Nice stats you have found but unfortunately that doesnt tell us much. You cant compare Forsberg ,Orr or Bossy to those guys who have full career.
You can compare those 3 to each other if you want.
1. Mike Bossy, 1.497
2. Bobby Orr, 1.393
3. Peter Forsberg, 1.254
If we do make some research and take SAME AMOUNT OF GAMES during players peak i should guess that FOPPA is not in TOP 50!
Your point is fair in that if we only look at points per game we would severely overrate Forsberg (to me, he is not a top-10 offensive player of all time). However, I think some people overrate how much of a drop he would have in his ppg over a full career. I tried to come up with some new metric in this
thread to measure how many games a player has played at an elite level. So, let's take a look at Forsberg's numbers in comparison to some other players I think are comparable, namely: Mike Bossy, Eric Lindros, Joe Sakic, Peter Stastny, Bryan Trottier and Steve Yzerman.
Number of games (normalized to a 82-game schedule) playing at a top-5 pace:
Rank | Player | Games
24. | Mike Bossy | 392
26. | Joe Sakic | 377
27.
|
Peter Forsberg
|
346
29. | Eric Lindros | 338
34. | Steve Yzerman | 311
35. | Bryan Trottier | 309
47. | Peter Stastny | 237
Number of games (normalized to a 82-game schedule) playing at a top-10 pace:
Rank | Player | Games
16. | Joe Sakic | 693
23. | Mike Bossy | 629
28.
|
Peter Forsberg
|
553
31. | Steve Yzerman | 530
33. | Eric Lindros | 528
44. | Peter Stastny | 476
49. | Bryan Trottier | 463
Number of games (normalized to a 82-game schedule) playing at a top-20 pace:
Rank | Player | Games
10. | Joe Sakic | 1120
22. | Steve Yzerman | 851
31. | Mike Bossy | 771
41. | Peter Stastny | 692
44.
|
Peter Forsberg
|
682
59. | Bryan Trottier | 625
81. | Eric Lindros | 528
My conclusion from these numbers is that Forsberg stack up pretty well against these players. Despite the fact that he only played 708 games he has more games playing at a top-5 and top-10 pace than Stastny, Trottier and Yzerman. Looking at number of games played at a top-20 pace we really start to see Forsberg loosing ground. Especially to Sakic who has fantastic longevity, but also to Yzerman. Surprisingly, he is still ahead of Trottier.
Based on these numbers, and also how Forsberg performed in the playoffs and internationally, I think Forsberg should be firmly ahead of Stastny. While Lindros was probably a better player at his peak, I think Forsberg should be ahead of him based on the same argument, plus that Lindros' career really took a downturn at the end. As for comparing with Sakic and Yzerman I think Forsberg were just as good a player, but he should loose out to them in an all-time perspective. You can't ignore that they played double the number of games as Forsberg did. The same should hold for Trottier. While his numbers here isn't that spectacular he has a reputation for being a great defensive player, plus he also has a big advantage in longevity.
Which brings us to Bossy. I have said it before and I say it again, Bossy is a really good comparison to Forsberg in terms of career value (though obviously two completely different types of players). I probably give an edge to Bossy offensively, but Forsberg had probably more defensive value. Both players played great in the playoffs but had their careers cut short leaving them with similar number of games played. Bossy has 4 cups to Forsberg's 2. On the other hand, Forsberg faced a competition that included all Russian players. To me it's really close between them and I would like to hear arguments from either side. Obviously, Bossy was ranked much higher on the HOH Top 100 list (Bossy 29, Forsberg 65) so I understand there is more to be said here.