I don't think that it's flawed at all it's just an observation and the original starting point was the issue here.
As well that poster is notorious for downplaying the differences in talent between the 2 eras and the overall differences.
If one thinks that McDavid is the superior offensive player in his peak that's a separate thing than discrediting Howe and it was unduly harsh as I said even if one thinks that Howe is the better "overall "player at his peak.
One of the problems we have is that we are viewing 2 players peak 70 years apart in an entirely different NHL and the baseline we have is offensive statistics but even there we can really compare them fairly as any way to compare them comes with bias and even if we try our hardest to remove that bias we simply don't have the same sets of information for the 2 players.
I don't see why we're not seeing eye to eye on the first sentence, as I think from some of the rest of your post we're in agreement on the final question. What I'm saying is that looking at the comparison as 99% offense is flawed. We all know that there are multiple facets of the game of hockey, and that's a one-dimensional view. It misses a large part of the question, and that alone makes it flawed.
On the flip side of your second point, there are also plenty of posters around here that are notorious for assuming that modern has to be better. It's a foreign concept to them that even if the overall talent pool has improved that the cream of the crop could still be standout and compare to later greats. I take issue with that. Bleeding over into your third point, I don't think the post was harsh for just that reason. There does seem to be a concerted effort around here to discredit Howe in particular. There seems to be an objection to the idea that someone that played as long ago as he did could stand head and shoulders above the rest of the sport.
Now, I agree that it's not exactly elegant comparing two players that played so far apart, and I agree that bias comes in. Bias comes in to any comparison. We all have biases, and the best we can do is try to acknowledge them and adjust accordingly. That's not perfect either, of course, but the thing that frustrates me in comparisons like this is when there's little to no effort to check bias, and I've seen a lot of that in this thread.
I agree with you on this but will add this, the underlying assumption in the HOH section and this is broadly speaking in general terms, is that ALL eras have to be treated equally and then efforts to compare and contrast get lost to the historical bias as some refer to the counter of the main boards regency bias.
The Big 4 is a perfect example of this as all 4 guys are indeed all time greats but the Big 4 is set in stone for the HOH section as a whole in the sense that it relies on numbers, ie counting stats, # of top 5 finishes and more importantly # of SC's.
This is also a general sports observations as most people feel to be the absolute best you have to win even if the circumstances in an 06 league and a 32 team salary cap league are entirely different.
Howe probably is the more "complete player" but we really don't have enough information to compare if his completeness overcomes the offensive advantage McDavid might have when comparing peaks.
Again, the bias thing comes in on the first statement of this section. I do agree that some people here come with the idea that all eras have to be treated equally, but I don't think that's the case as a whole. Take a look at the top players lists that have been compiled, and as a rule, the older the era, the lower the top players rank. I think that once you get to the Original Six era that starts to level out (probably because the game starts to resemble what we know today as far as rules and the like go), and certainly it does by the expansion era, but the earliest eras don't get the same treatment as later eras.
I don't agree that the Big Four gets special treatment on the board, because I believe that they legitimately do stand head and shoulders above the rest of the sport, but I do agree with you on the stat and Cup counting. In fact, that's one of my biggest pet peeves when people in general decide greatness. A few years ago, I had a friend get almost fighting mad at me because I didn't consider Henri Richard the greatest center in Canadiens history on the power of 11 Stanley Cups, but he also mercilessly ragged another friend who considered Tom Brady the greatest quarterback in history on the power of his Super Bowl wins. Anyway, I think there's a lot of inconsistency in the idea of stat or Cup counting, but I think everybody already knows how I feel about that.
The reason that I think we're probably in agreement on the final question is that you say that you do believe that Howe was the more complete player. I do agree with you that we don't have the best resources for much of his career to compare to more modern players, but we do the best we can in good faith. I take issue with the lack of good faith in unchecked biases, whatever they may be. But what we do know about is McDavid. And we know that the physical game and the defensive game just isn't there. Now, that can be overcome, but you have to put up Gretzky-like levels of offense to do that. McDavid is one of the top offensive forces the game has ever seen, but so was Howe, and I simply can't see an argument that McDavid is at Gretzky's level offensively.
Anyway, I didn't address the last part of your post because I don't really have a lot to add that wouldn't be repeating some of what I've already said or I don't really have anything at all to say about it. Sorry for such a long post, but at least I think we've got an actual dialog going on here.
