TheGoldenJet
Registered User
Please show me where I said that this list is “accurate”.@jigglysquishy ranked Malkin 11th on his list of greatest post-expansion centres (see post #402). The Athletic ranked Malkin 10th among centres (link). If you're citing the Athletic's list as accurate
I maintain that the NHL99 list was correct in rating Malkin above Trottier, who was #31 on the HFBoards users list which is now seven years old. It did have some of its own issues (such as overrating the popular Teemu Selanne), but was correct on the point of rating Malkin above Trottier.
The issue with the outdated and highly inaccurate HFBoards users list is that it is heavily biased, due to primarily North Americans doing the voting. Some of them have great opinions and knowledge, others, not so much. But that situation is going to objectively create real bias. Especially against a Russian player in Malkin, who is already being underrated to meme-like levels.
Malkin as a Russian is going to be lower down on a list made by North American HFBoards users than he should be. That is how a North American echo chamber generally works.
The solution to this would be to create a more representative voting panel for the next HFBoards project (the one that plans to include McDavid). Limit it to a smaller percentage of North Americans, and then include more Russian, Slovak, Swedish, etc voters. This is how you eliminate bias from your lists.
Second, a player like Malkin, who was also being ranked in the HF users list in the middle of his career before scoring 1000 points, is also going to have a second layer of bias leveled against him in addition to the Russian factor: that of not yet having the nostalgia factor of retired players (many of whom were inferior players to him). We are seeing this phenomenon with Connor McDavid now, who is still being listed behind vastly inferior players on some people’s lists.