- Feb 10, 2010
- 14,303
- 11,152
His dominance over peers for single season has been matched (as pointed out otherwise, I believe Hull had a better single season). And then when you go on to compare full career, Other than Gretzky having the 2 best years between him and Ovechkin, Ovechkin is much better relative to his peers.
N/A in the charts below indicate that the player did not have more goals than 2nd/10th/20th etc.
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Ovi 52 46 65 56 50 32 38 32 51 53 50 33 49 51 48 2nd N/A N/A 52 46 N/A N/A N/A 29 43 43 46 N/A 44 50 48 10th 40 40 40 39 35 N/A 36 21 34 33 33 N/A 39 41 34 20th 35 36 32 33 30 32 31 18 30 28 30 32 34 36 29 % over 2nd #VALUE! #VALUE! 25% 22% #VALUE! #VALUE! #VALUE! 10% 19% 23% 9% #VALUE! 11% 2% 0% % over 10th 30% 15% 63% 44% 43% #VALUE! 6% 52% 50% 61% 52% #VALUE! 26% 24% 41% % over 20th 49% 28% 103% 70% 67% 0% 23% 78% 70% 89% 67% 3% 44% 42% 66% 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 Gretzky 51 55 92 71 87 73 52 62 40 54 40 41 2nd N/A N/A 64 66 56 71 N/A 58 N/A N/A N/A N/A 10th 47 48 50 48 47 46 46 42 N/A 46 N/A N/A 20th 40 39 40 41 40 41 41 38 N/A 41 40 40 % over 2nd #VALUE! #VALUE! 44% 8% 55% 3% #VALUE! 7% #VALUE! #VALUE! #VALUE! #VALUE! % over 10th 9% 15% 84% 48% 85% 59% 13% 48% #VALUE! 17% #VALUE! #VALUE! % over 20th 28% 41% 130% 73% 118% 78% 27% 63% #VALUE! 32% 0
%#VALUE!
And then sorting brings you to this:
Over 2nd Over 10th Over 20th Gretzky 55% Gretzky 85% Gretzky 130% Gretzky 44% Gretzky 84% Gretzky 118% Ovi 25% Ovi 63% Ovi 103% Ovi 23% Ovi 61% Ovi 89% Ovi 22% Gretzky 59% Gretzky 78% Ovi 19% Ovi 52% Ovi 78% Ovi 11% Ovi 52% Gretzky 73% Ovi 10% Ovi 50% Ovi 70% Ovi 9% Gretzky 48% Ovi 70% Gretzky 8% Gretzky 48% Ovi 67% Gretzky 7% Ovi 44% Ovi 67% Gretzky 3% Ovi 43% Ovi 66% Ovi 2% Ovi 41% Gretzky 63% Ovi 0% Ovi 30% Ovi 49% Ovi 26% Ovi 44% Ovi 24% Ovi 42% Gretzky 17% Gretzky 41% Ovi 15% Gretzky 32% Gretzky 15% Ovi 28% Gretzky 13% Gretzky 28% Gretzky 9% Gretzky 27% Ovi 6% Ovi 23% Ovi 3% Ovi 0%
^^^Even that is extremely generous to Gretzky and inequitable to Ovechkin because Ovechkin played against a talent pool that was likely 50% deeper. In other words, Gretzky's era's 10th place scorer may very well have equated to Ovie's era's 15th place scorer.
Estimating the size of the NHL's talent pool (1950-2023)
There have been hundreds (and probably thousands) of posts on HOH that discuss the size of the NHL's talent pool. The data that's needed to determine the talent pool (youths actively involved in organized hockey) has never been maintained with any rigour or consistency, across countries and...
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