The Jagr/Mario overlap

[MadLuke]

Considering, or not considering, the nationalities of the players would be a context that some may choose, or not choose to apply.

At some point I would let the reader 100% of the work and provide nothing

 

[Overrated]

For example, "the 70s was a terrible era".

Was anyone saying this at the time?

Did people think he was as good as the best forward of the 60s Hull? When he couldn't even outscore Esposito who peaked a few years before him? I very much doubt it. It wasn't a terrible era. The NHL had some of the most exceptional defensemen ever. Orr, Potvin, Robinson, Park, Salming. The top Canadian forwards just weren't as good as the ones before or after, sh1t happens. The same happened in the early 00s after Gretzky retired and before Crosby appeared. Sakic and Yzerman were already in their 30s, Kariya and Lindros had their fair share of injuries and the best Canadian forward was Iginla.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Lafleur didn't outscore Esposito, but I do think he was the better overall player.

The Orr factor and all.

 

[buffalowing88]

I'm only glancing at the thread, but I see a lot of "Lafleur vs." talk...I'm not convinced that Gilbert Perreault wasn't better than Lafleur.

Perreault was the prototype of Malkin. Not as physical, of course, but I watch them both skate and see the same player at times. He'll be forgotten to time but he is fun to watch in the old highlights.

 

[daver]

Hockey was experiencing a massive boom back then but at the same time the league scoring increased a little bit. I think the two would have canceled each other out. I think it's fair to expect to Lafleur to score at about the same level he did in the mid late 1970s so 80 points less than Greztky. That is a massive disparity. Do you honestly think prime Gretzky would have 80 points on McDavid? Impossible.

Hmmmmm....what kind of math did you learn where a 22% increase in league scoring over a five year period ('77 to '82) is a "little bit".

I challenge to try to find another five year period in league history where scoring took such dramatic rise over a five year period.

I am not a fan of straight up multiply scoring by league GPG but the numbers cannot be denied.

20 PPG scorers in '76/77, two players above 1.40.

63 PPG scorers in '81/82, nine players above 1.40

I would reduce the 63 to 54 to account for the 3 more teams in the league but then a league in transition always results in an increase in the elite scorers benefitting disproportionally. Regardless, it is clear there was a significant shift in the scoring levels of the league's elite scorers.

 

[daver]

I took Mario's best two seasons 88/89 & 92/93 and compare them to the best two Jagr's seasons 98/99 & 99/00 (let's not take into consideration the year of Mario's comeback nor 95/96) and tried to do some sort of adjusting and the two would have been ~40 points apart had Jagr played in a higher scoring environment.

You can come up with any number that fits your narrative if you "try to apply some sort of adjusting".

Using your method, Selanne was playing at a 152 point pace player in 98/99.

Does that sound reasonable? This is almost becoming a rhetorical question at this point.

 

[Overrated]

Hmmmmm....what kind of math did you learn where a 22% increase in league scoring over a five year period ('77 to '82) is a "little bit".

You dishonestly picked the lowest scoring year from the mid-late 70s and matched it with the highest scoring year of the early-mid 80s. The eras averaged roughly 14% difference in scoring. Not an extremely small difference but not as substantial as you're trying to assess.

20 PPG scorers in '76/77, two players above 1.40.

63 PPG scorers in '81/82, nine players above 1.40

I would reduce the 63 to 54 to account for the 3 more teams in the league but then a league in transition always results in an increase in the elite scorers benefitting disproportionally. Regardless, it is clear there was a significant shift in the scoring levels of the league's elite scorers.

In 81/82 only 13 30+ year olds were 0.80 PPG or higher while In 76/77 12 guys were. The league just got better. A huge influx of new players and the first strong generation of Swedes and Americans. Hockey was still booming back then but the league didn't accommodate for this boom as in the previous era where the number of teams from 69/70 to 79/80 grew from 12 to 21.

Gretzky was already no1 in PPG at 18 competing against prime Dionne and Lafleur. Lemieux was 9th, Jagr was 101th, Crosby was 6th, McDavid was 3rd, Hull was 23rd, Gordie was 60th in a league of 150 people.

And yes I get it everybody matures differently, everyone has a different role on a team when freshly new etc. etc. but Gretzky wasn't that early of a bloomer as a teen unlike let's say Crosby or McDavid. 2 years later Gretzky's PPG went from 1.7 to 2.65.

So yep the league quality just got better.

You can come up with any number that fits your narrative if you "try to apply some sort of adjusting".

Using your method, Selanne was playing at a 152 point pace player in 98/99.

No he wasn't. Got anything better?

 

[daver]

No he wasn't. Got anything better?

Show me the work on Jagr's "168" point season and I'll show you the work on Selanne's "152 point pace" season.

And also the work on how a 147 point Mike Bossy finishes 6th in scoring in 98/99.

 

[Overrated]

Show me the work on Jagr's "168" point season and I'll show you the work on Selanne's "152 point pace" season.

And also the work on how a 147 point Mike Bossy finishes 6th in scoring in 98/99.

I simply took Mario's best two seasons 88/89 & 92/93 and compared them to the best two Jagr's seasons 98/99 & 99/00 and then looked at GPG leaguewide for the given years and then recalculated Jagr's numbers for the higher scoring environment. Just simple stuff. Selanne's best year happened in 92/93 so no need to adjust right? If you wanna adjust that season to 98/99 he'd be down by quite a bit since scoring was much lower.

Regarding Bossy what's wrong with the idea of him scoring at around the level of peak Kariya Forsberg Sakic Lindros in 98/99? Am I supposed to think he would do significantly better?

 

[daver]

I simply took Mario's best two seasons 88/89 & 92/93 and compared them to the best two Jagr's seasons 98/99 & 99/00 and then looked at GPG leaguewide for the given years and then recalculated Jagr's numbers for the higher scoring environment. Just simple stuff. Selanne's best year happened in 92/93 so no need to adjust right? If you wanna adjust that season to 98/99 he'd be down by quite a bit since scoring was much lower.

Yes, no need to adjust if you want to be dishonest.

Selanne was 6th in PPG and points that year, he was 2nd in points and in PPG 98/99. That was his best year.

 

[overpass]

For example, "the 70s was a terrible era".

Was anyone saying this at the time?

Was everyone putting an asterix on LaFleur's numbers or doubting his relative dominance at the time? No, he was the clear best player for at least three seasons.

Yes, people at the time said the league was weaker. There's a reason that Original Six nostalgia really hit its stride in the early 80s. Many hockey people remembered that era and knew that something had really been lost.

Arthur Therrien, junior coach who had seen the NHL since the very beginning, said in 1974:

...the scientific game has disappeared. Especially since the first expansion.

Clubs of today, I dare mention Oakland, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and New York Islanders, are fundamentally mediocre. I would also dare say that in the National Hockey League, hundreds of players should be playing in the minor leagues, they are completely lost when they meet a team of the quality of Canadiens, Boston Bruins, the Rangers or the Chicago Black Hawks.

These young players chase after the puck, they don't carry it, they get rid of it as soon as they receive it. They don't know any better because they haven't received the training required to shine in the National Hockey League.

Jim Coleman, a columnist who had watched the NHL since the 1930s, spoke for himself and referenced the general opinion when he wrote in a 1981 column:

It has become fashionable among oldtimers to deplore the overall quality of the players in the NHL today. Unquestionably, the 13-year expansion from six teams to 21 teams has permitted many defencemen of only borderline ability to find employment in the NHL.

Coleman went on to defend goaltenders of 1981, and said the poor defence was making them look bad.

The horrible truth is that, today, there simply aren’t enough good defencemen to stock a 21-team league. There aren’t even as many good ones as there were in 1966.

I don't have any more links handy, but I can say that in the late 70s and early 80s, it was common for columnists to comment about the low quality of the watered down NHL and say it wasn't as strong as before expansion. Tim Burke of the Montreal Gazette was one, as he didn't rank the late 70s Montreal dynasty over the late 50s dynasty due in part to the low quality of opposition faced by the 70s team.

Some, including Coleman, were of the opinion that international play against the Soviets were the place where real quality was tested, because NHL competition of that era was too poor to measure the greats. For example, Coleman wrote in 1983 that Gretzky's scoring feats were impressive, but were compiled against a weak and watered down league, so let's put any discussion of him as the greatest ever on hold until we can see him in the 1984 Canada Cup.

The losses to the Soviets in the 1979 Challenge Cup and the 1981 Canada Cup really reinforced the idea that NHL quality had declined.

Apr 2, 1975 – Tim Burke wrote about Guy Lafleur and Maurice Richard

The Rocket last night was non-committal when asked how many goals he thought he would score in this period of talent dilution and league expansion.

“All I will say is that I would score as many goals as Esposito,” said Richard.

I’ll say it then. At least a hundred, Rocket.

 

[overpass]

I would compare the Original Six nostalgia in the weak NHL of the 70s and 80s to the late DPE era of the early 2000s and the origin of the All Time Draft on HFboards. The start of the ATD was before my time on this site, but I think it was part of a wave of hockey history interest that coincided with the decline of quality in the NHL.

Active players got very little respect for years after the beginning of the ATD, and I think it's because everyone had literally seen the NHL get worse in the late 90s and early 00s. There were no optimistic assumptions that the quality of hockey had been a straight line of improvement from the beginning, because anyone with two eyes who could remember the last ten years knew better. Some of the worst draft classes in history, no generational prospects since Lindros in 1991, maybe no prospects to match Pronger or Kariya since 1993.

 

[Overrated]

Yes, no need to adjust if you want to be dishonest.

Selanne was 6th in PPG and points that year, he was 2nd in points and in PPG 98/99. That was his best year.

Adjusting is done on the basis of average scoring per game.