Ovechkin milestone thread - 850 and Beyond!

[KoozNetsOff 92]

There's literally one person "arguing" OV is better than Lemieux. Don't paint other OV fans with the same brush. We all have our biases but even as one of the biggest OV fanboys I know that's wrong. I always say OV is the greatest goal scorer but Lemieux is the best. And obviously as an overall offensive force, Lemieux is in a different stratosphere compared to OV. Lemieux's only comparable is Gretzky and a couple of years of Howe. OV is with Jagr, Crosby, etc which, although great and better than 99% of players, is still nowhere close.

 

[The Grim Reaper]

I think this understates the gap in their overall play a bit. Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer ever for sure, but Lemieux is also a top 5 goalscorer of all time, while being universally ranked 2-4th best player of all time (usually closer to 2nd).

In a short window like a playoff series, I would see him outperforming Ovi maybe 8 times out of 10.

Good post.

There's literally one person "arguing" OV is better than Lemieux. Don't paint other OV fans with the same brush. We all have our biases but even as one of the biggest OV fanboys I know that's wrong. I always say OV is the greatest goal scorer but Lemieux is the best. And obviously as an overall offensive force, Lemieux is in a different stratosphere compared to OV. Lemieux's only comparable is Gretzky and a couple of years of Howe. OV is with Jagr, Crosby, etc which is nowhere close.

Great way of putting it, imo.

 

[Fantomas]

Orr-Gretzky-Howe-Lemieux is still easily the upper tier. Maybe McDavid will some day join them (maybe), but no one else seems to be on that level, including Ovechkin.

But Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

Did you just get mad because sometime mentioned points to argue why Lemieux is better than Ovechkin? Am I reading that correctly? Points don't matter? Should all be about goals? You've gone on to mention all these stats that Ovechkin leads in (all different goal stats).

Yeah, because they prop lemieux up with points, but never keep it relative to his era. You can’t compare point totals of an 80s player to one post lockout. It should be about how he performed relative to his peers. There is no way you can argue Lemieux over OV for goal scoring, and that’s where the insane Lemieux bias comes in. If you think he is a ‘better player’ then that’s fine. I value the ability to stay healthy, and would prefer 82 game OV in this day and age, as it would be hard to win or to even make playoffs with Lemieux playing partial seasons.

 

[Toby91ca]

Yeah, because they prop lemieux up with points, but never keep it relative to his era. You can’t compare point totals of an 80s player to one post lockout. It should be about how he performed relative to his peers. There is no way you can argue Lemieux over OV for goal scoring, and that’s where the insane Lemieux bias comes in. If you think he is a ‘better player’ then that’s fine. I value the ability to stay healthy, and would prefer 82 game OV in this day and age, as it would be hard to win or to even make playoffs with Lemieux playing partial seasons.

Right, so against his peers, Lemieux won the scoring title 6 times....Ovechkin did it once....doesn't that suggest he put up more points relative to his peers than Ovechkin did on it's own? But let's look even closer:

Ovechkin was scoring leader once, won by 6pts or 6%.

Lemieux - 19pts (13%) - 2nd was Gretzky, was 37pts better than 3rd
- 31pts (18%) - 2nd was Gretzky, was 44pts better than 3rd
- 8pts (7%) - Lemieux only played 64 games
- 12pts (8%) - Lemieux only played 60 games
- 12pts (8%) - Lemieux only played 70 games
- 13pts (12%)

I get the valuing ability to stay healthy, but I don't consider that as much when thinking about who was the "BEST" player, that's more of an argument for MVP, etc. Either way though, Mario did more in less time anyway. It's not like we are saying "Mario would have scored more than player "x" if he played the full season" - he scored more total points than player "x" in the less games that he played.

When having MVP discussion though, you have to think about....did he play enough games to be considered MVP....Mario only won that 3 times. Crosby is a decent example of that in 2012/13, he 56pts in 36 games, tied with Ovechkin at 56 points, but Ovechkin played all 48 games....he won MVP, but Crosby was considered player of the year (Pearson).

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

Right, so against his peers, Lemieux won the scoring title 6 times....Ovechkin did it once....doesn't that suggest he put up more points relative to his peers than Ovechkin did on it's own? But let's look even closer:

I think you proved your point pretty well, and that Mario winning the scoring race 6 to OVs 1 makes him a better playmaker. So why can’t Mario fans admit that 9 rockets to 3 make the goal scoring comparisons between the two seem silly?

I get the valuing ability to stay healthy, but I don't consider that as much when thinking about who was the "BEST" player, that's more of an argument for MVP, etc. Either way though, Mario did more in less time anyway. It's not like we are saying "Mario would have scored more than player "x" if he played the full season" - he scored more total points than player "x" in the less games that he played.

That’s fair, but I do feel like staying healthy has to have some value. Lindros in my eyes was better than anyone I’ve ever watched in their prime, but ability to stay healthy has to account for something. It’s a value metric at the very least.

When having MVP discussion though, you have to think about....did he play enough games to be considered MVP....Mario only won that 3 times. Crosby is a decent example of that in 2012/13, he 56pts in 36 games, tied with Ovechkin at 56 points, but Ovechkin played all 48 games....he won MVP, but Crosby was considered player of the year (Pearson).

Crosby got absolutely robbed that year.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

There's literally one person "arguing" OV is better than Lemieux. Don't paint other OV fans with the same brush. We all have our biases but even as one of the biggest OV fanboys I know that's wrong. I always say OV is the greatest goal scorer but Lemieux is the best. And obviously as an overall offensive force, Lemieux is in a different stratosphere compared to OV. Lemieux's only comparable is Gretzky and a couple of years of Howe. OV is with Jagr, Crosby, etc which is nowhere close.

I guess ‘better’ is not what I’m arguing. I think he had the better career, and contributed more value to his team winning games over his career as a whole than Lemieux did. I think lemieux gets overrated a fair amount on these boards, and it’s annoying to see Hasek laughed out of comparisons against him.

 

[Toby91ca]

I think you proved your point pretty well, and that Mario winning the scoring race 6 to OVs 1 makes him a better playmaker. So why can’t Mario fans admit that 9 rockets to 3 make the goal scoring comparisons between the two seem silly?

1 - I'm not a Mario fan

2 - I think they'd look at Mario at the same age as Ovechkin and suggest he scored 654 goals in 812 games (0.81 per game) compared to Ovechkin's 782 goals in 1,280 games (0.61 per game). Also suggest that if he played all the games, he would have won 8 goal scoring titles rather than 3.

I think you'd say, that's where they start arguing what if, what if and I'd agree with you, Ovechkin definitely the better goal scorer on my list, but it's not entirely what if with Lemieux either, he did put up the raw numbers as well. Just saying it's not entirely silly to make the argument (which I'd disagree with and perhaps many of them would as well, I think the suggestion would simply be that it's not entirely outlandish to put Lemieux in that argument). I think if Lemieux's actual goals scored was 500 and GPG stat was 0.68....trying to compare that to Ovechkin simply because the GPG stat is quite a bit better than Ovechkin's at 0.61 would seem silly, but 0.81 vs. 0.61 is astronomically better. But that's where I'd suggest the 1 - Lemieux played in higher scoring era....but not that much higher to account for that difference and 2 - Lemieux didn't play in enough games to score enough goals, it's as simple as that.

NOW....what would be interesting is this....let's say player A and player B start their careers together and retire together. Player A plays in every game and finishes his career with 900 goals. Player B plays in every single game except for 1 year where he missed the entire season due to cancer....so 82 games less than Player A and finishes his career with 895 goals. In this extremely stupid, hypothetical scenario, I'd have a hard time not arguing that Player B is the better goal scorer.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

1 - I'm not a Mario fan

2 - I think they'd look at Mario at the same age as Ovechkin and suggest he scored 654 goals in 812 games (0.81 per game) compared to Ovechkin's 782 goals in 1,280 games (0.61 per game). Also suggest that if he played all the games, he would have won 8 goal scoring titles rather than 3.

Isn’t that stat pretty telling that you can’t compare players based on raw totals from different eras? Despite the massive difference in goals per game, Lemieux, even in this hypothetical scenario would still have less goal scoring titles than OV. Comparing OV and Lemieux’s goal scoring dominance to their peers, he still comes up short. I have a hard time understanding how the nostalgia of Lemieux on these boards runs so rampant.

 

[MeHateHe]

And Mario turned Rob Brown into a 50 goal, 100 point player.

Buddy, Mario turned Warren Young into a 40-goal scorer. More than half his entire career goals came from playing on Lemieux's wing. I can't believe this discussion.

 

[Fantomas]

Right, so against his peers, Lemieux won the scoring title 6 times....Ovechkin did it once

Points is just one way to measure scoring (a highly subjective one). Goals is another. Ovechkin led the league in that metric 9 times.

Buddy, Mario turned Warren Young into a 40-goal scorer. More than half his entire career goals came from playing on Lemieux's wing. I can't believe this discussion.

I would argue that the 80s turned Brown and Young into 40-goal scorers more than anything.

 

[Beau Knows]

Points is just one way to measure scoring (a highly subjective one). Goals is another. Ovechkin led the league in that metric 9 times.

Don't forget assists

Lemieux:
Lead the league 3 times
2nd to Gretzky 3 times
9 times in top 5

Ovechkin:
0 seasons in top 5
3 seasons in top 10

 

[Toby91ca]

Points is just one way to measure scoring (a highly subjective one). Goals is another. Ovechkin led the league in that metric 9 times.



I would argue that the 80s turned Brown and Young into 40-goal scorers more than anything.

You could, but you wouldn't be able to support your argument with much support.

Young is the easiest example because he played with Mario one year and then moved on. 1985 season he scored 40 goals with Mario, moved on to Detroit and scored 22 goals the following year.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Lemieux is great (duh), but he also played in a soft era. At least until the end of his career, it was by far the most watered down League where it was super easy for great players to put up points by the boatload. Hard to say who is definitively "better".

 

[wetcoast]

Buddy, Mario turned Warren Young into a 40-goal scorer. More than half his entire career goals came from playing on Lemieux's wing. I can't believe this discussion.

Also Rob Brown was a very gifted offensive player, people that bring him up are either being ignorant or just ignoring reality.

Note Rob Brown wasn't a very good overall player but he sure had offensive skills.

 

[Toby91ca]

Don't forget assists

Lemieux:
Lead the league 3 times
2nd to Gretzky 3 times
9 times in top 5

Ovechkin:
0 seasons in top 5
3 seasons in top 10

You could make goals worth 4 points and assists worth 1 point and Mario would still have more points than Ovechkin while playing in 365 less games.

 

[Regal]

Lemieux is great (duh), but he also played in a soft era. At least until the end of his career, it was by far the most watered down League where it was super easy for great players to put up points by the boatload. Hard to say who is definitively "better".

Wtf. It was a high scoring era for most of it, but certainly not soft. Today is way softer

 

[wetcoast]

Points is just one way to measure scoring (a highly subjective one). Goals is another. Ovechkin led the league in that metric 9 times.



I would argue that the 80s turned Brown and Young into 40-goal scorers more than anything.

How is socring points a subjective one?

Goals and assists are objective measurements that the NHL and other hockey leagues have used for a long time.

If you want, you could talk about context of assists but if you want to go down that road do the same for goals and SOG, usage ect as well please don't cherry-pick like so many others have done with this weak argument.

 

[Beau Knows]

Lemieux is great (duh), but he also played in a soft era. At least until the end of his career, it was by far the most watered down League where it was super easy for great players to put up points by the boatload. Hard to say who is definitively "better".

He came back in the middle of the dead puck era (not exactly a "soft" era) and put up 76 points in 43 games after not playing for 3 years.

 

[MeHateHe]

I would argue that the 80s turned Brown and Young into 40-goal scorers more than anything.

Also Rob Brown was a very gifted offensive player, people that bring him up are either being ignorant or just ignoring reality.

Note Rob Brown wasn't a very good overall player but he sure had offensive skills.

Truth. Brown had 120+ goals in his last two years in Kamloops. Never had NHL skating, but could put the puck in the net when he was close enough to it.

Warren Young, on the other hand, was a good AHLer.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Wtf. It was a high scoring era for most of it, but certainly not soft. Today is way softer

Not soft as in no hitting or fighting... soft as in the overall quality of play was very low due to the watered down talent. Like a poker player playing in a game with a bunch of terrible players to up their win rate is considered playing in "soft" games. The brutish nature of a lot of it would be a direct result of the fact that the League had a bunch of players that looked like they could barely skate when you match them frame by frame to players today.

He came back in the middle of the dead puck era (not exactly a "soft" era) and put up 76 points in 43 games after not playing for 3 years.

Yes, he had 207 points in 144 games in the DPE (118 point pace per 82). Nobody is doubting Lemieux was an all time great player.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Not soft as in no hitting or fighting... soft as in the overall quality of play was very low due to the watered down talent. Like a poker player playing in a game with a bunch of terrible players to up their win rate is considered playing in "soft" games. The brutish nature of a lot of it would be a direct result of the fact that the League had a bunch of players that looked like they could barely skate when you match them frame by frame to players today.


Yes, he had 207 points in 144 games in the DPE. Nobody is doubting Lemieux was an all time great player.

The mid 90s was the deepest the league ever was. The greatest generation of Canadian talent, the influx of Europeans, the greatest pre 2015 generation of Americans. And it still had all the great Russian and Czech players before their countries' talent pool collapsing impacted the league.

Sure, the early 80s was weak, but Lemieux was lapping the field over a very deep and international league in 93, 96, and 97.

 

[Beau Knows]

Not soft as in no hitting or fighting... soft as in the overall quality of play was very low due to the watered down talent. Like a poker player playing in a game with a bunch of terrible players to up their win rate is considered playing in "soft" games. The brutish nature of a lot of it would be a direct result of the fact that the League had a bunch of players that looked like they could barely skate when you match them frame by frame to players today.

That doesn't really explain the gap between Lemieux and other star players though. His competition in the scoring races had the same ability to feast on bad 3rd and 4th liners that he and Gretzky did.

Just like Ovechkin and his competition all had the opportunity to play in a league where hooking and holding were actually occasionally penalized. They enjoyed a few seasons where PPs were handed out like candy. (Not a complaint, that standard was the correct one imo)

When he scored 199 points there were still only 9 players with 100 points in the whole league, there were 8 last season.

 

[Fantomas]

You could, but you wouldn't be able to support your argument with much support.

LOL, there's plenty of support. The 80s were a high scoring decade which made many mediocre players into 30 and 40 goal scorers.

How is socring points a subjective one?

Goals and assists are objective measurements that the NHL and other hockey leagues have used for a long time.

Goals are an objective measurement. Assists less so (mostly because primary and secondary assists are given the same weighing). Points are straight up nonsense.

 

[Toby91ca]

LOL, there's plenty of support. The 80s were a high scoring decade which made many mediocre players into 30 and 40 goal scorers.



Goals are an objective measurement. Assists less so (mostly because primary and secondary assists are given the same weighing). Points are straight up nonsense.

That's true, but where's the support to suggest that is why Young and Brown scored because of the 80s? They didn't score outside of the time they played with Mario, so call me crazy, but I'd suggest Mario had more to do with that rather than the 80s.