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News Article: 8 Debate: Greatest all time to wear #8.

EroCaps

EroCaps

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Larionov is massively overrated for sentimental reasons. Neely bc of prejudice.

It's Selanne and Ovechkin and when all is said and done if Ovy has a Cup it's him.
 

Ajax1995

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EroCaps said:
Larionov is massively overrated for sentimental reasons.
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Only if all you've ever watched was the NHL. He deserves his place based on his play in the '87 Canada Cup alone. If you've never watched it I invite you to watch the 3 game finals as it was the best hockey ever played IMO. The famous Soviet green unit was in it's prime Gretzky was centering a young Lemieux on an amazing Canada team.
 
AlexBrovechkin8

AlexBrovechkin8

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NobodyBeatsTheWiz said:
Its Ovechkin and its not particularly close. The only thibg someobe like Selanne has over him is career length.
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Yup. That list is a joke. Ovechkin was the best player in the world for a few seasons, and he's the best pure sniper/goal scorer of his generation. None of those guys come close.

And Ovechkin is a 1st ballet HOF lock for whoever said Neely is in the HOF.
 
NobodyBeatsTheWiz

NobodyBeatsTheWiz

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AlexBrovechkin8 said:
Yup. That list is a joke. Ovechkin was the best player in the world for a few seasons, and he's the best pure sniper/goal scorer of his generation. None of those guys come close.

And Ovechkin is a 1st ballet HOF lock for whoever said Neely is in the HOF.
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Ovechkin has 2 more Harts (and 3 more Lindsays/Pearsons) than all the players ahead of him on the list combined.
 
BrooklynCapsFan

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AlexBrovechkin8 said:
Yup. That list is a joke. Ovechkin was the best player in the world for a few seasons, and he's the best pure sniper/goal scorer of his generation. None of those guys come close.

And Ovechkin is a 1st ballet HOF lock for whoever said Neely is in the HOF.
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Ovechkin could retire today to pursue a career in pottery and he'd be a first ballot hall of famer.
 
CapitalsCupReality

CapitalsCupReality

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NobodyBeatsTheWiz said:
Its Ovechkin and its not particularly close. The only thing someone like Selanne has over him is career length.
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Trying to be totally unbiased here....even though it involves my favorite player (Ovy).

I'd give Selanne the nod today. End the end it should be Ovechkin as long as we don't see many more years like the last 2. His top end talent level is higher IMO.


Selanne's top 5 seasons:

92-93 76g, 132 pts
96-97 51g, 109 pts
98-99 47g, 107 pts
05-06 40g, 90 pts
97-98 52g, 86 pts

1x 70g scorer, 2x 50g scorer, 3x 40g scorer, 2x 30g scorer, 9x 20g scorer.

IMO length of career is a positive, not something that should be added as an attempt to diminish. Most of the all-time greats among most sport had lengthy careers. The scoring leaders surely did.

Again, in the end it should be Ovechkin, but unless we're rating on talent alone, I'd give the nod to Selanne until Ovechkin makes good on a lengthy HOF career. Actually doing it matters.
 
NobodyBeatsTheWiz

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CapitalsCupFantasy said:
Trying to be totally unbiased here....even though it involves my favorite player (Ovy).

I'd give Selanne the nod today. End the end it should be Ovechkin as long as we don't see many more years like the last 2. His top end talent level is higher IMO.


Selanne's top 5 seasons:

92-93 76g, 132 pts
96-97 51g, 109 pts
98-99 47g, 107 pts
05-06 40g, 90 pts
97-98 52g, 86 pts

1x 70g scorer, 2x 50g scorer, 3x 40g scorer, 2x 30g scorer, 9x 20g scorer.

IMO length of career is a positive, not something that should be added as an attempt to diminish. Most of the all-time greats among most sport had lengthy careers. The scoring leaders surely did.

Again, in the end it should be Ovechkin, but unless we're rating on talent alone, I'd give the nod to Selanne until Ovechkin makes good on a lengthy HOF career. Actually doing it matters.
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You can't look at those seasons in isolation. For example, in the 92-93 season, Mogilny also had 76 goals, Lemieux had 69 and Robitaille had 63. There were also four players with more than Selanne's 132 points (Lemieux, LaFontaine, Oates, Yzerman). There were 14 players with 50+ goals.

In 2007-08, Ovechkin's 65 goals were 13 more than anyone else and he won the Art Ross by 6 points. There were 3 players with 50+ goals. There were only 10 players with 40+ goals. Ovechkin's 2007-08 scaled to 1992-93 scoring would be 86 goals and 149 points. Put another way, were for another player to have outpaced the field by the same percentages in 1992-93 as Ovechkin did in 2007-08, he'd have had 95 goals and 169 points. His season was that good.
 
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CapitalsCupReality

CapitalsCupReality

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You want to rate Ovechkin on a short career with 2 elite seasons. I get it. Your opinion.

IMO, Selanne is ahead of him right now. Not much to debate. In the end it should be Ovechkin hands down unless we see more of the last two seasons type performances.

Like I said, if this list was most talented, Ovechkin gets my nod today. If it's greatest of all time (to me that's CAREER), I have to give the nod to Selanne.
 
NobodyBeatsTheWiz

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CapitalsCupFantasy said:
You want to rate Ovechkin on a short career with 2 elite seasons. I get it. Your opinion.

IMO, Selanne is ahead of him right now. Not much to debate. In the end it should be Ovechkin hands down unless we see more of the last two seasons type performances.

Like I said, if this list was most talented, Ovechkin gets my nod today. If it's greatest of all time (to me that's CAREER), I have to give the nod to Selanne.
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There's plenty to debate. Ovechkin's already accomplished more individually in his 8 seasons than Selanne has in his 21. Selanne's a classic accumulator, with the one elite fluky season. He's like Rafael Palmeiro. Very good for a long time, but never the best.

Ovechkin had a 3 year stretch where he was the best player in the world, and a 5 year stretch where you could argue he was one of the top 5.

Selanne has maybe one season where he was top 5.
 

Ajax1995

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Yeah you can't just look at Selanne's early career numbers and compare them to Ovechkin's and simply say since Selanne's were higher he was better. It was a completely different game then. When Ovechkin scored 65 the highest scoring team in the league potted just 262 goals while when Selanne scored 76 the highest scoring team had 369 and 15 of 24 teams scored 300 or more. And as was said Mogilny also score 76 that season and in just 77 games.

Selanne has had an fantastic career and is without a doubt a HoFer but he never dominated the league the way Ovechkin has.
 
CapitalsCupReality

CapitalsCupReality

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We'll have to see how Ovechkin's career ends. It's all opinion. I'll remember watching Selanne's rookie season. He was dominant. You guys want to fault him for playing with other more dominant HOFers in a time where there were simply much more of them playing in the NHL than there are now. Back then, there were 5 or more guys playing at Superstar level. Now you have 1-3....

I think it's a toss up right now and today I give the nod to the guy with a Cup and the longer career. Hopefully when it's all said and done, the accomplishments are heavily in Ovechkin's favor so it's not even debatable.
 
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