Who had the tougher competition for individual awards, Crosby or McDavid?

[daver]

BS. Crosby was not good enough in 2005-06 to compete with Jagr for trophies. So its not true that he did not have to compete with Jagr for trophies. He also beat a lesser version of Jagr post-shoulder surgery 2 seasons before Jagr left for the KHL, so he did face Jagr, even if it was not prime Jagr.

Jagr was not a realistic competitor for any seasons where Crosby was a favourite for the Art/Hart.

 

[Miro4Norris]

McDavid. It's not even close.
Jamie Benn, Sedins, Getzlaf, Giroux etc are NOT on the same level as Matthews, MacKinnon, Kuchervov, Draisaitl, etc,

Imagine sending this with missing top5 guys Malkin, Oveckhin, Datsuyk, Kane, Stamkos. 100% bias confirmed. Plus there was lot of elite chemistry duos that made these lower tier players better than them just individually like St.Louis-Stamkos, Sedin brothers, Benn-Seguin, Getzlaf-Perry. Plus of course Ovi-Backstrom. Good luck competing against them with Kunitz and Dupuis.

 

[WalterLundy]

McDavid’s and despite that he already has a better career individual trophy case/resume in half the seasons.

Crosby could have two extra art ross trophies from 2011 and 2013 and perhaps another Hart/Lindsay or so if he was fully healthy at his peak but he sadly wasn’t. That hurts his overall trophy case but his overall competition wasn’t really anything special at all outside of Ovi as the rocket/hart competition. Malkin only impacted him negatively for awards one season in his prime. Corey Perry, The Sedins and Jamie Benn never win any award from 2018-present.

 

[OtherThingsILike]

So if the point separation in OHL goes like this:
1. 119pts
2. 118 pts
3. 115 pts
4. 110 pts

and NHL 1989:
1. Mario 161
2. Jagr 149
3. Sakic 120
4. Francis 119
5. Forsberg 116

By your logic, the 2nd place guy in OHL had better competition than Jagr.

Correct, but even more relevantly, the 1st place OHL guy had better competition for the OHL trophies than Lemieux.

After all, his degree of separation is only 3 points. can you see how laughable that is? You have to factor in the level of play and degree of difficulty to win when measuring competition. A higher level of play needed to win = tougher competition.

Correct, and given the fact that Crosby needed to have a higher level of play and had a higher degree of difficulty, he had tougher competition.

McDavid directly lost out to better seasons from the competition( 2019, Kuch, 2020 Drai, 2024 Mack, 2024 Kuch)

Because they are his only competition.

based on my example prior, it was harder for Gretzky to win in 1989 than it was for Crosby in any period of his career because the level of play needed to beat Mario was higher than the level of play needed to beat Benn, Kane(or anyone Crosby lost out to).

It wasn't harder for Gretzky to beat Mario in 1990, because all he needed to do was wait for Mario's back to act up again and for Mario to miss games.
Which is part of the issue with trying to claim that the scant few elite players that existed during Gretzky's time or during McDavid's prime today provide tougher competition.

My entire argument is that Drai, Kuch, and Mack are more consistent point producers than post-2010 Ovi, Malkin(who rarely played past 70 games), or other point producers Crosby faced.

I should hope so; points are so much easier to come by now than they were ten years ago.
This is in part because it requires a lower level of play to score consistently now than it did to score frequently but inconsistently ten years ago.

Crosby lost out to Kane once, stamkos zero times, and Malkin, and Ovi once too. none of these players finished second when Crosby won. How is that competition?.

When there are as many elite players as there were in Crosby's prime, the trophies are going to be more evenly distributed.

 

[daver]

Crosby lost out to Kane once, stamkos zero times, and Malkin, and Ovi once too. none of these players finished second when Crosby won. How is that competition?.

The same way that Giroux, Huberdeau and Gaudreau were competition.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Imagine sending this with missing top5 guys Malkin, Oveckhin, Datsuyk, Kane, Stamkos. 100% bias confirmed. Plus there was lot of elite chemistry duos that made these lower tier players better than them just individually like St.Louis-Stamkos, Sedin brothers, Benn-Seguin, Getzlaf-Perry. Plus of course Ovi-Backstrom. Good luck competing against them with Kunitz and Dupuis.

Yup.

Ovechkin is by far the second-best player of all the players mentioned for Crosby and for McDavid. I'd say Malkin is equal to, or slightly better, then the rest of the players competing with McDavid. Peak Malkin was a maniac. Then, MacKinnon, Kucherov, & Draisaitl are probably slightly better than Datsyuk when it comes strictly to competing for hardware, but Datsyuk was a two-way maniac, and on a shift-to-shift basis- I'd say he's equally as impactful. I'm not sure Datsyuk's superior two-way game brings a ton of hardware, though. Kane and Matthews are close, imo. Stamkos is probably last of the bunch. Terrific goal scorer, but not quite at Matthews level.

So, I'd say Ovechkin is the best of the bunch, then Malkin is close. I'd go with Crosby since he had to go head-to-head with another generational player, though McDavid seemed to have more quality players he was competing with after Ovechkin.

 

[daver]

Yup.

Ovechkin is by far the second-best player of all the players mentioned for Crosby and for McDavid. I'd say Malkin is equal to, or slightly better, then the rest of the players competing with McDavid. Peak Malkin was a maniac. Then, MacKinnon, Kucherov, & Draisaitl are probably slightly better than Datsyuk when it comes strictly to competing for hardware, but Datsyuk was a two-way maniac, and on a shift-to-shift basis- I'd say he's equally as impactful. I'm not sure Datsyuk's superior two-way game brings a ton of hardware, though. Kane and Matthews are close, imo. Stamkos is probably last of the bunch. Terrific goal scorer, but not quite at Matthews level.

So, I'd say Ovechkin is the best of the bunch, then Malkin is close. I'd go with Crosby since he had to go head-to-head with another generational player, though McDavid seemed to have more quality players he was competing with after Ovechkin.

The 08/09 version of Datsyuk maybe wins a Lindsay vs. the 17/18 version of McDavid.