Who will hit more point by the end of the career: Kane or Malkin?

[Gorskyontario]

This falsely assumes that there was a 32 NHL teams worth of talent, plus another 32 AHL teams worth of talent, plus 28 ECHL teams worth of talent, plus everything in Europe with KHL, SHL, Liiga, NLA, DEL, etc. worth of talent, all out there playing hockey in their prime ages and focusing full time on it. That is obviously not the case and a bit silly. Kane was a "1st offensive level producer" as was Bathgate, so they should be given apples to apples comparison, for Bathgate that was against about 5 other guys and the couple that could challenge regardless of being more the 1B. For Kane that's 31 other guys plus however many that could challenge regardless of being more the 1B. If you were discussing that the 32nd guy may have a tougher time establishing himself as a "1 forward" in a smaller league, that could have a bit of relevance, but this does not apply when discussing players that have clearly already passed a threshold to be a worthy top offensive point producer, ala Patrick Kane who would not struggle to be put into a role to thrive in offense given his talent level in any era.

The fact is just because a league was smaller, it still functions much of the same way. Younger players have to come in and break their way in. If they don't, they fizzle away and don't get seen again. Those that do will by and large hold their roster spots and their top line spots as long as they maintain production. It's not like the NHL had de novo tryouts every season. For players like Bathgate, the pool of players they were competing against for top scorer was pretty small because not many people got similar opportunities.

So a bigger league with more dispersed talent is stronger than a small league with concentrated talent? Somehow this post actually makes less than zero sense.

 

[WarriorofTime]

So a bigger league with more dispersed talent is stronger than a small league with concentrated talent? Somehow this post actually makes less than zero sense.

It means a 3rd place point finish in 1954 is less impressive than the same in 2024. Should not be a controversial statement.

 

[Vilica]

For what it is worth, we now have a direct comparable season for modern players to go back to the O6, because the pandemic shortened the 19-20 season.

	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
2	Andy Bathgate	62-63	NYR	70	35	46	81	211	208	1.014	0.166	0.384	81	100.00		88.83
8	Patrick Kane	19-20	CHI	70	33	51	84	208	208	1.000	0.159	0.404	97	86.60		92.12

League average in both 70 game seasons was the exact same at 208. VsX should be around 91 for both years. 20th place in 19-20 is 66 points, which would be 7th in 62-63, while 20th place is 50 points in 62-63, which would be tied for 70th in 19-20.

Bathgate is the one exception to the bad teams forward production in the O6. Nobody's competing for ice time with the top line forwards on BOS, NYR, and CHI, and yet they often aren't breaking 30% in P%. However, in a 6 team league with 18 top-line forwards, that meager production still ends up around the top 10. It's really never about the consistent top 5 players when we get into this argument. I think the best way of putting it is that the 20th best forward in the O6 era (in any particular year) is not capable of putting up a top 5 season in the current day, whereas the 20th best forward today is.

Here's a more complete table of the 62-63 and 19-20 seasons. Look at the similarity of seasons between Eichel and Mikita, between Mahovlich and Connor, Richard and Miller. Nearly 60 years between the two seasons, and yet top-line forwards are putting up the same numbers as their teams score the same amount of goals.

	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
1	Gordie Howe	62-63	DET	70	38	48	86	200	208	0.962	0.190	0.430	81	106.17		94.32
2	Andy Bathgate	62-63	NYR	70	35	46	81	211	208	1.014	0.166	0.384	81	100.00		88.83
3	Stan Mikita	62-63	CHI	65	31	45	76	194	208	0.933	0.160	0.392	81	93.83		83.35
4	Frank Mahovlich	62-63	TOR	67	36	37	73	221	208	1.063	0.163	0.330	81	90.12		80.06
5	Henri Richard	62-63	MTL	67	23	50	73	225	208	1.082	0.102	0.324	81	90.12		80.06
6	Jean Beliveau	62-63	MTL	69	18	49	67	225	208	1.082	0.080	0.298	81	82.72		73.48
7	John Bucyk	62-63	BOS	69	27	39	66	198	208	0.952	0.136	0.333	81	81.48		72.38
8	Alex Delvecchio	62-63	DET	70	20	44	64	200	208	0.962	0.100	0.320	81	79.01		70.19
9	Bobby Hull	62-63	CHI	65	31	31	62	194	208	0.933	0.160	0.320	81	76.54		68.00
10	Murray Oliver	62-63	BOS	65	22	40	62	198	208	0.952	0.111	0.313	81	76.54		68.00
	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
6	Brad Marchand	19-20	BOS	70	28	59	87	227	208	1.091	0.123	0.383	97	89.69		95.41
7	Nikita Kucherov	19-20	TBL	68	33	52	85	243	208	1.168	0.136	0.350	97	87.63		93.22
8	Patrick Kane	19-20	CHI	70	33	51	84	208	208	1.000	0.159	0.404	97	86.60		92.12
9	Auston Matthews	19-20	TOR	70	47	33	80	237	208	1.139	0.198	0.338	97	82.47		87.74
10	Jack Eichel	19-20	BUF	68	36	42	78	193	208	0.928	0.187	0.404	97	80.41		85.54
11	Jonathan Huberdeau	19-20	FLA	69	23	55	78	228	208	1.096	0.101	0.342	97	80.41		85.54
12	John Carlson	19-20	WAS	69	15	60	75	236	208	1.135	0.064	0.318	97	77.32		82.25
13	Mika Zibanejad	19-20	NYR	57	41	34	75	233	208	1.120	0.176	0.322	97	77.32		82.25
14	Evgeni Malkin	19-20	PIT	55	25	49	74	221	208	1.063	0.113	0.335	97	76.29		81.16
15	Kyle Connor	19-20	WPG	71	38	35	73	213	208	1.024	0.178	0.343	97	75.26		80.06
16	Mark Scheifele	19-20	WPG	71	29	44	73	213	208	1.024	0.136	0.343	97	75.26		80.06
17	JT Miller	19-20	VAN	69	27	45	72	224	208	1.077	0.121	0.321	97	74.23		78.96
18	Mitch Marner	19-20	TOR	59	16	51	67	237	208	1.139	0.068	0.283	97	69.07		73.48
19	Alex Ovechkin	19-20	WAS	68	48	19	67	236	208	1.135	0.203	0.284	97	69.07		73.48
20	Steven Stamkos	19-20	TBL	57	29	37	66	243	208	1.168	0.119	0.272	97	68.04		72.38

The 62-63 season happened to be particularly clustered in terms of team scoring, with a low of 194 and a high of 225, but 6 teams means scoring average is quite volatile. Also, Stamkos is tied for 20th at 66 points with Sebastien Aho, Max Pacioretty, and Elias Pettersson, and 62 points takes you to 31 players (Josi, Wheeler, Point, Laine, Stone, Teravainen, Barkov and Kopitar).

Finally, for completeness sake, here's the top 5 in 19-20 to show those gaps:

	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
1	Leon Draisaitl	19-20	EDM	71	43	67	110	223	208	1.072	0.193	0.493	97	113.40		120.64
2	Connor McDavid	19-20	EDM	64	34	63	97	223	208	1.072	0.152	0.435	97	100.00		106.38
3	Artemi Panarin	19-20	NYR	69	32	63	95	233	208	1.120	0.137	0.408	97	97.94		104.19
4	David Pastrnak	19-20	BOS	70	48	47	95	227	208	1.091	0.211	0.419	97	97.94		104.19
5	Nathan MacKinnon	19-20	COL	69	35	58	93	236	208	1.135	0.148	0.394	97	95.88		101.99

 

[Gorskyontario]

It means a 3rd place point finish in 1954 is less impressive than the same in 2024. Should not be a controversial statement.

Third place is Third place. 200 players like Josh Archibald, Matt D'Agostini, Christian Dvorak, Joel Armia don't change that.

Should not be complicated.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Third place is Third place. 200 players like Josh Archibald, Matt D'Agostini, Christian Dvorak, Joel Armia don't change that.

Should not be complicated.

But in present day, you have 32 teams that are going to have a guy getting the premiere/best ice time for their team in the league. That means that a much higher number of players that could have things go right from them, click with the right linemates, have a higher than normal on ice shooting %, powerplay gets hot, that could result in a very highly rated point finish and push other, even more established players down a bit (especially if they miss a few games with injury or have some of the opposite factors going for them). Even if we (naively) assume that all the player pool is constant whether there are 6 teams or 32 teams (i.e., take the existing NHL talent pool and just smash with the current players to what the league looks like with only 6 teams and ignore how we get there), there is just a naturally smaller number of players that will have the potential opportunity based on their ice time and usage to produce a big enough season to crack a top five, even when things relatively go right.

Let's kick this out a bit. If third place is third place, is tenth place also tenth place? Is 20th place (In O6, if all players were distributed evenly, that'd be the third best fourth highest scorer on their team and in a 32-team league that would be a highest scorer better than the highest scorer on twelve other teams or 37.5 % of the league). Is 50th place still just 50th place (now we're down to the third best 9th highest scorer in O6 as opposed to an average 2nd highest scorer)?

 

[Gorskyontario]

For what it is worth, we now have a direct comparable season for modern players to go back to the O6, because the pandemic shortened the 19-20 season.

	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
2	Andy Bathgate	62-63	NYR	70	35	46	81	211	208	1.014	0.166	0.384	81	100.00		88.83
8	Patrick Kane	19-20	CHI	70	33	51	84	208	208	1.000	0.159	0.404	97	86.60		92.12

League average in both 70 game seasons was the exact same at 208. VsX should be around 91 for both years. 20th place in 19-20 is 66 points, which would be 7th in 62-63, while 20th place is 50 points in 62-63, which would be tied for 70th in 19-20.

Bathgate is the one exception to the bad teams forward production in the O6. Nobody's competing for ice time with the top line forwards on BOS, NYR, and CHI, and yet they often aren't breaking 30% in P%. However, in a 6 team league with 18 top-line forwards, that meager production still ends up around the top 10. It's really never about the consistent top 5 players when we get into this argument. I think the best way of putting it is that the 20th best forward in the O6 era (in any particular year) is not capable of putting up a top 5 season in the current day, whereas the 20th best forward today is.

Here's a more complete table of the 62-63 and 19-20 seasons. Look at the similarity of seasons between Eichel and Mikita, between Mahovlich and Connor, Richard and Miller. Nearly 60 years between the two seasons, and yet top-line forwards are putting up the same numbers as their teams score the same amount of goals.

	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
1	Gordie Howe	62-63	DET	70	38	48	86	200	208	0.962	0.190	0.430	81	106.17		94.32
2	Andy Bathgate	62-63	NYR	70	35	46	81	211	208	1.014	0.166	0.384	81	100.00		88.83
3	Stan Mikita	62-63	CHI	65	31	45	76	194	208	0.933	0.160	0.392	81	93.83		83.35
4	Frank Mahovlich	62-63	TOR	67	36	37	73	221	208	1.063	0.163	0.330	81	90.12		80.06
5	Henri Richard	62-63	MTL	67	23	50	73	225	208	1.082	0.102	0.324	81	90.12		80.06
6	Jean Beliveau	62-63	MTL	69	18	49	67	225	208	1.082	0.080	0.298	81	82.72		73.48
7	John Bucyk	62-63	BOS	69	27	39	66	198	208	0.952	0.136	0.333	81	81.48		72.38
8	Alex Delvecchio	62-63	DET	70	20	44	64	200	208	0.962	0.100	0.320	81	79.01		70.19
9	Bobby Hull	62-63	CHI	65	31	31	62	194	208	0.933	0.160	0.320	81	76.54		68.00
10	Murray Oliver	62-63	BOS	65	22	40	62	198	208	0.952	0.111	0.313	81	76.54		68.00
	Name	Year	Team	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Team GF	LA GF	% LA	G%	P%	VsX	VsX Season		Avg VsX
6	Brad Marchand	19-20	BOS	70	28	59	87	227	208	1.091	0.123	0.383	97	89.69		95.41
7	Nikita Kucherov	19-20	TBL	68	33	52	85	243	208	1.168	0.136	0.350	97	87.63		93.22
8	Patrick Kane	19-20	CHI	70	33	51	84	208	208	1.000	0.159	0.404	97	86.60		92.12
9	Auston Matthews	19-20	TOR	70	47	33	80	237	208	1.139	0.198	0.338	97	82.47		87.74
10	Jack Eichel	19-20	BUF	68	36	42	78	193	208	0.928	0.187	0.404	97	80.41		85.54
11	Jonathan Huberdeau	19-20	FLA	69	23	55	78	228	208	1.096	0.101	0.342	97	80.41		85.54
12	John Carlson	19-20	WAS	69	15	60	75	236	208	1.135	0.064	0.318	97	77.32		82.25
13	Mika Zibanejad	19-20	NYR	57	41	34	75	233	208	1.120	0.176	0.322	97	77.32		82.25
14	Evgeni Malkin	19-20	PIT	55	25	49	74	221	208	1.063	0.113	0.335	97	76.29		81.16
15	Kyle Connor	19-20	WPG	71	38	35	73	213	208	1.024	0.178	0.343	97	75.26		80.06
16	Mark Scheifele	19-20	WPG	71	29	44	73	213	208	1.024	0.136	0.343	97	75.26		80.06
17	JT Miller	19-20	VAN	69	27	45	72	224	208	1.077	0.121	0.321	97	74.23		78.96
18	Mitch Marner	19-20	TOR	59	16	51	67	237	208	1.139	0.068	0.283	97	69.07		73.48
19	Alex Ovechkin	19-20	WAS	68	48	19	67	236	208	1.135	0.203	0.284	97	69.07		73.48
20	Steven Stamkos	19-20	TBL	57	29	37	66	243	208	1.168	0.119	0.272	97	68.04

The 62-63 season happened to be particularly clustered in terms of team scoring, with a low of 194 and a high of 225, but 6 teams means scoring average is quite volatile. Also, Stamkos is tied for 20th at 66 points with Sebastien Aho, Max Pacioretty, and Elias Pettersson, and 62 points takes you to 31 players (Josi, Wheeler, Point, Laine, Stone, Teravainen, Barkov and Kopitar).

Finally, for completeness sake, here's the top 5 in 19-20 to show those gaps:

But in present day, you have 32 teams that are going to have a guy getting the premiere/best ice time for their team in the league. That means that a much higher number of players that could have things go right from them, click with the right linemates, have a higher than normal on ice shooting %, powerplay gets hot, that could result in a very highly rated point finish and push other, even more established players down a bit (especially if they miss a few games with injury or have some of the opposite factors going for them). Even if we (naively) assume that all the player pool is constant whether there are 6 teams or 32 teams (i.e., take the existing NHL talent pool and just smash with the current players to what the league looks like with only 6 teams and ignore how we get there), there is just a naturally smaller number of players that will have the potential opportunity based on their ice time and usage to produce a big enough season to crack a top five, even when things relatively go right.

Let's kick this out a bit. If third place is third place, is tenth place also tenth place? Is 20th place (In O6, if all players were distributed evenly, that'd be the third best fourth highest scorer on their team and in a 32-team league that would be a highest scorer better than the highest scorer on twelve other teams or 37.5 % of the league). Is 50th place still just 50th place (now we're down to the third best 9th highest scorer in O6 as opposed to an average 2nd highest scorer)?

None of that makes any sense. Extra teams with more marginal players doesn't magically make it more difficult to finish higher in scoring.

 

[WarriorofTime]

None of that makes any sense. Extra teams with more marginal players doesn't magically make it more difficult to finish higher in scoring.

It makes sense for the reasons outlined.

 

[MadLuke]

None of that makes any sense. Extra teams with more marginal players doesn't magically make it more difficult to finish higher in scoring.

If the nhl do not add Vegas is it possible that William Karlsson does not finish third in goal in 2017-2018:

https://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2018_skaters.html#stats::goals

Obviously yes and Malkin would have one more top 3, McDavid a top 5 and so on.

Would Eric Staal have stayed in the nhl in a 6 team league to have a chance to get back and be put in the position to get one last nice 40 goals seasons ? Maybe Martin St-Louis never get to play in a 6 team league with the 90s mentality.

Is it all possible and it is trivially true, how big of an effect is the only question.

And statement you disagree with can make sense (have a clear meaning you are able to decipher from them)

 

[Gorskyontario]

If the nhl do not add Vegas is it possible that William Karlsson does not finish third in goal in 2017-2018:

https://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2018_skaters.html#stats::goals

Obviously yes and Malkin would have one more top 3, McDavid a top 5 and so on.

Would Eric Staal have stayed in the nhl in a 6 team league to have a chance to get back and be put in the position to get one last nice 40 goals seasons ? Maybe Martin St-Louis never get to play in a 6 team league with the 90s mentality.

Is it all possible and it is trivially true, how big of an effect is the only question.

And statement you disagree with can make sense (have a clear meaning you are able to decipher from them)

So having more teams means marginal players can score easier? If so that increases the value of O6 finishes.

It makes sense for the reasons outlined.

No it doesn't.

 

[MadLuke]

So having more teams means marginal players can score easier? If so that increases the value of O6 finishes.

Depends what you mean by easier, marginal player getting first line and first PP units instead of being buried in a line-up will have yes an easier time accumulating points.

It do go both ways yes, the fact that you need to gain a spot to be able to have an high finish meant that everyone getting a top 3 were people that had to build a career to do it at the same time once you got in that spot it was easier to finish higher, not having those Karlsson shooting 20% season.

A little bit like winning the gold at the Olympics if you are Canadian instead of Finnish, easier to win if you make the team but harder to make the team kind of dynamic.

 

[Michael Farkas]

It means a 3rd place point finish in 1954 is less impressive than the same in 2024. Should not be a controversial statement.

It's not so much controversial as it is peak laziness, or at best, incomplete application of work.

The 3rd place finish doesn't actually have much value. It's not redeemable or transferrable. It's just a thing that happened. We use these things as shorthand for who should be added to our collective watchlist of where players may fall...what tiers they might be in, etc.

So, while I do believe the league is higher in quality in 2024 than it is 1954 (probably not quite as much as some folks would like to believe because the concentration of talent from properly developed from sponsorship era verticals is overlooked by too many)...a 3rd place finish in one particular year is just a piece of trivia really.

The key is really the proper talent evaluation. Just because you played at X time, doesn't mean you're irrelevant. Just because you finished 3rd in 2024 doesn't make you relevant.

The same reason why the top scoring player in every junior league doesn't get selected in a draft of hundreds of players...doesn't make the NHL, etc. it's because scoring finishes don't dictate the talent. The talent happens, the game happens, then the stats get accrued later...