Is there an argument for Kopitar to be the 3rd best player of his generation behind Crosby/Ovechkin?

[tny760]

Wow so he really should have finished behind Giroux in the hart voting that year good to know.

Showing team GAA while he's on the ice as evidence of his defense. I'm sure his teams offense while he was on the ice lined up as well.

Wait, it was significantly lower than basically all of those players. Interesting.



(also, real GAA has a lot to do with goalies, and Quick/Kuemper were the best goalie duo in the league that year, ESPECIALLY on the PK).


In fact, most metrics use real GF for offense (since individual players have much more control over that, eg being elite snipers), and xGA for defensive metrics (since you can't control the goaltending you get behind you).


Going into his PK metrics, getting 0.924 sv on the PK from your goalies will do that. That's credit that belongs to, again Quick and Kuemper, not kopitar. Hence when quick had a down year the next year, Kopitar (despite giving a virtually identical amount of chances up on the PK), had those PK goal differential against TRIPLE.


But hey, Kopitar has really done a lot for the kings PK over the years compared to Malkin, which is why, checks notes, Pittsburghs PK has outperformed LAs over their time in the league together. Boy does the PK impact of stars get constantly overrated


Malkin got approx 250 ozone starts. Kopitar got approx 220. Don't use %s to try and paint malkin getting 1 shift starting in the ozone every 3 games as some massive boon to his point production

arguing against quick: "system goalie"

arguing against kopitar: "goalie diff"

/shrug

 

[dgibb10]

arguing against quick: "system goalie"

arguing against kopitar: "goalie diff"

/shrug

Who is calling quick a system goalie???

Stop trying to put them in convos they don't belong in and you won't find as many criticisms. When you try to say he's on the level of EVGENI MALKIN, you have to reach a different standard.

 

[Ford Prefect]

As we know, there is a considerable gap between Crosby/Ovechkin and the 3rd player of their generation, which is more commonly argued to be either Malkin or Kane. I feel like a name that often gets forgotten in these discussions is Kopitar.

Kopitar entered the league at the same time as Malkin in 2006-2007, one year before Kane. Here are some of his notable accomplishments.

- Led the Kings in scoring 15 times, which would be good for 3rd place all-time I believe behind only Gretzky (20) and Howe (17) for the number of times leading his team in scoring.
- Has 2 Playoff scoring titles, which is as many as Malkin and one more than Kane.
- Won 2 Selke trophies (Finished top 10, 12 times)
- Has accumulated 16 60+ pts seasons, good for top 10 all time behind only Howe, Gretzky, Ovechkin, Jagr, Francis, Crosby, Sakic, Messier and Dionne. He would probably be only trailing Gretzky, Howe, Ovechkin and Crosby if not for the shortened seasons (2013 lockout, COVID).
- Has built an impressive longevity resume and seems to be aging better than both Malkin and Kane.

His offensive peak might not be as good as Malkin's and Kane's, but he is worlds ahead on the defensive side of the ice, played on a defensive oriented system for most of his career and did not play with any other star teammate on offense (at least for most of his career). Is it enough to be considered the 3rd best player of the 2005 lockout generation ahead of Malkin and Kane? If not currently, can he eventually get there?

Sorry, and where is Patrice Bergeron in this discussion? 6 Selkes beats 2, no? I'd take Patrice over Anze 10 times out of 10.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Sorry, and where is Patrice Bergeron in this discussion? 6 Selkes beats 2, no? I'd take Patrice over Anze 10 times out of 10.

Kopitar has been better than Bergeron for like 15 years lol

 

[Ford Prefect]

Kopitar has been better than Bergeron for like 15 years lol

 

[MOGlLNY]

Sorry, and where is Patrice Bergeron in this discussion? 6 Selkes beats 2, no? I'd take Patrice over Anze 10 times out of 10.

Haven’t watched much Kopitar I take it. What team do you cheer for?

 

[ottawa]

Patrick Kane is very clearly miles ahead of him

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Showing team GAA while he's on the ice as evidence of his defense. I'm sure his teams offense while he was on the ice lined up as well.

Wait, it was significantly lower than basically all of those players. Interesting.

No kidding. Everyone is in agreement that Kopitar isn't as talent offensively as Malkin and most of the other players I mentioned. The point (which you're giving us a perfect demonstration of) is that people often overrate offense (because it's easy to measure) and downplay the impact of good defense.

But hey, Kopitar has really done a lot for the kings PK over the years compared to Malkin, which is why, checks notes, Pittsburghs PK has outperformed LAs over their time in the league together. Boy does the PK impact of stars get constantly overrated

Pittsburgh has been a much better team than LA over then past 20 years. Is it surprising that their penalty kill (which Malkin has barely contributed to) is better too?

Over the course of Kopitar's career, on the penalty kill, the Kings had a 9.44 GAA when Kopitar wasn't on the ice, and a 7.16 GAA when he was. To put that into context - a 7.16 GAA on the PK would have ranked the Kings #1 in the entire league. 9.44 would have ranked them 28th. Seems like he was a very strong penalty killer to me. [EDIT - see comment in post 266 - there was a calculation error here, and I withdraw this comment]

Malkin got approx 250 ozone starts. Kopitar got approx 220. Don't use %s to try and paint malkin getting 1 shift starting in the ozone every 3 games as some massive boon to his point production

The number of zone starts is obviously irrelevant. To see how a coach is deploying a player, you need to look at the percentage. You appear to be quoting 5v5 numbers. In that situation, Malkin's deployment (258 off zone starts, 248 neutral, 102 def) was far more favourable than Kopitar's (225 off, 344 neutral, 243 def). Kopitar had more defensive than offense zone starts, while Malkin had 2.5x as many offensive zone starts. (As I've said several times, Malkin is still the better player, but we can't have an honest discussion about these players without acknowledging the very different roles they have on their teams).

 

[Hockey Outsider]

All sounds good, thx for sharing your reasoning (and 100% agree with you on using actual gf% regardless of how far back xgf goes, which I doubt is even close to 1960). Also seems like you thought about most of the little decisions you were making along the way which is all anyone can ask for.

I don't want to us steer too far off track, but in my view the context in your second to last paragraph might be worth discussing further -- I don't know this for sure but my guess is a lot of good teams have multiple scoring lines with superstars on each one, but of course you have Kariya / Selanne situations (which is probably at least part of the reason why Rucchin shows up here), and I don't know that Kopitar played on a team with a consistently elite second line. Ie prime Mike Richards and / or Jeff Carter are perfectly good players, but not really the same as someone like Mess or Malkin or whoever. And a lot of these guys were pre-cap meaning the possibility of superteams, LA hasn't been bad but not in the same league as pre-cap Colorado / Detroit, Gretzky's Oilers vs Islanders etc.

Anyway if you figure that's worth maybe a couple percentage points, Kopitar's STILL elite with a career at a well above 10% 'tilting the ice' factor while also being matched up against the other teams' top offensive lines for most of his career. Using more standard stats his career Corsi / Fenwick are above 55% (in both reg season and also playoffs), that's absolutely nuts given how he was deployed. Tbf Bergeron's possession numbers are significantly better, but I don't think it's a fair comparison because Marchand and Pasta are obviously far better than Dustin Brown or whoever else has ended up on Kopi's wing.

And then Kopi also played heavy shifts all the time as well.

All that to say he's a damn good 2-way player, one who's still producing at age 37 -- 4 point night in Gm 2. Longevity has to factor in here too but that's a different discussion.

Thanks! I think there's real value in doing a deeper dive into the stats. Every method will have blind spots, and it's fair to discuss those. People sometimes obsess over tiny differences. I would never argue that (for example) that Doug Gilmour > Ron Francis because (per the post that I linked that started this discussion) 12.6% > 12.4%. There's too much noise in the data to make a definitive conclusion like that. But, it's reasonable to conclude that they're both excellent (ie the data is consistent with their reputations), and they're roughly in the same range in terms of how impactful they were.

Thanks so much for doing and then sharing your work! Really enjoyed the convo (especially your Gordie info, changed the way I think about him).

Here's an old post where I talk about what Howe's legacy would have looked like if retired at 35. In some ways, he probably would have had a better reputation (among casual fans), because it's easy to dismiss him as someone who was only pretty good for a long time.

 

[Fatass]

Lead his club to two Cups. Great player for sure. There are arguments for Malkin, Towes, P. Kane, P. Bergeron too. Add in McKinnon and Kucherov.
Great D too, like Hedman, Doughty, Makar.

All guys who led their clubs to cups while being elite at what they do.
Kopitar is (imo) in that group of great players of this era, that’s for sure.

 

[dgibb10]

No kidding. Everyone is in agreement that Kopitar isn't as talent offensively as Malkin and most of the other players I mentioned. The point (which you're giving us a perfect demonstration of) is that people often overrate offense (because it's easy to measure) and downplay the impact of good defense.


Pittsburgh has been a much better team than LA over then past 20 years. Is it surprising that their penalty kill (which Malkin has barely contributed to) is better too?

Over the course of Kopitar's career, on the penalty kill, the Kings had a 9.44 GAA when Kopitar wasn't on the ice, and a 7.16 GAA when he was. To put that into context - a 7.16 GAA on the PK would have ranked the Kings #1 in the entire league. 9.44 would have ranked them 28th. Seems like he was a very strong penalty killer to me.


The number of zone starts is obviously irrelevant. To see how a coach is deploying a player, you need to look at the percentage. You appear to be quoting 5v5 numbers. In that situation, Malkin's deployment (258 off zone starts, 248 neutral, 102 def) was far more favourable than Kopitar's (225 off, 344 neutral, 243 def). Kopitar had more defensive than offense zone starts, while Malkin had 2.5x as many offensive zone starts. (As I've said several times, Malkin is still the better player, but we can't have an honest discussion about these players without acknowledging the very different roles they have on their teams).

Yes, and on the flio side, the fact that defense is not easy to measure, it allows narratives to take over and guys impact there to get overrated (specifically any Center who puts up great but not elite point totals, wins face offs, and kills penalties) and put them into conversations they don't belong in, such as exactly what is being done here trying to put Anze Kopitar in a discussion with Evgeni Malkin.

Kopitar was a GREAT defensive player. But if you actually go and compare him to EVERY defensive player in most of these years (not just the ones who meet a certain points threshold for consideration), his defensive impact doesn't become as impressive

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

No kidding. Everyone is in agreement that Kopitar isn't as talent offensively as Malkin and most of the other players I mentioned. The point (which you're giving us a perfect demonstration of) is that people often overrate offense (because it's easy to measure) and downplay the impact of good defense.

A player who plays the offensive position is going to be judged mostly on their offense. Shocker. Its not like Kopitar is affecting the defensive side of the game in the same manner as a defenseman.

Pittsburgh has been a much better team than LA over then past 20 years. Is it surprising that their penalty kill (which Malkin has barely contributed to) is better too?

The Kings have won 2 cups in the last 20 years. There aren't too many teams that have had more talent or success in the last 20 years than Kings. Splitting hairs here in my opinion.

Over the course of Kopitar's career, on the penalty kill, the Kings had a 9.44 GAA when Kopitar wasn't on the ice, and a 7.16 GAA when he was. To put that into context - a 7.16 GAA on the PK would have ranked the Kings #1 in the entire league. 9.44 would have ranked them 28th. Seems like he was a very strong penalty killer to me.

Source? This isn't verifiable at all and you definitely didn't show your work.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

Yes, and on the flio side, the fact that defense is not easy to measure, it allows narratives to take over and guys impact there to get overrated (specifically any Center who puts up great but not elite point totals, wins face offs, and kills penalties) and put them into conversations they don't belong in, such as exactly what is being done here trying to put Anze Kopitar in a discussion with Evgeni Malkin.

Perfectly said. Good team defense is very system dependent. Also by design, forwards don't impact the game as much defensively as a defenseman. With the way people are talking in this thread, you would think Kopitar moves back to a stay at home defensive position as soon as the puck is dropped and the Kings are playing with 3 blue liners most of the game.

 

[dgibb10]

Over the course of Kopitar's career, on the penalty kill, the Kings had a 9.44 GAA when Kopitar wasn't on the ice, and a 7.16 GAA when he was. To put that into context - a 7.16 GAA on the PK would have ranked the Kings #1 in the entire league. 9.44 would have ranked them 28th. Seems like he was a very strong penalty killer to me.

This doesn't seem to add up since the kings as a whole have given up 6.56 goals/60 while shorthanded since 2007-08, and that number for Kopitar is 7.06.

Please don't lie anymore

 

[Penguin Suited Up]

Yes, and on the flio side, the fact that defense is not easy to measure, it allows narratives to take over and guys impact there to get overrated (specifically any Center who puts up great but not elite point totals, wins face offs, and kills penalties) and put them into conversations they don't belong in, such as exactly what is being done here trying to put Anze Kopitar in a discussion with Evgeni Malkin.

Kopitar was a GREAT defensive player. But if you actually go and compare him to EVERY defensive player in most of these years (not just the ones who meet a certain points threshold for consideration), his defensive impact doesn't become as impressive

This is the post that should end the argument.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Source? This isn't verifiable at all and you definitely didn't show your work.

I was in the process of typing up the calculation, but I found an error. I used team-level data from NHL.com, but I just realized their numbers only went back to 2010. It was an apples-to-oranges comparison (since I'm using Kopitar's full-career TOI, but the Kings' TOI data excluded the first few years, which made their GAA look worse). So I retract my comment - it was factually incorrect to say that Kopitar had such a big impact on the Kings' PK. I've updated post #258 to make it clear that I withdraw that argument.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Perfectly said. Good team defense is very system dependent. Also by design, forwards don't impact the game as much defensively as a defenseman. With the way people are talking in this thread, you would think Kopitar moves back to a stay at home defensive position as soon as the puck is dropped and the Kings are playing with 3 blue liners most of the game.

Agreed, although the Kings under Sutter almost always kept a third forward high in the OZ to prevent any odd man chances.

 

[GoldenSeal]

Dude has literally kicked the clock back bigtime. But no.

 

[Captain Controversy]

I have never seen an argument for Kane over Malkin.

Kopitar, Kane, and Giroux can fight for #4

Erik Karlsson has to be considered at one point.

 

[BraveCanadian]

In over 200 less games played, Malkin has about 80 more points than Kopitar. So no.

Not saying that I think Kopitar is #3, but he’s a vastly better two way player. Reducing things to points only is very simplistic when comparing to a selke winner.

 

[Penguin Suited Up]

Not saying that I think Kopitar is #3, but he’s a vastly better two way player. Reducing things to points only is very simplistic when comparing to a selke winner.

Selke is a completely subjective award given out by a group of writers who can by and large be unreliable in terms of how they vote and are typically not held accountable for how they vote.

Also, Malkin is often underrated for the defensive side of his game. There have been numerous examples of how his commitment on the defensive side lead to offensive opportunities through forcing turnovers. Selke worthy? No. But his offensive capability is untouchable versus Kopitar.

 

[me2]

#4 on that list for mine. I wouldn't call anyone crazy for preferring Kopitar at #3 over Malkin, he's one of the best 2-way centres I've seen. However, Malkin's offensive superiority is just too hard for me to ignore.

 

[Bradely]

Kopitar has been better than Bergeron for like 15 years lol

Appreciation rather than fact. I'll take Bergeron before

 

[Bandit]

How many shifts has Kopitar taken with Crosby in his entire career?

Now do Malkin.

 

[Tacitus Kilgore]

I feel like Karlsson could be in the conversation here too