Rick Nash Or Peter Bondra?
- Thread starter DitchMarner
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tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Bondra easily. And I don’t meant that as a slight to Nash, who was a very good player. But Bondra was just that slight bit more of a threat.
I Hate Blake Coleman
Bandwagon Burner
Bondra as a goal scorer, but my memory of Bondra was that he always just a one way player, a pure goal scorer. I would let someone with a better memory of him correct me.
Meanwhile, Nash went through that evolution into a two-way hoss, with a lot of help from Ken Hitchcock. From 2008 until 2013 or even 2015 Nash was a top tier playdriver. Nash, Richards, and Toews were Canada's best line in winning 2010 gold.
Meanwhile, Nash went through that evolution into a two-way hoss, with a lot of help from Ken Hitchcock. From 2008 until 2013 or even 2015 Nash was a top tier playdriver. Nash, Richards, and Toews were Canada's best line in winning 2010 gold.
Respect to the OP for posting material like this, but this and that Selanne thread are just flat ridiculous. We can't find two players who are a lot closer to each other than this?
And yes, it's Bondra and it can't be close, even at a large distance.
And yes, it's Bondra and it can't be close, even at a large distance.
No it is not so ridiculously far apart that you should ridicule the OP. You're the one being ridiculous.
They posted the one metric - goal scoring - where Bondra was better. I'm thinking the one-way guy getting fed full time by Adam Oates is the one getting overrated.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Bondra scored 52 goals in 67 games with Michal Pivonka as his center.
Bondra was 29 before he even played with Oates. Up to that point, he had scored at a 41-goal pace for his career.
Michal Pivonka was putting up 50 assist seasons before Peter Bondra became his wingman. When did Nash's centers do that? What's the most any of Nash's centers scored next to him?
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Be careful what you’re saying here
Fair enough. What's the most any of them were scoring without him? 20 assists in a year? Manny Malhotra is often considered the best center he had!
biturbo19
Registered User
- Jul 13, 2010
- 26,911
- 12,096
I'm pretty torn on this, because i loved Bondra...but i also loved Nash. It it feels like as much as Bondra didn't necessarily play his whole career with absolute lights out playmaking Centers either...Nash still got the short end of the stick in general, in terms of quality of linemates. He also had that other "power forward" dimension to his game when he felt like it. And as much as Bondra had that speed factor, Nash could really fly too when he got to it.
Nash's career is really one of those great "what if" deals. If he'd been able to play a bunch of his prime with even just a Jonathan Toews or Mike Richards, i really wonder what he'd have been capable of.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
There’s a bit of chicken and egg in this. Pivonka had some decent assist seasons because he was passing to prolific goal scorers like Ciccarelli and Bondra, not because he himself was some great playmaker. Skating with Bondra inflated him into a 65-assist guy. Likewise, Mike Ridley had his only 50-assist season next to Bondra.
Neither of them had a center worth writing home about, except for Oates and Fedorov who were way past their primes. Oates was like 38 when he won the assist title next to Bondra.
And those weren't even comparable. Oates put up more assists at age 41 with the Ducks than Fedorov did at age 33/34 with the Ducks the following season. That was after Oates' Caps tenure and before Fedorov's Jackets tenure. One of these guys lost his scoring touch much earlier than the other.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
It’s a chicken and egg thing again. Oates was skating with Paul Kariya* so it’s not like his numbers weren’t getting some extra juice. A few months later he was in Edmonton and the numbers plummeted.
Don’t get me wrong, I get that Fedorov was a shadow of himself in Columbus. I’m just saying, Oates was not the Adam Oates in the timeframe we’re talking about. He was on the back nine of his career, with an incredible knack for landing on teams with prime-aged Hall of Fame wingers. For him to win an assist title at that stage of his career required a special performance from a winger, and Bondra delivered that.
* Oates was skating right next to Kariya on the Stevens hit
JackSlater
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2010
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I'd rather have Bondra as a second banana, but I'd rather have Nash as a third banana. Wouldn't want either as the best player on my team. I'd say Bondra was better but those suggesting there is some big gap are far off.
Bondra scored 400 goals from 94-04 (dead-puck era). Only Jagr had more.
Machinehead
HFNYR MVP
If we're going with who was the better goal scorer, it's literally Bondra. There's not much to debate.
Sorry
Registered User
- May 18, 2005
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Bondra easily.
It's fun looking at Capitals stats from the 90's because they the top center and Bondras stats look like early NHL2K generated stats where the center has low goals and high assists and Bondra has high goals and low assists.
It's fun looking at Capitals stats from the 90's because they the top center and Bondras stats look like early NHL2K generated stats where the center has low goals and high assists and Bondra has high goals and low assists.
