compare overlapping seasons. It was you who suggested that. Overlapping seasons comparisons is only relevant between players of the same age. Check my post above where I compare prime vs prime. This is just ridiculous.

Prime Joe Sakic was a Top 3/5 scorer. You started his prime at age 20 when he was 10th in scoring and 14th in PPG.

You started Forsberg's at age 22 when he was 5th in scoring.

How is that fair?

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

8th best PPG of all time

Sure he didn't play a lot in his 30's so he doesn't have the benefit of the doubt about being able to keep a good production while aging (but we saw 14 pts in 9 games at 34 y/o after a lot of injuries)

What makes this even better is that he mostly played in the DPE (dead puck era).

But it's not only production, he was a selke level forward and high impact player all over the ice, a true legend.

This guy is very underrated, I don't see him ranked high in all-time list even though he should

Avs won the cup without Forsberg completely. Pens or caps for example don't win any cups without Crosby, Ovechkin, or Malkin. Forsberg may have played in the dpe mostly, but he also played pre salary cap era, and benefited greatly from a stacked team and a stacked line.

 

[Ben White]

Prime Joe Sakic was a Top 3/5 scorer. You started his prime at age 20 when he was 10th in scoring and 14th in PPG.

You started Forsberg's at age 22 when he was 5th in scoring.

How is that fair?

Feel free to start Sakic’ prime from age 22, that will only remove one 109 p season and one 102 p season from his resume, in the super high scoring early 90’s. You’re digging your hole deeper by the post.

 

[Regal]

Avs won the cup without Forsberg completely. Pens or caps for example don't win any cups without Crosby, Ovechkin, or Malkin. Forsberg may have played in the dpe mostly, but he also played pre salary cap era, and benefited greatly from a stacked team and a stacked line.

I wouldn’t say his line was stacked most of the time. He had Nolan as a rookie, then Kamensky and Lemieux for a bit, who were good players but none elite, and then Drury and Deadmarsh for a bit. It wasn’t until his Art Ross year and ‘04 where he played mainly with Hejduk and Tanguay. He played a little with Sakic at ES, mostly in ‘99, but also played with guys like Nieminen some as well. The Avs were a stacked team, and he had better linemates than someone like Malkin, but I don’t think they were particularly strong in comparison to a lot of other top centres.

 

[NordiquesForeva]

I wouldn’t say his line was stacked most of the time. He had Nolan as a rookie, then Kamensky and Lemieux for a bit, who were good players but none elite, and then Drury and Deadmarsh for a bit. It wasn’t until his Art Ross year and ‘04 where he played mainly with Hejduk and Tanguay. He played a little with Sakic at ES, mostly in ‘99, but also played with guys like Nieminen some as well. The Avs were a stacked team, and he had better linemates than someone like Malkin, but I don’t think they were particularly strong in comparison to a lot of other top centres.

I think its fair to say the Avs were stacked at forward but relatively thin at defense in 1996 (and generally for the first part of their lengthy stretch were they were a top contender for the Cup). Then, the opposite for the 2001 Cup when their D (and Roy obviously) was the strength. Their forward depth chart for the 2001 Cup run without Forsberg is pretty ugly relative to DET, NJD, and maybe even DAL at the time.

Kamensky and Lemieux were the better pair of wingers in 1996. Forsberg played with them, and Sakic played with Young and Deadmarsh (a rookie iirc). Kamensky may not have been elite, but he was fairly close to it I'd say. The Avs had a strong 3rd line with Ricci, Keane, and Yelle. The Avs' lines changed annually thereafter. I rewatched some games from their 2000 playoff exit vs. Dallas recently. Forsberg was with Hejduk and Deadmarsh, Sakic centred Drury and Andreychuk on the matchup line. Hartley was kind of all over the place with his lines, much moreso than Crawford was.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

In Sakic best stretch of seasons (his prime) 1989-90 to 2000-01 it looks like this:
View attachment 946040

In Forsberg’s prime 1995-06 to 2003-04 it looks like this:
View attachment 946041

Despite playing the entirety in the DPE with MUCH lower scoring than in Sakic’ stretch from ‘89 to ‘94 Forsberg has him beat in both league ranking and per game numbers when comparing prime vs prime. And this is including two seasons where Forsberg was clearly affected from a back surgery which made his numbers drop drastically for 1,5 season + playing through injuries, playing half injured a lot more in general which hurts his per game numbers.

Let’s look at the playoffs. First Sakic’ prime:
View attachment 946042
Remarkably enough Forsberg still has him beat despite including his rookie season and playing exclusively in the DPE vs Sakic being in his prime and partly playing in a much higher scoring era.

Let’s look at Forsberg’s prime:
View attachment 946043
Sakic is doing fine but Forsberg has him clearly beat.


And this is only production. I think we all can agree that Forsberg was the better defensive player and physical presence.

And even if we don’t care about +\-, Forsberg leads the entire league in his prime whereas Sakic is nowhere to be found in his. However since +\- is partly a team stat we can exclude the Quebec days, but still Sakic is only at place 14 when only including his prime years in Colorado.

I think we can end the discussion about who was better between the two now. Feel free to share this post whenever you get tangled up in a Sakic vs Forsberg discussion.

Just to be clear on what you've done here - you've defined Sakic's prime to include some weaker seasons at the start of his career (including 1992, when he was 14th in scoring, 1993, when he was 17th in scoring, and especially in 1994, when he was 19th in scoring). But you've excluded a year where he was tied for second in scoring (2004), tied for fifth (2002), and tied for sixth (2006).

If we continue down the road of carefully cherry-picking data, during Sakic's best stretch relative to the league, he finished 4th in PPG (he played 555 games over this span):

Your table above shows Forsberg as finishing 3rd in PPG (having played 553 games).

This suggests that they're pretty close. You can certainly argue Forsberg > Sakic on he basis that 4th > 3rd. But it's not close to being a one-sided comparison, as you've suggested.

 

[Xspyrit]

137th in points of all time.

Which biased stat should we go with?

Wait, there's still people who don't understand what PPG is?

There's reasons he only played 708 games, like starting in the NHL at 21 y/o (even though he would have been great at 19 already), the 1994-95 season was shortened due to a lockout, missed a full season due to 3 different surgeries, etc, etc.

It's not complicated, from 1994-95 to 2003-04 (end of the DPE), he was 3rd in PPG behind Lemieux and Jagr and 5th in RAW points despite missing a LOT of games.

Thinking PPG is "bias" in this context is so stupid, I'm not even sure why I am wasting my time responding. What's funny is that you talk about bias but you have 40 posts in this thread alone and by looking at some of them, something seems obvious

If Forsberg was a Selke level forward, he would've, you know, won a Selke at some point.

lmao, I never expect that kind of "response" even though I should

- "something level" doesn't necessarily mean winning. Joel Eriksson Ek never won it but I consider him a Selke level forward (4 top-10 finish in a row). Same for Mark Stone

- don't you think there was a high correlation with the number of games he played?

Avs won the cup without Forsberg completely. Pens or caps for example don't win any cups without Crosby, Ovechkin, or Malkin. Forsberg may have played in the dpe mostly, but he also played pre salary cap era, and benefited greatly from a stacked team and a stacked line.

This as well, no time for "team results" arguments when evaluating individual players.

 

[Ben White]

Just to be clear on what you've done here - you've defined Sakic's prime to include some weaker seasons at the start of his career (including 1992, when he was 14th in scoring, 1993, when he was 17th in scoring, and especially in 1994, when he was 19th in scoring). But you've excluded a year where he was tied for second in scoring (2004), tied for fifth (2002), and tied for sixth (2006).

If we continue down the road of carefully cherry-picking data, during Sakic's best stretch relative to the league, he finished 4th in PPG (he played 555 games over this span):

View attachment 946206

Your table above shows Forsberg as finishing 3rd in PPG (having played 553 games).

This suggests that they're pretty close. You can certainly argue Forsberg > Sakic on he basis that 4th > 3rd. But it's not close to being a one-sided comparison, as you've suggested.

Lol, what? In my table Sakic was averaging 1.29 ppg on yours his on 1.25 ppg. We are comparing their per game production here through their respective primes. It certainly looks like I was the one selecting Sakic’ primer prime after all.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Surely you realize that the NHL was much higher scoring prior to the 1995 lockout. For example, Sakic's 1993 season had a high PPG (1.35), but it wasn't close to being one of his best seasons. He was only 16th in the league in points per game that year! Yet you've included that year (and 1992, which is similar), but you're excluding a year where he was runner-up (tied) for the Art Ross. That's why I'm objecting to how you've defined Sakic's prime. You're using a flimsy rationale to include several of Sakic's weaker seasons, because you're trying to manufacture evidence that supports your preconceived conclusion.

Moreover, I don't think you actually believe what you just argued. If all we're doing is looking where a player ranks in points per game, regardless of the scoring environment, surely you'd rank Mike Bossy, Peter Stastny and Dale Hawerchuk as better players than Peter Forsberg?

(EDIT - just to be clear, I'm not objecting to the conclusion that Forsberg > Sakic. That's certainly a supportable conclusion. I just want to see reasonable, internally consistent arguments).