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Prime Erik Karlsson vs Cale Makar

Prime Karlsson vs Makar

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the_fan said:
Put it this way. Is it a coincidence that all the top, great d-men of all time in the NHL like Coffee, Lidstrom, Leetch, Pronger, Niedermayer, Keith, Doughty, Hedman, Makar etc… all won the cup because they weren’t just one dimensional offensive d-men who sucked defensively, and they made an impact on both ends of the ice.

Compared to Karlsson, Hughes who are one dimensional and only make an impact on offense but can’t defend. It’s no coincidence that this type of players haven’t won the cup being #1 d-men on their teams, but people continue to be fooled by their offensive productions, ignoring the fact that their teams don’t win because they can’t defend.
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The coincidence is that they all played on much much better teams.

Kyle freaking Turris was the #1C for Karlssons prime.

Coffey = Gretzky, Messier, Lemeiux, Yzerman, Federov


I'm not even going to go through the rest but they ALL played with hall of fame or multiple elite players players in their prime and ESPECIALLY when they won their cups.

You can tell the difference in how that could help right?
 
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Agent Zub said:
The coincidence is that they all played on much much better teams.

Kyle freaking Turris was the #1C for Karlssons prime.

Coffey = Gretzky, Messier, Lemeiux, Yzerman, Federov


I'm not even going to go through the rest but they ALL played with hall of fame or multiple elite players players in their prime and ESPECIALLY when they won their cups.

You can tell the difference in how that could help right?
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There have been teams that have won the cup who didn’t really have a stacked, talented roster. Like the Blues in 2019, but they had a stud 2 way d-man like Pietrangelo
 
NyQuil said:
There's a lot of confirmation bias here.

I don't know if you're aware, but in the early 80s, there were a lot of discussions about Paul Coffey the way there was about Karlsson. He risked too much for offence, he didn't focus well enough defensively.

It got to the point where Rod Langway won a pair of Norris trophies in a bit of a backlash.

What I'm seeing is a list of guys who, when they win the Cup, it proves that they are good defensively.

Ray Bourque only won one right before he retired after being traded to a prohibitive favourite. Does Boston's lack of Cup wins with Bourque as their best player and Captain mean that he was too one-dimensional to win?

Al MacInnis is another guy who settled down into a two-way role with St. Louis, but when he won the Cup in Calgary, there were concerns about his defence as well.

Sergei Gonchar won a Cup with Pittsburgh, and he wasn't known to be a great two-way defenceman for most of his career.

I just don't think this line of argument stacks up.
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There have been a lot of great players in NHL history that never won the cup, but that’s not the point I was making. Bourque not winning the cup all those years in Boston is irrelevant. He’s still a top 5 or top 3 d-man of all time.

Also I don’t think Gonchar was the #1 D in Pittsburgh when they won the cup in 2009. They also had Letang there. My whole point is, if you’re a team trying to win the cup and don’t really have a deep blueline or a deep roster in general, you won’t win with Karlsson as your #1 d-man, you need that strong 2 way d-man that does everything for you and has an impact on both ends of the ice
 
the_fan said:
There have been a lot of great players in NHL history that never won the cup, but that’s not the point I was making. Bourque not winning the cup all those years in Boston is irrelevant. He’s still a top 5 or top 3 d-man of all time.

Also I don’t think Gonchar was the #1 D in Pittsburgh when they won the cup in 2009. They also had Letang there. My whole point is, if you’re a team trying to win the cup and don’t really have a deep blueline or a deep roster in general, you won’t win with Karlsson as your #1 d-man, you need that strong 2 way d-man that does everything for you and has an impact on both ends of the ice
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I’m not so sure about that, did you watch the 2017 playoffs? He literally dragged that team to within an inch of the finals.
 
Different type of players. Makar is the safer pick, and could probably slot into any team and instantly make them far better. But he can't drag a team of bums to a playoff spot like Karlsson used to do. Karlsson is a one man army who can do everything better than anyone of his peers. But his whole game is based around doing it all himself, ask him to take too much of a back seat and he struggles. You basically have to build and run your team through Karlsson, but he's one of the few players in the history of the game where you can do that and actually achieve success.

If I'm a GM of a basement team and my owner is saying "make the playoffs this year or you're fired" and I get to start my offseason by picking either prime Karlsson or prime Makar; I'm taking Karlsson because it'd be easier to build a competitive around him. But if I have a playoff or bubble team with some good players already and I want to add one of these guys for a cup run? I'd probably take Makar. Does it make sense to say Makar is the better defenseman but Karlsson is the better player?
 
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Erik Alfredsson said:
Different type of players. Makar is the safer pick, and could probably slot into any team and instantly make them far better. But he can't drag a team of bums to a playoff spot like Karlsson used to do. Karlsson is a one man army who can do everything better than anyone of his peers. But his whole game is based around doing it all himself, ask him to take too much of a back seat and he struggles. You basically have to build and run your team through Karlsson, but he's one of the few players in the history of the game where you can do that and actually achieve success.

If I'm a GM of a basement team and my owner is saying "make the playoffs this year or you're fired" and I get to start my offseason by picking either prime Karlsson or prime Makar; I'm taking Karlsson because it'd be easier to build a competitive around him. But if I have a playoff or bubble team with some good players already and I want to add one of these guys for a cup run? I'd probably take Makar. Does it make sense to say Makar is the better defenseman but Karlsson is the better player?
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They are both defenseman and players and Majar is simply better, your last sentence sort of feeds the Rover argument and most EK65 fans probably don't want that.
 
wetcoast said:
They are both defenseman and players and Majar is simply better, your last sentence sort of feeds the Rover argument and most EK65 fans probably don't want that.
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You read what you want to read I guess. No Sens fan would disagree that Karlsson didn't play like a traditional defenseman, he's a very unique player, it's tough to put a label on his playstyle.
 
Erik Alfredsson said:
Different type of players. Makar is the safer pick, and could probably slot into any team and instantly make them far better. But he can't drag a team of bums to a playoff spot like Karlsson used to do. Karlsson is a one man army who can do everything better than anyone of his peers. But his whole game is based around doing it all himself, ask him to take too much of a back seat and he struggles. You basically have to build and run your team through Karlsson, but he's one of the few players in the history of the game where you can do that and actually achieve success.

If I'm a GM of a basement team and my owner is saying "make the playoffs this year or you're fired" and I get to start my offseason by picking either prime Karlsson or prime Makar; I'm taking Karlsson because it'd be easier to build a competitive around him. But if I have a playoff or bubble team with some good players already and I want to add one of these guys for a cup run? I'd probably take Makar. Does it make sense to say Makar is the better defenseman but Karlsson is the better player?
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Karlsson didn't have a lot of high end help during those playoff seasons for Ottawa, but honestly, who else in the Atlantic was even all that good during those years? From 2009-10 until 2016-17, the Panthers, Leafs and Sabres were 27th, 28th and 29th in terms of P%, so there's 3 teams that aren't doing much. Then there was Montreal, Boston, Tampa, and Detroit, who weren't exactly powerhouse teams either.

And, after watching Makar drag the UMass-Amherst team to the Frozen Four, I don't doubt that he could drag a team to the playoffs if needed. He just happened to get drafted by a team that already had MacKinnon, and helped drag them to the Cup instead, winning the Smythe in the process.
 
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IWantSakicAsMyGM said:
Karlsson didn't have a lot of high end help during those playoff seasons for Ottawa, but honestly, who else in the Atlantic was even all that good during those years? From 2009-10 until 2016-17, the Panthers, Leafs and Sabres were 27th, 28th and 29th in terms of P%, so there's 3 teams that aren't doing much. Then there was Montreal, Boston, Tampa, and Detroit, who weren't exactly powerhouse teams either.

And, after watching Makar drag the UMass-Amherst team to the Frozen Four, I don't doubt that he could drag a team to the playoffs if needed. He just happened to get drafted by a team that already have MacKinnon, and helped drag them to the Cup instead, winning the Smythe in the process.
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You can't really make that claim when every time MacKinnon is out of the lineup Makar's play dips considerably.
 
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I took Makar because his peak is gonna be longer but prime EK65 almost took a Sens team who's 1C was Kyle Turris one OT bounce from a Cup final appearance. EK65 would look easily as just as good on this Avs team if you plucked him from his elite years and placed him with this Avs core.
 
Peat said:
This. I've rarely seen a player dominate a series like Karlsson did vs the Pens. 9-4 to the Sens with him on ice at 5v5, and 3-7 with him off ice.

I've not really watch Makar enough to vote in this, but Karlsson's prime was ridiculous.
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Didn't he also play with a broken foot? Which year was that?
 
Erik Alfredsson said:
You can't really make that claim when every time MacKinnon is out of the lineup Makar's play dips considerably.
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Which claim am I not allowed to make because Makar's production dips when MacKinnon is out? That the Atlantic was dogshit when the Sens were making the playoffs with Karlsson or that Makar dragged the UMass-Amherst team to the Frozen Four?
 
IWantSakicAsMyGM said:
Which claim am I not allowed to make because Makar's production dips when MacKinnon is out? That the Atlantic was dogshit when the Sens were making the playoffs with Karlsson or that Makar dragged the UMass-Amherst team to the Frozen Four?
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Are you seriously comparing college hockey to the NHL? This is a terrible argument. Nobody should ever give a flying f*** what a player did in college, there's only one league that matters my guy.
 
The Werenski argument is funny considering if Makar were on the Jackets instead, they would actually make the playoffs this year.
 
Asinine said:
The Werenski argument is funny considering if Makar were on the Jackets instead, they would actually make the playoffs this year.
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Maybe, I mean it’s only a few points difference between a spot and not anyway.
 
Erik Alfredsson said:
Are you seriously comparing college hockey to the NHL? This is a terrible argument. Nobody should ever give a flying f*** what a player did in college, there's only one league that matters my guy.
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To me, claiming that Karlsson is better simply because the team he was on with some other pretty decent players (Stone, Ryan, Hoffman, Zibby, Anderson) made the playoffs in a dogshit division is a terrible argument.

So is ignoring that Makar single handedly dragged a mediocre UMass team to the championship game in impressive fashion simply because it's college hockey.

So it claiming that everyone on the Avs roster playing worse without MacKinnon in the lineup is somehow proof that Makar isn't very good, instead of evidence of MacKinnon being amazing.
 
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