What, you don't see it? Take Kovalchuk's Thrasher career, double it, ignore everything else because it doesn't help the argument, squint harder than Clint Eastwood and it kinda sorta looks like Ovechkin minus '08-'10 if you ignore the lack of Rocket Richards and other awards...
FWIW, I agree with adding some kind of context historically to a canadian-only league to a worldwide league. It's pretty clear that it's harder to be top-5 in goals or points year-in, year-out when there's much more competition in the league. This is due to just a significantly larger amount of high-end talent, as well as more players who can have career years or better years in any given season.
| Ovi - CAD only goal fin | Beliveau goal fin | Ovi - CAD only point fin | Beliveau point fin | Ovi - CAD only Hart fin | Beliveau - Hart fin |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
1 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
1 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
1 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
1 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
1 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 5 | |
2 | 6 | 8 | 5 | ||
2 | 7 | 9 | 6 | ||
3 | 8 | 9 | |||
3 | 8 | ||||
4 | 9 | ||||
4 | |||||
5 | |||||
9 |
Maybe your judgement is the problem with your conclusion. Kovalchuk is about as close to Ovechkin as Stamkos is to Crosby.
It couldn't have been that impactful in the playoffs, as the Capitals never had that much playoff success outside of the one Cup run despite having one of the premier teams of the time period.
I believe he misquoted you and you seemingly misunderstood norrisnick, who was being facetious.
Yes, you are right. I had noted that but I chose not to mention it. It seems like a good generalization, but not in Ovie's case. .
Ovechkin is probably the hardest NHL superstar to rank in an all-time setting. Goat goal scorer, 9x leading the league in the most important part of hockey (#2 is 7 times and in a much smaller league), one of the best 3 year peaks of all time.
It's not really all that hard. Find Bobby Hull, slot Ovechkin right in front of him. The vast majority of things used to criticize Ovechkin apply to Hull too. Inexplicable dips in their prime. Only the one cup. Not nearly as high of a point producer year to year as a goal producer. Hull won 7 goal scoring titles in 10 years and Ovechkin won 9 in 13 years. And as good as Backstrom is/was as a linemate, he's no Stan Mikita. And off ice, both Hull and Ovechkin have their skeletons so you can't point to character for either relative to say a Beliveau or Crosby.
Linemate, teammate, running mate. It's a guy on the roster to take some weight off the shoulders. Ovechkin never had anyone close to Mikita to run with.
I disagree with the simple notion that goal-scoring stats are "the most important part of hockey". Obviously it's logical enough to argue that out-goaling the opponent is the ultimate purpose of a hockey game and the means to victory, but the individual who gets last-touch is only sometimes the most important individual part, and frequently isn't. Goal-scoring tends to be the result of two, three, or four (even five or six) teammates working together.
I don't think Ovechkin's style of play is actually that unique. Maybe the young-Ovi's physicality mixed with goal-scoring was a bit unique, but even then there were plenty of "power forward" precedents. Ovechkin's style (young or old Ovi, or both) isn't that far removed from:
We probably should when Ovechkin has 11, 15, 15, 16, and 19th place finishes on top of the top 10s in a 30+ team league. Those are every bit as strong as 6, 7, 9th place finishes in a 6-12 team league.
This argument will always be wrong.
I don't mean to single you out here, but the rampant misspelling of Paul Coffey's name on the forum lately (mainly in other threads and by other posters) is upsetting me greatly.
