Peak and Prime: Malkin vs Draisaitl

[daver]

Crosby was in the ice for 48% of his points in 08/09 the playoffs and 59% in the regular season...McD was on the ice for 58% of Drais points in 19/20 regular season...so it's identical...you are just excluding third assists etc.
But time on the ice together makes much more sense.
In 08/09 Malkin has almost identical numbers to Drai in 19/20 when sharing the ice with Crosby and McDavid.
08/09 wasn't better than Drai 19/20.

And keep in mind Malkin had prime James Neal on his line 2011/12 who was over PPG in this season.

If you want to claim those two regular seasons are similar, no argument from me. But Malkin was even better in 11/12 without Crosby and even better in the '09 playoffs with Crosby playing a clearly less influential role than McDavid did for Draisaitl.

The key is that they were not together at ES which created offensive depth for the Pens. And they have been separated at ES almost all the time since the 08/09 season.

As for the attempted namedropping if James Neal, Draisaitl has had plenty of time with RNH and Hyman, against better matchups than Malkin did in 11/12 but has not been able to consistently carry a line on his own.

 

[daver]

Crosby was in the ice for 48% of his points in 08/09 the playoffs

What are the numbers for Draisaitl in the 2022 playoffs? I am guessing it's 80% to 85% of Draisaitl's points

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Draisaitl is almost 2.0ppg without McD even in the lineup dating back to 2019/20...you can check if you want, it's not his fault McD isn't as injury proned as Crosby back in the days.

And as I mentioned before, in Malkins MVP 08/09 season Crosby was on the ice for more than 60% of the goals for of Malkin..it's one of those HFmyths that he has done it all on his own back then...I don't mind that he has a huge point sharing with Crosby but everyone has when it comes to Drai and McD for no reason.

What's the longest stretch of games he's missed in that time, like 5 games? So no that doesn't show anything. It might not be his fault McDavid isn't injury prone, but he's also been stapled to him his whole career. He hasn't had a dominant season without him. Hence ultimate Robin.

 

[Albatros]

The Penguins were among the top favorites in both 2008/09 and in 2011/12. Sure Crosby was out for much of the second year and Malkin did well to cover that, but the 2019/20 Oilers were a far more mediocre team overall and so labeling Draisaitl some kind of a "Robin" in comparison comes across as quite disingenuous.