Where do you place Ovechkin on your personal list of the greatest players of all time?
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- Feb 10, 2010
- 14,703
- 11,885
If it was Crosby, it would have been "Crosby led his team to the President's Trophy!" See how great he is!
Alas, it is Ovechkin and so he is to be shamed by team success.
K Fleur
Sacrifice
- Mar 28, 2014
- 16,000
- 27,106
Good points(or I mean goals…definitely not assists) as always MJ.
I’m now putting Ovi at #1 all time because he won 3 presidents trophies and he did it while being forced to play up on a cross.
- Feb 10, 2010
- 14,703
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The amazing Capitals President's trophy winning team that Ovechkin is lucky to be on has a .464% points percentage without Ovie.
With him they have a lowly .613%.
With him they have a lowly .613%.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
I guess ultimately I'm just running out of ways to inform you that Ovechkin just isn't quite as good as these guys. All time great, just a little bit short of this level (top 10).
MadLuke
Registered User
- Jan 18, 2011
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Are we talking about a 10 games sample size here ? (putting the result in absolute would have been more "journalistic"
i am 100% certain that 2010 Ovechkin had a lot to do with their president trophy win.
in 15/16-16/17 the Caps at ev with Ovechkin
on the ice: 133GF -98GA, 57.6 GF%
Without...: 255GF-180GA, 58.6 GF%
most frequent teammates: Backstrom-Oshie-Kuznetsov / Niskanen-Alzner
That excellent team support and this was not that uncommon for the caps to outscore the opposition more without than with Ovechkin on the ice.
peak ov 2009-2010:
on the ice: 88GF -37GA, 70.4 GF% (lol)
Without...: 141GF-113GA, 55.5 GF%
most frequent teammates: Backstrom-Knuble-Semin / Green-Schultz
That again excellent team support (I mean when was it not the case for a dominant president trophy winner)
- Feb 10, 2010
- 14,703
- 11,885
I'm sure you'll think up some more falsehoods.
And you can always hang your hat on plus minus again.
They're 24-28-4 without Ovie.
744-439-164 with Ovie.
- Feb 10, 2010
- 14,703
- 11,885
Yeah, I get your point though - he's the greatest powerplay goal scorer ever, so let's toss that out the window.
jigglysquishy
Registered User
It's comments like this where you lose the crowd.
You've spent 7 years being aggressive to everyone, attacking their integrity and their nationality. You attack every project and every argument. If you can't conduct your arguments with respect you will never will people over in your arguments.
PrimumHockeyist
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- Apr 7, 2018
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MadLuke
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- Jan 18, 2011
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Considering he missed only 30 games before the 2020 season and 26 since (where no one is suggesting the Caps was a specially good team) that could skew things a bit, Ovechkin aging out not being irrelevant to this obviously.
I thought by president trophy Capitals you were talking when they were winning the president Trophy, they wend 7W-2L-1OL without him during those 3 seasons.
- Feb 10, 2010
- 14,703
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That would only matter if the crowd was making rational decisions.
I have no illusions of convincing any Pens homers or nativists.
I've never attacked anyone's nationality. That's a false statement. I view nationalism and nativism as concepts that are arbitrary. None of us choose where we are born. Nor do we choose the environment we're brought up in. So where is the merit in that?
Few countries are more guilty of brainless nationalism than mine. It's not hard to admit. Another person's bias doesn't reflect on me in any way just because we're in the same place. I don't defend it.
It's the nationalistic ideas I attack, not people based on arbitrary geography. You have fundamentally misread my perspective on this.
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BackToTheBasics
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- Dec 26, 2013
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It obviously has its flaws but it's just another tool to use to compare players who played in completely different eras. Every tool we use to compare such players will have its flaws because of how many things need to be taken into consideration.
Based on what statistics? And which statistics are you placing more value on? Just going by what you said (Top 5 finish = Top 10 finish in the current era), Ovechkin would have the same amount of top 5 finishes as Bobby Hull. And if we say a top 15 finish in the current era is equivalent to a top 10 finish in O6 era, Ovechkin has 11 of those as well with 3 other placements just outside the top 15. Does that show statistical superiority for Hull?
Sure that could be the case if all else is equal but that would introduce a new personal bias depending on what era you prefer.
I don't want to derail the thread as this isn't about how Crosby compares to other players who have an argument for the top 5. However, the raw numbers show that Crosby and Beliveau's point finishes are nearly identical while Beliveau had higher longevity as a top goal scorer.
I mean Ovechkin was a top 3 player right when he entered the league while it took Hull 3 seasons to reach that level. It's also easy to say something like "Bobby Hull was Bobby Hull-like for longer" when most people on this forum have not witnessed the majority of his career. We have to rely heavily on the testimony of others and derive our own conclusions from theirs. With Ovechkin, most of us have seen him play for his entire career which makes him much easier to scrutinize and his flaws are much more apparent. Though there are a couple of Hull's games out there, there is not enough footage for any person to see a meaningful difference in his play on a game-by-game basis. We can't see how hard he tried to go for 50 goals on a meaningless last game of the regular season which is something Ovechkin has been criticized for. We can't see how hard he backchecked on a random Tuesday in October to convert to GIF form in order to spam for years. These are just some of the biases that go into consideration when ranking players from vastly different eras.
I believe once he breaks Gretzky’s goal record, you can certainly argue he’s the 5th best player of all time and the best goal scorer of all time
But not until then? The one goal makes all the difference?
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
But 893 and we can keep him out of the top 10, right?
jigglysquishy
Registered User
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Being a "one issue poster" doesn't help either
Victorias
Registered User
- May 1, 2022
- 341
- 585
I get where you’re going in the sense that he will have a singular claim to greatness that no one else has, but it doesn’t change what he has or has not done for the last 20 years.
Assuming you have Wayne ahead of Gordie, did Wayne pass him when he scored 802? Or was it because of his unparalleled dominance in the 80’s (and continued greatness in the 90’s)?
Victorias
Registered User
- May 1, 2022
- 341
- 585
Maybe he is saying Hull was more than a goal threat for longer - for example he was 6th in assists at 21 and 5th at 32 while Ovi’s top 10 assist finishes all occurred in his 3 year prime.
Couldn’t agree more with the bolded. Very well said.
Hockey Outsider
Registered User
- Jan 16, 2005
- 9,629
- 16,408
Here are three columns of stats. Anyone want to guess what they might represent? (I promise, this is relevant to the discussion from the past few pages).
6 | 2 | 3 |
6 | 9 | 9 |
10 | 10 | 10 |
20 | 16 | 18 |
29 | 26 | 20 |
35 | 33 | 20 |
39 | 52 | 22 |
51 | 53 | 34 |
68 | 72 | 35 |
69 | 75 | 48 |
71 | 76 | 49 |
115 | 85 | 97 |
120 | 85 | 108 |
121 | 87 | 170 |
122 | 102 | 186 |
146 | 184 | 199 |
203 | 216 | 268 |
212 | 554 | 469 |
Victorias
Registered User
- May 1, 2022
- 341
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Hmm well the number of rows = number of seasons played by Ovi and Rocket. The values seem like a ranking in some cumulative stat.
Hot or cold?
Hockey Outsider
Registered User
- Jan 16, 2005
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Three comments here:
First, these numbers are for ES only. Lemieux (unquestionably the best PP player ever) doesn't get credit for all the damage he did with the man advantage. Every player here is at least very good on the powerplay, so it may not shift things around very much, but it should still be taken into account. (Similarly, the PK is ignored, so all three defensemen don't get credit for the work they did there).
Second, Howe's numbers look incredible. What's important to emphasize (as you did on the previous page) is this only includes his career from ages 31 onwards. It's missing four of his Hart trophies, and five of his Art Ross trophies. I wonder how much better his numbers would have been during his peak. (On the other hand, this excludes the slow start from his first 2-3 seasons, and that probably would have dragged his average down).
Third, Gretzky's number seem, quite frankly, underwhelming. Part of the explanation is due to the drop-off after the Suter hit. Based on a simple average (not weighted by games played), he was at 138% before the Suter hit, and just 103% after. Every player would look better if we dropped their worst seasons, but this provides further statistical support for the Suter hit being a turning point in Gretzky's career.
The other comment about Gretzky - this stat is a ratio, but it doesn't consider if it's a high-event or low-event player. What I mean is, let's pretend that Gretzky and Lidstrom are both accurately described by the 121% stat (even though we know there's a lot of context we need to consider). Gretzky is still the more valuable player. Why? Lidstrom might get to 121% by being on the ice for 72 ES GF and 60 ES GA over the course of a season (assuming the team, without him, is dead even). Gretzky is much better offensively, and much worse defensively, so he might get that ratio by being on the ice for 120 ES GF and 100 ES GA. Both have the same ratio, but ultimately what we care about is goal differential. In this example, Gretzky went +20 (relative to his teammates) and Lidstrom went +12 (assuming the same calibre of teammate). The point I'm trying to make is, for players who improve their team's goal differential, the more "events" (goals) they're on the ice for, the more it helps their team. Gretzky might have a lower ratio than Crosby and Jagr, but I'm certain he helped his teams more than they did - so much happened when he was on the ice, and most of it was good.
Hockey Outsider
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- Jan 16, 2005
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Warm. One of the columns is Ovechkin (the other two aren't for any of the players discussed here - Richard, Hull, Crosby, etc).
