Nikita Kucherov is the clear favorite for the Art Ross Trophy

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Yep, they’re in here ripping Crosby fans for giving him hypothetical Art Rosses, but then start giving McD an imaginary Smyth.

Ryan Smyth is coming back?

 

[Strangle]

I'm going to award McDavid 4 theoretical Stanley Cups. So sure Crosby has the pretend Art Ross race locked up, but Mcdavid is crushing him in thought experiment team success.

And that's what a true leader does.

Well if you adjust Stanley cups over eras, McDavid’s performance is about 3.57 Stanley cups over his career.

Trust me, I adjusted these stats myself

 

[Video Nasty]

Yep, they’re in here ripping Crosby fans for giving him hypothetical Art Rosses, but then start giving McD an imaginary Smyth.

Feel free to quote me directly.

Reread my post. I wasn’t giving him a hypothetical Conn Smythe. I was cautioning Nathaniel calling the results on a season that is not even half finished. I know you’re both used to projecting what a player does after 20-40 games and pretending it is the final result, but it doesn’t apply here.

This is a season in progress. We’re commenting on what we’re seeing in real time with an unknown final result, not fantasizing about what could have been.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Dude stop comparing Crosby to Mcdavid

Crosby is a tier below

Mcdavid does everything at a higher level then Crosby did.

Crosbys age 27-32 seasons werw heavy disapointments for a guy who was supposed to be a GOAT level talent.

Injuries could be the result maybe, but Mcdavid looks like he will destroy Crosby's 27 to 32 year seasons as he has no weakness in his game.

27-32
Scoring finishes 2,3,3,5,10,10
Hart, 2,2,2,4,5
2x smythe
World cup mvp.

Yeah what bum.

That right there is a better career than. Drai, mackinnion etc have had in their early to mid twenties

 

[Golden_Jet]

27-32
Scoring finishes 2,3,3,5,10,10
Hart, 2,2,2,4,5
2x smythe
World cup mvp.

Yeah what bum.

That right there is a better career than. Drai, mackinnion etc have had in their early to mid twenties

lol, shouldn’t you compare the same age groups.

 

[hamzarocks]

27-32
Scoring finishes 2,3,3,5,10,10
Hart, 2,2,2,4,5
2x smythe
World cup mvp.

Yeah what bum.

That right there is a better career than. Drai, mackinnion etc have had in their early to mid twenties

World cup mvp is a fake award for a fake tourney

His 27-32 years he was supposed to win 2-3 rosses + harts + lindsays and failed

Mackinnon finshes 27-now

Age 27:

scoring 3rd (3rd ppg and believe pts too)
Hart: 5th

Age 28:

Scoring: 2nd so far, in race for 1st
Hart: looking to be top 3 for sure.

Mackinnon is matching/exceeding crosby in his age 27 and 28 seasons so far.

Draisaitl got less hart votes than he deserved in 2023. Should have been top 5. But yeah, he is hacing a hprrific season production wise this year. If he doesnt heat up, he falls out the Mack, Kuch, tier of players


Mackinnon has also come 2nd, 6th, 2nd, and 3rd in hart from 2018 to 2021 years and got robbed of any hart votes for some reason in 2022 when he had 88 in 65 games (like 6th or 7th in scoring pace wise)

My pt is Crosby should have been trending higher than Mackinnon was. His prime was supposed to last till 31/32 but he failed to capture any awards during that

Not good enough for a guy suppised to be 5th all time. His 27-32 years drop him to 6th to 10th all time

 

[WalterLundy]

You’re trying to say that talent disparity doesn’t exist over time in the league.

Your stance sounds like you think talent should be normalized through stat adjustment?

That’s just a crazy thought to me.

Yes, some players are better. Yes sometimes players in the league are better than previous, or worse. I mean, it’s not earth shattering to see that player performance isn’t normalized over time.

Gretzky screwed all this up for newer fans. They took one look at his stats and said ‘hm, somethings wrong here. Let me just open up excel and…. Bam! Okay! Goalie equipment’

Really can’t agree more. It’s just laziness, delusion and the belief that the best player has to be playing in your generation. I lived it and know what I saw. Gretzky’s games are available on YouTube and even if the game is better now than in his prime he would still very easily be the best player now. Every shift he changes everything. The amount of chances he generates are obviously unparalleled regardless of era.

It just comes down to wanting to dismiss it all. Sure I think the league is deeper now but the elite talent from the 80s and 90s would thrive today and if given the opportunity to grow up the way this generation did, would be even better than today’s elite (especially Gretzky).

Jan 1 1980 to Dec 31 1989 NHL leaders

Gretzky: 778 GP: 1864 PTS
(637 G, 1227 A)
Stastny: 709 GP: 1024 PTS
Kurri: 715 GP: 997 PTS


In terms of per 82 game season averages for the 80s

Gretzky: 197 P
Lemieux: 160 P (406 games)
Bossy: 125 P

He scored 600+ goals in a decade where nobody else scored 500 and had 200 more assists than anyone else had total points. The second greatest offensive player ever is gapped by 37 and the rest of the best guys are between 100s and Bossy’s 125. People can crap on the 80s and early 90s all they want but they only do so to rationalize what they can’t comprehend (Gretzky’s prime). It’s dominance that sports just doesn’t see. Even if you “adjust”, which is so stupid on its face, Gretzky in the 80s (the 1864 in 778) would be equivalent (with G/GP) to someone averaging 150 points per 82 from 2012-13 to 2022-23 when the closest person that played 2012-13 to 2022-23 in its entirety per 82 was Crosby with 97. For total points it’s Gretzky at 1423 and Crosby at 893 in that span. His assists alone would be 936 and enough to lead that range off of alone.

If that wasn’t enough he decided to lead the 1990s in points as well. He did this as a 28-38 year old that played age 30 onward on mostly on average-bad teams with back problems that took away his best ever Even strength production and goal scoring as an already declining player past his prime.

Jan 1 1990 to Dec 31 1999 NHL leaders

Gretzky: 675 GP: 940 PTS
Jagr: 697 GP: 928 PTS
Oates: 717 GP: 902 PTS

Per 82 averages for 1990s players that appeared in roughly the entire decade:

Gretzky: 114 P
Jagr: 109 P
Sakic: 104 P

That should be proof of just how great he is. It just comes down to younger people who didn’t see his prime wanting to rationalize it or people who are fans of other players that he stands in the way of as an immovable figure/player.

With that said (and back to the topic) this Ross race should still be great. Kucherov, MacKinnon and McDavid all have a good shot.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

World cup mvp is a fake award for a fake tourney

His 27-32 years he was supposed to win 2-3 rosses + harts + lindsays and failed

Mackinnon finshes 27-now

Age 27:

scoring 3rd (3rd ppg and believe pts too)
Hart: 5th

Age 28:

Scoring: 2nd so far, in race for 1st
Hart: looking to be top 3 for sure.

Mackinnon is matching/exceeding crosby in his age 27 and 28 seasons so far.

Draisaitl got less hart votes than he deserved in 2023. Should have been top 5. But yeah, he is hacing a hprrific season production wise this year. If he doesnt heat up, he falls out the Mack, Kuch, tier of players


Mackinnon has also come 2nd, 6th, 2nd, and 3rd in hart from 2018 to 2021 years and got robbed of any hart votes for some reason in 2022 when he had 88 in 65 games (like 6th or 7th in scoring pace wise)

My pt is Crosby should have been trending higher than Mackinnon was. His prime was supposed to last till 31/32 but he failed to capture any awards during that

Not good enough for a guy suppised to be 5th all time. His 27-32 years drop him to 6th to 10th all time

For Crosby to have a better career 27-32 than a player like mackinnion from 22-27 says all you need to know about Crosby lol

 

[AndreRoy]

Kucherov had one ppg year, I think in 16-17.

Kucherov was still young and trending upward at the time; he reached the PPG level for the first time the season *before* the equipment change and has remained well above that level since then. It’s not like he’d been around for ages and couldn’t score a PPG until the goalie gear shrunk.

Kuch’s PPG:
2013-14: 0.35
2014-15: 0.79
2015-16: 0.86
2016-17: 1.15
2017-18: 1.25

Nothing about that time series indicates a major leap forward due to the equipment change. To the contrary, Kuch’s biggest improvements to that point were between his first and second season and between his third and fourth - his improvement the year the goalie equipment changed was the second-smallest of his career at the time and very much within the realm of natural progression.

In short, Kuch was going to be the generational player that he is regardless of pad sizes.

 

[AndreRoy]

Really can’t agree more. It’s just laziness, delusion and the belief that the best player has to be playing in your generation. I lived it and know what I saw. Gretzky’s games are available on YouTube and even if the game is better now than in his prime he would still very easily be the best player now. Every shift he changes everything. The amount of chances he generates are obviously unparalleled regardless of era.

It just comes down to wanting to dismiss it all. Sure I think the league is deeper now but the elite talent from the 80s and 90s would thrive today and if given the opportunity to grow up the way this generation did, would be even better (especially Gretzky).

Jan 1 1980 to Dec 31 1989 NHL leaders

Gretzky: 778 GP: 1864 PTS
(637 G, 1227 A)
Stastny: 709 GP: 1024 PTS
Kurri: 715 GP: 997 PTS


In terms of per 82 game season averages for the 80s

Gretzky: 197 P
Lemieux: 160 P (406 games)
Bossy: 125 P

He scored 600+ goals in a decade where nobody else scored 500 and had 200 more assists than anyone else had total points. The second greatest offensive player ever is gapped by 37 and the rest of the best guys are between 100s and Bossy’s 125. People can crap on the 80s and early 90s all they want but they only do so to rationalize what they can’t comprehend (Gretzky’s prime). It’s dominance that sports just doesn’t see. Even if you “adjust”, which is so stupid on its face, Gretzky in the 80s (the 1864 in 778) would be equivalent (with G/GP) to someone averaging 150 points per 82 from 2012-13 to 2022-23 when the closest person that played 2012-13 to 2022-23 in its entirety per 82 was Crosby with 97. For total points it’s Gretzky at 1423 and Crosby at 893 in that span.

If that wasn’t enough he decided to lead the 1990s in points as well. He did this as a 28-38 year old that played age 30 onward on mostly on average-bad teams with back problems that took away his best ever Even strength production and goal scoring as an already declining player past his prime.

Jan 1 1990 to Dec 31 1999 NHL leaders

Gretzky: 675 GP: 940 PTS
Jagr: 697 GP: 928 PTS
Oates: 717 GP: 902 PTS

Per 82 averages for 1990s players that appeared in roughly the entire decade:

Gretzky: 114 P
Jagr: 109 P
Sakic: 104 P

That should be proof of just how great he is. It just comes down to younger people who didn’t see his prime wanting to rationalize it or people who are fans of other players that he stands in the way of as an immovable figure/player.

With that said (and back to the topic) this Ross race should still be great. Kucherov, MacKinnon and McDavid all have a good shot.

Yeah, none of the current players being talked about in this thread merit serious comparison with Gretzky, and anybody who says they do probably wasn’t alive to see him play. Very few athletes in the entire history of sports can make a case for being as dominant: Babe Ruth is the only other from a major team sport, and then there are a small handful of Olympians for whom you could maybe make a case. Nobody in the league today is anywhere near that level and I doubt we’ll see his like again in our lifetimes.

 

[Strangle]

Yeah, none of the current players being talked about in this thread merit serious comparison with Gretzky, and anybody who says they do probably wasn’t alive to see him play. Very few athletes in the entire history of sports can make a case for being as dominant: Babe Ruth is the only other from a major team sport, and then there are a small handful of Olympians for whom you could maybe make a case. Nobody in the league today is anywhere near that level and I doubt we’ll see his like again in our lifetimes.

You’re looking at people like 20yo Mike Tyson, babe Ruth, Ali, Micheal Jordan (new fans love to argue Lebron, but it’s not close)

It’s almost like saying Micheal Jackson wasn’t the king of pop because Justin Timberlake sold a lot of records, but with adjusting record sales and a bunch of other no -sense, Timberlake is just as good

 

[PaulD]

it helps that Tampa has still played 5 more games this season than Edmonton has so far, that's like half the gap right there

can Kucherov win the Art Ross this year? maybe, but he can't slow down and it will probably require him to hit a new career high in points

Connor will use those 5 game to catch Kucherov. Then he will pass him.

 

[Martin Skoula]

You’re trying to say that talent disparity doesn’t exist over time in the league.

Your stance sounds like you think talent should be normalized through stat adjustment?

That’s just a crazy thought to me.

Yes, some players are better. Yes sometimes players in the league are better than previous, or worse. I mean, it’s not earth shattering to see that player performance isn’t normalized over time.

Gretzky screwed all this up for newer fans. They took one look at his stats and said ‘hm, somethings wrong here. Let me just open up excel and…. Bam! Okay! Goalie equipment’

Of the top 50 highest ever scoring individual seasons, 40 of them came from players between 1980 and 1995. It’s not just Gretzky, it appears that 80% of the best players in history were all born in the same decade and all had their career peaks at the exact same time for reasons that are 100% personal and 0% related to league rules. It has nothing to do with defense and goaltending being a joke, and the dead puck era that followed was just because Gretzky got old and single handedly tanked offensive numbers for the league.

 

[StoveTopStauffer]

Yeah, none of the current players being talked about in this thread merit serious comparison with Gretzky, and anybody who says they do probably wasn’t alive to see him play. Very few athletes in the entire history of sports can make a case for being as dominant: Babe Ruth is the only other from a major team sport, and then there are a small handful of Olympians for whom you could maybe make a case. Nobody in the league today is anywhere near that level and I doubt we’ll see his like again in our lifetimes.

"Nobody in the league today is anywhere near that level"

Because it's simply not possible to be at that level in a more advanced era. There isn't enough holes in the game to exploit.

The lazy thinkers love to hang their hats on modern training, nutrition and equipment when the real big changes have been team systems and the increase in average talent.

 

[Strangle]

Of the top 50 highest ever scoring individual seasons, 40 of them came from players between 1980 and 1995. It’s not just Gretzky, it appears that 80% of the best players in history were all born in the same decade and all had their career peaks at the exact same time for reasons that are 100% personal and 0% related to league rules. It has nothing to do with defense and goaltending being a joke, and the dead puck era that followed was just because Gretzky got old and single handedly tanked offensive numbers for the league.

I don’t believe the goaltending was a ‘joke’. I’m actually starting to think the goaltending in the 80’s was superior to today.

Patrick Roy had a 2.33 and .910 career that started in 1984. Goaltenders at least knew how to move in the net back then. I’d say today that goaltending might be more at risk of being thought of as a joke.

Goaltenders don’t play anymore, they just kind of go through a list of pre-practiced positions and shooters know this.

But it’s not relevant, the best players are playing against the best goaltenders just as they always have.

I can see arguments around goaltending equipment, rule changes like clutching and grabbing, goalies puck playing, two-line pass elimination, etc

But that should mean that scoring goes up or goes down predictably and stays there. Regardless of the players who are in the league at the time.

That’s not what we see though

 

[Strangle]

"Nobody in the league today is anywhere near that level"

Because it's simply not possible to be at that level in a more advanced era. There isn't enough holes in the game to exploit.

The lazy thinkers love to hang their hats on modern training, nutrition and equipment when the real big changes have been team systems and the increase in average talent.

Lol

Let me give you a hint: it wasn’t possible then either. But Gretzky did it anyway

I actually feel bad that most people born in the 90’s or later haven’t gotten to see a truly transcendent sports talent.

Who is the closest? Tiger Woods, probably? I actually know nothing about golf, I don’t know if Tiger is considered on another planet from previous or current generations of golfers.

It sucks that you guys haven’t witnessed the true magic that us older folks got to see

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Nikita first to 70...

 

[AndreRoy]

You’re looking at people like 20yo Mike Tyson, babe Ruth, Ali, Micheal Jordan (new fans love to argue Lebron, but it’s not close)

It’s almost like saying Micheal Jackson wasn’t the king of pop because Justin Timberlake sold a lot of records, but with adjusting record sales and a bunch of other no -sense, Timberlake is just as good

Tyson, Ali, Jordan, and LeBron were nowhere near as dominant as Ruth and Gretzky. Ruth in 1920 hit more home runs than all but one other *team*. Not to mention that he was well on his way to a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher before changing positions - his winning percentage is still (last I checked) 12th all-time and his record for scoreless innings in the postseason lasted for over four decades. Imagine if Gretzky was a HoF-caliber goalie before changing positions and you have some idea of how uniquely special Ruth was.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Tyson, Ali, Jordan, and LeBron were nowhere near as dominant as Ruth and Gretzky. Ruth in 1920 hit more home runs than all but one other *team*. Not to mention that he was well on his way to a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher before changing positions - his winning percentage is still (last I checked) 12th all-time and his record for scoreless innings in the postseason lasted for over four decades. Imagine if Gretzky was a HoF-caliber goalie before changing positions and you have some idea of how uniquely special Ruth was.

Ali was 28-0 without barely ever having a scratch on his face pre exile. In the golden age of heavyweight boxing. Ali>Gretzky

 

[AndreRoy]

Who is the closest? Tiger Woods, probably? I actually know nothing about golf, I don’t know if Tiger is considered on another planet from previous or current generations of golfers.

He isn’t. Was a great player when he was younger but fell off a cliff and couldn’t pass Nicklaus.

 

[Strangle]

Tyson, Ali, Jordan, and LeBron were nowhere near as dominant as Ruth and Gretzky. Ruth in 1920 hit more home runs than all but one other *team*. Not to mention that he was well on his way to a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher before changing positions - his winning percentage is still (last I checked) 12th all-time and his record for scoreless innings in the postseason lasted for over four decades. Imagine if Gretzky was a HoF-caliber goalie before changing positions and you have some idea of how uniquely special Ruth was.

I think Gretzky is the most dominant sports athlete of all time. It’s difficult to find anything close in any sport

 

[Master P]

I think Gretzky is the most dominant sports athlete of all time. It’s difficult to find anything close in any sport

Michael Phelps?

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Let’s revisit at halfway point.

Now a 16 point lead instead of 15 when the thread was started....

 

[AndreRoy]

I think Gretzky is the most dominant sports athlete of all time. It’s difficult to find anything close in any sport

Ruth. Again, Ruth hit more home runs than all but one other team in the league, plus he was a HoF-caliber pitcher before switching and set records at the position that lasted decades. Gretzky was an unbelievable talent but he wasn’t outscoring entire teams or dominating the league at goal before switching to center. Definitely the most dominant athlete of our lifetimes, but Ruth was at another level than even The Great One.

 

[ViD]

He on fire