MacKinnon has 150 points in his last 82 games

[The Panther]

I personally think Kucherov and MacKinnon are as good or better than Crosby and Ovechkin. Other than longevity, what do the elder two have over the younger pair?

 

[Offtheboard412]

I personally think Kucherov and MacKinnon are as good or better than Crosby and Ovechkin. Other than longevity, what do the elder two have over the younger pair?

An Art Ross, 3 Harts, 4 Ted Lindsays, 11 Rocket Richards.

 

[daver]

I personally think Kucherov and MacKinnon are as good or better than Crosby and Ovechkin. Other than longevity, what do the elder two have over the younger pair?

The better question is what do they younger pair have over the elder pair?

Art Rosses? Nope 3 to 2
Harts? Nope 6 to 2
Lindsays? Nope 6 to 2
Rockets? Nope 11 to 0
Cup wins? Nope 4 to 3
Conn Smythes? Nope 3 to 0

Crosby is a legitimate #5 player all-time, Ovechkin is knocking on the Top Ten (I like him right next to Jagr),

Are you saying Kucherov and Mac are Top 5ish players all-time?

 

[Acallabeth]

MacKinnon is in phenomenal form
We've seen star players unable to keep up with their own shorter-stretches pace over a full year, but Nate has already proved his historic level last season. Amazing talent.

‘10 Crosby always gets ignored too. That was an awesome year that just missed the Art Ross and was held back in part due to wingers. His best full year 5v5 probably. Like you could argue Jagr was a bit better in some years than ‘06 or ‘14, but it was roughly the same level and you could do the same with years like ‘10 as well.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that Crosby 'just missed Art Ross' in 2010. He was soundly behind Ovechkin (whose 1st half of that season was absolutely monstrous) and Sedin before padding his stats with ~10 points in 2 last games of the season against the worst team in the conference IIRC. It wasn't like last year's MacKinnon season when he was at times the scoring leader and bested his Art Ross competition in goals.

 

[22FUTON9]

You go to a Mack/ Kucherov thread and all you see is people trying to discredit/take shots at McDavid using their insane seasons. Really lame tbh.

Mack and Kuch are never going to be considered Crosby-Jagr level, just due to how their careers started, but the past 2,3 years they’ve absolutely dominated around the level of peak Jagr and Crosby.

Just ignoring McDavid, and their PPG lead over #3 (Draisaitl) is just around .2 and their lead in PPG in comparison to the 10th best scorer is around .4 (Marner/Matthews)

These numbers are give or take around the same number as Crosby’s number over Malkin (#2 in PPG) and Sedin (#10) As well as Jagr’s number over Sakic (#3 in PPG) and Modano (#10 in PPG)

The time frame you could argue but I think we could all agree that Jagr’s prime was from around 97/98-00/01 and from Crosby anywhere around 07-13 (unless you’re picking a time frame such as 10/11-12/13, which he played 99 games, the numbers are pretty consistent)

The gap is obviously different but Lemieux/McDavid IMO is just on a higher level offensively than all these guys.

 

[bobholly39]

For what it's worth - past 82 games:

Kucherov - 45 goals, 101 assists, 146 points
MacKinnon - 51 goals, 99 assists, 150 points
McDavid - 33 goals, 101 assists, 134 points

Definitely a decent sized gap.

Next one in line:

Panarin - 52 goals, 68 assists, 120 points

 

[tarheelhockey]

Prime Crosby and prime Jagr were clearly more dominant vs. their peers than prime MacKinnon.

There is no reason to think that Crosby and Jagr, in their primes, aren't separating themselves from the pack as they did during their careers.

Again I think every one would agree with this if we are looking at their entire primes. The consistency of a Crosby or Jagr is what separates them from someone like MacKinnon, and same can be said of McDavid.

But if we are looking only at how MacKinnon is playing right now, he is at that Crosby/Jagr level. The reason he hasn’t completely pulled ahead of all his peers is that there are currently a couple of other guys playing at that same level. That’s not MacKinnon’s fault, it’s just a function of timing.

In other words, Crosby or Jagr wouldn't be pulling away from 2023/2024 McDavid or Kucherov either. They happened not to play their best seasons against that kind of competition. It is what it is.

 

[Toby91ca]

Statistically Jagr had 4 seasons at 121+ which would be better than Sid's 120 in 06-07, but then you throw in the argument of how much more difficult it was to score in the late 90s/early 00s are its not really close.

Do you not realize that 2 of the 4 seasons where Jagr scored more than 121 pts were higher scoring years in the NHL as compared to Crosby's 120pts year?

 

[tfwnogf]

The better question is what do they younger pair have over the elder pair?

Art Rosses? Nope 3 to 2
Harts? Nope 6 to 2
Lindsays? Nope 6 to 2
Rockets? Nope 11 to 0
Cup wins? Nope 4 to 3
Conn Smythes? Nope 3 to 0

Crosby is a legitimate #5 player all-time, Ovechkin is knocking on the Top Ten (I like him right next to Jagr),

Are you saying Kucherov and Mac are Top 5ish players all-time?

The fact that daver of all people is using Ovechkin stats to discredit other players is mind boggling, am I in an alternate universe

Anyway, people can see with their eyeballs that Mack and Kuch have along with McDavid been the best 3 forwards of this current generation, and in the last few years Mack and Kuch have essentially caught up with McDavid in terms of scoring prowess. So I think the gap between them and the OG big 3 in Crosby/Ovi/Malkin is quite close.

What do they have over the elder pair? Well for starters 140 point seasons, 100 assists for Kuch/McDavid and more to come since their careers are far from over.

 

[benfranklin]

You can throw in that argument if you want, it's makes zero sense though.

lol "makes zero sense". We quite literally gave it a name, two names actually Dead Puck or Clutch and Grab Era...

The "Dead Puck Era" is a term used to describe a period in the NHL, roughly from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, characterized by low-scoring games, defensive dominance, and a general lack of offensive excitement. During this time, the game became much slower and more focused on neutral zone trapping, preventing scoring, and limiting offensive opportunities.

Here are some of the key factors that contributed to the Dead Puck Era:

1. Defensive Systems:​

• Teams started using highly structured and defensive systems, such as the neutral zone trap, which clogged up the middle of the ice and made it difficult for skilled offensive players to generate scoring chances.
• Coaches like Jacques Lemaire and Larry Robinson became known for implementing systems that prioritized defensive play, making it harder for teams to break through and score.

2. Goaltending:​

• Goaltenders became much more dominant in the Dead Puck Era. The rise of elite goaltenders like Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek, and Patrick Roy coincided with the era's defensive mindset, which made scoring even harder.
• Equipment also played a role in the era's low scoring. Goaltenders' pads, gloves, and other equipment grew larger, making it more difficult for shooters to score.

3. Rulebook:​

• The rules of the game during this period allowed for more physicality and interference, which slowed down the play and gave defenses more opportunities to stop offensive players.
• Clutch-and-grab tactics became widespread, where defenders would hold or interfere with offensive players, disrupting the flow of the game.

4. Scoring Decline:​

• As a result of the combined focus on defense and goaltending, scoring dropped significantly. In the 1990s, the league saw a steady decline in goals per game, with many teams averaging under 3 goals per game.
• The high-scoring, fast-paced style that characterized the 1980s was replaced by a more conservative, low-scoring brand of hockey.

And then right after the lockout coincidentally Sid's first season (not his fault obviously):

The Decline of the Clutch-and-Grab Era:​

The NHL Lockout of 2004-2005 was a turning point for the league and for the clutch-and-grab era. The league and its players recognized that this style of play had led to a stagnation in the product on the ice, with too many low-scoring games and a lack of offensive excitement. In response to this, several significant rule changes were implemented after the lockout:

• Cracking down on obstruction: The NHL started enforcing stricter penalties for interference, hooking, holding, and other obstruction tactics, making it more difficult for defenders to impede players.
• The introduction of the two-line pass rule: This rule, which had been eliminated in the early 2000s, was reintroduced to help open up the game and encourage longer, more fluid plays, counteracting the neutral-zone trap.
• Increased penalties for holding and hooking: Officials were instructed to call these penalties more strictly, which made it harder for defenders to grab or hold offensive players.
• Larger nets and new goalie equipment regulations: The NHL also took steps to increase scoring opportunities, such as making the nets slightly larger and reducing the size of goaltenders’ equipment to help shooters score more easily.

These changes led to a shift in the game towards a faster, more wide-open style, and helped to end the Clutch-and-Grab Era. The 2005-2006 season and beyond saw an uptick in scoring, as well as a more skill-oriented, entertaining product that appealed to fans and helped modernize the NHL.

 

[benfranklin]

Do you not realize that 2 of the 4 seasons where Jagr scored more than 121 pts were higher scoring years in the NHL as compared to Crosby's 120pts year?

05-06 and 06-07 can be looked at the same for Jagr and Crosby since therye obviously 1 year apart.

The other being 95-96 since for whatever reason you didnt want to mention it and make me do the work, which was the end of the crazy scoring/beginning of the dead puck era.

98-99 and 00-01 had dramatically less scoring so domination Jagr.

95-96: 6408
98-99: 5266
00-01: 5230
05-06: 6012
06-07: 6039
13-14: 5923

I dont quite understand the point of downplaying 95-96 for being crazy scoring, but ignoring 98-99 and 00-01 for being dramatically down in scoring, which obviously makes what Jagr accomplished that much more special.

fascinating

If you're using the word "fascinating" sarcastically in a response, it still follows the general rule of capitalization:

• Capitalize it only if it's the first word of a sentence.

For example:

• "Fascinating!" (capitalized because it's the start of the sentence)
• "That’s fascinating." (not capitalized because it’s in the middle of the sentence)

The sarcastic tone doesn’t affect the capitalization rule. It’s purely based on where the word appears in the sentence. So, if you're at the start of a sentence, capitalize it, but if it's in the middle, leave it lowercase.

 

[BlueAzN]

Trade him, he's already peaked. Only downhill from here!

 

[HF007]

More impressive than mcpowerplay’s 153 (which seemed untouchable), Mac K plays a more aggressive style too

 

[Toby91ca]

I personally think Kucherov and MacKinnon are as good or better than Crosby and Ovechkin. Other than longevity, what do the elder two have over the younger pair?

So, super recency bias is probably the problem here.

At the same age vs. MacKinnon:

- MacKinnon = 791gp, 899pts, 1.14ppg
- Crosby = 70gp, 933pts, 1.33ppg

At the same age vs. Kucherov:

- Kucherov = 725gp, 873pts, 1.20ppg
- Crosby = 864gp, 1,116pts, 1.29ppg

So, even with all his injury trouble that hit when he was just starting to dominate the league, he still has more raw points than both at this points in their respective careers and Crosby did that during a much lower scoring era.

Also, looking at where they finish in the scoring in terms of raw points and PPG:

Points:

- Number 1 - Crosby (2), Mack (0), Kuch (2)
- Top 2 - Crosby (3), Mack (1), Kuch (2)
- Top 3 - Crosby (8), Mack (3), Kuch (4)
- Top 4 - Crosby (9), Mack (3), Kuch (4)
- Top 6 - Crosby (10), Mack (4), Kuch (5)

PPG:

- Number 1 - Crosby (6), Mack (0), Kuch (2)
- Top 2 - Crosby (8), Mack (1), Kuch (3)
- Top 3 - Crosby (9), Mack (3), Kuch (3)
- Top 5 - Crosby (11), Mack (5), Kuch (6)
- Top 6 - Crosby (12), Mack (6), Kuch (6)

This is just on offensive production as well....I think most would separate Crosby from these two for various other reasons.

 

[Randyne]

Harts? Nope 6 to 2

NHL secretly returned to Ovechkin stolen 4th Hart?

 

[Toby91ca]

05-06 and 06-07 can be looked at the same for Jagr and Crosby since therye obviously 1 year apart.

The other being 95-96 since for whatever reason you didnt want to mention it and make me do the work, which was the end of the crazy scoring/beginning of the dead puck era.

98-99 and 00-01 had dramatically less scoring so domination Jagr.

95-96: 6408
98-99: 5266
00-01: 5230
05-06: 6012
06-07: 6039
13-14: 5923

I dont quite understand the point of downplaying 95-96 for being crazy scoring, but ignoring 98-99 and 00-01 for being dramatically down in scoring, which obviously makes what Jagr accomplished that much more special.

Few points here:

1 - you can look at 05/06 the same as 06/07 because they are only a year apart but it doesn't change the fact that 05/06 was higher scoring...not my much, but 4-5%. Also, I can't imagine you'll find many people who think Jagr's 05/06 season was better than Crosby's 06/07.

2 - I was making a simple statement that 2 of the 4 years that Jagr scored more than Crosby's 120pts were in higher scoring years overall, so I disagree that 2 of those 4 are better. I'm fine with the other 2 being considered better, so I didn't ignore anything, 95/96 is better than Crosby's 06/07.

3 - Following....I wasn't ignoring 98/99 or 00/01, I wouldn't argue those could be considered better, so those 2 years along with 95/96....that makes 3. I was simply not quite on board with Jagr having 5 seasons better than any season Crosby's ever had.

 

[AvroArrow]

lol can't even do it in a full season, have to use stats from 2 different seasons, doesn't count

Joke obviously, that is insane production. Genuine question, how big is the gap, if there is one, between McDavid and then Kucherov/Mackinnon ?

 

[Regal]

MacKinnon is in phenomenal form
We've seen star players unable to keep up with their own shorter-stretches pace over a full year, but Nate has already proved his historic level last season. Amazing talent.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that Crosby 'just missed Art Ross' in 2010. He was soundly behind Ovechkin (whose 1st half of that season was absolutely monstrous) and Sedin before padding his stats with ~10 points in 2 last games of the season against the worst team in the conference IIRC. It wasn't like last year's MacKinnon season when he was at times the scoring leader and bested his Art Ross competition in goals.

He had 9 in 2 games against the NYI in the final 3 games of the year (he had 0 in the game in between), but they weren’t blowout points. In the first game he had a primary assist to make it 2-0, a goal to make it 4-2, a primary assist to make it 5-3, all in the first two periods. Only his 4th point wasn’t that important as the second assist on the 7-3 goal. The final game of the year was a 6-5 OT win, so all of his 5 points were needed. They were also battling the Devils for the division lead at the time so the first game wasn’t meaningless. I believe the second one was because they could have tied in points but the Devils had the tiebreaker, but I also don’t see why a team shouldn’t be trying to win every game.

I get what you’re saying in that it’s hard to say he “just missed” because he was always catching up, rather than trading leads, but it was more about the fact that he was only 3 points away. He had a slow start that year and came on strong in the second half, so it took awhile to move up the leaderboards, but he was also top 3 for a good chunk of the year and was tied with Sedin as late as March 6th. He also had 39 goals and 84 points in his final 55 games, which wasn’t far off Ovechkin’s pre-Olympics (42 goals, 89 points in his first 53 games).

 

[Romang67]

More impressive than mcpowerplay’s 153 (which seemed untouchable), Mac K plays a more aggressive style too

How so? MacKinnon played about 50 minutes more on the PP last season than McDavid did in his 153 point season. He was just much worse at scoring points on the PP than McDavid.

 

[HF007]

How so? MacKinnon played about 50 minutes more on the PP last season than McDavid did in his 153 point season. He was just much worse at scoring points on the PP than McDavid.

But way better at even strength scoring

 

[Romang67]

I personally think Kucherov and MacKinnon are as good or better than Crosby and Ovechkin. Other than longevity, what do the elder two have over the younger pair?

MacKinnon didn't crack 80 points until 5 years after he was drafted. Kucherov did it 6 seasons after he was drafted.

 

[Romang67]

But way better at even strength scoring

So? Are the goals worth more 5v5 than they are on the PP?

Did it help Colorado than MacKinnon scored 33 points less than McDavid on the PP with 30 minutes less PP time over the full 22/23 season because he scored many points 5v5?

 

[benfranklin]

Few points here:

1 - you can look at 05/06 the same as 06/07 because they are only a year apart but it doesn't change the fact that 05/06 was higher scoring...not my much, but 4-5%. Also, I can't imagine you'll find many people who think Jagr's 05/06 season was better than Crosby's 06/07.

2 - I was making a simple statement that 2 of the 4 years that Jagr scored more than Crosby's 120pts were in higher scoring years overall, so I disagree that 2 of those 4 are better. I'm fine with the other 2 being considered better, so I didn't ignore anything, 95/96 is better than Crosby's 06/07.

3 - Following....I wasn't ignoring 98/99 or 00/01, I wouldn't argue those could be considered better, so those 2 years along with 95/96....that makes 3. I was simply not quite on board with Jagr having 5 seasons better than any season Crosby's ever had.

1. I wasnt one to start the argument of 05-06 vs 06-07, and I love love love both Jagr and Crosby, but will attempt to statistically go there.
A. Age/Experience. 33-34yo Jagr vs 20yo Crosby. Can argue both sides there but id lean towards older being tougher to perform.
B. Teammates. Nylander/Straka/Rucinsky/Prucha or Malikn/Recchi/Staal/Gonchar. Both teams were pretty meh, but obviously a rookie Malkin is no joke.
C. Stats. Pretty similar across the board except Jagr took dramatically more shots (same shooting % though) so more goals to Sid's more assists.

Summary is Id still say both are equal, but if you had to split hairs, id def say baby Malkin >>>> anything the Rangers had to work with. Id like to see what type of ES ice time they had together.

2. Ok

3. Im with you for the most part especially if we take into consideration playoffs and how important Sid was there winning Cups vs Jagrs 2 as a rookie/sophomore. He was still important but not as much as Sid was to his.

IMO both are top 10 players to ever play the game and I didnt say the 5 comment initially and only pointed out that 4 statistically were higher purely points based. 1 is equal splitting hairs, 2 are higher in tougher eras, 1 isnt. So then in summary Jagr had 2 seasons that are inarguable better than any Sid has ever has, 1 being arguable, and ultimately not 5.

 

[daver]

These changes led to a shift in the game towards a faster, more wide-open style, and helped to end the Clutch-and-Grab Era. The 2005-2006 season and beyond saw an uptick in scoring, as well as a more skill-oriented, entertaining product that appealed to fans and helped modernize the NHL.

The uptick was exclusively due to PPs being called not scoring in general increasing. 2011 to 2017 saw more low point totals from the elite scorers than the DPE '97 to '04.

Crosby's peak level of play and Jagr's (and McDavid's) are close. It's strange that two players Mac and Kucherov had the seasons they did last year given they weren't seen as being that close to the calibre of those three players before.

 

[daver]

05-06 and 06-07 can be looked at the same for Jagr and Crosby since therye obviously 1 year apart.

The other being 95-96 since for whatever reason you didnt want to mention it and make me do the work, which was the end of the crazy scoring/beginning of the dead puck era.

98-99 and 00-01 had dramatically less scoring so domination Jagr.

95-96: 6408
98-99: 5266
00-01: 5230
05-06: 6012
06-07: 6039
13-14: 5923

What are these numbers?

Here are the league GPGs:

NHL League Averages | Hockey-Reference.com

Check out the latest NHL League Averages including shots, saves, goal averages and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

98/99 - 2.63
00/01 - 2.74
13/14 - 2.74

Notice the number of PPs in 13/14, the scoring environment for the elite scorers was even lower in that year, and in the years before and after due to less PPs being called.

Jagr has one season, without Mario, in 98/99, that was clearly better than Crosby's best full season. Their per game domination was similar, as it is to McDavid's.

A. Age/Experience. 33-34yo Jagr vs 20yo Crosby. Can argue both sides there but id lean towards older being tougher to perform.

Crosby was 19, the only teenager in NA sports history to win a scoring title.