I don’t think There’s really anything he can do to realistically put himself above Gretzky, but these last two seasons he’s making a legitimate case of being better than Lemieux IMO
He didn’t win twice. Bust
Is McDavid Gunning for 100 assists?
- Thread starter olli
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bucks_oil
Registered User
- Aug 25, 2005
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Great post... as an Oiler fan I feel incredibly blessed to have witnessed the best of Gretzky and the best of McDavid. I'm sure as a Pens fan you have similar feelings with Lemieux and Crosby.
In my mind, (and my 12 year old memory agrees) I have never witnessed a more exciting player to watch than McDavid. There is of course the profound mystery around the Great One's greatness... like how, just how, could that skinny wimp do it... that was the maestro brilliance of it all.
But the game is faster now than it ever has been and to watch McDavid slice through defenders the way he does... I've just never seen anything like it. Goal or no goal, assist or bungled pass, he has the hair on my skin standing up at least 2-3 times per week, sometimes 2-3 times per game.
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Spirits
Avalanche and Vikings
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No one said he wasn't a great hitter. Let me tell you something that you apparently don't understand (somehow lol). If McDavid doesn't win a cup as the leader and captain of the Edmonton franchise, then no one serious is going to say he is a top 5 player of all time. Facts don't care about your feelings.
I’m Canadian. Small town Albertan which is basically the highest level of Canadian.
What I meant was if McDavid leads his team to a cup then he gets put on a VERY short list of the greatest players of all time.
Fourier
Registered User
Ted Williams never won a World Series. Nor did Ty Cobb. Both are viewed as top 5 players of all time in a sport that has a fair bit of tradition.
Winning in the NHL, especially in a 30+ team league with a salary cap is a team thing. Serious people should understand this.
Spirits
Avalanche and Vikings
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One can also, you know, watch hockey games. But I guess it's easier for randos to count rings.
You know, you see the generational talents, and you occasionally even think about how each individual landed where they landed. But I never stopped to think about the odds that McDavid would land with Gretzky's Oilers, while Crosby played for Lemieux's Penguins.
Spirits
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Watch McDavid not win as the main piece of the Oilers and see what his legacy is lol. How naive.
Salsa Shark
Registered User
Your short-term memory is going. I said that the whole exercise of gatekeeping your "pantheon of greats" is a reductive effort for casual fans. Ergo, not naive. I simply don't subscribe to your outlook. I'd rather assess hockey players by the hockey they play.
by 2200 at the latest, long after we are all gone, McDavid will be the unanimous #2 best player of all time. Gretzky's hockeydb.com will always have future generations in awe, but McDavid's career highlights in 4k Ultra HD will outlive and outshine any other tales of greatness that could be told
Juxta Position
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- Jul 2, 2006
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interesting that you state "facts don't care about your feelings" at the end of post based solely on your feelings with no facts to back it up....the irony is thick with this one.
Fourier
Registered User
Tell me what makes hockey such a special sport that individuals can win without a great team behind them . And tell me someone in the top 5 who won a cup on a team that did not have multiple Hall of famers on it.
Of the major team sports basketball and to a lesser degree football are the two where having the best player in the League makes you an almost automatic contender. This has never been the case in Hockey at anytime in the almost 60 years I have watched the sport.
Howe won his first cup in 1950 in a six team league on a team that had Sid Abel, Red Kelly and Ted Lindsey with Harry Lumley in net and Terry Sawchuk as a backup. That's 5 guys on the HFBoards top 100 list.
Gretzky won on a team with 7 future Hall of Famers and 4 on the top 100 list. Those teams also had guys like Andy Moog, Esa Tikkanen, Ken Linseman, Craig Simpson Kent Nilsson in support roles.
Lemieux won his first in 91 with Coffey and Jagr, as well as ``supporting players'' like Joe Mullen, Mark Recchi, Larry Murphy, and Ron Francis and just for fun Bryan Trottier.
The number five guy on the HFB top 100 is Hull. He won one cup in 1961. That team was probably the weakest of the teams anyone of the top five won with. But it was a 6 team league. I never saw Hull in the NHL but I watched him a fair bit live in the WHA. Great player even then but McDavid's record in terms of hardware has already surpassed Hull.
The other typical name you see in #6 is Maurice Richard. I think anyone who has ever followed hockey know how dominant those 50's Habs team were.
Top five of all time will always be subjective. But right now I doubt you will find very many people who watched the 80's Oilers who would put Messier ahead of McDavid right now even right with his six rings. Give McDavid another 8-12 years and if he remans healthy it won't even be close. So maybe winning a Championship is not an absolute in comparing top players.
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And let me guess, by "serious" you mean anyone having the same opinion as you, right?
As a side note, I am pretty sure that most people would still consider Mario a top 5 player even if he didn't win in 91 and 92. But let me guess, you would not....
Bear of Bad News
Your Third or Fourth Favorite HFBoards Admin
- Sep 27, 2005
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This "cope harder" crap needs to end now.
Just go ask on social media sites.
Those are mainly unmedicated boomers that will easily side with Messier.
Grit, leadership = RESULTS etc etc
Fourier
Registered User
I have a lot of friends and family that had season tickets from back then. I don't know anyone who thinks that. I'll bet if you checked on our board it would be pretty lobsided in McDavid's favour if you asked who was the better player.
Judging a player's career on whether he won a Stanley Cup or not is asinine. Winning a Cup is a team effort, it never ever hinges on on player, no matter how well he performs. It also gets increasingly harder to win one the more teams the league has. Needless to say, there is a difference whether about 1/6 of all players win a Cup every year, or about 1/32 of all players.
The only thing to judge a player by, are his individual performances. That includes whether he performed well in the playoffs. If a player delivers beyond what you can realistically expect yet his team doesn't win, that's nothing the player can do anything about.
Ray Bourque didn't magically become a better player just because he won a Cup on a stacked Colorado team. He was still a very good defenseman that year, but not remotely close to the player he was in 88, 90 or 91, when he didn't win the Cup. How come a good performance with a Cup-win is supposed to say more about a player than multiple amazing ones without a win?
Dominik Hasek won the Cup on a stacked Red Wings team. He wasn't as good as he was in prior runs. He had another great playoff run later on in which he didn't win, and then won another Cup were he lost his job as a starter. It would be weird to say the least to claim that this second Cup somehow enhanced Hasek's career when he was mostly warming the bench in the playoffs.
Jaromir Jagr won the Cup in his first two seasons, but never even reached the finals afterwards, even though he was a much better player in those years. Wayne Gretzky never won a Cup after leaving Edmonton, Edmonton did win one without him. The list goes on and on.
Winning a Cup or even Cups says nothing about a player's skill or career performance. Winning a Cup is about being at the right place at the right time. You can suck badly in the playoffs but still win the Cup. You can be a largely irrelevant bottom-liner who didn't do much and still win a Cup. Just like you can rip the league apart and not win the Cup. If one player delivers year after year up until a high age but never wins a Cup, and another player has a short peak before fading, staying on as a somewhat decent depth player, why exactly should the former be punished for not winning while the latter gets more acclaim due to riding the coat-tails of others?
The only thing to judge a player by, are his individual performances. That includes whether he performed well in the playoffs. If a player delivers beyond what you can realistically expect yet his team doesn't win, that's nothing the player can do anything about.
Ray Bourque didn't magically become a better player just because he won a Cup on a stacked Colorado team. He was still a very good defenseman that year, but not remotely close to the player he was in 88, 90 or 91, when he didn't win the Cup. How come a good performance with a Cup-win is supposed to say more about a player than multiple amazing ones without a win?
Dominik Hasek won the Cup on a stacked Red Wings team. He wasn't as good as he was in prior runs. He had another great playoff run later on in which he didn't win, and then won another Cup were he lost his job as a starter. It would be weird to say the least to claim that this second Cup somehow enhanced Hasek's career when he was mostly warming the bench in the playoffs.
Jaromir Jagr won the Cup in his first two seasons, but never even reached the finals afterwards, even though he was a much better player in those years. Wayne Gretzky never won a Cup after leaving Edmonton, Edmonton did win one without him. The list goes on and on.
Winning a Cup or even Cups says nothing about a player's skill or career performance. Winning a Cup is about being at the right place at the right time. You can suck badly in the playoffs but still win the Cup. You can be a largely irrelevant bottom-liner who didn't do much and still win a Cup. Just like you can rip the league apart and not win the Cup. If one player delivers year after year up until a high age but never wins a Cup, and another player has a short peak before fading, staying on as a somewhat decent depth player, why exactly should the former be punished for not winning while the latter gets more acclaim due to riding the coat-tails of others?
Let’s play a game here. Let’s assume something crazy happens:
McDavid reaches 2000pts in his career
McDavid wins the Hart/Art Ross 9 more times
McDavid leads the playoffs in scoring (by a large margin) and goes to let’s say 3 SCF but loses each time because Skinner or whichever goalie forgets to stop pucks
You still wouldn’t call him a top 5 player of all time because he didn’t win a TEAM award?
Video Nasty
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- Mar 12, 2017
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Don’t forget also that Howe didn’t even play a full game during his first Cup win.
JFedol
Registered User
syz
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If McDavid doesn't win a cup in Edmonton it'll have infinitely more to do with Bob Nicholson, Peter Chiarelli, and Ken Holland than it does McDavid.
- Apr 2, 2023
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Only the first player since Wayne Gretzky to get 3 consecutive 120+ point seasons and this is an off year for him
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