Has McDavid's peak surpassed Howe's peak?

[jigglysquishy]

54-55 is it's own case, and one I think we can chalk up to injury. We talk about Beliveau 55-56 as the best non Howe O6 season. Perhaps the best non Big Four season ever. As it is, Howe finished 8 points ahead of Richard in 3rd and over 20 points ahead of other Red Wing. Then he leads again in 56-57.

In 57-58, he functionally leads in PPG. 58-59 is his first healthy season since 1950 he's not in true Art Ross contention. At age 31 he was the 16th oldest player in the league.

 

[Michael Farkas]

In a March 4, 1955 newspaper article, it says "Gordie Howe has finally broken his baffling slump..."

"...scoreless in his last 10 games."

"Until his sudden third period spree (three goals), Howe had been in the worst slump of his brilliant career. ...nobody knew what the trouble was."

Not sure if it came out later...but...

There was talk about a sprained right shoulder earlier in the season, but it wasn't dredged up here...

Doesn't mean it's not an injury or something else...Mark was born late in the '55 season, Marty late in the '54 season. Maybe there's something there...I'm not sure.

 

[Vilica]

Here's an alternative view of those seasons, split into 2 tables:

Rk	Name	Year	Team	Points	P%	VsX		Avg VsX
1	Gordie Howe	50-51	DET	86	0.364	130.30		103.25
1	Gordie Howe	51-52	DET	86	0.400	124.64		107.79
1	Gordie Howe	52-53	DET	95	0.428	155.74		128.99
1	Gordie Howe	53-54	DET	81	0.424	132.79		109.98
5	Gordie Howe	54-55	DET	62	0.304	83.78		79.91
2	Gordie Howe	55-56	DET	79	0.432	111.27		101.81
1	Gordie Howe	56-57	DET	89	0.449	115.58		107.99

Rk	Name	Year	Team	Points	P%	VsX		Avg VsX
1	Connor McDavid	16-17	EDM	100	0.412	112.36		102.29
1	Connor McDavid	17-18	EDM	108	0.472	105.88		102.65
2	Connor McDavid	18-19	EDM	116	0.507	100.00		108.45
2	Connor McDavid	19-20	EDM	97	0.435	100.00		106.38
1	Connor McDavid	20-21	EDM	105	0.574	152.17		145.17
1	Connor McDavid	21-22	EDM	123	0.432	106.96		110.03
1	Connor McDavid	22-23	EDM	153	0.471	135.40		135.28

It really comes down to how much weight to put on the shortened COVID year, because otherwise their peaks are absolutely similar - one outlier year way above average (52-53 128.99 for Howe, 22-23 135.28 for McDavid), and 5 years right around 6% above the VsX line, those seasons of Howe's adding up to 530.82, McDavid's to 529.8. Howe's 54-55 was disappointing relative to the rest of his peak, but he did miss time that year. On the other hand, the stats back up that McDavid was running hot in terms of the random aspects of points (oiSh% and IPP) in that COVID year, and the extra 26 games to a full 82 would have featured some regression. [He got points on 68 of the 74 even strength goals he was on-ice for, when it probably should've been 54 of 68ish.]

When looking at scoring in NHL history, it is remarkable that P% does not change - an elite season is 45%, plus or minus 5% (more like 42.5% plus or minus 7.5%, if you want to get more precise), whether it happens in 1953 or 2023, and any year in between. It's the same thing with goal scorers - a peak year is 20%, plus or minus 5%, and it's indistinguishable between Maurice Richard and Alex Ovechkin. The only thing scoring levels affect are the raw numbers, and even that is masked a bit by games played. League average was 163 in 48-49, 190 in 50-51 and 223 in 16-17, but per-82 games, all those years are 223. So Howe's 50-51 season of 86 points equates to 100.94 points in 16-17, the difference being almost entirely the extra 12 games played, with a small fudge for rounding. You can set league average to be almost any arbitrary number that makes sense in terms of games played/goals per game, and the %LA/G%/P% will map on to it, and return numbers that make perfect sense (apart from goal/assist balance issues for pre-consolidation players).

I do think there are a few factors pushing point totals up now compared to Howe's era. First off, the records Howe was pursuing were set in 20-25 fewer games, so there weren't any real targets for Howe to set as goals. Seventy years later, McDavid has all the targets he could want. Secondly, 6 teams in a talent-deficient era meant that Howe had little competition in his peak years in the point race, so he had little incentive to try and boost his totals. With 32 teams, there's a whole lot more player-seasons to have outliers. In those 7 Howe seasons, only Beliveau in 55-56 and Lindsay and Beliveau in 56-57 exceeded the 100 point VsX threshold (apart from the 6 Howe years). In McDavid's seasons, his 7 exceeded 100, along with 10 other seasons (Kucherov 18-19, Kane 18-19, Draisaitl 19-20 20-21 22-23, Panarin 19-20, Pastrnak 19-20, MacKinnon 19-20, Huberdeau 21-22, Gaudreau 21-22 [not to mention another 5 seasons in the 98-100 range that just missed]).

In the end, I'd say that Howe and McDavid peaked at the same level, but Howe has 14 more years of elite production that McDavid hasn't had the time to match.

 

[TheStatican]

McDavid didn't dominate to the same extent in 2023 as he did in 2021.

In 2021 he scored 1.59x as much as 5th scorer. In 2023, he did 1.38x

1.59x 5th scorer in 2023 would have been 176 points.

His 2023 season was all time great. But the level of domination in 2021 was just that much higher.

How dominant is a Vs5 of 1.59? It's the third highest non Gretzky since expansion. Lemieux only beat it once. Esposito only beat it once. It's a 20 point lead on peak Jagr (99) good. It's outscoring Lemieux in 1996 good.

That's not accounting for injuries. His VsX was exaggerated in '21 simply due to good fortune since many of the other top contenders miss some time due to injuries, not a lot mind you but enough to notably skew the numbers.

His Vs5 drops off from 1.59 to 1.44 on a per game scoring rate basis. But that also doesn't consider that the likely #2 non-teammate scorer, Kucherov, didn't play a single game that season. Had Kuch played McDavid's per game Vs5 for the season would have almost certainly been 1.39 which is only slightly higher than it was in '23 at 1.35 And that difference disappears entirely when we consider that scoring in the North division was 3% higher at ES and 4% higher at PP than the rest of the league in '21.

It's outscoring Mackinnon last year by 65 points.

That's more than a bit misleading, to extrapolate McDavid's 56 game total to 82 games but then only compare it against a peer who only played 71.

The only purpose of using PPG in past examples is to ignore durability and in this case prop up Crosby above what he actually accomplished.

Please, by all means go ahead an explain to us how "durability" could have prevented injuries from THIS

or THIS

But sure, Crosby's poor "durability" caused him to get injured from getting his skull slammed and taking a 90mph puck to the teeth

Btw do you and mulletman happen to discuss your takes together before posting on the boards?

 

[Midnight Judges]

Please, by all means go ahead an explain to us how "durability" could have prevented injuries from THIS

or THIS

But sure, Crosby's poor "durability" caused him to get injured from getting his skull slammed and taking a 90mph puck to the teeth

Btw do you and mulletman happen to discuss your takes together before posting on the boards?

Better on-ice awareness would have led to better durability for Crosby. Unfortunately, in this case he abruptly turns, with his head down, while not looking where he is going.

You aren't going to find a hockey coach anywhere who teaches players to do what Crosby did on that play.

Regardless, it still doesn't get you to a place where counting assists and goals that didn't happen makes sense for Crosby while comparing that to McDavid's actual on-ice accomplishments.

 

[TheStatican]

Better on-ice awareness would have led to better durability for Crosby. Unfortunately, in this case he abruptly turns, with his head down, while not looking where he is going.

Yeah, because Crosby's the first player in hockey history to turn his head in a different direction than he was skating. Do you even watch hockey or just highlights of Ovechkin? Every player literally does that on virtually every shift. Your argument is complete nonsense.

Actually it's like saying "If Eric Lindros had kept his head up, he'd have had a longer career" - which is something pretty much everyone agrees on.

Actually it's more like saying "If Wayne Gretzky had better hockey sense he would known not to stop his momentum while being so close to the boards in the offensive zone while a big, physically bruising defensiveman was barring down on him" - which is something pretty much noone would agree with.

 

[Michael Farkas]

"Hey coach, what do I do if the puck goes up ice in a sudden change and a 4th liner blind side elbows me in the head?"

- Just don't get a serious head/neck injury that the Penguins medical staff will misdiagnose for months...otherwise folks will blame you.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Crosby’s low on-ice awareness is a moot point anyway.

Your fellow Pens fan is comparing extrapolated stats for Crosby vs actual things McDavid did. It’s a bogus argument regardless.

 

[daver]

Here's an alternative view of those seasons, split into 2 tables:

Rk	Name	Year	Team	Points	P%	VsX		Avg VsX
1	Gordie Howe	50-51	DET	86	0.364	130.30		103.25
1	Gordie Howe	51-52	DET	86	0.400	124.64		107.79
1	Gordie Howe	52-53	DET	95	0.428	155.74		128.99
1	Gordie Howe	53-54	DET	81	0.424	132.79		109.98
5	Gordie Howe	54-55	DET	62	0.304	83.78		79.91
2	Gordie Howe	55-56	DET	79	0.432	111.27		101.81
1	Gordie Howe	56-57	DET	89	0.449	115.58		107.99

Rk	Name	Year	Team	Points	P%	VsX		Avg VsX
1	Connor McDavid	16-17	EDM	100	0.412	112.36		102.29
1	Connor McDavid	17-18	EDM	108	0.472	105.88		102.65
2	Connor McDavid	18-19	EDM	116	0.507	100.00		108.45
2	Connor McDavid	19-20	EDM	97	0.435	100.00		106.38
1	Connor McDavid	20-21	EDM	105	0.574	152.17		145.17
1	Connor McDavid	21-22	EDM	123	0.432	106.96		110.03
1	Connor McDavid	22-23	EDM	153	0.471	135.40		135.28

It really comes down to how much weight to put on the shortened COVID year, because otherwise their peaks are absolutely similar - one outlier year way above average (52-53 128.99 for Howe, 22-23 135.28 for McDavid), and 5 years right around 6% above the VsX line, those seasons of Howe's adding up to 530.82, McDavid's to 529.8. Howe's 54-55 was disappointing relative to the rest of his peak, but he did miss time that year. On the other hand, the stats back up that McDavid was running hot in terms of the random aspects of points (oiSh% and IPP) in that COVID year, and the extra 26 games to a full 82 would have featured some regression. [He got points on 68 of the 74 even strength goals he was on-ice for, when it probably should've been 54 of 68ish.]

When looking at scoring in NHL history, it is remarkable that P% does not change - an elite season is 45%, plus or minus 5% (more like 42.5% plus or minus 7.5%, if you want to get more precise), whether it happens in 1953 or 2023, and any year in between. It's the same thing with goal scorers - a peak year is 20%, plus or minus 5%, and it's indistinguishable between Maurice Richard and Alex Ovechkin. The only thing scoring levels affect are the raw numbers, and even that is masked a bit by games played. League average was 163 in 48-49, 190 in 50-51 and 223 in 16-17, but per-82 games, all those years are 223. So Howe's 50-51 season of 86 points equates to 100.94 points in 16-17, the difference being almost entirely the extra 12 games played, with a small fudge for rounding. You can set league average to be almost any arbitrary number that makes sense in terms of games played/goals per game, and the %LA/G%/P% will map on to it, and return numbers that make perfect sense (apart from goal/assist balance issues for pre-consolidation players).

I do think there are a few factors pushing point totals up now compared to Howe's era. First off, the records Howe was pursuing were set in 20-25 fewer games, so there weren't any real targets for Howe to set as goals. Seventy years later, McDavid has all the targets he could want. Secondly, 6 teams in a talent-deficient era meant that Howe had little competition in his peak years in the point race, so he had little incentive to try and boost his totals. With 32 teams, there's a whole lot more player-seasons to have outliers. In those 7 Howe seasons, only Beliveau in 55-56 and Lindsay and Beliveau in 56-57 exceeded the 100 point VsX threshold (apart from the 6 Howe years). In McDavid's seasons, his 7 exceeded 100, along with 10 other seasons (Kucherov 18-19, Kane 18-19, Draisaitl 19-20 20-21 22-23, Panarin 19-20, Pastrnak 19-20, MacKinnon 19-20, Huberdeau 21-22, Gaudreau 21-22 [not to mention another 5 seasons in the 98-100 range that just missed]).

In the end, I'd say that Howe and McDavid peaked at the same level, but Howe has 14 more years of elite production that McDavid hasn't had the time to match.

Nice work, with reasonable consideration for the hypothetical dynamics associated with Howe's four season peak.

Howe's four season peak basically included three seasons that matched the single best individual season of his era peers (ones that were never matched again) in addition to his own single best individual season that was clearly superior to his peers' best. This is why he is on a another level from his era peers.

Yes, he did not have multiple, consecutive "peak" seasons like Wayne and Orr but neither did Mario, who really has two truly peak seasons. Many franchise/superstar players have just one peak season where it seemingly all came together.

Statistically, McDavid's 22/23 season is up there for best non-Big 4 season ever with Howe's era peers while matching Jagr's and Crosby's peak per game production. I am not sure that his 20/21 should be viewed as the potential icing on the cake to conclude he has matched or surpassed Howe's offensive peak.

Also, the OP never qualifies whether the comparison is simply based on offensive production. For some, Howe's all around game brings more value than even Wayne and Mario's superior offensive contributions, closes the gap significantly. McDavid is closer to Jagr and Ovechkin as a pure offensive weapon than he is to Beliveau/Crosby as a prototypical franchise #1C.

 

[blogofmike]

That's not accounting for injuries. His VsX was exaggerated in '21 simply due to good fortune since many of the other top contenders miss some time due to injuries, not a lot mind you but enough to notably skew the numbers.

His Vs5 drops off from 1.59 to 1.44 on a per game scoring rate basis. But that also doesn't consider that the likely #2 non-teammate scorer, Kucherov, didn't play a single game that season. Had Kuch played McDavid's per game Vs5 for the season would have almost certainly been 1.39 which is only slightly higher than it was in '23 at 1.35 And that difference disappears entirely when we consider that scoring in the North division was 3% higher at ES and 4% higher at PP than the rest of the league in '21.

You would have to assume that Kucherov would be a top 4 PPG scorer, which may have happened (he was 2nd in 2022) or just as easily may not have (he was 8th in PPG in 2020).

Everyone's affected by injuries or holdouts or something. Some of Howe's best runs had injuries to Maurice Richard or to Elmer Lach (which would impact Richard) or Ted Kennedy. These things can come out in the wash in a 32 team league a lot easier than in a 6 team league.

At the end of the day, you can only beat the guys in front of you. We don't make Jagr compete with the ghosts of Pavel Bure or Eric Lindros or Paul Kariya in an era where everyone was hurt. Why make an exception for McDavid?

That's more than a bit misleading, to extrapolate McDavid's 56 game total to 82 games but then only compare it against a peer who only played 71.

You should see some of the posts in this thread trying to compare full seasons from guys with 5 Art Ross Trophies in 7 seasons to a 36 game run against Eastern-only teams when Eastern players dominated the scoring charts.

 

[blundluntman]

I'd say yes offensively. The real question is whether Howe's physicality and two way prowess bridge the gap. It's very possible the answer is yes but I never watched Howe play so I don't know. I went a bit into detail about my take on the comparison in the Howe vs McDavid poll a few days back but honestly, I'd say it's likely a wash based on what I've heard about Howe's overall game.

 

[wetcoast]

I was wondering who would say that. You, sir, I believe have hit the correct answer.

You are probably right but that post was unduly harsh.

As much as the 06 stats might suggest that Howe is McDavid's offensive equal that simply isn't a very strongly supported argument.

 

[wetcoast]

This is about peak, not career legacy. Howe and McDavid are absolutely comparable to each other peak-wise but still below Lemieux in that regard as their best seasons are in the range of Lemieux's 3rd or 4th best.

I tend to agree with this as McDavid absolutely crushes his competion in his 3 year peak.

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his playoffs have been really good too

NHL Stats

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Mind you Howe didn't do all that bad either

NHL Stats

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Playoffs same thing

NHL Stats

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One thing for sure though is if I could have any wish in the world, sports wise, I would have loved to have the ability to watch hockey from it's inception to today.

 

[wetcoast]

That's not peak, that's his prime. His peak is his best ~4-7 years or so.

I break it down like this,

Peak best consecutive 3 years

Prime best consecutive 7 years

I don't think anyone is touching Howe's prime.

Crosby is making a pretty damm good run at it.

 

[wetcoast]

I think it was fine to have some * over McDavid 2021 exploit would he have never repeated it, I think it is fine to remove it once he did.

A bit like Lemieux short burst of credence post 1997, talking as if they meant something, that an healthy-younger Lemieux would have sustained is OK, the rest of his career and redoing it again, give him that benefit of the doubt

Sure context is always important but WWII years and post war seldom get mentioned but recent years get all the attention.

There is a trend out there and that's not a criticism but rather an observation and maybe it's telling that it's the HOH section with the counterbalance against the regency bias of the main boards on display.

Somewhere in between lies the objective truth of our subjective views.

 

[daver]

You are probably right but that post was unduly harsh.

As much as the 06 stats might suggest that Howe is McDavid's offensive equal that simply isn't a very strongly supported argument.

Statistically, he is not only equal but superior even with considering league size. That's a pretty good argument to start with.

 

[daver]

I break it down like this,

Peak best consecutive 3 years

Prime best consecutive 7 years

Peak seems to change depending on who the player is.

IMO, peak starts with best individual season. Peaks get more impressive when they start to accumulate along with being in consecutive seasons.

Howe had four dominant Art Ross wins in a row including his absolute peak season that is only statistically bettered by Mario and Wayne.

McDavid has a clear best individual season (22/23), one that challenges every other non-Wayne/Mario Art Ross season save for Howe's 52/53. Then he has a debatable 2nd clear best (or even arguably superior to 22/23) with a solid Art Ross win in between; a win that doesn't stand out from any of his other Art Ross wins or his 18/19 season. At this point of the 23/24 season, McDavid is regressing production-wise so his "peak" may be three years for the time being.

I personally like to rate seasons straight up without putting any significance on whether they were consecutive or not.

 

[TheStatican]

You would have to assume that Kucherov would be a top 4 PPG scorer, which may have happened (he was 2nd in 2022) or just as easily may not have (he was 8th in PPG in 2020).

It's a more than reasonable assumption, considering his PPG ranking over the past 8 seasons are as follows: 4, 4, 1, 8, na, 2, 5, 1.

2020, the year he placed 8th, is the sole outliner, not the norm. So while it's not a 100% guarantee, the phrase 'easily may have not' is clearly an exaggeration, especially considering he was at the ideal age(27) for a peak-level season.

Everyone's affected by injuries or holdouts or something. Some of Howe's best runs had injuries to Maurice Richard or to Elmer Lach (which would impact Richard) or Ted Kennedy. These things can come out in the wash in a 32 team league a lot easier than in a 6 team league.

At the end of the day, you can only beat the guys in front of you. We don't make Jagr compete with the ghosts of Pavel Bure or Eric Lindros or Paul Kariya in an era where everyone was hurt. Why make an exception for McDavid?

I'm not making any exceptions for, or against McDavid. I agree with using the same metrics across the board for all parties. The only difference in the standard I used compared to the example that was given is that I used per-game metrics rather than raw totals. In my opinion, this is a fairer way of accounting for injuries to one's peers. If there was a player with a low sample size skewing the PPG rankings, that would be one thing (e.g. a Crosby like 11-12 season or even a half season) or someone scoring at level notably elevated from their previous best.

However the top 5 players in PPG in '21 played in almost 90% of all available games (199 out of 224), and there was nothing unusual about the scoring rates for the two who missed the most games that season(which were 14 and 8 gms); Panarin, who scored at the exact same rate he did the season prior, and MacKinnon who also scored at the exact same rate in both the season prior and after. There's no reason to believe that their scoring rates were unsustainable had they played in the full 56 gm season. Heck Panarin may have even finished in the top 5 in points had he not been injured by the Capitals resident scumbag Tom Wilson towards the end of that season which cost him 4 & 1/2 games of play time;

 

[bobholly39]

I break it down like this,

Peak best consecutive 3 years

Prime best consecutive 7 years

Crosby is making a pretty damm good run at it.

For me:

Peak is your best few seasons when you're at ~90-100% of your best level. For some players that's only 1-2 years, for some it's as much as ~5-6 years.

Prime is your best more seasons when you're at ~80%+ of your best level. For some this is only ~3-4 years, and at the extreme for some it's almost your whole career.

So for Howe - because of his incredible consistency in his career - his prime spans ~20+ years. Crosby, Bourque are also players with an incredibly long prime.

Consecutiveness is nice, but to me it matters a bit less.

 

[Professor What]

You are probably right but that post was unduly harsh.

As much as the 06 stats might suggest that Howe is McDavid's offensive equal that simply isn't a very strongly supported argument.

And we're back to offense only. That's not the whole game, and Howe brings more aspects of a complete game to the table than McDavid does. If that were actually being considered in this thread, I don't think this vote would be close. But most people in this thread seem top be looking at shiny statistics.

 

[wetcoast]

And we're back to offense only. That's not the whole game, and Howe brings more aspects of a complete game to the table than McDavid does. If that were actually being considered in this thread, I don't think this vote would be close. But most people in this thread seem top be looking at shiny statistics.

Seriously though how much of the legacy of Howe is defensive play?

Even among modern day players the arguments center roughly 99% on offense for forwards for most people.

 

[Professor What]

Seriously though how much of the legacy of Howe is defensive play?

Even among modern day players the arguments center roughly 99% on offense for forwards for most people.

And that's a flawed way of looking at things. I'd hope to see better than that on a board like this.

I find it ironic that Howe supporters on here are sometimes accused of group think, when the real group think is the 99% that you refer to. It's lazy. It wants to run with raw stats because they're easy. That's not what I'm on this board for. I'm on here for people who look at the whole big picture.

 

[wetcoast]

And that's a flawed way of looking at things. I'd hope to see better than that on a board like this.

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 find it ironic that Howe supporters on here are sometimes accused of group think, when the real group think is the 99% that you refer to. It's lazy. It wants to run with raw stats because they're easy. That's not what I'm on this board for. I'm on here for people who look at the whole big picture.

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.

The idea of Canadian hockey not being as good as it used to be came up in another thread when talking about the prevalence of non traditional talent streams for he NHL and that idea is really laughable when the consensus best player in hockey for the last 7ish years has been Connor McDavid and the best Dman over the last 4 years has been Makar.

I think that people can make reasonable arguments for both players having the best peak (using the 3 consecutive years as the peak model) but any position is simply an opinion and yes it's based on facts but there are variables we simply have an extremely hard time comparing fairly giving their 70 years difference in peaks and the team and league dynamics when both guys played.

Asking questions is sometimes more fruitful than providing near absolute answers and if people hold firm opinions that's fine but let's not be unduly harsh when some critical analysis is brought forward.

Gretzky is the greatest player ever IMO and not because of the arguments I bring forward for him but rather his greatness withstands that critical look and we should do this for all players.

I brought up the idea that McDavid was already greater than Lafleur earlier in this thread and no one took it up and sometimes I really wonder why that is?

 

[daver]

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.

That McDavid is not dominating his era offensively as much as Howe did in his seems to be a very reasonable position to take for the OP. I would suspect many in the HOH would give an edge to McDavid if they were similar in that respect based on the increase/expansion in the talent pool and other factors. That Howe brought more to the game and/or McDavid has been positioned as a pure offensive weapon could temper some to not put McDavid ahead.

I always defer to other sports (soccer, tennis, baseball, football, basketball, golf etc..) where GOATs seemingly can happen at any point of a sport's history; notably in the current age despite expanded talent pools. I think GOAT talent simply rises to the top in any era as it is as much a freakish desire to be the best and work ethic as it is raw talent.

The emerging irony is that the Oilers are having their best regular season run of McDavid's career while he notably has become more of a 2-way player while the Oil are playing all around great hockey. It could be interesting if McDavid finishes out of the Top 3/5 of the Art Ross this year while the Oilers finish high in the standings.

 

[daver]

I brought up the idea that McDavid was already greater than Lafleur earlier in this thread and no one took it up and sometimes I really wonder why that is?

Perhaps because many believe it? Hard to say without making a poll.

But if you are inferring that many would dispute this based on Lafleur's Cup wins, Lafleur is notably behind Jagr and Ovechkin despite his superior Cup wins and comparable peak/prime.

I think McDavid could be in the #15/just behind Jagr and OV to #25/around Lafleur range. He is certainly pacing for a surefire spot in the Top 10, maybe #5.