Comparing relative to peers indicates that peers are the same.
Steve yzerman has less harts and rosses than both sedins, Benn and Corey freaking Perry.
Early ovy didn’t play against Anywhere near the talent that Matthews did in his first 9 years.
Matthews had less TOI. Less pp and still outscored ovy despite having to play match up C, lead all forwards in block shots and be a selke level Forward.
I fully agree that ovy is much more likely to have a better second half, one because Matthews is likely to break down and 2 because ovy is unique. But first 9 years Matthews has been better
There’s no real basis to say that Matthews peers are better.
Ovi had a 3 year period where he was by far the best goal producer and the best point producer.
Ovechkin was outplaying guys like: Crosby, Malkin, Datsyuk, Iginla, Thornton, Zetterberg, Spezza, Lecavalier, Kovalchuk, St. Louis, Heatley, Getzlaf, Sedins, Stamkos, Kane
It’s clear you’re seeing easier goal scoring and higher raw numbers so you think that the competition is simply better. But there’s so many examples of older and way post-prime/peak versions of players keeping up with Matthews.
Way too much evidence that these older and worse versions of the 2005-2015 players keeping up with the current version of players to have any real argument that the players today are any better. 39 year old Ovi is literally a shell of his prime and is still 5th in goals despite having broken his leg and missing 16 games LOL.
33 year old Ovi had a better point/gp than 21 year old Matthews
22 year old Matthews was a worse point producer than 33 year old Malkin, 32 year old Crosby, 31 year old Kane and Marchand.
23 year old Matthews was pretty similar in points to 33 year old Crosby and 32 year old Kane
25 year old Matthews was in the same realm of point production as 35 year old Crosby, 32 year old Karlsson.
27 year old Matthews is barely above 39 year old Ovi and 37 year old Crosby in points production
