Kopitar vs Bergeron

[bearcountry17]

Kopitar has:

-The better peak
-The better prime
-Better playoff runs
-More Cups
-Much better offensively
-Relied on to provide both primary offense and defense

The only thing Bergeron has over Kopitar is defense. And Kopitar is a great defensive player in his own right.

If Kopitar had the luxury of being able to focus more on defense because he had other offensive players to lead the way like Bergeron did, then the Selke gap would be minuscule at best.

If averaging 6 more points a year is much better offensively than I think we can call Bergeron the better goal scorer averaging 2 more goals a season.

 

[wetcoast]

I love Bergeron but Kopitar has been carrying that king's offense for over a decade while playing incredible 2 way hockey. Just a more dominant overall player.

Came here to say this but some will say the 6-2 difference in Selke's means more and then skip over the production difference with Kopitar having 101 more points in 2 less games played.

What I really wonder for the people that took Bergeron is can Kopitar pass him with a repeat of last seasons or are their minds set here?

I also think and history also shows that being the #1 center on 2 SC teams and having Smythe worthy runs both years is simply more than Bergeron brings to the playoff resume.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

It is Kopitar.

 

[wetcoast]

If Kopitar played in the East he would be winning this by a landslide

The home road splits is really an advantage for Kopitar and he also has the travel issue while Bergeron played in the same time zone for a ton of road games.

on the road

Bergeron 639-200-281-481
Kopitar 645-190-335-525

 

[wetcoast]

I apologize if that’s the case because I’m honestly being genuine.

I’m apologizing because there has been countless replies to my comment with people not happy.

I think the problem was your first post in this thread where you stated this,

Definitely Bergeron on both accounts.


Think of a new poll, because this ones ending fast

Even if you are a complete Bergeron guy this is disrespectful to Kopitar in a huge way.

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

If Kopitar played in the East he would be winning this by a landslide

Unlikely at best. This is an excuse.

 

[LightningStorm]

Kopitar simply brings more to the table than Bergeron. While Bergeron has the edge on defense, Kopitar still is a Selke level defender. Scoring wise though Kopitar has the edge, in spite of Bergeron playing with much more talented wingers. Definitely the same tier of player, but Kopitar is better.

 

[hamzarocks]

I’ll drink to that. Best player of his generation

Holy f*** datsyuk overrating is still strong a near decade after retirment

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

Kopitar almost won a Hart. Bergeron never got to that level.

Bergeron spent a career dominating Hart caliber centers head to head with relative ease.

 

[unicornpig]

Unlikely at best. This is an excuse.

let me reiterate how clueless east coast fans are. prime example

 

[Johnny Tomala]

Better career Bergeron, better player Kopitar.

 

[PB37]

let me reiterate how clueless east coast fans are. prime example

You keep reiterating it but it's still as weak of an excuse as the first time you said it.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Bergeron spent a career dominating Hart caliber centers head to head with relative ease.

Yeah dude great Selke defense but not a great offensive player. Kopitar at his best was better than Bergeron at his.

 

[TomBlizzy12]

Kopitar based off style alone

Nobody else can wear a tinted visor like he does

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

We're ranking overall careers, no? Maybe at his best Kopitar was quite good defensively, but for career:

Bergeron has 6 Selkes, 12 straight top 3 finishes and 14x in the top 5
Kopitar has 2 Selkes, 5x top 5, 6x top 5

Without digging too deep into defensive stats - this seems like a pretty big defensive edge to Bergeron. Unless you think Kopitar didn't get enough selke recognition, or that Bergeron's was unwarranted.

I agree on Kopitar having an edge offensively.

The boldfaced is the thing. It's not that any of Bergeron's recognition was unwarranted; it's that Kopitar was either a finalist or completely overlooked most years. See Drew Doughty's early career for similar phenomena where it's like every writer east of the Mississippi and north of the border finally went 'oh this guy is actually pretty good' and subsequently pissed everyone off because they thought he was some flavor of the month when it's actually sustained, ignored top-3 excellence.

Two of the classiest players in the league over their careers, I have zero doubt if Kopitar was playing on an O6/Canadian/East Coast team he would be getting MUCh more recognition for what he's done. I don't think Bergeron is overrated, but i DO think Kopitar is just that underrated for being Mr. Everything on the Kings for 17 years. You can see it when people talk about Bergeron as a surefire first ballot HOFer while when Kopitar's name comes up it gets questioned.

I actually think it's less about the Selkes and more about the offensive/200 ft prowess. It almost didn't matter who you lined up next to Kopitar or how he was started or used, he's played almost every single game of his long career with the most season-to-season consistency...I think we're overlooking his health/raw durability hard minutes played here. Forgive me but Bergeron is getting a LOT of production credit for a lot of seasons he didn't complete--there's not one single 82 game season there where Kopitar has rarely missed even more than a single game in a season while playing 2 more minutes per game. If we're talking about pretty thin margins here--which I think we are--that has to matter re: career legacy.

 

[wintersej]

If we are going to get into what if, I don’t think enough is made of how Claude Julien used Patrice Bergeron.

Let’s look at the PP. In the two seasons before Julien took over Bergeron had 29 and then 38 points on the PP.

In the next ten years under Julien he never got above 14 points. Heck he scored 14 PP goals his last season before Julien took over and in the next 6 seasons after had 13 PP goals TOTAL. Julien’s use of Bergeron (and Marchand) on the PP during his time in Boston was malpractice.

Bergeron had 641 games under Julien and scored 463 points. This covered his 22 to 32 year old seasons. Away from Julien, 653 games and 577 points. Somehow when Bergeron was under 22 and older than 32 he was way better offensively. There are of course crazy ass concussion and Pastrnak things effecting this outside of Julien, but Bergeron was just used to extremely defensively in those Julien years.

Sadly, how the datasets are I can’t compare all of the Julien era on naturalstattrick, but I can look at 2008-2012 as an example. In those years Bergeron had more than 300 more defensive zone faceoffs than Kopitar and 200 more starts with the puck already in the d-zone when the shift began. Kopitar played the minutes of a regular #1C. Bergeron was buried like few players in NHL history. Despite that, Kopitar gave up 20% more 5 on 5 goals over those years. And these were not the bad recent Kings years, these are the years the Kings were contenders. Frankly, I don’t think it’s as close defensively as Kopitar supporters want to propose and the “what about its” should be more about Bergeron’s offense under Julien than Canadian media bias.

That being said, Bergeron was never the puck carrier in the offensive zone and playmaker that Kopitar is. Bergeron was really better when there was someone else to be the puck distributor in the offensive zone. Bergeron’s game was “defend, take puck, give to friend with big nose, get open for shots while friend does stuff, cheat to get back on defense”. Kopitar didn’t need a friend in the offensive zone.

If we want to talk about what things would have been like if these guys switched, I don’t think Marchand and Kopitar would have been nearly as effective as a duo as Bergeron and Marchand. And I don’t think Bergeron would have had as much 5 on 5 success with guys like Brown and Williams. Who knows what Julien would have done with Kopitar on the PP, but I can be sure that Bergeron would have been able to go back to scoring 30 points on the PP instead of 10 if he got away from Julien.