Where do you place Ovechkin on your personal list of the greatest players of all time?

[wetcoast]

That’s fair. But do you really think there weren’t way more people playing hockey in the 2010’s than in the 1950’s? That would be pretty sad for the game if true.

I think either way, there should be assessment of size of the talent pool. There has to be better information out there…

The problem overall is the starting point and what to do with all the information it's not as simple as 1+1+2 but there are a lot of layers of nuance to go through and ultimately most people have an initial bias and stick to it even if they aren't aware of it or won't acknowledge it.

Look at the top 100 players for instance, SC's matter and great players without SC or playoff success are often downgraded.

Even today too many people are saying well McDavid and Matthews haven't won anything.....it's not a 6 team league any more.

 

[daver]

The problem overall is the starting point and what to do with all the information it's not as simple as 1+1+2 but there are a lot of layers of nuance to go through and ultimately most people have an initial bias and stick to it even if they aren't aware of it or won't acknowledge it.

Look at the top 100 players for instance, SC's matter and great players without SC or playoff success are often downgraded.

Even today too many people are saying well McDavid and Matthews haven't won anything.....it's not a 6 team league any more.

By serious members of the HOH? I doubt that.

 

[Sentinel]

In the Top 10 of all time.

 

[Neutrinos]

That may be one of the worst analogies I've ever seen on here and that's saying something. The bolded is just the icing on the cake. I don't even know where to start.

For real. This guy…

Have you ever heard the phrase “get pucks to the net and good things happen”?

Getting a shot, especially a shot on goal is a skill in hockey. Getting an at bat is not a skill. Getting a shot in basketball is not a skill either (at least if you are tall enough to be a pro).

If Gretz or Mario focused more on scoring, maybe they would have more goals and fewer assists. So they would basically be Ovi??

1) The logic is flawed, because Ovechkin is a world-class shot generator. In baseball, you cant “generate” extra at-bats. Plus - a shot that doesn’t go in can still be a great thing, whereas not hitting the ball is (almost always) not a good thing.

2) You can’t compare shooting numbers and % between players - too much variance and context needed. Ovechkin takes a ton of his shots from very far distances, that of course will have lower shooting %’s. Think of how many shots he has from the top of the circle. McDavid doesn’t have a good enough shot to be lethal from that far away.

Overall - just a silly thought process in your post.

Would Hank Aaron have hit 755 HR if he'd had 2,000 fewer at-bats?

Would Ovechkin be sitting on 822 goals if he'd taken 2,000 fewer shots throughout his career?

Okay, so there's a correlation between at-bats & HR totals and shots & goal totals


Yes, creating one's shot is a skill, but take 2 identical players...

Player A is always looking for their own shot, so they never pass on a 2-on-1, and the team's powerplay strategy revolves around feeding him the puck for one-timers.

Player B is just as likely to pass as he is to shoot on a 2-on-1, and his team's powerplay isn't focused on feeding him an endless supply of passes for one-timers

Despite being identical players, Player A is going to take more shots and score more goals than Player B, but that doesn't mean Player A is the better goalscorer


In '82, Gretzky scored 92 goals on 24.9% shooting, however, he also lead the league with 120 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have scored 100+ goals that season if he'd focused more of his energy into shooting the puck rather than passing it?

In '89, Lemieux scored 85 goals on 27.2% shooting, however, he also lead the league with 114 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have scored 100+ goals if he'd wanted to?

Last season saw McDavid score 64 goals on 352 shots (18.2%), while leading the league with 89 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have netted another 5, 10, or even 15 more goals if he'd played more selfishly?

Oveckin, however, has been so focused on shooting the puck throughout his caeer, he's averaged just 40 assists per 82-games while becoming the league's all-time leader in shots

So, he may very well break Gretzky's record for career goals, but that doesn't necessarily make him the best goalscorer ever, just as hitting #715 didn't make Hank Aaron a better HR hitter than Ruth

 

[wetcoast]

Would Hank Aaron have hit 755 HR if he'd had 2,000 fewer at-bats?

Would Ovechkin be sitting on 822 goals if he'd taken 2,000 fewer shots throughout his career?

Okay, so there's a correlation between at-bats & HR totals and shots & goal totals


Yes, creating one's shot is a skill, but take 2 identical players...

Player A is always looking for their own shot, so they never pass on a 2-on-1, and the team's powerplay strategy revolves around feeding him the puck for one-timers.

Player B is just as likely to pass as he is to shoot on a 2-on-1, and his team's powerplay isn't focused on feeding him an endless supply of passes for one-timers

Despite being identical players, Player A is going to take more shots and score more goals than Player B, but that doesn't mean Player A is the better goalscorer


In '82, Gretzky scored 92 goals on 24.9% shooting, however, he also lead the league with 120 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have scored 100+ goals that season if he'd focused more of his energy into shooting the puck rather than passing it?

In '89, Lemieux scored 85 goals on 27.2% shooting, however, he also lead the league with 114 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have scored 100+ goals if he'd wanted to?

Last season saw McDavid score 64 goals on 352 shots (18.2%), while leading the league with 89 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have netted another 5, 10, or even 15 more goals if he'd played more selfishly?

Oveckin, however, has been so focused on shooting the puck throughout his caeer, he's averaged just 40 assists per 82-games while becoming the league's all-time leader in shots

So, he may very well break Gretzky's record for career goals, but that doesn't necessarily make him the best goalscorer ever, just as hitting #715 didn't make Hank Aaron a better HR hitter than Ruth

Loved this post until the end.

it's extremely had to compare the era that either Ruth or Aaron played in and I'm not sure either one is the greatest HR guys ever but that's really hard to say.

 

[Vilica]

In '82, Gretzky scored 92 goals on 24.9% shooting, however, he also lead the league with 120 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have scored 100+ goals that season if he'd focused more of his energy into shooting the puck rather than passing it?

In '89, Lemieux scored 85 goals on 27.2% shooting, however, he also lead the league with 114 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have scored 100+ goals if he'd wanted to?

Last season saw McDavid score 64 goals on 352 shots (18.2%), while leading the league with 89 assists. Does anyone think he couldn't have netted another 5, 10, or even 15 more goals if he'd played more selfishly?

It's certainly reasonable to think that Gretzky and Lemieux may have scored more goals, but when you break down what you're actually ascribing to them, asking them to score 100 is kinda an insult to their hockey IQs. Lemieux's case is a bit easier to refute than Gretzky's though, even though you're only talking about a 7 goal gap between 92 and 85.

You score goals by taking shots, and each shot has a percentage of the time it gets saved vs it goes in. In the case of Lemieux, his 85 goals were on 313 shots, a 27.2% shooting percentage. For him to score 100 goals, we obviously need to increase his shot totals, whether he maintains his seasonal shooting percentage or not. If we hold his shooting percentage constant, he needs to take an extra 54 shots (0.7 per game). If we add an extra shot per game (76 more), Lemieux only has to score about 20% of them to reach 100 goals. Thus, we turn the theoretical statement 'if Lemieux focused more energy on scoring goals, he would have scored more', into the practical statement 'because of his unselfishness, Lemieux passed up on average 1 20% shooting opportunity per game, or he would have scored 100 goals in 88-89'.

You can even look at Lemieux's previous season to see the folly of acting like shooting percentage is something under a player's control, especially when you start talking about higher shot volumes. Lemieux took almost all 76 of those shots the previous year, and none of them went in. He had 80 power play points the previous year, and 79 the next year, divided 22/58 and 31/48. Most likely, 9 shots that the goalie saved in 87-88 that were subsequently tucked in on the rebound (giving Lemieux an assist and a shot), instead went in directly (giving Lemieux a goal and a shot). The thought process and shot creation was exactly the same, the result was down to randomness and puck locations.

[The Gretzky math works out for him a bit better, as he only needs between 30 and 40 shots more to get those extra 8 goals.]

The math really is unforgiving. If you want to score 100 goals in an 80 game season, it requires you shoot 20% on 500 shots (6.25 per game), or 25% on 400 shots (5 per game). No single season of 5 or more shots per game has ever broken 20% shooting - the closest being Hull's 90-91 season where he was 1 shot away from averaging 5 per game (389 shots/78 games, 390 shots is 5, he shot 22.1%). Gretzky's 92 goal season was 4.625 shots per game at 24.9%. Other than that, the closest seasons were Mogilny in 92-93 (4.675 shots, 21.1%), and Lemieux in 95-96 (4.829 shots, 20.4%). The highest shooting percentages for a player averaging more than 5 shots per game are Esposito in 73-74 at 17.3% and Hull in 91-92 at 17.2%. [Until Chris Kreider did it 2 years ago, not a single player since the lockout had broken 20% while averaging more than 3 shots per game - though both Stamkos in 11-12 and Draisaitl in 21-22 shot 19.8% (Stamkos 3.7 per game, Draisaitl 3.4).]

[[Also, your Aaron/Ovechkin analogy is flawed because plate appearances are guaranteed, shots are not. Barring replacement, if Aaron played in a game, he would have 4 or 5 (or more) plate appearances. Removing 2000 plate appearances from him is akin to removing 473 games played from his 3298. Removing 2000 shots from Ovechkin would not necessitate removing goals - to retain 822 goals scored, Ovechkin would simply have to shoot 18.8% on 3.23 per game as opposed to the 12.9% he has shot on 4.72 per game. Especially given that in the last 7 years, Ovechkin has shaved off just over .25 shots per game over his 7 year average from 10-11 through 16-17 (4.53 to 4.25), while raising his shooting percentage from 12.1% to 14.6%.]]

 

[pandro]

I have Ovie in the 10 to 15 range (and Crosby at 8 to 12).