As a career extend the his era can become a bit of a stretch when we take totals. Because we start right at the moment the player started so a lot of great assists player of his era will have only shared 10 or less season and would end up below in absolute total, people with significant higher apg that played over 600 games during Ovechkin career like Datsyuk, St-Louis, Jagr, Alfredsson, Barkov, Zetterbeg, Kucherov, Gaudreau, Huberdeau, Ribeiro, D. Sedin, Ray Withney, Richards, Voracek, Mack, Krejci, Elias, etc... will not show up because of volume of games. And those who started later one will have yet to catch on.
Only 48 forward played 1000 games in his era, 22 played 1100 or more.
He his 10 among that group, really hard to have that many assist without playing that level of games, obviously it is a special group 1000+ nhler but again this is a conversation of the greatest of all time, Cogliano, Jordan Staal, Stastny, Gagner, Steen, Ladd, Kunitz, Pominville has great career for people that went into hockey but not great historically.
Among the 48 forward with 1000 games or more, he is
16th in assist per game, just ahead of Mikko Koivu
outside the power play he is 21th of 48 in assist per game, below Eric Staal that did not reach 40 assist since 2013-2014.
Mikko Koivu in assist is not bad, but in a conversation about the greatest of all time the bar get higher.
A bit like how good of goal scorer Crosby would look right now if we consider his era 2006 to now looking at total in a world with no Ovechkin, first with a nice gap with a good one all time like Stamkos and everyone else far behind, does not mean he was a better scorer than player of his era like Kovalchuck-Stamkos or at the very least not as cleanly has that metric would tell.
Mike Bossy has the most goals of his era looking at it like that, but that does not make it automatically a better goal scorer than Gretzky, would it not be of Gretzky Marcel Dionne during his era look insane:
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I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea that 7 of the top 8 players of all time are forwards. I'd also have Ovechkin ahead of Richard (see, I'm not an Ovechkin hater!)
Nope, because his big thing is that he is arguably the greatest goal scorer of all time. Swap 200 goals for assists (and the resulting change in awards) and you still have a HHoF player, but probably not a top 20 guy. His stats would look like Joe Sakic's at that point, and nobody is saying that Sakic was a greater player than Ovechkin.
What is the falsehood? What am I saying that is factually incorrect? We have a difference opinion, but that doesn't make it a falsehood.
For an offense-only forward in the top 10-20 of all time, who played his entire career in 82 game seasons (minus the lockouts and COVID years), yeah, 663 isn't a good look for him. It isn't nothing, but it doesn't help his case when other top goal scorers have better assist numbers than he does, and then playmakers have better goalscoring results than Ovechkin has playmaking results.
Ovechkin is 2nd all time in goals. 69th in assists. As mentioned, Ovechkin has 3 top ten assist seasons; 6th, 6th, 10th.
Put Crosby vs any of them and it's still debatable. "Top 10" is getting awfully crowded, in reality being "top 20" likely means a player got a somewhat solid argument for 5th. McDavid quite likely to change that.
I thought that it was evident that I was referring to things being done at a top 10-20 all time level. I apologize if that was not clear.
Hits is a terrible stat that (if I'm remembering correctly) doesn't actually correlate with winning. Physicality, unlike point production, is hard to measure. I mean, Luke Schenn led the league in hits last year. Does that sound like a stat worth paying attention to?
If he achieved similar or better overall results (point finishes, Hart votes, Ted Lindsay finalist) as most of these other goal scorers, does his assist total really matter all that much? Who's to say that not being a balanced offensive player from a production standpoint gives those guys a leg above him? It's not like he has focused solely on goal-scoring yet remains on the same level as other goal-scorers. His goal-scoring longevity is so far ahead of any player not named Bobby Hull or Gordie Howe so why is that not also something that would be used largely in his favor when being stacked up against other top goal-scorers or players in general to make up for the lack of balance? He is much more dominant as a goal scorer than Crosby (or insert the other "playmakers" that have better goalscoring results than Ovechkin has playmaking results here) has ever been as a playmaker from a production standpoint. The disparity of dominance in those categories is what should close the gap.
Big deal Claude Giroux has 10 more assists in 247 less games for 9th.
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Big deal Claude Giroux has 10 more assists in 247 less games for 9th.
In his peak Ovi was more multi dimensional but after 10-11 he simply wasn't a very good playmaker really and became much more one dimensional in terms of offense.
Ovi is 52nd in assists since the 10-11 season despite being 4th in MPG among all forwards and also had 700 more minutes of PP time than the next guy.
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Yes that's 700+ extra overall PP minutes.
Ovi is the greatest goal scorer of all time no need to make up stuff about his playmaking abilities as they aren't even top 200 of all time in the playmaking metric.
The defensemen and goalies unions are on Line #2 for you buddy.
Can I make it the next 15?
This isn't great. It's probably not as bad as it reads, but it's not great. But again, this is the ol' "easy" button. Hits = dimension (or whatever) to you...that's fine, it's not exactly how it works, but it opens up the door for many more players to get in your way...
Forget hits. Anyone who watched young Ovi knows he was quite a physical player. One of many examples:
Is anyone debating that? I believe MJ only brought up hits to support his claim that Ovi has (or had) a physical side to his game. Whether you want to call it a dimension is just a matter of semantics. Either way its *something* that Richard, Hull, Jagr, Crosby, etc did not offer (as far as I know regarding the older guys).
Right... does that apply to Bobby Hull as well? Their careers are pretty damn similar.
