The best player in the world: 2004

[Voight]

My honest thoughts on Luongo's season in general is that it was a Vezina worthy season in most years, and he would be a credible top pick in this poll.

Brodeur played 304 more minutes than Luongo (which is >5 NHL games) and was the main reason behind New Jersey's 100 point season. That type of workload would be unheard of in today's NHL.

One of the reasons Luongo faced more shots is because he is an inferior puckhandler. Brodeur's elite play with the puck routinely negated about a dozen scoring chances per game. Further, a low-event shutout can be just as difficult to earn as a high-volume one, particularly as goalies tend to get into a rhythm when facing more shots.

Luongo had a very good year, and I won't argue those who pick him in this poll. It is a reasonable position to argue. But Martin Brodeur in 2003-04 was a proven big-game player at his absolute peak, and literally changed the way the game was played this season. As such, he is a worthy Vezina winner in my eyes, and by extension, a good pick for this poll as well.

Turco was also pretty underrated that year.

While he was better in 2003 (and should've won the Vezina quite frankly) he still managed .913SV%, 1.98GAA and 9 SO's.

 

[Video Nasty]

With the very best point producers during their relative prime I have not found evidence of more games played in a season = lower p/g. Especially with very high p/g in the neighbouring seasons as well. And the eye test showing they were at a dominant level during that period of their career.

The general tendency to want to downplay pace is with the best players overstated in my opinion.

Funny, because I have.

Gretzky, Lemieux, now McDavid. These are the players who have proven time and again that they can keep up torrid PPG for the vast majority, if not all of the same season. McDavid just did it last year putting up 76 points in the first 41 games and upping it to 77 in the final 41 games. These players, particularly Gretzky and Lemieux, earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to projecting out totals and expecting their averages to hold up. McDavid is probably as close to them as anyone can get for the foreseeable future.

Even Crosby doesn’t quite check this box, having never maintained a continuous torrid PPG streak longer than 50-60 or so games uninterrupted. During his first Art Ross campaign, he had 95 points in his first 56 games (59 team games). I’m afraid to say that he didn’t pile up another 39 points in his final 23 games as you would try and tell us.

Forsberg was not any of these players. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[JaegerDice]

Who does? Do people think that save percentage and other stats based on it are a silver bullet that NHL GMs missed the class on or something?

There are plenty of stats better than wins to evaluate goalies, which is how Brodeur beat Luongo that year.

They could have used SV%.

They could have used ESSV% if they wanted to be more accurate.

They could have used GSAA if they wanted to be even more accurate.

They could have used GSAx if they wanted to be more accurate still.

They could have looked at all of them in some kind of weighted algorithm of their own making.

Literally anything would be better than 'dur, goalie win good!'

 

[Deas]

Funny, because I have.

Gretzky, Lemieux, now McDavid. These are the players who have proven time and again that they can keep up torrid PPG for the vast majority, if not all of the same season. McDavid just did it last year putting up 76 points in the first 41 games and upping it to 77 in the final 41 games. These players, particularly Gretzky and Lemieux, earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to projecting out totals and expecting their averages to hold up. McDavid is probably as close to them as anyone can get for the foreseeable future.

Even Crosby doesn’t quite check this box, having never maintained a continuous torrid PPG streak longer than 50-60 or so games uninterrupted. During his first Art Ross campaign, he had 95 points in his first 56 games (59 team games). I’m afraid to say that he didn’t pile up another 39 points in his final 23 games as you would try and tell us.

Forsberg was not any of these players. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

We agree on the very best producers. While it may seem I implied Forsberg was in that company I did not. I should’ve clarified that. When going through all p/g winners ever, their win margins and also looking at other noteable players with the top guys a p/g drop in full seasons or increase in injury riddled seasons was not as noticeable as one might think.

On the Sid example: Of course there are ebbs and flows within a season but 05/06 Crosby is still a full season where the overall body of work landed him around 1.5. Let’s pretend it was a 100 game season. Would he have upped his pace in the last 20 games? The ebb and flow you’ve identified is not necessarily a trend. We’d have to look at all of Crosby’s seasons and compare his p/g in say his last 20 games vs his first 20 games. Maybe someone has done this? Would be interesting. I’d love to be wrong and update my knowledge on the general trend of players. There are often hot starts to seasons. True. I can think of plenty hot finishes too though.

Back to 03/04 Forsberg: It’s true however Forsberg was a consistent top scorer in the sense he was always very high in rank in p/g year after year. Very consistently in the top like few players. Thinking a healthy Forsberg wouldn’t very likely have won the 03/04 Art Ross is harsh to say the least. His total body of work and neighbouring seasons supports this. It’s not like a 97/98 Kariya with 31 points in 22 games. Counting that as a p/g 1st place would be counting an outlier pace for him, one also based on few games.

 

[Ace of Hades]

Luongo

 

[silkyjohnson50]

St. Louis or Roberto Luongo were the best this year.

Not impressed with an older Forsberg’s 30 game hot streak.

I don’t think it’s fair to call it a hot streak when it’s an identical pace to what he accomplished the previous full season.

From the 02 playoffs until the lockout, Forsberg was the best player in the world for my money. Injuries obviously took away much of 03-04 (and the entire 02 regular season), but there’s a large enough sample size to know who he was. It’s not a case of speculation.

 

[Ben White]

Funny, because I have.

Gretzky, Lemieux, now McDavid. These are the players who have proven time and again that they can keep up torrid PPG for the vast majority, if not all of the same season. McDavid just did it last year putting up 76 points in the first 41 games and upping it to 77 in the final 41 games. These players, particularly Gretzky and Lemieux, earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to projecting out totals and expecting their averages to hold up. McDavid is probably as close to them as anyone can get for the foreseeable future.

Even Crosby doesn’t quite check this box, having never maintained a continuous torrid PPG streak longer than 50-60 or so games uninterrupted. During his first Art Ross campaign, he had 95 points in his first 56 games (59 team games). I’m afraid to say that he didn’t pile up another 39 points in his final 23 games as you would try and tell us.

Forsberg was not any of these players. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

From that perspective you’re wrong and seem to base your opinion on a made up narrative rather than facts. Forsberg, like Lemieux, tended to have a higher ppg the more games he played in a season. Which makes sense since he, also like Lemieux, tended to play through injuries rather than to rest. Healthy + more games = higher ppg, half injured + less games = lower ppg.

Side note: Forsberg held a ppg of 1.48 from playoffs 2002 to February 2004 in a super low scoring era.

 

[Ben White]

Yet we can find numerous cases where a player's highest PPG/GPG were sustained for 20, 30, 40, 50 consecutive game stretches and not for 80 consecutive game stretches. It's not that they surely can't, it's simply that it's less likely.

That’s an apples vs oranges comparison. It depends whether the lack of games played (in a season for example) is because of an injury/injuries or if you simply cut out a healthy player’s best stretch of games. In the former case players like Forsberg and Lemieux who tended to play through injuries not being 100% actually tended to have a higher ppg in seasons where they played more games aka being more healthy. In the latter case, yeah off course you can find smaller samples of high ppg stretches if you can choose any selection of games from 100% healthy players.

 

[Ben White]

It’s interesting that Forsberg in his first 26 games in 2004 held a torrid ppg of 1.65, in his remaining 13 games, when the injuries was adding up, he had 0.92 ppg… (lower than he had in any season his entire career and you’d had a hard time finding any 13 games stretch where he was lower in his prime). Now was this likely cause of obviously playing injured or is it because of the more games = lower ppg narrative? I’d say this is a clear case of getting your ppg damaged cause of playing through injuries. A 100% healthy Forsberg would certainly still lead the league in ppg over 82 games in 2004, to say anything else is statistically dishonest.

Side note: However a higher scoring environment so not quantitatively comparable, basically the same thing happened in the 2005-06 season - in Forsberg’s first 21 games he held a pace of 1.86 ppg before his first injury that season, in his remaining 39 games again he held the, for his standards, underwhelming 0.92 ppg. Same story, and obviously due to injury he wasn’t in the Art Ross race (and this time not even in the ppg race) and not because “ppg drop as you play more games”. Yes I’ve said it before, Forsberg was, when healthy, the undisputed best player in the world all the way from the 2002 playoffs till his mid season injury in 2005-06. The evidence is there and Forsberg is, contrary to popular belief, in fact one of the more underrated players on HF, not overrated. When comparing “peak play” or rather “norm level of play in his prime when healthy” (not to be confused with peak seasons which doesn’t tell the full story at all) he should be compared to the Crosbys and Jagrs rather than the Malkins and Yzermans all time.

 

[wintersej]

David Ortiz

 

[pcruz]

Didn't Pronger drag the Oilers to a Cup final that year?

 

[Regal]

Didn't Pronger drag the Oilers to a Cup final that year?

That was after the lockout in ‘06

 

[Hockeyholic]

It's not a negative in his ability as a player imo. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here but I evaluate the skill level of a player by what they did when they were actually on the ice. Playing more games than somebody else doesn't automatically make you a better player if they're better than you when it comes to individual skills, it just makes you more reliable.

I agree with this.

Hypothetically, Crosby misses 40 games next year. Suzuki plays the entire year and Montreal gets into the postseason at the end.

Now it's obvious when both are actually playing, Crosby is hands down a better player. Suzuki doesn't have the near the talent nor impact as Crosby when both are on the ice.

I'll go to a football route. Witten was a more reliable TE than Gronk. He was healthier. But there's no question who the better TE was when both were on the actual field. It was Gronk.

Brodeur for regular season

Iginla for postseason

 

[jigglysquishy]

Lemieux, tended to have a higher ppg the more games he played in a season. Which makes sense since he, also like Lemieux, tended to play through injuries rather than to rest.

This isn't true at all.

Lemieux was sitting out back to back games as early as 1995. And only played one full season after 1989 (when he was only 23) in 1997, and even then he missed 6 games. He prioritized rest for the last 10 years of his career because his body simply couldn't keep up for 83 games.

Lemieux was also famous for starting out at torrid paces and dropping off.

See 1996,1997,2001,2003.

In 2001 Lemieux had 19 points in his first 8 games, a 195 point pace. He fell off to a 145 point pace. Honestly, his pace was saved by rest and getting 14 points in his last 5. He was looking gassed before taking a break.

Or 1995-1996, where he had 86 points in his first 31 games, an insane 220 point pace. And he greatly benefited from sitting 12 games for rest, allowing him to miss back to backs.

 

[daver]

If Lemieux is voted in those previous years despite the missed time this should be Forsberg hands down

Did you vote in Mario in those previous years?

 

[Ben White]

This isn't true at all.

Lemieux was sitting out back to back games as early as 1995. And only played one full season after 1989 (when he was only 23) in 1997, and even then he missed 6 games. He prioritized rest for the last 10 years of his career because his body simply couldn't keep up for 83 games.

Lemieux was also famous for starting out at torrid paces and dropping off.

See 1996,1997,2001,2003.

In 2001 Lemieux had 19 points in his first 8 games, a 195 point pace. He fell off to a 145 point pace. Honestly, his pace was saved by rest and getting 14 points in his last 5. He was looking gassed before taking a break.

Or 1995-1996, where he had 86 points in his first 31 games, an insane 220 point pace. And he greatly benefited from sitting 12 games for rest, allowing him to miss back to backs.

Tbh I’m not gonna argue this cause this is something I’ve heard and just took for granted without double checking it. My bad for doing exactly what I normally accuse other people of doing . It doesn’t make it any less true in Forsberg’s case however which I have indeed double checked. What is also glaring in Forsberg’s case, and in the examples I specified in my previous post is that he certainly did not “benefit from resting up” when he in both cases had his ppg drop to way below career average after starting to miss time due to injury. Had his ppg increased or even stayed the same after he started to miss time one could argue that “well the reason he maintained his high ppg was because missing time, he wouldn’t be able to keep it up over 82 games”, now when that’s not the case at all but instead he saw a MASSIVE drop in ppg when starting to miss time the conclusion must be that his ppg over the full season must have been better had he stayed healthy and played all 82 games. The “easier to maintain a high pp in fewer games” doesn’t apply in these cases at all.

 

[Mrb1p]

These polls suck because people argue stats and numbers instead of skills.

 

[Ben White]

Did you vote in Mario in those previous years?

I think I did in one of them, 2001. However Forsberg coming off of an Art Ross + Hart season in 2003 and the playoffs he had in 2002 + his start post lockout in Philly I think he has an even stronger case, as he has a very strong case for being recognized as the best for the full time period.

 

[FrankSidebottom]

These polls suck because people argue stats and numbers instead of skills.

Skills are way harder to measure and generally, at some point, skills have to translate to stats and numbers. You don’t win until you do, that’s how it works.

 

[lakai17]

Voted kovalchuk would change my vote to Marty tho

 

[The Tourist]

Turco should have won the Vezina in 03 and Luongo should have won in 04.

Forsberg when healthy was the best player in 04. Kovalchuk might have been the 2nd best forward in the world at the time. Dragged down by a bad team.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Luongo was robbed.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

From the 02 playoffs until the lockout, Forsberg was the best player in the world for my money.

Disagree, though the competition here was very weak.

In this span, Forsberg has his one peak season, but his peers voted Marcus Naslund as the better player that year. Other than that, he has thirty-odd games in 03-04 and a somewhat disappointing ‘04 playoffs, and that’s it.

At no time, arguably outside of his one peak season, did Forsberg show that he was the best player in the world.

 

[Ben White]

Disagree, though the competition here was very weak.

In this span, Forsberg has his one peak season, but his peers voted Marcus Naslund as the better player that year. Other than that, he has thirty-odd games in 03-04 and a somewhat disappointing ‘04 playoffs, and that’s it.

At no time, arguably outside of his one peak season, did Forsberg show that he was the best player in the world.

Such uninformed takes here. 2003 wasn’t even his peak play season, he was as good as he’s ever been in the fall of the 2003-04 season and was head and shoulders above the competition. Then the injuries made him a lesser version of himself in the spring that year and he only played partially. 2002 playoffs to mid season 2004 is still a large enough sample size to judge his level of play off of and not punish him for trying to play through injuries in the spring of 2004.

 

[Ben White]

Disagree, though the competition here was very weak.

In this span, Forsberg has his one peak season, but his peers voted Marcus Naslund as the better player that year. Other than that, he has thirty-odd games in 03-04 and a somewhat disappointing ‘04 playoffs, and that’s it.

At no time, arguably outside of his one peak season, did Forsberg show that he was the best player in the world.

That you spread such rubbish doesn’t make it true. Forsberg was talked about as a candidate for best in the world, together with Jagr, already back in 1998. Then he was the best player in the 1999 playoffs. Then certainly the best in the 2002 playoffs, the entire 2003 season, first half of the 2004 season as well as the first half of the 2006 season. Injuries made it difficult for him to maintain that status or to prove himself for long enough periods to convince every casual fan who didn’t follow him, but these time periods I refer to make your statement simply false.