1. Harvey Pulford was more physically dominant than Hod Stuart.
By "physical dominance", I was talking about the combination of size, strength, physicality and speed. In the context of a comparison to Ovechkin, it should have been obvious that I was not focusing only on hitting, which Pulford was certainly good at. Was McGee a great athlete? No doubt. Was he an Ovechkin-level physical monster? Possibly, but as a bald assumption, it is a highly generous one.
2. My argument is that by your system the worst you could call him is a 2nd liner, when you were implying your metric could leave him out of the ATD all together.
Then your argument is either false or stems from a misunderstanding of the point I was trying to make. You simply shifted the value inputs based on your own assumptions and then declared my results invalid because they differed from your own. Of course they did, we started from different assumptions.
If we look at Frank McGee and say "in terms of peak value, he could either be a 1st line or a 4th line talent, or somewhere in between", then we have our range set, and I think it is a fair one. Notice that I have adjusted the "floor" value up from MLD to ATD 4th line level here. It is not at all clear that
any player from McGee's generation played hockey at the level of the ATD 1st liners (those that belong on a 1st line, at least), but it is possible. It is also possible that they were of a lower quality than you or I would probably like to think - that of about average ATD 4th liners. Again, I'm not saying this is what I think, only outlining the boundaries of what I see to be the possibilities.
If you average the values of an ATD 1st and 4th liner, then, you've got a middlepoint of 2nd/3rd line type peak value as a safe assumption for the top players of this era (McGee, Phillips, Stuart, etc.). In the case of Tommy Phillips, that is exactly what I think he is: either a lower-end (though viable) 2nd liner or an outstanding 3rd liner. In the case of Stuart, I think he's solidly a #3 defenseman (rather than a 3/4, which is what you'd get if you average a 1 and a 6) because of his level of physical dominance and because criticisms of career length vis-a-vis Stuart are grossly distorted. But peak value is not the end of the discussion with McGee, because he does get knocked for the length of his career, which brings him from the Phillips 2nd/3rd line level down to the level of just a 3rd liner (albeit a good one) in my opinion.
3. If a four season career is that much of a hindrance, then Ovie and Crosby are liabilities on the 2nd line.
I do not honestly consider Crosby an ATD scoringline player at this point. He's got two very strong years and one great one to his credit, nothing more. Yes, he is a weak 2nd liner in my opinion, and if he broke his back tomorrow and never played again his resume as it stands today would not hold up well in comparison to the average ATD 2nd line center.
Ovechkin is better. He's got two very strong seasons to his credit and two great ones. Add a Hart-calibre season to Crosby's resume and they are equals, but obviously Ovechkin has one great season over Sid and that is quite big. Even Ovie I don't consider a superamazing 2nd liner, but I think he belongs there at this point, even with only a 4 year career.
4. Everything I've read about McGee states that stylistically he compares very closely to Ovechkin.
It's not a question of style, but of degree. I just cannot stomach an assumption that Frank McGee was as physically dominant as one of the most physically dominant players in history (which Ovechkin absolutely is) without a very clear reason to do so. I don't think it's as clear as you'd like it to be.