Potential of Spezza vs. Malkin

[SENATOR]

Oh yeah, they had Heatley. I guess you're right on that one, one rookie winger is more than enough top end talent for any team!

I have trouble believing that Kovalchuk would have earned any sort of significant icetime under Jacques Martin. Both him and Spezza couldn't/can't play defense to save their life. When you play for Jacques Martin, that's exactly the kind of thing that gets you benched, even scratched.

This is not as black and white as you are making it out to be.

That's crap. Martin was riding Yash to no end. Defence or not. Checking line was getiing tired and Yash would score his points. the same with Kovy. He would get the first line and 22-25 minutes. Kovy is special. You have to be a wood or Kevin Konstantin not to go with a talent.

And Crosby thing is overblown. I did not see anything special from him. Just a better Daigle.

 

[Tap on the Ankle]

That's crap. Martin was riding Yash to no end. Defence or not. Checking line was getiing tired and Yash would score his points. the same with Kovy. He would get the first line and 22-25 minutes. Kovy is special. You have to be a wood or Kevin Konstantin not to go with a talent.

The pre-1999 Senators have little to do with this. That's a full 2 years before Spezza or Kovalchuk were even drafted. Back then Yashin (and to a lesser extent, Alfredsson) was the only legitimate scoring threat in Ottawa. Of course Martin has to use him, what other choices did he have?

When Kovalchuk was drafted, there was very little in his way to getting top line minutes in Atlanta. Meanwhile Spezza had a much deeper team to prove himself on. Any high-octane offensive player with limited defensive skills (Spezza and Kovalchuk) are going to have a MUCH harder time getting icetime on a deep and talented Ottawa team with the extremely conservative Jacques Martin behind the bench than they would with a basement team with no proven top end talent, like Atlanta at the time.

No doubt Kovalchuk is an amazing player, and easily the more proven and probably the more talented of the two, but they were drafted into ENTIRELY different situations in Ottawa and Atlanta.

 

[Levitate]

uhhh...you know it's great you love your countries prospects and all so much, but honestly...malkin as good as lemiuex? i don't even like lemiuex but i think that's insane. lemieux even after all he's been through and his age he's at now is the most talented guy in the league over guys like kovulchuk, etc. lemieux is a guy who came into the league and as a rookie put up 100 points. i mean good god just look at his stats after he came back, in the lowscoring era we're in, he was putting up crazy stats on some weak pittsburg teams with little talent around him. 3 years out of hockey completely, and he comes back and almost puts up 2 points per game his first year back!

saying a 18 year old kid is as good as lemieux is just going overboard at this moment. malkin could become one of, if not the best player in the NHL and still not be as good as lemieux was in his prime...and that's not a slight on malkin at all. he's a great young player with a great chance at being a superstar in the NHL. it's just that lemieux was plain unbelievable. nothing at all to do with malkin being russian and not north american or something, i don't care about that stuff...any prospect in the world being compared to lemieux is crazy in my mind until they truly prove on the same level that they deserve the comparison


though i believe part of the problem in some ways is trying to compare players in different leagues.

 

[ukyo]

For some reason a lot of Russians on this site (or maybe always the same, but they're loud like there's a lot of them) speculate wildly about the worth of Russian players, about how much Frolov is God, Kovalev was better than Mario, and now "Russian player is God II: the Malkin" is coming to threads near you.

Wait wait wait... you misunderstand. Frolov only has as much upside as God. He's not quite there yet.

 

[SENATOR]

Wait wait wait... you misunderstand. Frolov only has as much upside as God. He's not quite there yet.

I loved when JR brought the Frolov's name on Jim Rome show, where Rome had no freaking clue what he was talking about. Frolov in LA is next thing to sliced bread. The kid is just great!! And Jim Rome show should really stick to things like.........you know.

 

[SENATOR]

The pre-1999 Senators have little to do with this. That's a full 2 years before Spezza or Kovalchuk were even drafted. Back then Yashin (and to a lesser extent, Alfredsson) was the only legitimate scoring threat in Ottawa. Of course Martin has to use him, what other choices did he have?

When Kovalchuk was drafted, there was very little in his way to getting top line minutes in Atlanta. Meanwhile Spezza had a much deeper team to prove himself on. Any high-octane offensive player with limited defensive skills (Spezza and Kovalchuk) are going to have a MUCH harder time getting icetime on a deep and talented Ottawa team with the extremely conservative Jacques Martin behind the bench than they would with a basement team with no proven top end talent, like Atlanta at the time.

No doubt Kovalchuk is an amazing player, and easily the more proven and probably the more talented of the two, but they were drafted into ENTIRELY different situations in Ottawa and Atlanta.

I see your point. But Spezza is a slowfooter, where Kovy is blessed with a blazing speed. Much easier for him to back check a little. And Kovalchuk at his age is more offensively gifted then Havlat. So I am sure Kovy would see a second line duty not third as in the case of Havlat.

 

[sunb]

You're completely disregarding the fact that Kovalchuk was drafted by a team who (at the time) had like zero top end talent, whereas Ottawa was among the deepest teams in the league. If Atlanta called Spezza's name at the podium that day, he'd have been their #1 centre for the past few seasons, while Kovalchuk would be "riding the big wooden bench" in Ottawa.

Pretty unlikely. Ilya Kovalchuk was pretty sick talent and he'd likely would've cracked Ottawa's strong but left-wing-less line-up pretty easily in 2001-2002 (his first year). And just as likely, Ottawa would've gone further in the playoffs since he could have helped them go that extra step in the playoffs against Toronto.

Kovalchuk - Bonk - Alfredsson
McEachern - White - Hossa
Arvedsson - Fisher - Havlat

But you're right about the fact that Spezza would've made Atlanta's line-up sooner. How much sooner is debatable however.

 

[Sting]

Why are you guys even arguing about this? Martin Erat owns both of these players, and anyone in the entire NHL for that matter. If Erat played back when Gretzky did, man...he'd be #1 on every single NHL record. No contest...Martin Erat is better than both Spezza and Malkin combined.

 

[pooler99]

Think i'll just switch to another thread it's getting ridiculous

 

[Murphy*]

Think i'll just switch to another thread it's getting ridiculous

Do you deny the greatness that is Martin Erat!?

 

[The Boot]

Crosby was dominating the league at 16 and 17. Was Daigle?

While i do agree Crosby should not be put in the Daigle category i don't see how crosby dominating the league a season earlier really has any relevance if they were close to the same point totals in their final year of junior and around the same age. (Ofcourse they do have very different skill sets). Lets face it Daigle was an extremely talented. He had 51 points in his rookie year on a terrible sens team that only won about 14 games that year

Alexander Daigle GP: 53 Pts: 137
Crosby GP:62 Pts: 168

I think thats close, anyone else ?

While it may be somewhat accurate to compare their Q stats, we all know stats don't always tell the whole story. The real difference between the two at this point is that Crosby actually wants to play NHL hockey (from what i've seen anyway). Daigle admits that he never really wanted to go down that road and his that surely affected his play and lack of development after he was in the big leagues. Call me crazy but if he had Crosby's attitude toward the game he would be a top line if not elite player in the NHL. All in all the difference in their attitudes seems to be fairly clear and that should be taken into consideration before someone labels him the next daigle.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

But Spezza is a slowfooter.

People don't seem to understand how much Spezza's skating has improved. He's an above average skater now.

 

[tom_servo]

While i do agree Crosby should not be put in the Daigle category i don't see how crosby dominating the league a season earlier really has any relevance if they were close to the same point totals in their final year of junior and around the same age. (Ofcourse they do have very different skill sets).

Of course it's relevant. Numbers alone can be misleading, because their values are relative. Daigle didn't win the scoring title, but Crosby did, and by 50+ points -- the largest gap by anyone not named Lafleur or Lemieux.

Lets face it Daigle was an extremely talented. He had 51 points in his rookie year on a terrible sens team that only won about 14 games that year

That's exactly right. Daigle had the talent to stay in the NHL, but not the drive. So if anyone wants to draw a parallel with Crosby, they should be looking for some off-ice issues, of which none have been apparent.

As you say, Daigle could play in the NHL (and he's actually doing well even today). So, comparing Crosby's (better) numbers with Daigle's only reinforces the belief that Crosby can play in the league.

 

[The Boot]

Of course it's relevant. Numbers alone can be misleading, because their values are relative. Daigle didn't win the scoring title, but Crosby did, and by 50+ points -- the largest gap by anyone not named Lafleur or Lemieux.

Well they did really have similar points per game averages, Crosby at 2.7, Daigle at 2.58. Not too far off there, he would have finished with 160 points instead of the 137 had he played in 62 games as crosby did. Rene Corbet led the league that year with 148 unless i'm mistaken so he would have won the scoring title if he had competed in those 62. But we have to both agree that Crosby's season as a 16 year old is pretty irrelevant in this whole discussion when we have another season ontop of that to more accurately base a comparison on, perhaps i should have clearly specified that was my objection to your post.

 

[tom_servo]

Well they did really have similar points per game averages, Crosby at 2.7, Daigle at 2.58. Not too far off there, he would have finished with 160 points instead of the 137 had he played in 62 games as crosby did. Rene Corbet led the league that year with 148 unless i'm mistaken so he would have won the scoring title if he had competed in those 62.

If my calculations are correct, Daigle played in a league which saw an average of 8.7 goals scored in every single game. In Crosby's era, that number was only 6.3. That's a leaguewide scoring difference of almost 30%.

That means that Daigle's 137 points project to about an even 100 in Crosby's era.

Or if you want to put it differently, Crosby's 168 points project to about 213 in Daigle's era.

That's why I'm saying that you cannot just look at the numbers alone. They don't look that far apart on paper (although the fact that Crosby outscored Daigle by that many points while playing in a lower-scoring league says a lot), but you have to take the difference of eras into consideration. And once you do, Sidney comes out looking even better.

Of course, I'm making no predictions about Crosby's future. He could wash right out of the league for all I know. But I don't think there's much question that his junior career was notches above Daigle's.

 

[Canuck21t]

Malkin is magic. Spezza dosen't have 1/100 of Malkin's hockey sens, and let's not talk about the hands... Malkin by a mile.

Have you ever heard of the word "objectivity"? I guess not.

 

[Canuck21t]

For some reason a lot of Russians on this site (or maybe always the same, but they're loud like there's a lot of them) speculate wildly about the worth of Russian players, about how much Frolov is God, Kovalev was better than Mario, and now "Russian player is God II: the Malkin" is coming to threads near you.

Have you notice that Russians always bow to their players? In almost all of their posts, they and to their gods at the end . When they mention a Canadian player, it's only to remind us how our players are hyped . And then, they'll complain that Canadians are biased. Yeah right .

 

[Canuck21t]

This is stupid to compare Spezza and Malkin. Even Crosby is not in the same league with Malkin. Malkin is even better then Ovechkin. And could be put in the same list as

Bobrov
Kharlamov
Bure
Malkin

The superstars of the superstars

The canadian list as we know is


Lemieux
Gretzky
Howe
Grosby?
Big question mark. And you compare him to Malkin. Actualy Malkin is the next big thing in NHL not Crosby.

Oh wow. What else do you see in your crystal ball?

 

[Don Draper]

i might be alone, but i think this is a great comparison, and i would say they are very close to equal. Spezza has unreal vision and hands, great puck poise ala dustin brown, and has worked very hard to become an above average skater. I see Malkin making a few changes to his game to fulfill his promise much like Spezza did, but they are both sure to be stars in this league.

 

[Hiishawk]

I almost don't want to dignify this ridiculous thread with a reply but---

Despite what an earlier poster wrote, almost no one was promoting Spezza over Kovalchuk on this board or anywhere else after November in their draft year.

Coming into that season it's true that Spezza was the consensus #1. But after the 1st 4-nations tournament in Nov. that year where Kovalchuk looked magnificent, coupled with a less-than-dominating start from Spezza, Spezza was shifted to #2 on almost every list- including those written on this board. From Christmas on it was actually Chistov that was seen as a possible (by Redline at least) threat to Kovalchuk's top-rated status.

 

[BuppY]

Spezza.. Playing with Heatley he'll put up monster numbers.

 

[SubNova]

What will be the name of the line: One-eye Heatley or spaz Spazza.

 

[Slay]

Too early to tell who is going to be better. But this upcoming season can give some answers. Spezza will play on the 1st line in NHL for the contender, Malkin on the 2nd line in RSL also for the contending team. Also Malkin will have a good chance to go to the Olympics (even though there is some abundance of centers: Fedorov, Zhamnov, Datsyuk, Yashin, Kozlov and Malkin, but I guess some of them will be sent to the wing).

I've seen Spezza only once, in juniors, and he looked good, especially in understanding of the game and playmaking, his wristshot seems very good too. But also he looked heavy, I mean Kovalchuk-like heavy (though he is listed only 206lbs) and no legs of Kovalchuk. But I heard that he has improved his speed greatly, so will see.

Malkin's best quality is also very good understanding of the game, other than that: very soft hands with long reach, fast effortless skating, good physical game. Don't forget that Malkin more than 3 years younger (just turned 19) and still developing. He doesn't look as a complete player yet, I mean it is still notable that he has resources to work with and he already looks very good. He is almost 6'4 but looks very fast on his skates, skates without effort (his skating is not as good as Fedorov or Zherdev but speed-wise it is very good). Partly it is because he is not very heavy (about 192lbs) but at the same time he is very strong physically, doesn't avoid rough stuff. I think in the future he has a chance to be close to Fedorov's 2-way game and statistical-wise a PPG player or more.

At international level (mainly, I take juniors) I think Malkin is surpassing Spezza.

PS: yesterday Malkin scored on PP and Metallurg beat Salavat 1-0 on Romazan Cup. Today Metallurg plays vs AK-Bars.

 

[SubNova]

I am happy that Malkin is staying back this year, next year when the hype is over with Crosby he can play without feeling like a 2nd class player.

 

[Genghis Keon]

Alexander Daigle GP: 53 Pts: 137
Crosby GP:62 Pts: 168

I think thats close, anyone else ?

Ovechkin at 18: 53-13-10-23
Ovechkin at 19: 37-13-14-27

Korolyuk at 18: 52-16-13-29
Korolyuk at 19: 50-30-19-49

Balmochnyk at 18: 37-10-4-14 (the same as 53-14-6-20)

I think that's close (except Korolyuk blowing Ovechkin out of the water at 19), anyone else?

Or are you going to change your oh-so-valid argument now that you see it works against Ovechkin too?