The better career: Crosby or Ovechkin?

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When it's all said and done, who will go down as having the better career?

  • Sid

    Votes: 217 70.9%
  • Ovy

    Votes: 46 15.0%
  • Dead even

    Votes: 32 10.5%
  • Can't decide

    Votes: 11 3.6%

  • Total voters
    306
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By what metric is Crosby, who has 3 career 40+ goal seasons, an all-time elite goal scorer?

In fact... by what metric is he an all-time elite playmaker? I looked up and Sid was top 5 in assists 6 times, leading the league once. And I'm not saying it isn't great, but kinda not impressive enough to compare it to Ovechkin's goal scoring, is it?
Well, in the history of the NHL there have been 21 players who have scored 600 goals. Crosby is one of them. Is that not "all time elite?" he will likely finish near or even slightly above 700. That's not elite? He also has 2 Rockets.

In assists he's 10th all time. He's one of 14 players in history with 1000 assists. He will likely finish in the top 4 of all time in assists. That's not elite?

So to summarize, Crosby is top 20 all time in goals and top 10 in assists.

Ovi is #1 in goals soon, but not even top 50 in assists.

Crosby has more points even while play almost 2 less seasons. He's also 9th all time in points per game played, while Ovi is 34th, several slots behind Malkin, the all-time p/gp Russian.

I'm not sure how you can equate that Crosby isn't elite at the 2 main aspects of scoring, while Ovi is only elite at 1.
 
We're


2015, 2018, 2020 you can make the case either way. I think 2015 would tilt Ovechkin, the other two toss up.

2015 - 2nd place MVP and 50 goals
2018: Very even, if you want to go with the guy who led the league in goals you could
2020: Depends how you value 48G in 68 games
Or being -12 on a team with a +111 and that's with extremely generous usage so no there isn't any case there.

2015 there is a case but in 18 or 19 it's extrmely weak to suggest best player in the world conversation.


Now, overall my answer is still Crosby because I'll always take 3 Cups to 1 and as a center he's a more well-rounded player, but it's actually not that far-fetched for those seasons. And Crosby has not been elite defensively for ages as a counterargument.
 
In the same breath as Gretzky, Lemieux, Howe, Orr and Crosby. He is literally passing Gretzky in a category.

It's a big 6 IMO.

Mount Rushmore requires two more spots.
He is nowhere near Mt. Rushmore as an overall player. As a goal scorer, sure. He will not go down as a greater player than McDavid either. So Ovi is at least at #7 all time. Then you have people like Jagr who i think were also better overall players.
 
In 2015 Ovechkin was the best forward in the league. 1st in goals and 4th in points. Only 6 points back from the Ross winner, and had anywhere from 15 to 25 more goals than the couple guys ahead of him. It was one of the most dominant goal scoring seasons of the last 25 years.

In 2019 Crosby was not even remotely close to the top-4 players in the league. He finished 21st in goals and 5th in points. 28 points behind the Ross winner.

Sigh, "the goals are everything" has been debinked unless you think the players, coaches, and GMs all have it all wrong. Overall production with a slight bias towards goals in the case of similar production is the best you can hope for here.

Crosby's overall game, his ability to carry a line of any quality player on his line, and take on any matchup to create depth separates himself from almost every other Top 10 scorer over the past 20 years, if not all-time.

Congrats OV on being the best forward in 14/15, argubly the weakest season by the elite forwards of the league of all-time. It objectively compares on the same tier as Crosby's 18/19 season. It doesn't matter how far ahead the leading scorer was.
 
He is nowhere near Mt. Rushmore as an overall player. As a goal scorer, sure. He will not go down as a greater player than McDavid either. So Ovi is at least at #7 all time. Then you have people like Jagr who i think were also better overall players.
McDavid will get there.
 
So you're now saying that 721 assists in almost 1500 games is "all-time elite" playmaking? Ovi isn't even in the top 200 in assists per game.

But 617 goals is 18th all time, with only 21 people in history cracking 600. 500 goals is like automatic hall of fame.

Are you really arguing that Ovi is as elite at playmaking as Crosby is at goal scoring?

So assists aren’t worth as much as goals?

Hmmm interesting.
 
So assists aren’t worth as much as goals?

Hmmm interesting.
I'm not sure the point. POINTS are points. Absolutely. And by that measure, Crosby has more. Way more when you consider how many less games Crosby has played.

Assists and goals both mean your number on the scoreboard was incremented by a positive 1!
 
Crosby’s defense looks good based on the eye test.

No. It really doesn’t. I could dig up similar plays for Alex Ovechkin.

Bergeron level but he’s improved on that end post 2014.

Actually Crosby got worse at defense after 2014, and this is shown in the statistics. His penalty killing minutes went down to near zero, his offensive zone starts increased, and his non pp goals against increased.

What changed after 2014 is Crosby was no longer much of a threat for the Art Ross and so the Canadian media started trying to compensate by claiming we was doing more defense when in fact he was just getting old.
 
Or being -12 on a team with a +111 and that's with extremely generous usage so no there isn't any case there.

2015 there is a case but in 18 or 19 it's extrmely weak to suggest best player in the world conversation.

Who said anything about best player in the world? That's not even the conversation.

Also that's why I said "depends" and the original post did not bring up 2019 where everyone agrees Crosby was clearly better so not sure why you're bringing up that year.
 
Sigh, "the goals are everything" has been debunked unless you think the players, coaches, and GMs all have it all wrong. Overall production with a slight bias towards goals in the case of similar production is the best you can hope for here.

Crosby's overall game, his ability to carry a line of any quality player on his line, and take on any matchup to create depth separates himself from almost every other Top 10 scorer over the past 20 years, if not all-time.

Congrats OV on being the best forward in 14/15, argubly the weakest season by the elite forwards of the league of all-time. It objectively compares on the same tier as Crosby's 18/19 season. It doesn't matter how far ahead the leading scorer was.

If Crosby had won the Art Ross in 2015 (or even been a finalist for the Lindsay Trophy): "This was the lowest scoring environment in decades!! What Crosby did was herculean and beyond anything Ovechkin did in 2008!!"

(I'm poking fun but this thread is actually already exhausting, can we finally stop the 8 vs. 87 stuff it's so played out - it's the NHL's Jordan vs. LeBron)
 
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I'm not sure the point. POINTS are points.

Uh no. What you previously said is mutually exclusive from what you are saying now.

This:

So you're now saying that 721 assists in almost 1500 games is "all-time elite" playmaking? Ovi isn't even in the top 200 in assists per game.

But 617 goals is 18th all time, with only 21 people in history cracking 600. 500 goals is like automatic hall of fame.

Are you really arguing that Ovi is as elite at playmaking as Crosby is at goal scoring?

….is mutually exclusive from this:

POINTS are points.
 
The belief of ovechkin being better needs to be studied by the worlds greatest investigators. I cannot fathom it.
just depends on what you define as better career.

If you value Team accomplishments with this question, its crosby but all of those accomplishments required his team or that he was born Canadian. If he wasnt canadian he would have zero gold medals, four nations cups. If he was drafted by Arizona instead of Pittsburgh, he has zero cups, smythes.

If you value hardware/records with this question, its Ovi. He won everything you could outside of a selke. He will have the greatest record in hockey, that was previously the unbreakable record until he got close and HFboards couldnt handle it. Now we have ridiculous arguments about gretzky being remembered mianly for his assists.

Ive come to respect Crosby over the years and actually dont want to watch his career dwindle away in Pittsburgh unless he wants too. Still dont want them to magically not suck and knock the caps out one more time. His trophy case is ridiculously impressive too but what most talk about with him in relationship to Ovi is his winning, which is a team accomplishment. He doesnt win in 09 without Malkin. He doesnt win the back to back cups without Kessel and Malkin, just the same as Ovi didnt win until he finally got one damn player on his team to play equivalent to Malkin just one playoff.
 
Sigh, "the goals are everything" has been debinked unless you think the players, coaches, and GMs all have it all wrong. Overall production with a slight bias towards goals in the case of similar production is the best you can hope for here.

Crosby's overall game, his ability to carry a line of any quality player on his line, and take on any matchup to create depth separates himself from almost every other Top 10 scorer over the past 20 years, if not all-time.

Congrats OV on being the best forward in 14/15, argubly the weakest season by the elite forwards of the league of all-time. It objectively compares on the same tier as Crosby's 18/19 season. It doesn't matter how far ahead the leading scorer was.
You're the one fabricating that I'm saying "goals are everything". Stop being disingenuous, it's tiring.

Overall production was in Ovechkin's favor here. He had a higher performance to #10, and much closer to #1. So from an overall points perspective, Ovi's season was more Hart-worthy.

And yes, I do value goals more - and I know you don't. But 100% of players, coaches, GM's are choosing the 80 goal, 0 assist guy than the 0 goal, 80 assist guy - this is without even getting into the statistical fact that goals are more valuable than assists (which I don't want to debate as I already know you will ignore the numbers and don't buy into it).

So yes - Ovechkin was a better overall point producer in 2015 than in Crosby's season, and the biggest difference maker is that Ovechkin had one of the best goalscoring seasons of this era there and was completely dominant in that area.

You can talk about carrying a line - how about Ovechkin carrying that Capitals team in 2015? He scored 53 goals and #2 on his team had 21 LOL.

You can talk about taking on matchups to create depth - but do you not think that every team was focussing 100% of their best players to stop Ovi in 2015? As I said, he was by FAR the best goal scorer in the world. Of course he was also doing the exact same thing lol.
 
just depends on what you define as better career.

If you value Team accomplishments with this question, its crosby but all of those accomplishments required his team or that he was born Canadian. If he wasnt canadian he would have zero gold medals, four nations cups. If he was drafted by Arizona instead of Pittsburgh, he has zero cups, smythes.

If you value hardware/records with this question, its Ovi. He won everything you could outside of a selke. He will have the greatest record in hockey, that was previously the unbreakable record until he got close and HFboards couldnt handle it. Now we have ridiculous arguments about gretzky being remembered mianly for his assists.

Ive come to respect Crosby over the years and actually dont want to watch his career dwindle away in Pittsburgh unless he wants too. Still dont want them to magically not suck and knock the caps out one more time. His trophy case is ridiculously impressive too but what most talk about with him in relationship to Ovi is his winning, which is a team accomplishment. He doesnt win in 09 without Malkin. He doesnt win the back to back cups without Kessel and Malkin, just the same as Ovi didnt win until he finally got one damn player on his team to play equivalent to Malkin just one playoff.

This. Crosby is a better hockey player than Ovechkin, anyone still arguing that is lost. But the Cups argument ignores that he had another all-time center alongside him for the entire ride. With all due respect to Backstrom he is not Evgeni Malkin or anywhere close.
 
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Well, in the history of the NHL there have been 21 players who have scored 600 goals. Crosby is one of them. Is that not "all time elite?" he will likely finish near or even slightly above 700. That's not elite? He also has 2 Rockets.

In assists he's 10th all time. He's one of 14 players in history with 1000 assists. He will likely finish in the top 4 of all time in assists. That's not elite?
Crosby's peak as a goal scorer isn't very high. He led the league twice, but overall has just 3 40+ goal seasons.

His peak as a playmaker isn't really all that legendary too. Even if we only count the players from his prime era, Thornton, Henrik Sedin and Backstrom are definitely more accomplished playmakers, with several more arguable candidates.

Crosby's strength is he's a very well-rounded offensive player who has aged very well (which has been helped by the league-wide scoring increase), but he has never been the best goal scorer nor playmaker in the world, which, in my opinion, disqualifies him from being 'all time elite' at each just based on his raw totals (I hope you don't consider Ron Francis a top 3 playmaker of all time).

In fact, if we multiply Ovechkin's career lead over Crosby in goals (272) by the average amount of assists per goal (1.67), we'll get 454, which is far more than Crosby's lead over Ovechkin in assists (337), which could be interpreted as Ovechkin's lead over Crosby in goals has been more significant than Crosby's lead over Ovechkin in goals.

In short, Ovechkin's goal scoring is arguably the best of all time, while Crosby's goal scoring and playmaking are both arguably top 5 of post-lockout era. Analysis like 'well, their goal-scoring is a wash, so Crosby scoring more assists is a decider' is really bad-faith.
 
By what metric is Crosby, who has 3 career 40+ goal seasons, an all-time elite goal scorer?

In fact... by what metric is he an all-time elite playmaker? I looked up and Sid was top 5 in assists 6 times, leading the league once. And I'm not saying it isn't great, but kinda not impressive enough to compare it to Ovechkin's goal scoring, is it?
Well, his career isn’t over and he’s 18th all time in goals, likely gets to near 10 +/- 2 spots when it’s all said and done and fourth in career assists.

By what metric is that not an all time elite goal scorer or playmaker? If he didn’t score another goal he’s top 20 all time with 617 career goals. Top 5 in assists is clearly all time elite. He’s a jack of all trades, Ovechkin fans wouldn’t know what that’s like
 
Crosby's peak as a goal scorer isn't very high. He led the league twice, but overall has just 3 40+ goal seasons.

His peak as a playmaker isn't really all that legendary too. Even if we only count the players from his prime era, Thornton, Henrik Sedin and Backstrom are definitely more accomplished playmakers, with several more arguable candidates.

Crosby's strength is he's a very well-rounded offensive player who has aged very well (which has been helped by the league-wide scoring increase), but he has never been the best goal scorer nor playmaker in the world, which, in my opinion, disqualifies him from being 'all time elite' at each just based on his raw totals (I hope you don't consider Ron Francis a top 3 playmaker of all time).

In fact, if we multiply Ovechkin's career lead over Crosby in goals (272) by the average amount of assists per goal (1.67), we'll get 454, which is far more than Crosby's lead over Ovechkin in assists (337), which could be interpreted as Ovechkin's lead over Crosby in goals has been more significant than Crosby's lead over Ovechkin in goals.

In short, Ovechkin's goal scoring is arguably the best of all time, while Crosby's goal scoring and playmaking are both arguably top 5 of post-lockout era. Analysis like 'well, their goal-scoring is a wash, so Crosby scoring more assists is a decider' is really bad-faith.
If my grandma had wheels she’d be a bike
 
Pointing to hardware that didn't necessarily garner more Hart/Lindsay recognition for OV seems less reasonable than pointing to Crosby's SEVEN major championships vs. Ovechkin's one Cup.
Yes, Crosby played on better teams and was born in Canada. How is that a credit to him in a comparison like this? Maybe if Ovechkin had never reached those heights also, but he did - he has a Cup and Conn Smythe.

Like I said, Crosby, imo, was the better overall player (very slightly). Ovechkin had the better career (decisively). There isn’t anything significant that Crosby did that Ovechkin didn’t do. You can’t say the same about the other way around.
 
If you value hardware/records with this question, its Ovi. He won everything you could outside of a selke. He will have the greatest record in hockey, that was previously the unbreakable record until he got close and HFboards couldnt handle it. Now we have ridiculous arguments about gretzky being remembered mianly for his assists.

The Rocket wasn't even a trophy until 88/89 and it's been shown many times over that Crosby was objectively better in many seasons where Ovechkin had more goals.
 
Yes, Crosby played on better teams and was born in Canada. How is that a credit to him in a comparison like this? Maybe if Ovechkin had never reached those heights also, but he did - he has a Cup and Conn Smythe.

No, it's because he played better than Ovechkin did in international competitions.

Like I said, Crosby, imo, was the better overall player (very slightly). Ovechkin had the better career (decisively). There isn’t anything significant that Crosby did that Ovechkin didn’t do. You can’t say the same about the other way around.

He is clearly the better player which is why his slightly better career numbers aren't taken at face value. And that's just offense. All around game, it isn't close.

How did Ovechkin have the better career given Crosby's superior regular season resume, to say nothing of the superior (decisively) playoff resume.
 
Uh no. What you previously said is mutually exclusive from what you are saying now.

This:



….is mutually exclusive from this:
Maybe you're misunderstanding? I'm not commenting on whether assists are more important than goals. I'm saying Crosby is better at scoring goals than Ovi was at getting assists.

Crosby is all-time elite at 2 things related to scoring. Ovi only 1.
 
The Rocket wasn't even a trophy until 88/89 and it's been shown many times over that Crosby was objectively better in many seasons where Ovechkin had more goals.
98-99?

so because the trophies existence hurts your argument its a negative because they didnt award it until 8 years before crosby/Ovi joined the league. The goal posts that have been moved in order to devalue goals in the NHL is absolutely fascinating. Itd be one thing if the argument was being made that Ovi is better because he won 1 extra rocket Richard. Ovi owned that trophy to the point where they should rename it after him. Crosby didnt dominate any category unless your going to make one up now. Crosby was simply very good for a very long time which isnt a negative. Dont see how this could be shown objectively when all of it is opinion controlled by what values are being held.
 
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Yes, Crosby played on better teams and was born in Canada. How is that a credit to him in a comparison like this? Maybe if Ovechkin had never reached those heights also, but he did - he has a Cup and Conn Smythe.

Like I said, Crosby, imo, was the better overall player (very slightly). Ovechkin had the better career (decisively). There isn’t anything significant that Crosby did that Ovechkin didn’t do. You can’t say the same about the other way around.
"Better career" is even tough to say. Crosby has 3x more cups, more points scored, better +/-, all time record for p/gp, won the head-to-head matchup by a good margin, led the league in scoring 2x more (and probably would have been at least 4x more save for a concussion), won far more international hardware, etc.

Isn't the judge of any player's "career" how much they helped their team win?
 
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