TSN says McDavid is potentially better than Gretzky

[HugeInTheShire]

At the end of the day, if we could teleport McDavid back to when Gretzky was playing, for one season, he would probably put up like 15-20 points per game and thats not being sarcastic. Its simply that much better now. People just have to accept this

He'd have to drag a 200lb man behind him all the way down the ice. What McDavid would think is a penalty, certainly wasn't then. Hooking, holding, cross-checking, interference were all just considered "good defense" then.

He'd also amost certainly struggle with the physicality of the game. The game they played then only vaguely resembles todays game.

If he could adjust to this and the equipment they used, he'd certainly be one of the best players in the league though, it just wouldn't be nearly as easy as you're making it seem

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Gretzky came into a league that was rapidly expanding in his childhood, continued to expand in his adulthood.

The last 20 years the NHL has added Vegas and Seattle. Going from 30 teams to 32 teams.
From 1967-1979 the league added 16 teams going from 6 to 21 (lost a team to a merger).

Lets just keep that in mind.

That rapid expansion would lead to a greater variance in points among players in most seasons. And the opposite is true now - there has barely been any expansion in recent decades so there is less variance between players making achievements more impressive.

Yeah but the thing with Gretzky is that its not simply the numbers , its the numbers compared to peers. It's always been that that makes him so freakish, not the bulk but the bulk compared to second and third best

 

[CrazyDuck4u]

No need for words , just watch this , ridiculous


Guys like McDavid and Crosby would have overcame it of course like all historically great players , but it can't be stated enough just how egregious things were

Yah back than was clutch and grab hockey.. Lol.. it was a blood bath.. Lemuix, Jagr. Forsberg... They were beasts

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Is this even up for debate? Lmaoo Of course he is.. There are 50 plus players today in the NHL thats better than Gretzky was. Gretzky was great in his time... In a time when goalies were not that great.. When scoring was off the charts.. Yes there was hooking and grabing and all.. But Mcdavid is truly a one in a million player...

if it was so "easy" to score in the 80s, why didn't more players score 200 points? heck 150 points?

 

[Knave]

Yeah but the thing with Gretzky is that its not simply the numbers , its the numbers compared to peers. It's always been that that makes him so freakish, not the bulk but the bulk compared to second and third best

That's exactly what I'm saying. The ease of the era leads to greater variance between players not just in overall numbers. The gap between Gretzky and his peers is exaggerated. The gap between any player and their peers of from 67 onwards to roughly the mid/late 90s is exaggerated.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Yeah but the thing with Gretzky is that its not simply the numbers , its the numbers compared to peers. It's always been that that makes him so freakish, not the bulk but the bulk compared to second and third best

If you took Gretzky's Vs5 numbers and started his career in 2005 (same as Crosby/Ovechkin) it works out to

Seasons	Gretzky Vs5 Points	Actual Art Ross Points
2005-06	134	125
2006-07	149	120
2007-08	158	112
2008-09	172	113
2009-10	165	112
2010-11	156	104
2011-12	145	109
2012-13	96	60
2013-14	110	104
2014-15	118	87
2015-16	103	106
2016-17	126	100
2017-18	110	108
2018-19	49	128
2019-20	113	110
2020-21	54	105
2021-22	95	123
2022-23	111	153
Total	2165	1979

This is his dominance versus the 5th highest scorer translated to "modern" hockey.

It's not just the raw totals. It's the pure dominance. It's comparable to say Gretzky, if he was a rookie the same year Crosby/Ovechkin were, had a dominance comparable to 2165 points.

You can pick VsX, Vs5, Vs10, VsCanadianX, HockeyRef, Vs(2-10). Any method of adjusting for scoring.

Translate Gretzky starting in 2005 and he's still the all time leading point scorer.

 

[Connor McConnor]

He’s below the big 3 but definitely has a great shot at 4th best ever. Needs to be the best player on a Cup team to cement top 5

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Do fans of other sports do these same sort of mental gymnastics to discredit greats from the past?

I don't post on baseball forums, but is it common for people to say guys like Aaron Judge or Fernando Tatis Jr. are better than Babe Ruth because they're playing against better pitchers who can throw a lot harder?

When someone finally breaks Usain Bolt's world record for the 100 meters in a period when multiple people can beat that time, are they going to be automatically considered better than Bolt?

Is Pele not one of the GOATs because the players nowadays are more skilled/athletic than most of the players during his time?

 

[CrazyDuck4u]

if it was so "easy" to score in the 80s, why didn't more players score 200 points? heck 150 points?

Because gretzky was ahead of his time.. Just like Mcdavid is ahead of his time.. Overall Talent.. Im sorry but Mcdavid is miles ahead of gretzky

 

[Overrated]

Do fans of other sports do these same sort of mental gymnastics to discredit greats from the past?

I don't post on baseball forums, but is it common for people to say guys like Aaron Judge or Fernando Tatis Jr. are better than Babe Ruth because they're playing against better pitchers who can throw a lot harder?

When someone finally breaks Usain Bolt's world record for the 100 meters in a period when multiple people can beat that time, are they going to be automatically considered better than Bolt?

Is Pele not one of the GOATs because the players nowadays are more skilled/athletic than most of the players during his time?

In soccer it's almost the opposite. Sure there are people calling Pele a fraud but so often I see people claim Messi is worse than some X player from the past despite the X player scoring half the goals and assists. Maybe it's because people don't want to have such a boring guy as their GOAT.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Do fans of other sports do these same sort of mental gymnastics to discredit greats from the past?

I don't post on baseball forums, but is it common for people to say guys like Aaron Judge or Fernando Tatis Jr. are better than Babe Ruth because they're playing against better pitchers who can throw a lot harder?

When someone finally breaks Usain Bolt's world record for the 100 meters in a period when multiple people can beat that time, are they going to be automatically considered better than Bolt?

Is Pele not one of the GOATs because the players nowadays are more skilled/athletic than most of the players during his time?

There's variance from sport to sport (baseball fans are typically more respectful than basketball fans of the past), but the general trend is the same

2% are past is always better (the Yzerman peaking over McDavid types)
8% are present is always better (the Reinhart >Gretzky types)
19% get into the nuance of different eras
1% get really really into the nuance of the sport's history
70% genuinely do not care

 

[Strangle]

I just said we continue to improve. I don’t understand your response saying we haven’t improved as much as I say we have? I haven’t quantified the improvement, just the principle that we continue to improve. Which we do.

Yes, I used the word “relatively” on purpose. The 100m is a short and tight race, of course improvements are incremental and small.

Your last paragraph is irrelevant to my point. I’m not arguing to diminish Gretzky’s talent. The quality of the average NHL player and goalie was much worse during his era than currently, so his numbers reflect that to a certain degree.

All excuses for modern NHL’ers who can’t do what Gretzky did in this league

 

[Mobiandi]

He’s not even currently the best player in the league

 

[Midnight Judges]

Shaving 0.34 seconds in the 100m is a relatively huge amount. The fact that the record was broken in the last decade proved my point. You do not know what you are talking about.

How do steroids factor in here? Testing wasn't amazing back in the 80s, although I wonder if the drugs are simply better at being covert these days.

 

[x Tame Impala]

From age 19-26 Gretzky won the Hart every year and the Ross every year except his 19yo season

9 Hart Trophies total
10 Ross Trophies, including one at 33 years old
4 top 5 Hart finishes
5 Pearsons

And since I know some of your diapers get all wet when we talk about playoffs and championships, I won't include his 2 Smythes, 4 Cups, and his 48G 150 PPG pace in the playoffs over his career as an argument.

McDavid has lost the Hart 3 times in that timespan, most likely losing another Hart in his prime this season, maybe even another Ross to go along with the 2 he's lost so far to Kucherov in 2018/19 and 2019/20 to Draisaitl. He's a phenom, without question. He's got a shot at retiring as a top 5-10 player of all time. He's not Gretzky though and no amount of era adjustment of any kind will propel him to that level.

 

[Midnight Judges]

I think some of our history lovers are married to the idea that the legends of their childhood (who are 100% Canadians) are automatically better than the international players of today. It's just an insurmountable, done deal. They're untouchable. End of story.

And so you get results like the 1950s Canadian legend generation having 15 top 100 players who all came out of Canada with a population of 11 million people during the Great Depression and depleted by WWII, and a mere 6 top 100 players from the Ovechkin/Crosby international generation despite the fact that it was likely 3-4 times larger (or more) in terms of talent pool.

So I guess Canadians back then were massively more talented than athletes are today - eight to ten times more talented on a per capita basis if the history forum is to be believed.

I don't know how many more decades we need to go without anyone being remotely close to the outlier status of the high scoring era before it's obvious that being an outlier becomes more difficult as the talent pool grows and as scoring is down.

 

[Fantomas]

If you think McDavid wouldn't put up astronomical points playing against guys in the early 80's, against goalies of their quality level, against guys in that equipment, against skaters not even half his speed, against players nowhere near his talent level...I dont know what to tell you. Im not the dumb one here lol thats all I know

Would he be scoring all the goals himself? Surely his linemates would be drooling too much to tap in all the picture pefect passes.

 

[blundluntman]

Do fans of other sports do these same sort of mental gymnastics to discredit greats from the past?

I don't post on baseball forums, but is it common for people to say guys like Aaron Judge or Fernando Tatis Jr. are better than Babe Ruth because they're playing against better pitchers who can throw a lot harder?

When someone finally breaks Usain Bolt's world record for the 100 meters in a period when multiple people can beat that time, are they going to be automatically considered better than Bolt?

Is Pele not one of the GOATs because the players nowadays are more skilled/athletic than most of the players during his time?

Man you should see NBA fans nowadays lol. For at least a month people have been posting out of context clips from Jordan and other 90s stars saying "We're done with the 90s". The interenet's full of people born after 2000 trying to act like Jordan played against "plumbers and mechanics"

 

[Video Nasty]

At the end of the day, if we could teleport McDavid back to when Gretzky was playing, for one season, he would probably put up like 15-20 points per game and thats not being sarcastic. Its simply that much better now. People just have to accept this

Jagr scored 66 points as a 43 year old, which ranked 21st in the league. 28 year old Crosby finished 3rd with just 19 points more. This was during McDavid’s rookie season. Also worth noting that Jagr had been in the league for 9 years by the time Gretzky retired. Lemieux very briefly played with Crosby during his rookie year.

This crazy difference that is thought to exist between two or three fairly close eras isn’t based in reality.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

All excuses for modern NHL’ers who can’t do what Gretzky did in this league

cool so you don’t understand my argument.

 

[Muffin]

All excuses for modern NHL’ers who can’t do what Gretzky did in this league

If we had a time machine and sent a modern day top 6 player with modern day technology and training he'd definitely be better than Gretzky but you can't compare them like that.

 

[Sweetpotato]

In a vacuum the most talented player ever, but considering talent compared to their teammates and opponents it's not close. An argument for McDavid being on mount Rushmore is steadily growing more reasonable but Gretzky is statistically one of the best athletes ever.

 

[Mickey Marner]

Starting this conversation when he’s not even leading the NHL in scoring is an odd choice.

 

[HolyHagelin]

How do steroids factor in here? Testing wasn't amazing back in the 80s, although I wonder if the drugs are simply better at being covert these days.

The drugs are always winning the war on drugs, all the time at every level. Everyone (or nearly) at “elite athlete” level has chemical help.

 

[x Tame Impala]

If we had a time machine and sent a modern day top 6 player with modern day technology and training he'd definitely be better than Gretzky but you can't compare them like that.

It's just a dumb argument from these posters. How many points would Gretzky have if you sent him back into the NHL during the 1940's? That doesn't prove anything because eras start and end, technology and athleticism improve over time. All you can do is play against the opponents in front of you and obviously while the level of competition changes over time, the differences become smaller as the years go on.

40 years from now there's probably going to be guys faster and more talented than McDavid as well. Dominance over your peers is the primary factor when comparing against eras because it's otherwise difficult to accurately compare individual and league-wide talent across decades.