Crosby has in his time has led the Pens to more playoff games and regular season wins than any other franchise. Here is the beauty of this, he may win more before he is done. Never bet against Crosby, as Babcock said he is THE winner. No one is close.
Sidney Crosby Top 5 player of all time
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edog37
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Lemieux & Gretzky would still put up huge numbers today. You put Sid on '91 Pens & he would easily get 250 points. Put him on a line with prime Lemieux....oh man it would be disgusting....both would feed off each other & put up some nasty numbers. 280-300 points would not be out of reach...
bigkam
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- Jun 13, 2009
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My two cents. Crosby is a top-10 player all time with what he has accomplished. Given the point totals he has put up during the latter part of the dead puck era and with a expansive league governed by a salary cap, plus the accolades he has won, it's an easy call. I don't know if I would call him top-5 yet, but if he can stay healthy, he is definitely heading in that direction.
Great player and he's put himself in the discussion for the 5 spot. I don't think he's there yet, but he's in the discussion. Now, if he never got those concussions/neck injury, he might have that 3rd or even 4th Hart already he'd have a stronger case. That along with his playoff resume in the modern era would probably put him above Shore, Beliveau, Richard and Clarke.
Either way, he's clearly passed any players from the 90's not named Gretzky or Lemieux. Some may think Jagr, Lidstrom and Hasek above, but personally, I think he's had better playoff success than Jagr (who won his two cups very early in his career while not being the star of the team), will of had a longer peak than Hasek and Lidstrom's lack of ever being viewed as the absolute best player in the league over a given season (not one Hart nomination) hurts his case for me.
Either way, he's clearly passed any players from the 90's not named Gretzky or Lemieux. Some may think Jagr, Lidstrom and Hasek above, but personally, I think he's had better playoff success than Jagr (who won his two cups very early in his career while not being the star of the team), will of had a longer peak than Hasek and Lidstrom's lack of ever being viewed as the absolute best player in the league over a given season (not one Hart nomination) hurts his case for me.
WOW, " all time best player" well this poster lives on mars.
Look Crosby is a really good player, one of the best in the last say 10 years. 3 Cup rings. using this logic Crosby would not make the Habs top ten list of all time cup winners. At the very TOP of the NHL all time cup winners is not every the Rocket, it's the Pocket Rocket, Henri Richard at 11 rings. So the words " all time" is just WRONG right off the bat.
Look Crosby is a really good player, one of the best in the last say 10 years. 3 Cup rings. using this logic Crosby would not make the Habs top ten list of all time cup winners. At the very TOP of the NHL all time cup winners is not every the Rocket, it's the Pocket Rocket, Henri Richard at 11 rings. So the words " all time" is just WRONG right off the bat.
spcastlemagic
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- Jul 3, 2006
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I don't think the gap between the average player today and the average player say 30 years ago is appreciated. Everybody in the league is in amazing shape these days. They are all very capable skaters. The gap control of an average defenseman these days would be borderline Norris level in the 80's.
But it is important to remember this is a game that builds on its innovations. Everybody stands on the shoulders of giants. For example, if I time travel McDavid to 1985, he's putting up 200 points easily, and savaging defensemen that can barely skate backwards. But McDavid's game has a direct genealogy to Crosby's game, to Yzerman's, to Gretzky's. Each generation of the game builds on the next. McDavid wasn't going to happen in 1985. Everything that has been learned about training, practicing, to individual stick handles and puck protection techniques, matter. They don't appear out of the ether.
So when considering the all-time greats, I think the most important variable is genius in their own time. Guys who have that affect of appearing to be from 20 years into hockey's future. Gretzky, Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin, Orr, Lindros, Forsberg, LaFleur... these are the guys who offered a peak into what was possible in hockey, and helped usher in whole new eras. To me. that speaks more to individual greatness than comparing trophy counts or individual statistics.
But it is important to remember this is a game that builds on its innovations. Everybody stands on the shoulders of giants. For example, if I time travel McDavid to 1985, he's putting up 200 points easily, and savaging defensemen that can barely skate backwards. But McDavid's game has a direct genealogy to Crosby's game, to Yzerman's, to Gretzky's. Each generation of the game builds on the next. McDavid wasn't going to happen in 1985. Everything that has been learned about training, practicing, to individual stick handles and puck protection techniques, matter. They don't appear out of the ether.
So when considering the all-time greats, I think the most important variable is genius in their own time. Guys who have that affect of appearing to be from 20 years into hockey's future. Gretzky, Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin, Orr, Lindros, Forsberg, LaFleur... these are the guys who offered a peak into what was possible in hockey, and helped usher in whole new eras. To me. that speaks more to individual greatness than comparing trophy counts or individual statistics.
It's only fair to compare people relative to their peers and how much they dominated them. We don't compare these guys to 4th liners, we compare them to how much they outperformed their competition at the top. What Gretzky did in the 80's winning 9 Hart trophies and multiple cups are why he is viewed as the best of all-time. Gretzky had a ton of competition for those trophies in the 80's (Lemieux, Yzerman, Bourque, Trottier, etc), arguably more than Sid and Ovi have had for there's (Malkin, Stamkos, Getzlaf, Karlsson, Datsyuk, MSL, etc).
Hockey Outsider
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- Jan 16, 2005
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This is hilarious.
Learn the game my friend.
21 consecutive top 10 point finishes
6 Hart Trophies
6 Art Ross Trophies
5 Rockets
Was the most feared player in the league both in a traditional hockey sense and physically. Maybe Lindros for a couple years before the injuries was the best hockey player and most feared player at the same time, but that is incredibly rare. Howe was that for at least a decade. Incredible two-way player to boot, perhaps the most complete player in the history of the game. But sure some pace per game stuff. By the way when combining his WHA stats and NHL stats and giving Gretzky the same benefit I think they are one or two career goals apart.
Gordie Howe is on the Mount Rushmore of Hockey for a reason and belongs in the same breath as Orr, Lemieux and Gretzky. AKA demonstrably better than the player titled in this thread. In a class of their own. Give me some sort of PPG statistic though I am sure, makes sense to put up against the most rugged and astonishingly durable superstar to grace the game...
A few more (lesser-known) facts:
- Howe has 12 scoring titles - six each in the regular season and playoffs. Only Gretzky has more, and nobody else in history has more than eight.
- Howe was a Hart trophy finalist twelve times - more than any player in history including Gretzky (who was an eleven-time finalist). Nobody else was a finalist more than eight times.
- Howe once held the single-season record both for regular season and playoffs.
- Howe is the only player in history other than Gretzky to win multiple Art Ross trophies by 20% margins.
- As of 1956 Howe had the highest-scoring season in NHL history, the 3rs highest, 4th highest, 6th highest and 8th highest. (Two of the others in the top eight had their big seasons during WWII, when most of the league's stars joined the Armed Forces, so their was a shortage of talent).
It's frustrating that many people believe that Howe was a player who was merely very good for a long time. At his peak, he was by far the league's best player, as evidenced by his strangehold on the Hart and Art Ross trophies, and his possession of multiple single-scoring records. It's not an either/or situation - a player can have a historically great peak and historically great longevity.
I'm intentionally not commenting on Crosby's all-time ranking - some time and perspective is needed - nor am I suggesting that Howe's accomplishments are compared to today's players without accounting for league size and composition. But I need to set the record straight when people suggest that Howe was "overrated" or merely very good for a long time.
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zero8771
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Howe is overrated. Incredibly. 6 teams. 6. He was the best of 120 players. Huge for the game of hockey and historic for hockey but sorry, those accolades have a giant Asterisk. Every year the league gets older it gets harder and harder to be on top
I think what puts Howe in the Big Four is the fact he was the best at his peak, and still among the best for a *very* long time. Lemieux was quite possibly the most physically gifted player of all time, Gretzky just turned the game into his own playground, and Orr did things as a defenseman that forwards couldn't do. They all have their "unique" traits that put them in the big four.
I shudder when I see people think Howe is no longer part of the big 4. I don't know if Crosby can make it a big 5(had he not missed all that time he may have), but Howe is certainly not dropping out of the big 4.
bombers15
5-14-6-1
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HF uses AINEC way too often.
Crosby is still better than McDavid, but it is somewhat close. And McDavid is closing that gap.
zero8771
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I think as far as historic significance.... Howe is absolutely big 4. As far as "best players"... there is no way to ever truly know, but I think he's likely not even top 150. That's not a slight to him, it's just from the fact that players are orders of magnitude better now. He wouldn't be able to compete in todays NHL. Of course if he had been in this era from age 5.... then yea once again he'd be a superstar. I hope this makes sense, it's just why I think its hard to quantify "best player" across eras
Sentinel
Registered User
Dude, Howe was in the Top 5 in scoring for TWENTY SEASONS! This record is insane and will likely never be broken.
As for league size... Well, Howe had to play against Doug Harvey and Pierre Pilote 12 times a season! Not feast on frigging Florida and Carolina.
The fact that he outscored his opposition by 20% has nothing to do with the size of the League. If the League's average is 50 pts, and you score 75, it's much more impressive than if the average is 90, and you score 105. Don't you get it?
As for Crosby putting up 500 points / season in the 80s... Would he be doing this using the old sticks, skates, and no helmet? How long do you think before Mark Messier and Denis Potvin end his career? Given his history of injuries, I'd say "not long."
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Yeah, I don't think anybody should be arguing that Crosby is above any of Howe, Orr, Gretzky or Lemieux. But when you get beyond those four, how much did anyone else dominate. A lot of people seem to have Beliveau at 5 (or, more broadly 5-8). His dominance of a six team league was arguably less than Crosby's dominance of a 30 team league.
For instance:
Top 3 scoring finishes:
SC: 8
JB: 7
Top 3 PPG finishes:
SC: 9
JB: 9
And Crosby has a chance to add to those numbers.
There's a History of Hockey board here, and one of their rules is you cannot "drop" a player from today as is into a prior era, nor can you simply take what a player from a past era was and drop him into today, and claim such as you did. Your post/thread would be deleted.
You assume all players from the past had all of today's training/equipment advantages when you compare to today, and you do not assume anything more than what the prior era players had going for them when trying to put a player back in the era.
There's a reason that rule is in place, to avoid things such as you say. Of course a guy with the old pipe skates and no helmet and a flat blade stick is going to play differently. You can only do with what is there at the time. If a guy was that much better than the guys back then, it's quite likely he's going to be among the best today with all the advantages.
jigglysquishy
Registered User
This doesn't hold up in other sports.
LeBron is dominating at a level arguably never seen before in basketball.
Jon Jones is arguably the greatest fighter of all time.
Similar things can be said of Tom Brady or Messi.
If other sports can have all time great players in the modern era, why can't hockey?
Sentinel
Registered User
Actually he has a chance to lower this number. In the tail end of one's career one's numbers tend to drop. Why do you think Bossy has such high PPG and especially GPG? Because he quit while on top.
Lil Sebastian Cossa
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Beau Knows
Registered User
I think you misunderstood his post. Those are the number of times each player finished in the top 3 in a season, that number can only go up for Crosby.
PensFreak
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- Jun 5, 2007
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It's top three finishes... He could be fifth next season and the number of top 5 ppg finishes isn't going to drop.
Wow. What an endorsement. Thank you for stating something so obvious to make it seem like you are defending him before you proceed to bash him.
Fact of the matter is, Crosby will likely be in that top 5 convo. He is 29 years old and has accomplished more than what, maybe 10 players in history? The old timers are gonna be upset.
Sentinel
Registered User
Sorry, I did misunderstand. His overall PPG number will likely drop. The number of finishes certainly won't.
Retire91
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- May 31, 2010
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I think its a bit premature to be placing Crosby on any all time lists I mean he is only 29 for crying out loud.
I think its worth noting that Yzerman's prime scoring years were head to head against Gretzky and Lemuix. How many art ross's, hearts, and Richard's would he have had a chance at not going head to head with those two. Also he transitioned to a 2 way forward as shown by his Selke impacting his offensive numbers. Not trying to take anything away from Crosby rather just put Yzerman's trophy case into a little more perspective. Crosby's Piers are basically Malking, Overchkin, Kane... Let's put Crosby in an era with Jagr, Gretzky Lemuix and see him win a Selke later in his career. Put them both in the same draft though and I honestly don't know who you take.
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If he did 250 points on the 91 Pens, it would be because Lemieux carried his ass and himself finish with 350.
gretskidoo
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- Nov 26, 2011
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Nope.
If you think 2 of the weakest Conn Smythes of all time puts him there, you're sorely mistaken.
If you think 2 of the weakest Conn Smythes of all time puts him there, you're sorely mistaken.
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