Sidney Crosby Top 5 player of all time

[tarheelhockey]

Unless Crosby pulled a Bonds and suddenly in his 30s jumped a level above his previous all time great best, it's basically impossible. He would also, like Bonds, have to conceal the secret of his success from his league too. No amount of compiling can get Crosby into being the best player of all time. By level of play he can't touch Lemieux, Gretzky, Orr. By accolades he can't touch Gretzky. By longevity it is incredibly unlikely that he will match Howe. By team success he'll never match Beliveau. He's inevitably going to end up in the tier below the very best players of all time.

He would also have to buy a bigger helmet.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Meh, unlikely if not impossible.He's just not talented enough (as crazy as that sounds) and he's on the worst side of his career.

Gretzky is the greatest of all-time.It's obvious when you watched him play he was far ahead of Crosby in IQ, and Crosby has one of the highest IQ out there.

Guys like Crosby, Jagr, Lafleur and so on, they have a lot of natural talent.But Gretzky was bizarre, he was like a mental calculator in how far ahead of everyone else he was in vision and predicting how the play was going to develop.He's the only player where you need to rewind most of his highlights and analyze them again and again to understand why he did what he did, and why it was the best move almost everytime.The analogy with chess is on point.

People saying Gretzky couldn't play today would become silent very quick if Gretzky regained his youth and had a shot at today's NHL.You don't want to believe it, you talk about athleticism, speed of the game, size of players, training methods, anything.Then Gretzky comes on the ice, correctly calculates and predict how the play is going to develop ahead of everyone, makes the correct move, leaves you puzzled as to why he did that, but then the puck is in the back of the net and you're not sure what happened.Then he does it again, in the same game.And again.Then he does it again in the next game.Then he does it all season long and leads the scoring race by 40 points, and you don't really understand why.Then he comes back the year after that, and he does it again.Then again the following year.Oh and he does it in the playoffs too.

 

[Bryzard of Oz]

Gretzky won 8 Harts in a row and 9 in 10 years. 4 of those wins came while Lemieux (definitive top 5 player) was playing and all of then while Messier (another top 5-10 player) was in the league. That shows the level at which he was dominating the league for a decade. Crosby has been a top 5 player during his entire tenure but he's never been head and shoulders above everyone else like Gretzky was, which imo is a requirement for GOAT status.

The Brady comment in the original post isn't quite fair either. It wasn't the 5th ring that earned him GOAT status, it was the way he won it. That last 20 or so minutes he was inhuman

 

[Peat]

Sid's not gonna do it.

Someone could do it in the future but it'll be extremely difficult and require a big slice of luck.

 

[Dustin]

It isn't necessarily points that will determine who is better than Gretzky. It would be dominance over your competition that would. To this point there have been very few people who have shown that type of dominance and 2 of the 3 couldn't keep the dominance up due to injury.

I fully expect Crosby to end in the 5 - 10 range but a player like McDavid would need to outproduced the field by 20% to 30% over the course of 10 years to even be in the running. Even then a player like McDavid would probably need to evolve his shot so that he becomes the premier goal scorer in the league as well as continue to be the premier playmaker.

 

[orby]

The problem is that Gretzky's points record is never even going to come close to being broken, and basically everyone accepts this. So a player will have to be judged by some other criteria to overtake "GOAT" honors from Gretzky, or else accomplish something so significant that it offsets the difference in career points.

I mean, I guess we can start talking about it if Sid gets like 4 more cups or 3 more conn smythes, or something, but it's really not a conversation worth having.

 

[Soundwave]

No one is touching Gretzky for GOAT.

Or even Jordan IMO, James is a lot recency bias and hype, once the dust settles he's quite far behind Jordan. Jordan has 6 NBA championships as the no.1 option with 6 Finals MVPs, 10 scoring titles, the highest scoring average in league history.

LeBron has 3 titles with 3 Finals MVPs and 1 scoring title. Yes he rebounds and gets assists, but that doesn't make up for the glaring disparity there.

 

[powelladam02*]

It's not about who's the most fun to watch.

Denis Savard was more fun to watch than Gretzky, but nobody thought he was better. Patrick Kane is more fun to watch than Crosby, but nobody thinks he's better.

Who ever thought Michael Vick was the best QB? He had blatant holes in his game, which is why every year he was passed over for 3 other guys on the All Pro team. And even among QBs who played his style, you can watch one game of Cam Newton and tell that he's plainly better.

In the case of Crosby and Lemieux, find even one Pens fan who thinks Crosby is the better player. Lemieux was a different level of player, like Crosby is at a different level than Backstrom. It's not even up for debate, regardless of who wins what.

Again. I never questioned Mario's status as the greatest. I simply asked If whether it's actually possible for Sid(or basically anyone in the next century) to surpass him. Is the league in a place where players actually have the opportunity to be truly great or is the only way Sid or McDavid or anyone in a hundred years could surpass Gretzky is if they played in the 80's?

Brady won 5 rings while consistently remaining among the top 3 QBs in the league his whole career.

Jordan has the most rings for an elite player in the modern era while consistently being considered the best player in the world his whole career. Jordan is universally praised by the analytical crowd
and is likely at the top of nearly every complex algorithm you can come up with despite analytics not being fully advanced at the time as they are now.

^and even these guys are capable of being challenged again because the rules aren't as overhauled in their sports.

These are clear reasonings for GOAT status. I recognize Gretzky as a GOAT but at least give me something more concrete beyond "he has a crap ton of points" or "you had to see him."

If the only players in NHL history that could hypothetically surpass Gretzky is the ones who played in the same era as him, that's pretty pathetic on the part of the league.

If it's the year 3000 and we're still saying the same names that we are now, that's just sad.

What Gretzky did should be the only thing in the way for others to surpass him. Not a backlog of rule changes, equipment changes, talent changes, etc.

 

[JimmyTwoTimes]

Still question the people who bring up points when trying to compare players of today to those in the past.

 

[powelladam02*]

No one is touching Gretzky for GOAT.

Or even Jordan IMO, James is a lot recency bias and hype, once the dust settles he's quite far behind Jordan. Jordan has 6 NBA championships as the no.1 option with 6 Finals MVPs, 10 scoring titles, the highest scoring average in league history.

LeBron has 3 titles with 3 Finals MVPs and 1 scoring title. Yes he rebounds and gets assists, but that doesn't make up for the glaring disparity there.

I believe Jordan is the GOAT but this needs context.
First of all, none of the teams Lebron has ever had were even remotely as close to as talented as what Jordan had. The Heat and the Cavs were both outside the playoffs middling squads and when LBJ came, they turned into title teams and when he left, they went right back to sucking. The Bulls when Jordan retired the first time made it to the conference finals.

Second of all, Lebron has played against significantly better teams than Jordan did. He's played against a dynasty at it's peak(the spurs) and a dynasty at it's start(the warriors). The spurs alone were better than any single team Jordan beat in the finals.

3rd of all, scoring in hockey isn't the same as scoring in basketball. You do not get extra credence for scoring more points. We're comparing a shooting guard to an all purpose player. Of course the shooting guard got more points. They're supposed to.


Last of all, Lebron just got gentlemen swept in the finals, so why the hell would it be recency bias? It would be recency bias to bash him.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Not even close.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

They'd need to show the same kind of domination over their peers.

8-10 scoring titles in their first 12ish years in the league
140+ point seasons when 2nd place and below is scoring 100-110
8-10 MVPs
60+ or 70+ goal seasons when 2nd place and below is scoring 40-50
2-4 Cups
2-3 Conn Smythes
Then have a strong enough back half of a career to end up with 2,000+ points

Basically, accomplish everything that Gretzky did without the raw point totals, which will never be replicated under the current rules.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Again. I never questioned Mario's status as the greatest. I simply asked If whether it's actually possible for Sid(or basically anyone in the next century) to surpass him. Is the league in a place where players actually have the opportunity to be truly great or is the only way Sid or McDavid or anyone in a hundred years could surpass Gretzky is if they played the 80's?
...
These are clear reasonings for GOAT status. I recognize Gretzky as the GOAT but at least give me something more concrete beyond "he has a crap ton of points" "you had to see him."

Considering you've been on about Gretzky for 2-3 days in multiple threads, I can only hope that you're making this strawman argument on purpose and not because you seriously think anyone is saying a modern player has to equal Gretzky's points to reach him.

Crosby absolutely had the opportunity to be greater than Gretzky. If he had won Art Rosses by 50%, been automatic for the goals AND assists AND points titles every single season of his prime, had a total lock on the Hart Trophy, and been so far beyond everyone else that there wasn't even a GOAT conversation worth having by this point in his career, sure. But he didn't do those things. He won't do those things in the future. So his opportunity is gone. Sorry, that's just how it works. You don't get awarded GOAT status just by having a later birthday than the last star, it has to be earned on the ice and Crosby has not/will not do it.

 

[joplin]

Agreed, Sid is #2. He will always be behind Mario, who truly is the GOAT...

Lemieux never really played defence, thus Crosby is a more complete player. Number of cups also tells a story, plus I don't think Crosby is done winning them

 

[powelladam02*]

Considering you've been on about Gretzky for 2-3 days in multiple threads, I can only hope that you're making this strawman argument on purpose and not because you seriously think anyone is saying a modern player has to equal Gretzky's points to reach him.

Crosby absolutely had the opportunity to be greater than Gretzky. If he had won Art Rosses by 50%, been automatic for the goals AND assists AND points titles every single season of his prime, had a total lock on the Hart Trophy, and been so far beyond everyone else that there wasn't even a GOAT conversation worth having by this point in his career, sure. But he didn't do those things. He won't do those things in the future. So his opportunity is gone. Sorry, that's just how it works. You don't get awarded GOAT status just by having a later birthday than the last star, it has to be earned on the ice and Crosby has not/will not do it.

Can you please read what I've actually written? Can you read the whole thing instead of cutting up one piece and responding to only that? Can you read the part that was written in parenthesis(OR ANY GREAT NOW AND IN THE FUTURE) in the headline? At no point did I ever say Crosby had surpassed Gretzky or that he would surpass Gretzky. This is the third time you've replied to me in this thread with a complete misunderstanding of what I was asking. I even specifically mentioned how I was not asking the question "can Crosby in a vacuum beat Gretzky?" I specifically said that I was only using Crosby's name because he was the one guy in the world today who had the most hardware. The question could apply to McDavid or Matthews or anyone in the league.

You're entire second paragraph was literally a total waste because at no point did I argue that Crosby could or could not do it. I asked if ANY player could do it. I don't want to live in the year 3000 and still be hearing about Gretzky. I was arguing that if the league was actually giving any player the chance to do it. If Crosby could start his whole career over, he STILL would not be able to do it and it would have nothing to do with what Gretzky did.

And it's not a strawman.

"the best player people have seen."

^This is vague crap. This says absolutely nothing. It's not why Mario is the greatest Penguin and it's not why Gretzky is the GOAT. You said you don't like how the media overblows the GOAT term? Well welcome to the real world hypocrite. Vague stuff like this is the exact same thing the media uses. It is a microcosm of basically any person's argument for anything or anyone on not just this thread but this forum. Maybe Jonathan Toews is the best player I've seen. Maybe he's the best player that everyone in Chicago has seen. That's what "seeing" does for you. It's vague hogwash used as a replacement for a lack of analytical evidence(which I'm sure is out there but people don't seem to want to give it).


And considering everyone on here has argued that Gretzky would score 50 or 60 more points than the Art Ross champs today and have argued that basically the only way anyone could touch Gretzky today is if they did the same, clearly people do think the only way anyone could surpass Gretzky is if they started scoring like him in this era.

Oh and I can write about Gretzky as much as I please. Don't like it? Don't have a new Gretzky related thread every other day or just don't look at them.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Can you please read what I've actually written? Can you read the whole thing instead of cutting up one piece and responding to only that? Can you read the part that was written in parenthesis(OR ANY GREAT NOW AND IN THE FUTURE) in the headline? At no point did I ever say Crosby had surpassed Gretzky or that he would surpass Gretzky. This is the third time you've replied to me in this thread with a complete misunderstanding of what I was asking. I even specifically mentioned how I was not asking the question "can Crosby in a vacuum beat Gretzky?" I specifically said that I was only using Crosby's name because he was the one guy in the world today who had the most hardware. The question could apply to McDavid or Matthews or anyone in the league.

You're entire second paragraph was literally a total waste because at no point did I argue that Crosby could or could not do it. I asked if ANY player could do it. I don't want to live in the year 3000 and still be hearing about Gretzky. I was arguing that if the league was actually giving any player the chance to do it. If Crosby could start his whole career over, he STILL would not be able to do it and it would have nothing to do with what Gretzky did.

And it's not a strawman.

"the best player people have seen."

^This is vague crap. This says absolutely nothing. It's not why Mario is the greatest Penguin and it's not why Gretzky is the GOAT. You said you don't like how the media overblows the GOAT term? Well welcome to the real world hypocrite. Vague stuff like this is the exact same thing the media uses. It is a microcosm of basically any person's argument for anything or anyone on not just this thread but this forum. Maybe Jonathan Toews is the best player I've seen. Maybe he's the best player that everyone in Chicago has seen. That's what "seeing" does for you. It's vague hogwash used as a replacement for a lack of analytical evidence(which I'm sure is out there but people don't seem to want to give it).

Anyways, where is your analytical evidence (free of subjective opinion) that shows you Crosby is better?

I'll wait.

But I have a sneaking suspicion it boils down to something subjective. At least with Gretzky you can make some reasonable statistical arguments as to how he would do today.

And considering everyone on here has argued that Gretzky would score 50 or 60 more points than the Art Ross champs today and have argued that basically the only way anyone could touch Gretzky today is if they did the same, clearly people do think the only way anyone could surpass Gretzky is if they started scoring like him in this era.

Oh and I can write about Gretzky as much as I please. Don't like it? Don't have a new Gretzky related thread every other day or just don't look at them.

The part you're completely missing is that very few people are saying even Gretzky would score like Gretzky did. 50-60 points more than an Art Ross winner today is still like 50 points less than a peak Gretzky scored in the 80s.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Yes someone can they need to be that good

 

[powelladam02*]

Show me on the doll where the mean (logical) moderator touched you.

Anyways, where is your analytical evidence (free of subjective opinion) that shows you Crosby is better?

I'll wait.

But I have a sneaking suspicion it boils down to something subjective. At least with Gretzky you can make some reasonable statistical arguments as to how he would do today.



The part you're completely missing is that very few people are saying even Gretzky would score like Gretzky did. 50-60 points more than an Art Ross winner today is still like 50 points less than a peak Gretzky scored in the 80s.

When are you kids going to learn how read and to realize that I never said Crosby is, was, or ever will be better than Gretzky?

Oh and 50 or 60 points more still is significantly more than Gretzky actually would score today.

 

[BraveCanadian]

When are you kids going to learn how read and to realize that I never said Crosby is, was, or ever will be better than Gretzky?

Over the past several days you've done everything you can to advance the today's players are bionic superheroes theory.

Anyways, whatever, all this stuff has been hashed out 10,000 times on these boards.

Trust me, you'll know when someone comes along with a shot at the GOAT. And it ain't Crosby.

 

[powelladam02*]

Over the past several days you've done everything you can to advance the today's players are bionic superheroes theory.

Anyways, whatever, all this stuff has been hashed out 10,000 times on these boards.

Trust me, you'll know when someone comes along with a shot at the GOAT. And it ain't Crosby.

I've advanced nothing. You on the other hand's arguments have consisted of two sentence length mocking.

And I've only been writing periodically on here today and yesterday.

 

[edog37]

Lemieux never really played defence, thus Crosby is a more complete player. Number of cups also tells a story, plus I don't think Crosby is done winning them

This is fundamentally false. In both SCF appearances, Lemieux was playing at a Selke level. In '92, it was his suggestion to trap the Capitals which lead the team to series victory after being down 3-1. Lemieux's forte was clearly offense, but to state he never did it is just plain wrong. It was required of him to do so to win those Cups.

 

[BraveCanadian]

This is fundamentally false. In both SCF appearances, Lemieux was playing at a Selke level.

Woah boy...

I love Lemieux but he was a floater.

 

[ITM]

I was watching the NBA finals along with the Stanley cup finals and I follow a lot of respected voices on Twitter. Before the NBA finals actually began, there was a legitimate argument over Lebron James potentially surpassing Michael Jordan. The views were that Lebron had beaten better teams and his triumph on the warriors last year was greater than anything Jordan ever did.

After the super bowl, Tom Brady won his fifth ring. It was almost a 180 with what people were arguing in terms of GOAT QBs. The discussion over GOAT QBs almost seemed to have immediately ended as soon at Brady ended up with one more than the guy he was getting compared to in Joe Montana. It really was that simple. Five rings? You're the GOAT.

Whatever your personal opinions of these great players is, my point is that it was the first time I saw supposedly set in stone judgements on the GOATs in other sports(Montana and Jordan) either completely crumble or start to finally chip a bit.

The key question I'm asking here isn't so much asking if Crosby in a vacuum can become the GOAT. My question is more so, in this league of significant changes from the 80's to now; where the guys considered the universal GOATs played in an era where it was significantly easier to score; would Crosby becoming the GOAT even be something we would recognize if it actually happened?

What is the standard now for a new GOAT? What would hypothetically make a player surpass Mario or Gretzky in the eyes of the public in this day and age? It can't be something as simple as breaking Gretzky's records for scoring because Gretzky played the vast majority of his career in the weakest era in NHL history when it came to stopping the puck in general. Playing against skaters in net with slightly more padding compared to the stacks of pillows goalies today wear. It's significantly harder to score nowadays and the talent in at goalie, has improved since the 80's. The rule changes, goalie equipment, and changes in strategies have made it literally impossible to break Gretzky's records unless we were to go back to that. So simple scoring records aren't enough now.

Is it cups? Gretzky only has four but how many more than him would Sid really need to start getting real questions of "the new great one?" Considering cups were the only real argument meatheads tried to make for Toews over Sid, perhaps cups are too arbitrary. What if Crosby had a significant lead on everyone else in cups, like having 5,6, or 7?

Is it trophies? Sid is NOW right there with Gretzky and Mario in Conn Smythes. Would Sid winning more cups and perhaps ending with the most conn smythes of all time give him GOAT status?



So in conclusion, the question I'm asking isn't "will Crosby retire the greatest of all time?" My question is more "If Crosby actually was the greatest of all time, would we know it? And if so, how would we know it?" Can it happen? Or are we still going to be arguing for Gretzky in the year 3000?

Hypothetically, this question could be asked for any next great player playing now or in the future. I just used Crosby because nobody right now has the same hardware that he does but it could also apply to McDavid or Matthews were they to end up with similar hardware down the road. This argument could also apply to Malkin or Kane.

There's other elements into comparisons like Brady/Montana or James/Jordan (which begins to resettle after the GSW entered the discussion for greatest basketball team) than just championships, and this glaringly moreover the case when speaking about any other hockey player and Wayne Gretzky.

I admit, I'm an unabashed, die-hard Gretzky apologist who was fortunate to see him emerge and become what he's become. The principal of reason I might defer to (and if it can be called as such) is the magnitude of separation between Gretzky and his peers and how he affected individual, team and championship records.

There's a temptation like most things today to hitch one's opinion to the most fashionable truth of the moment. Crosby had a fantastic year. There are some that enter into such a discussion on the heels of the emotional force of this past year who then begin to focus solely on Crosby as the basis of comparison - all the way back to junior and through Olympic and World Championship play - and measure other careers against his (an arbitrary standard).

The standard remains Wayne Gretzky and we know it because his career acts almost as dictionary of accomplishment in the NHL. Note, we never make greatest of all time comparisons without Gretzky. It's never and Orr/Lemieux comparison. It's never a Howe/Richard comparison or a Gainey/Kharlamov comparison. But it's always Gretzky/Orr, Gretzky/Howe, Gretzky/Lemieux etc...

I remember when Scott Niedermeyer retired, there was conversation that he had the most completely successful hockey career when his junior accomplishments were taken into consideration. It's the skew of zeitgeist. And I think that's why the question seems plausible, but in consideration shouldn't be given the actual detail of the accomplishments he's (Crosby) up against.

I think he's an all-time great, certainly. But, given how...transcendent? Orr,Gretzky and Lemieux were including and excluding modified factors for era, etc...I wonder if the game itself prohibits the kind of separation necessary for a Crosby or (insert preferred example here) heir apparent to transcend their competition in the same way?

 

[edog37]

Woah boy...

I love Lemieux but he was a floater.

career wise, yes. Not when it counted the most however...

 

[BraveCanadian]

career wise, yes. Not when it counted the most however...

I think Selke might be a liiiittle rich.