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Is There a Case For Kucherov > Ovechkin?

User9992 said:
Kuch is better point producer, that's for sure. He already passed Ovi's ans Malkin's record of 100 point seasons with a 5. And many yet to come.

I believe Kucherov's last season was better than any of Ovi's. Even though Kuch is lucky to player with a better players around him than Ovi did.
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Scoring is way up.

Kucherov is a slightly better pt producer but has had the luxury of playing his prime years in an era with higher scoring across the board.

Ovi in 2008 was definitely better than kucherov in 2024.


Overall, there is a very weak case for Kuch > Ovi. It isn't nonexistent, but it's very weak.

Considering ovi is literally going to break gretzkys goal record, there won't be any case for Kucherov career wise. Peak? I still take ovi but some will disagree. But career? Not close
 
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Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer ever, and I really have a hard time putting anybody over someone with that kind of label.

On the flip side, to act like it is impossible is kinda silly too. Since OV's age 31 season (which is where Kucherov is currently), OV won a Cup, 3 Rockets, scored 332 goals (and counting) and 578 points. (Forgive me for any adding mistakes, I added those up by hand, lol).

If Tampa keeps the stars together, I feel like Kucherov really doesn't have much of a ceiling. His game seems like the type that will age well since he plays very slow in the OZ and doesn't rely as much on speed as, say, McDavid or MacKinnon. Still, the back nine of his career is gonna have to be something special to rival OV's.
 
There's no good argument that Ovechkin has been a better player than Kucherov.

Kucherov, eight years younger, already has more standout seasons than Ovechkin has had in his career. And Kucherov is likely going to have a few more.

Kucherov's talent is beautiful and absolutely unique in the history of hockey.

I think most people are just resistant to change. Ovechkin is already firmly established, and likely will always be a bigger name. But Kucherov is better, no doubt.
 
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Staniowski said:
There's no good argument that Ovechkin has been a better player than Kucherov.

Kucherov, eight years younger, already has more standout seasons than Ovechkin has had in his career. And Kucherov is likely going to have a few more.

Kucherov's talent is beautiful and absolutely unique in the history of hockey.

I think most people are just resistant to change. Ovechkin is already firmly established, and likely will always be a bigger name. But Kucherov is better, no doubt.
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He's going to score 900 f***ing goals
 
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Staniowski said:
There's no good argument that Ovechkin has been a better player than Kucherov.

Kucherov, eight years younger, already has more standout seasons than Ovechkin has had in his career. And Kucherov is likely going to have a few more.

Kucherov's talent is beautiful and absolutely unique in the history of hockey.

I think most people are just resistant to change. Ovechkin is already firmly established, and likely will always be a bigger name. But Kucherov is better, no doubt.
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A lot of subjective stuff here that I'm not going to dispute because it's personal opinion, but 13 (and almost certainly 14) seasons scoring 40+ goals is pretty damn standout. Not even counting the shortened seasons in which he was absolutely on fire.
 
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It’s a good debate, however I have to say, I’ve never seen any player as dominant as Kucherov on the ice, he controls the whole play 90% of his ice time, an absolute beast, no invisible shifts
 
User9992 said:
Kuch is better point producer, that's for sure. He already passed Ovi's ans Malkin's record of 100 point seasons with a 5. And many yet to come.

I believe Kucherov's last season was better than any of Ovi's. Even though Kuch is lucky to player with a better players around him than Ovi did.
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I dunno. Take your pick of 2008, 2009, 2010 Ovechkin was unbelievable. The league actively targeted him in 2010 in order to make other players feel safe from his wrath.
 
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Block said:
No, he definitely doesn't mean this season, otherwise he wouldn't have referenced "more standout seasons in his career already".
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We're living in some weird world where, as Ovechkin gets closer to taking over the goals record, people are finding ways to try to make goals seem more and more worthless. It's nuts.

I'm sure someone's going to try to argue that regularly scoring that many goals doesn't lead to team success, but if it's that easy, why hasn't any player on teams that are almost always terrible managed to do what Ovechkin has done?
 
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Imagine if Kuch had Stamkos as his personal cheatcode this season, he'd be damn near pacing for another 100 assist season and 150pts and this whole f***ing Hart talk would be nonexistent smfh

Hear me out, and It may seem like a hot take but mark my words. Kuch in the next couple of seasons will have a season where he finishes with 170 easily. It's only year 1 with Guentzel & Co but once he truly studies, gels, and learns to be fully molded by his teammates (which he already has) and the opposing defences of all other 31 teams. He'll fully replicate the 2024 season but on steroid type level.

We are watching the greatest winger of all time right now, cherish it.
 
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JFedol said:
Imagine if Kuch had Stamkos as his personal cheatcode this season, he'd be damn near pacing for another 100 assist season and 150pts and this whole f***ing Hart talk would be nonexistent smfh

Hear me out, and It may seem like a hot take but mark my words. Kuch in the next couple of seasons will have a season where he finishes with 170 easily. It's only year 1 with Guentzel & Co but once he truly studies, gels, and learns to be fully molded by his teammates (which he already has) and the opposing defences of all other 31 teams. He'll fully replicate the 2024 season but on steroid type level.

We are watching the greatest winger of all time right now, cherish it.
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Pac’s death hit you hard, huh?
 
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Herregud said:
We're living in some weird world where, as Ovechkin gets closer to taking over the goals record, people are finding ways to try to make goals seem more and more worthless. It's nuts.
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It's a law of hockey fandom physics - the higher a Russian player flies, the more desperate the attacks become. In this instance they're going to claim to be clever by favoring another Russian player over the obvious greatest Russian player of all time - just as they did with Malkin at times.

Of course, none of these people are going to put Kucherov or Malkin anywhere near their top 10 all time. The nuttiest of the mainstream Canadian media fairly recently claimed Kucherov wasn't even a top 20 current player in the NHL. These people also claimed Malkin wasn't even a top 100 player of all time (but Toews was).
 
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CactusCap said:
I dunno. Take your pick of 2008, 2009, 2010 Ovechkin was unbelievable. The league actively targeted him in 2010 in order to make other players feel safe from his wrath.
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Kucherov will never have to deal with his own organization overreacting to a playoff anomaly and forcing a successful offensive-minded coach to swap to being a defensive-minded coach. Nor will he have to deal with the follow up of that, which was to fire said coach and follow up with several other coaches tasked with trying to change his play-style.... in his PRIME. All while the league tries to nullify his physicality.
 
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Montreal Shadow said:
Pac’s death hit you hard, huh?
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RIP Makaveli, but what I said was straight facts and I'll be even more correct by 2034-2035. Wayne's record is special and all that, but I'd easily take a possible 9-10 100pt seasons + 3-4 Rosses and another couple MVP's for Kuch over f***ing Rockets that practically amounted to nothing in a vast majority of Ovi's seasons

It's special and once in a lifetime achievement, but a lot of people are overhyping this record IMHO
 
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JFedol said:
RIP Makaveli, but what I said was straight facts and I'll be even more correct by 2034-2035. Wayne's record is special and all that, but I'd easily take a possible 9-10 100pt seasons + 3-4 Rosses and another couple MVP's for Kuch over f***ing Rockets that practically amounted to nothing in a vast majority of Ovi's seasons

It's special and once in a lifetime achievement, but a lot of people are overhyping this record IMHO
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How do you overhype a once in a lifetime achievement exactly?
 
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Midnight Judges said:
It's a law of hockey fandom physics - the higher a Russian player flies, the more desperate the attacks become. In this instance they're going to claim to be clever by favoring another Russian player over the obvious greatest Russian player of all time - just as they did with Malkin at times.

Of course, none of these people are going to put Kucherov or Malkin anywhere near their top 10 all time. The nuttiest of the mainstream Canadian media fairly recently claimed Kucherov wasn't even a top 20 current player in the NHL. These people also claimed Malkin wasn't even a top 100 player of all time (but Toews was).
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I believe Canadian media values intangibles and defensive ability more heavily than most do. That's why Crosby is constantly ranked so high: great defense, leadership, and winning ability. Those things sell to casuals because not everyone is going not dig into the stats, or try to determine the value of a secondary assist etc.
 
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