2024 Matthews vs 2008 Ovi: Who's better player?

[crowi]

Ovechkin was a wrecking ball and had a lot more grit. I'll take him.

 

[ToDavid]

HFBoards loves era adjustments now but don't you dare mention that Ovi played 15 minutes a night on the powerplay.

 

[Sky04]

08 Ovechkin was a force and the best player in the world, Matthew's is an afterthought this season.

Scoring is way up and it took Matthew's this long yo reach 65.

 

[cg98]

Ovi easily AINEC even when accounting for Matthews' 200 ft play. Guy was a goal scoring machine during the DPE and was a monster that year he scored 65. Nobody in the league nor on his team was even close. Ovi would easily be getting 70-80 goals if he was in his prime in this era.

 

[crowi]

HFBoards loves era adjustments now but don't you dare mention that Ovi played 15 minutes a night on the powerplay.

Oh yeah, that's the f***ing difference between a primadonna and a bull.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Ovi easily AINEC even when accounting for Matthews' 200 ft play.

Matthews has a higher ES goals against per game than Ovechkin did in 2008. Matthews is also surrounded by far superior defensive players than Ovechkin was in 2008.

So how is it we arrive at the result that Matthews is the far superior defensive player?

 

[mclaren55]

Matthews has a higher ES goals against per game than Ovechkin did in 2008. Matthews is also surrounded by far superior defensive players than Ovechkin was in 2008.

So how is it we arrive at the result that Matthews is the far superior defensive player?

Who are these superior defensive players you speak of?

 

[nbwingsfan]

Matthews is the way more complete player.

If you kept Matthews on the wing, gave him 0 defensive responsibility and didn't make him take face-offs and instead just waited on the opposite circle for a pass - he would score much more.

The Ovechkin today gives a lot more defensive effort than 08 Ovechkin.. and it's still pretty suspect.

If you think all Ovi in 08 was sit around waiting for passes all day then you’re either too young to be posting on HF or completely lying to yourself.

Ovi was THE premiere power forward in the NHL. An absolute force offensively in every single way.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Who are these superior defensive players you speak of?

You want to compare blue lines? From the 2008 Capitals? Seriously? Most of them were out of the NHL within a few years. They were pretty bad.

 

[Xirik]

Ovi was a player that could change a game with his speed and physicality.

 

[GlitchMarner]

Okay... I can understand this argument that maybe peak Ovechkin wouldn't have led the League in points if he was competing against this season's MacKinnon, Kucherov and McDavid.

However, I am confident he would be ahead of Panarin and Pasta. Matthews isn't at this point.

Ovechkin had less help as well. He had way more points than Backstrom. Matthews isn't too far ahead of Nylander.

We can get into PP scoring and all that, but I personally would prefer having Ovechkin at Even Strength. @Regal said he thinks there's a difference between possession and tilting the ice and I agree. I think tilting the ice is about pushing the play toward the opponent's goal and slanting the ice in your team's favor. It's been a long time since he did it at a high level, but at his best Ovie did that better than almost any player I've ever seen. He was a master at transition and a menace on the forecheck. He didn't need to play much defense because he was too busy wrecking guys, scoring goals and pushing the play toward the other team's end.

 

[mclaren55]

You want to compare blue lines? From the 2008 Capitals? Seriously? Most of them were out of the NHL within a few years. They were pretty bad.

Yes, I do.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Yes, I do.

OK. It was Mike Green and 5 scrubs. And goal prevention wasn't exactly what Mike Green was doing.

 

[GlitchMarner]

HFBoards loves era adjustments now but don't you dare mention that Ovi played 15 minutes a night on the powerplay.

Wouldn't his contemporaries like Malkin, Kovalchuk, Iginla, Heatley etc have benefited from more PPOs as well in comparison to players in today's NHL? He still outscored them.

It's like when people say goalies sucked in Gretzky's day. Everyone else was shooting on the same ones plus Fuhr but couldn't score nearly as much.

 

[mclaren55]

“OK. It was Mike Green and 5 scrubs. And goal prevention wasn't exactly what Mike Green was doing.”



Ok, Leaf’s have Mo Rielly and 5 scrubs. HF going to start telling how elite the leafs are at defense after a decade of shitting on it.

I remember that stellar season for Ovechkin, I watched it live. He cheated for offense regularly and aside from making some huge hits, wasn’t a contributor to defense. Matthews is superior to him in every facet when it comes to that.

 

[Atomos2]

Ovi easily AINEC even when accounting for Matthews' 200 ft play. Guy was a goal scoring machine during the DPE and was a monster that year he scored 65. Nobody in the league nor on his team was even close. Ovi would easily be getting 70-80 goals if he was in his prime in this era.

So long as the power play opportunities keep presenting themselves.

 

[Jetcetera]

Ov ainec, not only scored but could play defensive. Matthews has never heard of back checking

 

[mclaren55]

Ov ainec, not only scored but could play defensive. Matthews has never heard of back checking

You’re trolling right? It was the opposite if you ever watched those seasons live.

 

[Sypher04]

Ovi easily AINEC even when accounting for Matthews' 200 ft play. Guy was a goal scoring machine during the DPE and was a monster that year he scored 65. Nobody in the league nor on his team was even close. Ovi would easily be getting 70-80 goals if he was in his prime in this era.

Ovie’s best season using a raw adjustment for today’s production would have been 72-73 goals. There’s nothing to suggest he’d be anywhere above that, and if you start taking other context into account (like a noteworthy drop in powerplay time), there’s far from any garauntee he’d have even scored 70

Still a season for the ages and as I’ve said I give him the edge in this comparison, but it’s close.

 

[Incognito]

Part of the reason Ovechkin has historically collected more assists/overall points than Matthews does is also down to their respective approaches to scoring goals. Ovechkin is an absolutely absurd volume shooter (very high # of overall shots, relatively low shooting percentage), while Matthews is a bit more of a sniper (comparatively “lower” # of overall shots, higher shooting percentage). So even if Ovechkin isn’t as accurate, he’s just so good at getting pucks on net, which not only more than makes up for the lower shooting percentage, but also leads to more assists due to the high number of rebounds that his shot volume naturally produces. This difference in style at least partially contributes to the reason why Ovechkin was able to win an Art Ross, while Matthews has never been in the running.

 

[KareemTrustfund]

Okay... I can understand this argument that maybe peak Ovechkin wouldn't have led the League in points if he was competing against this season's MacKinnon, Kucherov and McDavid.

However, I am confident he would be ahead of Panarin and Pasta. Matthews isn't at this point.

Ovechkin had less help as well. He had way more points than Backstrom. Matthews isn't too far ahead of Nylander.

We can get into PP scoring and all that, but I personally would prefer having Ovechkin at Even Strength. @Regal said he thinks there's a difference between possession and tilting the ice and I agree. I think tilting the ice is about pushing the play toward the opponent's goal and slanting the ice in your team's favor. It's been a long time since he did it at a high level, but at his best Ovie did that better than almost any player I've ever seen. He was a master at transition and a menace on the forecheck. He didn't need to play much defense because he was too busy wrecking guys, scoring goals and pushing the play toward the other team's end.

I don’t think Ovechkin would have issue out scoring Kucherov or Mackinnon today at all if he were in his prime. Go look how elite Mackinnon and Kucherov were before the goalie gear shrinkage in 2017-18. An often forgot about change I never see mentioned when comparing scoring now to the Ovie/Sid/Malkin era.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I agree that Ovechkin wasn't a great defensive player in the traditional sense in 2008, but he didn't need to be. He "tilted the ice", as others have mentioned, because of his physicality and his ability to forecheck and carry the puck up the ice.

In 2008, at 5v5, the Capitals were vastly better when Ovechkin was on the ice. When #8 was on the ice, Washington scored 78 goals for vs 49 goals against. Without him, Washington scored 68 goals for vs 87 goals against. 61% GF% with Ovechkin, 44% GF% without him. That's roughly the difference between a 110+ point team and a sub-70 point team.

Ovechkin was such a great player from 2008 to 2010. I wouldn't put him out in a purely defensive situation (ie kill a 5 on 3 hanging onto a one goal lead, late in the third) but he was a good two-way player in the sense that he massively improved his team's results when he was on the ice. In this sense, I'd compare him to Eric Lindros (not great defensively in a conventional sense, but still vastly improved his team's goal differential).

 

[CanadienShark]

Ovechkin. Not really much of an argument otherwise imo.

 

[x Tame Impala]

HFBoards loves era adjustments now but don't you dare mention that Ovi played 15 minutes a night on the powerplay.

Do you think a 22 year old Ovechkin in today's NHL would score more or less goals than Matthews this season?

Do you think a 26 year old Matthews in the 2007/08 NHL would score more or less goals than Ovechkin did in 2007/08?

 

[Arthur Morgan]

The goal totals really don’t matter. It’s that Ovi led the league in scoring while Matthews is tied for 6th.. a whopping THIRTY points behind the leader.

yeah and that total of 112 points would still be 24 points behind this year. if there was a McDavid/MacKinnon/Kuch back then Ovechkin likely wouldnt have won that Art Ross