The best player in the world: 2004

[thethirdhockeyman91]

Nick Lidstrom easily. Have you guys forgotten how good Lidstrom was already?

 

[SillyRabbit]

Idk why people are so reluctant to give St. Louis the nod here.

Art Ross, Hart, Cup, 2nd in playoff scoring.

Luongo is also a fine option but I’ll go with Marty.

 

[Ben White]

Idk why people are so reluctant to give St. Louis the nod here.

Art Ross, Hart, Cup, 2nd in playoff scoring.

Luongo is also a fine option but I’ll go with Marty.

He simply wasn’t at Forsberg’s level when Forsberg was healthy, not even close.

 

[Regal]

Nick Lidstrom easily. Have you guys forgotten how good Lidstrom was already?

Injuries to some and weak competition in general meant it was a prime opportunity for him to take the reigns and then he had the worse season of his prime

 

[Video Nasty]

Nick Lidstrom easily. Have you guys forgotten how good Lidstrom was already?

Guess people forgot in real time as it unfolded considering that he got zero Hart consideration and finished 6th in Norris voting.

 

[MrOT]

Peter the Great

 

[amnesiac]

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.

thank you Ken Hitchock

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

06, couldve/shoudve had 3 Conn Smythes (06, 07, 10)

 

[Video Nasty]

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.

You’ve admitted at least two times in this thread alone so far that you’ve misremembered things and/or didn’t fact check your claims. I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on taking your word when it comes to the Grimm’s fairy tale of Forsberg being the best player in the world and his PPG being higher the more games he played.

 

[Ben White]

It’s indeed interesting how people perceive Forsberg all time. What’s polarizing is obviously all of his missed time etc. However people who underrate him tend to compare “peak seasons” vs “peak seasons” which isn’t a fair tool to use when including heavily injury riddled players who have few healthy seasons to choose from. Peak vs peak is therefore a complicated, and less useful, metric to use in this case. “Consistency of elite play when playing” is a better tool. It’s common around here to see Forsberg getting bumped into the vs Malkins and Sakices comparisons rather than the Jagrs and Crosbys. Let’s look at ppg numbers with a reasonable cut off due to age and decline. Since Forsberg’s mid season injury in the 2005-06 season (at 33 y o) basically ended his career as we know it I think that’s a reasonable cut off to use across the board and one that doesn’t give any player an unfair disadvantage. Looking at the reg season numbers (and we all know that Forsberg looks even better in playoff comparisons) Forsberg has a ppg of 1.30 for his career through his 33 y o season as a cut off. Crosby has 1.29, Jagr has 1.29 and Malkin has 1.18. Malkin is a tier below in terms of “Consistency of elite play when playing”. The only argument against Forsberg here is that he started his NHL career at a slightly older age, however that is more than compensated for in that Jagr played several more seasons in a much higher scoring era pre the 90’s lockout while Crosby and Malkin feasted on the high scoring seasons right after the 00’s lockout. Forsberg basically played his entire career right in the DPE. Interestingly enough Ovechkin by the same metric only has 1.12 ppg through his 33 y o season. Off course he has a lot more goals than the others and will be held up due to being one of the best goal scorers of all time. However, whether you agree with me or not, my eye test and gut feeling always put Malkin and Ovie in a category below Crosby, Jagr, Forsberg and was always surprised that many people thought of it as Crosby, Jagr, Ovie with Forsberg, Malkin in a slightly lower tier. It’s a bit satisfying to now see that this (in my opinion very telling) formula “Consistency of elite play when playing” gives me right all along.

Further, to be held against Jagr, Malkin and Ovie is that they are all worse two way players than Forsberg and Crosby. To be held against Jagr in the “Consistency of elite play when playing” is that he didn’t have to play through injuries the way Crosby and Forsberg had to which gave him the luxury of maintaining a higher consistency and still isn’t ahead of the other two within this formula.

Yes, Jagr should be ranked ahead of Forsberg in all time lists due to durability and longevity, no doubt about it, but was he really, when compared healthy, primed and everything considered, the “better” player? That is actually a very valid question and not frequently enough asked.

 

[Video Nasty]

It’s indeed interesting how people perceive Forsberg all time. What’s polarizing is obviously all of his missed time etc. However people who underrate him tend to compare “peak seasons” vs “peak seasons” which isn’t a fair tool to use when including heavily injury riddled players who have few healthy seasons to choose from. Peak vs peak is therefore a complicated, and less useful, metric to use in this case. “Consistency of elite play when playing” is a better tool. It’s common around here to see Forsberg getting bumped into the vs Malkins and Sakices comparisons rather than the Jagrs and Crosbys. Let’s look at ppg numbers with a reasonable cut off due to age and decline. Since Forsberg’s mid season injury in the 2005-06 season (at 33 y o) basically ended his career as we know it I think that’s a reasonable cut off to use across the board and one that doesn’t give any player an unfair disadvantage. Looking at the reg season numbers (and we all know that Forsberg looks even better in playoff comparisons) Forsberg has a ppg of 1.30 for his career through his 33 y o season as a cut off. Crosby has 1.29, Jagr has 1.29 and Malkin has 1.18. Malkin is a tier below in terms of “Consistency of elite play when playing”. The only argument against Forsberg here is that he started his NHL career at a slightly older age, however that is more than compensated for in that Jagr played several more seasons in a much higher scoring era pre the 90’s lockout while Crosby and Malkin feasted on the high scoring seasons right after the 00’s lockout. Forsberg basically played his entire career right in the DPE. Interestingly enough Ovechkin by the same metric only has 1.12 ppg through his 33 y o season. Off course he has a lot more goals than the others and will be held up due to being one of the best goal scorers of all time. However, whether you agree with me or not, my eye test and gut feeling always put Malkin and Ovie in a category below Crosby, Jagr, Forsberg and was always surprised that many people thought of it as Crosby, Jagr, Ovie with Forsberg, Malkin in a slightly lower tier. It’s a bit satisfying to now see that this (in my opinion very telling) formula “Consistency of elite play when playing” gives me right all along.

These players, as injury riddled as some of them were, played many more games at advanced than Forsberg did, which then ate into their career averages.

Through age 33:

Jagr played 1109 games.
Ovechkin played 1084 games.
Crosby played 1039 games.
Even Malkin played 907 games.

Forsberg played 697 games. Only 231 of those were played post age 27.

Jagr played 311 games through age 21. Forsberg played 47. They both upped their game during a traditional age 22 season. Wonder whose career PPG is going to be temporarily higher at that point.

The guy didn’t play enough and he’s given a lot of the benefit of the doubt because he was an excellent player. No need to rank him any higher than necessary based off thing he didn’t accomplish.

 

[Deas]

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.

He was called best in the world and/or was in the discussion as one of them numerous times by American media, experts, fans etc throughout his career. That year’s Pearson is one of several examples of players not exactly doing objective analysis before assessing other players. At no point was Naslund better than Forsberg.

 

[Ben White]

These players, as injury riddled as some of them were, played many more games at advanced than Forsberg did, which then ate into their career averages.

Through age 33:

Jagr played 1109 games.
Ovechkin played 1084 games.
Crosby played 1039 games.
Even Malkin played 907 games.

Forsberg played 697 games. Only 231 of those were played post age 27.

Jagr played 311 games through age 21. Forsberg played 47. They both upped their game during a traditional age 22 season. Wonder whose career PPG is going to be temporarily higher at that point.

The guy didn’t play enough and he’s given a lot of the benefit of the doubt because he was an excellent player. No need to rank him any higher than necessary based off thing he didn’t accomplish.

(Bolded) fair enough, but the perspective I opened up for wasn’t about accomplishments but “Consistency of elite play when playing”. We all know Forsberg’s numbers look even better when adjusted for scoring environment/era (unfortunately I don’t have access to the adjusted numbers right now) but looking strictly at Jagr vs Forsberg, let’s do the exact same age cut off for Jagr as for Forsberg - Jagr being half a year older, completely disregarding that Jagr had several seasons to get acclimated to the NHL before hitting that age (while Forsberg has his rookie and sophomore seasons within this cut off), the fact that he played with Lemieux and that he was rather one dimensional + didn’t have to play through injuries as a lesser version of himself and hurting his ppg that way: Jagr then has 1.37 ppg and Forsberg 1.30 in this identical age span. Everything considered I think that speaks in favor of Forsberg if anything.

 

[Deas]

These players, as injury riddled as some of them were, played many more games at advanced than Forsberg did, which then ate into their career averages.

Through age 33:

Jagr played 1109 games.
Ovechkin played 1084 games.
Crosby played 1039 games.
Even Malkin played 907 games.

Forsberg played 697 games. Only 231 of those were played post age 27.

Jagr played 311 games through age 21. Forsberg played 47. They both upped their game during a traditional age 22 season. Wonder whose career PPG is going to be temporarily higher at that point.

The guy didn’t play enough and he’s given a lot of the benefit of the doubt because he was an excellent player. No need to rank him any higher than necessary based off thing he didn’t accomplish.

Sorry for slightly off topic, but as this is yet another thread going into how to measure players both from peak and career perspective.

I don't think the best Forsberg case uses career total p/g. That would be simplistic and as you point out give him the advantage of almost all his logged games being in a good age span. We can however look at his rank in p/g year by year and compare with the same for Jagr. The below show their rank in p/g for each of their years in the league, the win margins for their 1st place finishes and a summary also factoring in consistency and longevity. 25 games played required for a season to be included.

In short:

1st place finishes - Jagr 3 Forsberg 2
Top 10 finishes - Jagr 9 in 21 included seasons, Forsberg 9 in 11 included seasons
Top 5 finishes - Jagr 9 Forsberg 5

Strictly concerning scoring Jagr wins peak and obviously longevity/totals but Forsberg wins consistency in the top 10 (to quite some extent due to not logging games in older age, this way of looking at it doesn't get around that completely, but he was still top 10 at 33 so he healthy he might've added more top 10 finishes). Then consider how much stronger Forsberg's two way game was. There's a rather significant difference on that one though it's not measurable. If looking at peak and not longevity I think they're close.

Peter Forsberg


Entered league at age 21


94/95: 18

95/96: 6

96/97: 6

97/98: 2

98/99: 5

99/00: 13

00/01: 5

01/02: DNP (injuried)

02/03: 1 4.05% higher p/g Mario Lemieux

03/04: 1 20.41% higher p/g than Zigmund Palffy

04/05: DNP (lockout)

05/06: 9

06/07: 36

07/08: TFG (9) (*1st with 1.55 p/g if counted)

10/11: TFG (2)

Retired (concerning games included in this survey) at age 35.


11 seasons included in survey.

Number of seasons as 1st: 2

Win margin span: 4.05-20.41%

Number of seasons in top 5: 5

Number of seasons in top 10: 8

Years in/outside top 10 ratio: 8/3, 72.72%

Span in years between first and last top 10: 10

Summary

Peter Forsberg was an elite producer 9 out of his 11 seasons with enough games played. And a particularly good case for this study I think.

Some people hate that others hype him and tend to point out his career totals and claim he’s not even in the discussion for some kind of rank in a best ever argument.

Others point out him being 8th all time in P/G and 4th in A/G in combination with his physical and two way play and claim he’s number three all time or something crazy in that area. *outdated data

Considering this I really like the outcome with Forsberg in this study. It’s a sober middle ground. His peak capacity sure was higher than his career totals. His consistency at an elite level as well, as long as he was on the ice.

He’s got two first places, and one of those with a spectacular 20.41% win margin (healthy he very likely would’ve won a second straight Art Ross), and his in/outside top 10 ratio is among the very best. His consistency looks better than it likely had without the injuries though, as he never played into old age. Said consistency was kept up for over 10 years though, and consider the amount of games he logged while hampered . Whenever he could play he was among the best, including at age 33 (he was in utter beast mode for a good portion of that season before the ankle acting up again). Also consider his immensely strong playoff record including a significantly beefed up g/g when the going got tough.

The 03/04 competition wasn’t the best, granted. The wheels were starting to come off the Lemieux comeback train, Jagr had started his pouting years, Ovechkin and Crosby hadn’t entered the league yet, and so on. A win is a win, nonetheless.


Jaromir Jagr


Entered league at age 18


90/91 101

92/93 42

93/94 33

94/95 2

95/96 2

96/97 3

97/98 1 4.83% higher p/g than Peter Forsberg

98/99 1 9.88% higher p/g than Teemu Selanne

99/00 1 12.89% higher p/g than Joe Sakic

00/01 2

01/02 4

02/03 15

03/04 16

04/05 DNP (lockout)

05/06: 2

06/07: 12

07/08: 45

08/09: DNP (KHL)

09/10: DNP (KHL)

10/11: DNP (KHL)

11/12: 75

12/13: 51

13/14: 42

14/15: 112

15/16: 30

Retired at age x


21 seasons included in survey.

Number of seasons as 1st: 3

Win margin span: 4.83-12.89%

Number of seasons in top 5: 9

Number of seasons in top 10: 9

Years in/outside top 10 ratio: 9/21, 43%

Span in years between first and last top 10: 11

Summary

An 8 year streak in the top 5, including three straight first place finishes, is pretty special. Interestingly all his top 10 finishes are also top 5 finishes. If he was healthy, happy and cared he was truly dominant. And he put that up for about a ten year span. Before doing this I thought he’d be even better in this rank, however, as I was negatively surprised but his ”low” in/outside top 10 ratio. The reasons for which are the ”pouting years” after 02, leaving for Russia and then playing many years at an old age of course. His in/outside top 10 ratio is one of those that should be taken with a grain of salt due to age and career length. I did think he would have more years in the top 10 than 9 however.

Still, three first finishes and nine top five finishes puts Jagr up there with the group below the big three all time.

 

[Le Golie]

Kovalchuk getting votes. Lol

 

[J bo Jeans]

lol How can the Art ross winner, Hart winner, SC winner, 2nd top playoff scorer and arguably should have got the Conn Smyth as well, lose to Forsberg who played all of 39 season games???

The best player of the 2003-2004 season including playoffs was not Forsberg, no way you can twist it.

 

[Albatros]

lol How can the Art ross winner, Hart winner, SC winner, 2nd top playoff scorer and arguably should have got the Conn Smyth as well, lose to Forsberg who played all of 39 season games???

The best player of the 2003-2004 season including playoffs was not Forsberg, no way you can twist it.

Martin St. Louis was never the best player in the world, and I say that with some admiration.

 

[bobholly39]

lol How can the Art ross winner, Hart winner, SC winner, 2nd top playoff scorer and arguably should have got the Conn Smyth as well, lose to Forsberg who played all of 39 season games???

The best player of the 2003-2004 season including playoffs was not Forsberg, no way you can twist it.

Depends what we're asking.

Whose the better player today, going into 2023-2024 season? McDavid obviously, right? What if he gets injured and played only 39 games this year...and MacKinnon goes on to sweep the awards. Are you going to say MacKinnon is now better? No - he just had the better season.

I voted Forsberg. For what it's worth - MSL is the only other player who got any consideration for me here. I don't really get all the Luongo talk or Iginla votes.