What are the biggest "huh" seasons of all time?

[MadLuke]

...................

No that fair....

But comparing first in the league in points (both in the regular season, more in the playoff) going up to 30 years old with someone that was 8th in scoring during his 25-26 years old would be absolute peak.

Other way to say this, he was scoring a Jonathan Toews and Kopitar pace, exactly those years.

Crosby was hanging out at the very top:

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Has an older post peek player.

Ovechkin bounce back that make it look "huh" is winning like 5 rocket after missing the top 10 and what will be a career worst top 10 for a long time 5th position, what would be post 30 years old Crosby bounce back to make those look strange in hindsight ?

 

[Midnight Judges]

No that fair....

But comparing first in the league in points (both in the regular season, more in the playoff) going up to 30 years old with someone that was 8th in scoring during his 25-26 years old would be absolute peak.

Other way to say this, he was scoring a Jonathan Toews and Kopitar pace, exactly those years.

Crosby was hanging out at the very top:

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Has an older post peek player.

Ovechkin bounce back that make it look "huh" is winning like 5 rocket after missing the top 10 and what will be a career worst top 10 for a long time 5th position, what would be post 30 years old Crosby bounce back to make those look strange in hindsight ?

Relying on the top 5 or so players to be constant is much more volatile than relying on league-wide averages. You are relying on the volatile thing to overrule the less volatile thing.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Turning every thread into violent warfare every time the name "Ovechkin" appears is becoming spam at this point. FYI.

Not every thread in this subforum should require posters to skip 40-50 sidebar posts that are the same damn thing.

(And I don't need to hear others' opinions about this.)

 

[Crosby2010]

Ovie, but just 2012. 2011 was not strong compared to 2010, but 2012 was just awful overall. This was the time Boudreau found a way to have the Caps score less than 100 goals from 2010. He gets fired and they make a strange hire in Dale Hunter who was basically just there as an interim coach.

How about Gretzky in 1995? It sort of makes sense, the Kings were terrible, he missed half the season due to the lockout and he was 33, not a spring chicken. But him getting a point a game after a 130 campaign was weird. His 1996 season was better, and he was closer to being amongst the elite. But 1995 was that weird year where he wasn't. And then led the NHL in assists in 1997 and 1998.

Wow, Ratelle in 1967 as someone mentioned. I assume the 41 games with 11 points is aided by the fact that in those games he was hobbled with whatever was hurting him. He did fine in previous seasons in the original 6, so it wasn't like he couldn't hack it.

Ron Francis in 1992. Strange. 1990 he has 101 points. 1991 he has 87 points in a season that he is traded to the Pens. 1992 he has 54 points in 70 games, but a good postseason and won a 2nd Cup. Then 100 points in 1993 and he's back to normal.

Bill Barber in 1977. Has 112 points in 1976, 55 in 1977, then 72 in 1978 and a few 80+ point seasons afterwards. That's a 57 point drop in 1977. I don't get it. The Flyers were still a great team. Clarke had a bit of a drop, but he still had 90 points.

Malkin in 2010, but more pronounced in 2011. This was sandwiched in between Art Ross seasons.

 

[Beljavskij]

Crosby played at basically that same 30-some goal / 80-some point pace at ages 27, 28, 29, and 30.

Ovechkin in the 11-12 season is by far the worst season of comparison between the two. That season is seriously mind-boggling. How can a player go from scoring 109 in 72 games to 65 in 78 games in two seasons!? And he was only 27 when this occured.

The Crosby seasons you highlight look elite in comparison, and really were in hindsight when looking at the low scoring league, and other players at the time.

 

[Voight]

Daniel Sedin 2014.

40 points in 47 games in 2013, follows that up with 47 points in 73 games and then in 2015 hes nearly PPG again with 76 points in 82 games, 8th in scoring.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I'm not sure if anyone has ever dug into this, but how about Charlie Conacher's 1933 season?

He led the league in goals in the two seasons before, and the two seasons after. He was nice and consistent, scoring 31, 32, 34 and 36 goals. But in the middle, at age 23, he scored just 14 times.

He missed 8 games, so maybe the explanation is injuries. But he missed a similar number of games in three of these seasons (six in 1931, four in 1932, six in 1934) and in any case, even on a per game basis, he wasn't anywhere close to the surrounding seasons.

 

[MadLuke]

Wikipedia say that he broke his collarbone that year.

 

[EpochLink]

Daniel Sedin 2014.

40 points in 47 games in 2013, follows that up with 47 points in 73 games and then in 2015 hes nearly PPG again with 76 points in 82 games, 8th in scoring.

You can put Henrik Sedin in that one as well, the one and only year Torts coached the Canucks. Both of them struggled in his system but rebounded the next year 70+ point seasons.

 

[Acallabeth]

Ovie, but just 2012. 2011 was not strong compared to 2010, but 2012 was just awful overall. This was the time Boudreau found a way to have the Caps score less than 100 goals from 2010. He gets fired and they make a strange hire in Dale Hunter who was basically just there as an interim coach.

Malkin in 2010, but more pronounced in 2011. This was sandwiched in between Art Ross seasons.

I don't think Ovechkin and Malkin are much of 'huh?'. Malkin had multiple knee injuries, AO was playing through multiple injuries in 2011 under increasingly defensive coaches (Hunter wouldn't play Ovechkin at all with the Caps leading) and with growing frustration of playoff and international failures.

 

[Voight]

Jarome Iginla, 2010

 

[Gerulaitis]

Eddie Shore in 35/36. His offensive productivity has dropped dramatically.

.. but he still won the Hart.

Interesting.

 

[carjackmalone]

77-78 Marcel Dionne

 

[DitchMarner]

How about Trottier 1985?

 

[JJ18Sniper]

How about Trottier 1985?

View attachment 941417

I believe he had knee surgery before the playoffs during the 83-84' season, which slowed him down and then Sutter got 1st line minutes in 84-85' with Bossy coming out of the Canada cup.

 

[dalewood12]

In his later years, Eric Staal going from 28 goals in 2017 to 42 goals in 2018 and then back down 22 goals in 2019 always struck me as weird.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

 

[BadgerBruce]

Johnny Bucyk had an admirably consistent career in terms of his league scoring race finishes.

Beginning in 1957-58, Bucyk finished somewhere between 7th and 15th for 10 out of 11 seasons. The outlier? 1960-61, where he played all 70 games but ended up 30th. He immediately bounced back and strung together finishes of 12th, 7th, 15th, 10th, 11th, 14th and 9th.

As a kid who began playing organized hockey in the 1960s, Johnny Bucyk was an NHLer I wanted to be like. You always knew what he was going to bring, game after game and season after season.

Except for 1960-61.

 

[IslesFan2017]

This isn't exactly the same but how about Brad Richards in 2009-10? Looking at his career trajectory, he posts 79 points in 2003-04 helping the Lightning win the Cup, then 91 points in 2005-06. He was okay the following three seasons but didn't came close to that point total, partly due to injuries. He is traded to the Stars and suddenly bounces back with a 91 point season again in 2009-10 and he was in the conversation to make Team Canada.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Ovechkin in the 11-12 season is by far the worst season of comparison between the two. That season is seriously mind-boggling. How can a player go from scoring 109 in 72 games to 65 in 78 games in two seasons!? And he was only 27 when this occured.

The Crosby seasons you highlight look elite in comparison, and really were in hindsight when looking at the low scoring league, and other players at the time.

Those seasons saw crosby finish 3rd,3rd,2nd,10th in the scoring race whilr ovechkins 65 points in 78 fames had him outside the top 25. Its not even close really