at the end of the day karlsson at his best you could make an argument as the best player in the league.
Doughty was never at that level. top 10?, sure. but no one was going to confuse him as the best hockey player in the world.
In 2014
at least, absolutely had a case for best player in the world. Led Canada in scoring. Won Olympic Gold. Won Stanley Cup, had a strong Conn Smythe case, scored highlight reel finals goals, end to end in the WCF of the decade, lockdown defense all year.
Again, people only don't want to see this when they
willfully don't want to see it. Never at that level? Have to vociferously dissagree.
I'm just saying some of the worst LA teams Doughty had were better than some of the best Senators teams Karlsson had.
I mean Doughty had Kopitar and Jeff Carter all decade while Karlsson had Turris and Melnyk.
And Stone? Hoffman?
Those Sens teams that EK was leading weren't the 2012 and 2014 Kings but how many threads did we have lauding each of those players individually? Stone is awesome. Turris was peaking. Hoffman and Karlsson had insane chemistry. I mean there wasn't much depth behind them but the top-end of the Sens just worked so well.
And you can absolutely only control what happens with your team when you're on the ice but for how much people point out how EK dragged up a rough Sens squad, a championship team was
that much better with Drew Doughty ON the ice...that's why I just don't get the 'passenger' argument. There was a point where the Kings with DD were
over 60% CF with Drew on the ice and under 50 without. People want to pretend he was just a cog in the wheel. The fact is they were both incredible and just in such different situations.
I think the other problem is people haven't really seen the Kings
without Doughty since he's been so durable, literally only missing a handful of games. I'd reference G2 of the VGK series when Doughty was suspended...our top pairing was Fantenberg and Martinez. They got
crushed. That is
exactly what people reference with the EK Sens. Fantenberg was something like 25% CF, Martinez 33ish...Doughty was over 50 for the series. One even strength goal against vs. the hottest line in the league. Like what else does this guy need to do? He only gets respect if he puts up over 70 points?
Both guys and Keith were easily top-3 for a long time and I'll just never understand why people want to drag DD and EK down so hard. It's funny because while they got quantified
results a bit differently (EK leaned heavily offense, DD leaned heavily defense), their highlight reels look eerily similar, both are excellent in transition, both have IQ beyond reproach. The biggest problem with Drew's career is he didn't put up gaudy point totals in an East Coast or Canadian market. And this weird venn diagram of a hate parade that crosses some sens fans/swedes/tbl fans.