Are McDavid, Drai, MacKinnon, Panarin, & Kucherov the undisputed top-5 players in today's league?

[joe dirte]

What else could explain many leafs fans (not all) unhealthy irrational hatred of Drai? How am I supposed to prove it’s jealousy lol just like how you can’t prove it’s not

Maybe, like many other players in the NHL, some people just dont think very highly of him. It happens.

If itvreally had anything to do with edmonton we probably wouldnt be a fan of mcdavid. Dont be so bothered by it.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Maybe, like many other players in the NHL, some people just dont think very highly of him. It happens.

Lol, The players voted him the Ted Lindsey, dirte being dirte.

 

[joe dirte]

Lol, The players voted him the Ted Lindsey, dirte being dirte.

Well if thats the case then everybody is obligated to love him from now on....

Thanks tips.

Panarin was a finalist and there are several here that dont think hes top 5. Mcdavid wasnt so he must not be?

 

[Golden_Jet]

Well if thats the case then everybody is obligated to love him from now on....

Thanks tips.

Panarin was a finalist and there are several here that dont think hes top 5. Mcdavid wasnt so he must not be?

Yep no problem, glad to help.
There can only be winner, tips.

 

[joe dirte]

Yep no problem, glad to help.

I find it ironic that you pount to an award as evidence but in other circumstances youll dispute the winner of an award because it wasnt your guy.

 

[4EDM14OIL93]

Lol, The players voted him the Ted Lindsey, dirte being dirte.

I gave dirte the benefit of the doubt cause I wasn’t sure if he meant that many of the players think Drai isn’t good, or if he meant Drai is one of many players that some people don’t think highly of. Based on his response to your post it appears my original interpretation of his post may have been correct... which is of course a laughable opinion

 

[bobholly39]

Going back to the poll question and ignoring a defenseman like Hedman for a minute. There's a set of polls on HF ranking the top forwards in the game today. And although all of McDavid, Mack, Drai and Kucherov are top 4 - Crosby was voted #5 before Panarin.

So - in terms of "undisputed" the answer is clearly no.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

He is. A couple of months of production with a line that hot doesnt change that.

How much you wanna bet he falls flat on his face this upcoming season?

I'm curious what level of regression you believe Draisaitl will have this season.

I don't think he'll repeat his pace/production of this past season, so I suppose that's "regressing". But when you say "falls flat on his face", that sounds like a much steeper fall from 115+ points to the 95+ point range. It sounds more like a prediction he won't even break 70 points or something.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I find it ironic that you pount to an award as evidence but in other circumstances youll dispute the winner of an award because it wasnt your guy.

Which award was that ?
Just pointing out the one award players vote on.

 

[McFlash97]

Its not logic at all.

At rhe end of the day indont reallybcare whatvthe Oilers have because they are still terrible and will probably miss thebplayoffs yet again.

 

[BB06]

defence is a part of hockey you know

This is the first season Matthews has played competent defence in years. Did you forget that just last season he had the worse plus/minus on his entire team.

 

[Varan]

You say this all the time when people call out your shit and have for a couple years. Enough with your Psych 100 level analysis.

Draisaitl: puts up back to back 100 point seasons, wins Hart and Art Ross

Some rando Leafs fans: DrAiSaIlT wIlL rEGrEsS, PlUs MiNuS

Just leave them. The Draisaitl disrespect needs to stop. Do people not realize that if Drai hits 100 points again, he will join McDavid AND Ovechkin as the ONLY players to hit 100 points in 3 consecutive seasons?

Plus he has a 50 goal season under his belt.

But one bad month in December in terms of +/- and playing well without McD for 7 games is more than enough to offset all that he has already accomplished.

Ridiculous. No wonder HF despises leafs fans.

 

[Just doink]

No.

McDavid, MacKinnon for sure but after that it's get tricky. I would myself name Kuch, Hedman for top5 as well and for last spot Panarin/Matthews/Crosby/Josi/Barkov/Drai in no order.

 

[Dion TheFluff]

This is the first season Matthews has played competent defence in years. Did you forget that just last season he had the worse plus/minus on his entire team.

he actually wasn't that bad in his 1st or 2nd but yes he did struggle on the defensive side of the puck his 3rd year (nagging injury or frustration under Babcock) last year he showed great progression (as lots of young players do) and was consistently ingaged in all 3 zones which you could see from both the eye test and numbers.

 

[majormajor]

So now defense matters? Since when? Why did Draisaitl win the Hart? It’s not like MacKinnon is that great defensively either. He has good defensive analytics, he’s not a Selke contender. McDavid scores more and is a more exciting player, but sure, let’s use defensive analytics to decide the best player in the league.

If I was writing a parody of your side of the argument, I would have written your argument. "So now defense matters". It has always mattered! "More exciting player"?? Are we trying to figure out who the actual best player is or who the most marketable superstar is?

If we're trying to figure out who the best player is we should be focused on who is winning the battle against their opponents. Not who is scoring the most, but who is outscoring their opponent the most.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

If I was writing a parody of your side of the argument, I would have written your argument. "So now defense matters". It has always mattered! "More exciting player"?? Are we trying to figure out who the actual best player is or who the most marketable superstar is?

If we're trying to figure out who the best player is we should be focused on who is winning the battle against their opponents. Not who is scoring the most, but who is outscoring their opponent the most.

I am sympathetic to your argument. I think defense should matter. I am not sympathetic to the idea that MacKinnon is better than McDavid because of defense. MacKinnon played all of five minutes all season on the PK. MacKinnon is one of the worst face-off men in the league. He's not actually any good defensively. MacKinnon, like McDavid, is a one-way player. The difference is that he plays for one of the top teams in the league, a team that accumulates good metrics. He benefits because of it. McDavid plays on a team that is closer to league average, one that didn't have a bad season but is very flawed and was largely propped up by the scoring of two players. He suffers because of it, although I still think it's an anomaly that his defensive metrics aren't that good.

 

[Krewe]

I am sympathetic to your argument. I think defense should matter. I am not sympathetic to the idea that MacKinnon is better than McDavid because of defense. MacKinnon played all of five minutes all season on the PK. MacKinnon is one of the worst face-off men in the league. He's not actually any good defensively. MacKinnon, like McDavid, is a one-way player. The difference is that he plays for one of the top teams in the league, a team that accumulates good metrics. He benefits because of it. McDavid plays on a team that is closer to league average, one that didn't have a bad season but is very flawed and was largely propped up by the scoring of two players. He suffers because of it, although I still think it's an anomaly that his defensive metrics aren't that good.

Most of your post is good, but Mack’s metrics aren’t propped up by his team. And by that I mean they aren’t good (but still better than mcdavids)

it’s also not an anomaly that mcdavids metrics are bad. His two way game is atrocious. However he has the hockey IQ and work ethic to get better if he ever puts in the effort

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Most of your post is good, but Mack’s metrics aren’t propped up by his team. And by that I mean they aren’t good (but still better than mcdavids)

it’s also not an anomaly that mcdavids metrics are bad. His two way game is atrocious. However he has the hockey IQ and work ethic to get better if he ever puts in the effort

I don’t think I said the Avalanche prop him up. My point was that he plays for a very good team that without looking must have good metrics, so it’s not unusual that he generally has good defensive metrics. How many players on the Lightning have bad metrics and how many on the Wings have good metrics? It’s hard to have bad metrics playing for Colorado, in my opinion. Much easier when you play for Edmonton.

I just find these defensive metrics for forwards to be so hard to actually quantify watching the game. I think it’s one of the few categories where the advanced stats mean almost nothing. I cannot spot a player with good metrics compared to one with bad defensive metrics by watching them play. I can spot the opposite for offensive metrics.

That’s why I really don’t care very much about defensive metrics for forwards. If someone tells me that McDavid is bad defensively and MacKinnon is good, the first thing I’m going to do is go to the PK TOI and FO% stats. When I want to judge a center’s defense based on stats, I want to know how their team relies on them. Do they play PK and do they win their draws? Neither does.

 

[MessierII]

Panarin is not in that tier. He played to that level this year but it takes more than one year. I don’t consider him a top 5 player.

 

[jetsforever]

The fact that this poll is not unanimous literally means they are not the "undisputed" top 5.

 

[Castle8130]

I actually think Brayden Point was more valuable to the Lightning than Nikita Kucherov. I think Pastrnak is more valuable than Panarin as well.

 

[OilCanada92]

Only one of them is close to a lock to still be top 5 in 2-5 years and that's why McDavid is the best in the world. Other players come and go but he'll always be in the top 5 of any given year.

 

[bobholly39]

Just leave them. The Draisaitl disrespect needs to stop. Do people not realize that if Drai hits 100 points again, he will join McDavid AND Ovechkin as the ONLY players to hit 100 points in 3 consecutive seasons?

Plus he has a 50 goal season under his belt.

But one bad month in December in terms of +/- and playing well without McD for 7 games is more than enough to offset all that he has already accomplished.

Ridiculous. No wonder HF despises leafs fans.

Drai won't hit 100 points in 3 straight seasons. It's practically impossible. It's weird that this is so rare though. Crosby didn't hit it - but at least with all his injuries it doesn't seem too surprising, even though he was certainly pacing for it.

But it's pretty shocking that Jagr never did this. Jagr paced for 100+ points 8 straight seasons. Crosby did so for 9 straight seasons.

Reason why Drai won't hit it is because we're going to get a very shortened season next year I expect. I'm guessing ~48 games.

 

[Varan]

Drai won't hit 100 points in 3 straight seasons. It's practically impossible. It's weird that this is so rare though. Crosby didn't hit it - but at least with all his injuries it doesn't seem too surprising, even though he was certainly pacing for it.

But it's pretty shocking that Jagr never did this. Jagr paced for 100+ points 8 straight seasons. Crosby did so for 9 straight seasons.

Reason why Drai won't hit it is because we're going to get a very shortened season next year I expect. I'm guessing ~48 games.

I didn’t know that we are getting a 48 game season, I thought it would be about 70 games. Even the , Drai has increased his production yearly so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

The reason Crosby never did it was because he got injured. I have no doubt in my mind he would have done it by now. Drai doesn’t seem to be injury prone.

 

[bobholly39]

I didn’t know that we are getting a 48 game season, I thought it would be about 70 games. Even the , Drai has increased his production yearly so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

The reason Crosby never did it was because he got injured. I have no doubt in my mind he would have done it by now. Drai doesn’t seem to be injury prone.

Well it's not official or anything that it's 48 games. But they don't have a plan yet - and pandemic is getting worst. They've said they'd like a Jan 1st start date but this is seeming more and more unlikely imo. I don't see any realistic scenario where we have close to a full season (~70 games). I'm thinking 48 is a lot more plausible.

Even with ~70 games - to hit 100 in 70 games is a 117 point pace in 82 games. I know Drai just did that this year and so he could again - but that's a very high bar. If we played a full 82 game season I'd say ~90% chance he hits 100 points. If it's ~70 games - I'd say 40% chance he hits 100 points. If it's 48 games - maybe a 1% chance.

I'm guessing we'll get ~48-60 games. 100 points in 60 games is equivalent of a 136 point pace in 82 games.