Who is the 2nd best Penguin of all time: Crosby or Jagr?

[SeanMoneyHands]

Obviously Mario is #1 but who is #2?

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[BigRangy]

As a Penguin, Crosby is closer to Lemieux than he is to Jagr.

Maybe I’m way off.

 

[Video Nasty]

Jagr hit a higher peak, even when believing in the Crosby what if fairy tale, but you can’t beat the 20+ seasons Crosby will end up giving.

Despite it all, he could end up playing as many regular season games in a Pens uniform that Lemieux and Jagr did combined before Lemieux’s comeback at the end of 2000 (1505 games). That’s pretty remarkable.

 

[DrDangles]

Crosby easily

 

[jetsforever]

Possibly debatable for playing ability but definitely Crosby for overall contributions to the franchise

 

[DitchMarner]

A career versus career poll for these two might be reasonably close, but there's no way Jagr's career with the Penguins is better than Crosby's career with the Pens (which is his entire career).

A more interesting poll would be who had the better peak with Pittsburgh out of those two.

 

[Regal]

You could argue Jagr was a slightly better player in his prime, but Crosby is easily the better Penguin.

 

[ESH]

So clearly Crosby this shouldn’t even be a poll

 

[HeadLiceHatty]

This is a lot closer than people want to believe, but it's still Crosby. This franchise was on the brink of moving out of Pittsburgh and Crosby brought the team and city back to life as an 18 year old kid. I'm a Flyers fan and I admit Crosby is the definition of greatness in sports.

 

[Three On Zero]

Crosby is going to go down as the 5th best player in history. Hard to argue against him

 

[PenguinSuitedUp]

Who is the better player and who is the better Pittsburgh Penguin are two very different conversations.

 

[FissionFire]

Crosby is going to go down as the 5th best player in history. Hard to argue against him

Highly doubtful that will happen. Maybe a few people here and there but it won’t be anything near a consensus. McDavid is already trending way above Crosby and there are many elite players who Crosby isn’t clearly above in the all-time list. He may not even be top 10 by the time his career is done.

 

[wetcoast]

Who is the better player and who is the better Pittsburgh Penguin are two very different conversations.

Not really, Jagr career wise would be closer but it's still clearly Crosby.

 

[Three On Zero]

Highly doubtful that will happen. Maybe a few people here and there but it won’t be anything near a consensus. McDavid is already trending way above Crosby and there are many elite players who Crosby isn’t clearly above in the all-time list. He may not even be top 10 by the time his career is done.

He’s already widely regarded as the 5th already.

 

[wetcoast]

Highly doubtful that will happen. Maybe a few people here and there but it won’t be anything near a consensus.

Yes I can see McDavid trending there but he still has a way to go.

McDavid is already trending way above Crosby and there are many elite players who Crosby isn’t clearly above in the all-time list. He may not even be top 10 by the time his career is done.

Not even 10th, who exactly is going to overtake him beside McDavid and the Big 4 that would make Crosby 6th.

I'm genuinely curious as to who these other players are.

 

[Bouboumaster]

Crosby

Better hockey player and a much, much better Pens

Crosby is basically Pittsburgh's Jean Béliveau, but even better

 

[authentic]

Highly doubtful that will happen. Maybe a few people here and there but it won’t be anything near a consensus. McDavid is already trending way above Crosby and there are many elite players who Crosby isn’t clearly above in the all-time list. He may not even be top 10 by the time his career is done.

Crosby will be 5th when his career is done without much doubt in my mind, but it’s a spot McDavid will probably snatch from him in another decade or so. I don’t think there are many reasonable hockey people who would have Crosby outside the top 10 at this point.

 

[hamzarocks]

Crosby will be 5th when his career is done without much doubt in my mind, but it’s a spot McDavid will probably snatch from him in another decade or so. I don’t think there are many reasonable hockey people who would have Crosby outside the top 10 at this point.

Mcdavid passed crosby a while back

Crosby is 6th to 10th at lowest I have him 7th or 8th but he likely wont fall outside the top 10 unless Bedard or McKenna or someone coming up greatly overachieves on their reasonable expectations

Mcdavid is what crosby was supposed to be if he lived to his potential.

In another decade Mcdavid will be 2nd most likely ahead of injury riddled career Lemieux

He is a top 5 playoff performer ever at 27 with the 2nd best playoff run ever in 2024. Its only going up from here for the Mcdavid

 

[FissionFire]

Yes I can see McDavid trending there but he still has a way to go.



Not even 10th, who exactly is going to overtake him beside McDavid and the Big 4 that would make Crosby 6th.

I'm genuinely curious as to who these other players are.

In no particular order, here’s an incomplete list of players who arguably are better than Crosby all-time: Bobby Hull, Maurice Richard, Raymond Bourque, Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy, Nicklas Lidstrom, Jean Believeau, Doug Harvey, Jaromir Jagr, Alexander Ovechkin. If you really want to reach back into the early days you have Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore. Arguments can be made for guys like Jacques Plante, Denis Potvin, and Red Kelly as well although not strong ones in my opinion. This also doesn’t include many of the Soviet all-timers who are very difficult to compare to NHLers like Larionov, Fetisov, Kharlamov, Makarov, Tretiak, etc who either never played NHL or who were very clearly well past their primes when they finally did.

You may find some talking heads of TV proclaiming Crosby as the hands down 5th best ever making the Big 4 into a Big 5, but really that’s about all it is, talking heads blabbering with no research or attempts at context. Spend some time on the History of Hockey board and you will learn a bunch. Crosby wasn’t even top 10 there as of 2018-19 and his production since then hasn’t really done anything to set him clearly apart from all the others around him at that time, having 0 top 10 goal or assist finishes and one top 10 in points where he was 10th. Borderline top 10 is probably the correct placing for his career, meaning probably in the 8-12 range all-time.

 

[Regal]

In no particular order, here’s an incomplete list of players who arguably are better than Crosby all-time: Bobby Hull, Maurice Richard, Raymond Bourque, Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy, Nicklas Lidstrom, Jean Believeau, Doug Harvey, Jaromir Jagr, Alexander Ovechkin. If you really want to reach back into the early days you have Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore. Arguments can be made for guys like Jacques Plante, Denis Potvin, and Red Kelly as well although not strong ones in my opinion. This also doesn’t include many of the Soviet all-timers who are very difficult to compare to NHLers like Larionov, Fetisov, Kharlamov, Makarov, Tretiak, etc who either never played NHL or who were very clearly well past their primes when they finally did.

You may find some talking heads of TV proclaiming Crosby as the hands down 5th best ever making the Big 4 into a Big 5, but really that’s about all it is, talking heads blabbering with no research or attempts at context. Spend some time on the History of Hockey board and you will learn a bunch. Crosby wasn’t even top 10 there as of 2018-19 and his production since then hasn’t really done anything to set him clearly apart from all the others around him at that time, having 0 top 10 goal or assist finishes and one top 10 in points where he was 10th. Borderline top 10 is probably the correct placing for his career.

I think you can make a case for him as borderline top 10, but a lot of those feel like pretty big reaches. Larionov? Red Kelly? I don’t see how anyone can make that argument objectively. Even guys like Bourque and Lidstrom are tough to make considering how Crosby has aged at this point.

 

[FissionFire]

I think you can make a case for him as borderline top 10, but a lot of those feel like pretty big reaches. Larionov? Red Kelly? I don’t see how anyone can make that argument objectively. Even guys like Bourque and Lidstrom are tough to make considering how Crosby has aged at this point.

I’d agree with Kelly but arguments have been made especially considering Kelly was arguably elite as 2 positions (defense and center) throughout his career. Larionov I don’t both trying to touch because Soviets are hard to judge and historically don’t age well, which is also true of many NHL players at that time also. Different eras and training players didn’t seem to be elite into their 30s like they are today.

Lidstrom and Bourque as examples about Crosby aging well are bad choices. Both those players were arguably the best player at their position right up until they retired and neither really had much of a drop off whatsoever in play and game impact into their final season. Lidstrom and Bourque probably could have played several more seasons as a top4 level at worst, and probably still as top pairing guys. Lidstrom won his final Norris at 40 years old and retired a year later. Bourque was the #1 on the Avs first Cup team as a 40yr old and retired after that season.

 

[Video Nasty]

Crosby is going to go down as the 5th best player in history. Hard to argue against him

Going to be one of the shortest reigns in history. McDavid already has a case to be argued over him and with each passing year, Crosby will be left further in the dust. Sorry, it doesn't mean he's a bad player and as high as #6 is a fine place to be, but if Crosby is currently fifth or retires as fifth, he'll relinquish that spot in just a few short years.

 

[wetcoast]

In no particular order, here’s an incomplete list of players who arguably are better than Crosby all-time: Bobby Hull, Maurice Richard, Raymond Bourque, Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy, Nicklas Lidstrom, Jean Believeau, Doug Harvey, Jaromir Jagr, Alexander Ovechkin. If you really want to reach back into the early days you have Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore. Arguments can be made for guys like Jacques Plante, Denis Potvin, and Red Kelly as well although not strong ones in my opinion. This also doesn’t include many of the Soviet all-timers who are very difficult to compare to NHLers like Larionov, Fetisov, Kharlamov, Makarov, Tretiak, etc who either never played NHL or who were very clearly well past their primes when they finally did.

You may find some talking heads of TV proclaiming Crosby as the hands down 5th best ever making the Big 4 into a Big 5, but really that’s about all it is, talking heads blabbering with no research or attempts at context. Spend some time on the History of Hockey board and you will learn a bunch. Crosby wasn’t even top 10 there as of 2018-19 and his production since then hasn’t really done anything to set him clearly apart from all the others around him at that time, having 0 top 10 goal or assist finishes and one top 10 in points where he was 10th. Borderline top 10 is probably the correct placing for his career, meaning probably in the 8-12 range all-time.

I have spent a lot of time on the history board and still go there quite often and your list is quite problematic really given that

1) Many of these players took 1,2,3,4 or more years than crosby to reach elite status, ie they didn't hit the ground running.

2) Others lack the high end consistency that Crosby has displayed over a continuous 19 year stretch.

3) Some of them are overlapping and then the problem of did 3, 4 or 5 of the 10 best players of all time play at the same time?

4) It's almost like you are throwing mud at the wall, 11 guys listed before the secondary guys for 5 or 6 spots as we can both probably agree that McDavid is trending for top 10 already.

I think Crosby has by far the strongest argument for 5th all time right now and a couple of the guys you mentioned, like Ovechkin (who was 22nd in that top 100 poll) are obviously not in serious contention for top 10 of all time.

Also with your second paragraph I'm going to be charitable and suggest that perhaps you didn't mean to sound condescending but it sure looks that way and rephasing it might be a better look.

the comment about Crosby not doing anything to set him part form others at the time is also puzzling since most of the voting for that 12th place finish took place before the 18-19 season and all that Crosby has done since then is

-reel off another 6 consecutive PPG+ seasons from ages 31-36
-11th overall in scoring in that time frame
-2,4,9th in Hart voting a decent Selke voting record for an elite scorer, probably the best of the top 20 scorers over that time frame.
- 4 post seasons with elite possession stats, albeit with 3 of those postseasons unlucky in counting stats.

I think Crosby has by far the strongest argument for 5th all time right now and a couple of the guys you mentioned, like Ovechkin (who was 22nd in that top 100 poll) are obviously not in serious contention for top 10 of all time.

Jagr was 16th in that poll did he do more than Crosby since then?

Lidstrom 15, Shore 14 and Hasek at 13 most certainly haven't had a better 6 seasons than Crosby since then...we can agree on that right?

Same with the 7 guys above him before you get into the Big 4.

 

[Three On Zero]

Mcdavid passed crosby a while back

No, no he didn’t. He may pass Crosby but he has not done so yet

 

[wetcoast]

No, no he didn’t. He may pass Crosby but he has not done so yet

The poster that you quoting specifically states that he uses projection even in polls that say right now for McDavid.

Some other people put McDavid ahead due to video game numbers but 9 isn't 19 so McDavid still has to earn it to pass Crosby.

Even their first 9 years are close if one adjust for era and skips over injuries, the quality of each players resume is very close over their first 9 years.

Injuries, playoffs and a SC is the only real difference there.