Ben White
Registered User
- Dec 28, 2015
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I agree Forsberg was injured all the time, obviously. But he wasn't going to win the Ross in 1997 over Lemieux, and in 1998 over Jagr. Jagr had a higher ppg, and in more games.
Also - I personally have a lot less trouble with "what if" scenarios for someone like Crosby than I do Forsberg, or even Malkin or Lindros who are similar. Crosby's health history is either he plays a full season, or he has a major injury and misses major time. So he's had many full seasons. Guys like Forsberg/Lindros/Malkin have so few full seasons. I don't think it's fair to assume Forsberg would keep all his paces over full seasons as easily, since he has none, so he gets less benefit of the doubt. To me a "healthy" Forsberg would likely still only play ~70 games a year max.
I certainly agree that with better health he could have continued past 2006, and likely aged very well. He obviously wouldn't have been in contention for best in the world anymore, as he'd be older and rivaling peak Crosby/Ovi/Malkin - but he has the type of skillset that should have aged quite well.
I think the most realistic scenario for Forsberg if he had had no major injuries in career is:
- No major awards in the 90s. He simply wasn't beating Jagr, let alone Hasek to Ross/Harts. More top 2s and 3s maybe
- No Conn Smythes. He wasn't beating Roy nor probably even Sakic in 2001.
- 2 Ross (80% chance), *maybe* 3 (~35-50% chance). This is for 2002 and 2004.
- Possibly 2 harts (~50%) but almost for sure not 3 (~below 20%). Voter fatigue is a factor. Could have ranked high each season though (2002-2004)
- No major awards from 2006 and onwards
To me the above Forsberg is certainly behind Crosby (current Crosby - not no injury Crosby, who goes up a significant tier himself) - but probably #2 among the 6 players listed here. None of Yzerman/Sakic/Fedorov would benefit much more from better health. Malkin is tricky - with better health he too goes up, not sure if he ends up above this version of Forsberg or not though.
This is what makes it even trickier with Forsberg cause you can’t just go by ppg either you have to put that in context as well. The interesting thing is that Forsberg (and very much so) much like Lemieux tended to have a higher ppg the more games he played in a season, simply cause he was the kind of player who played through injuries and took the hit in production during the healing period instead of taking time off to heal. This goes completely against the often used argument “he wouldn’t have maintained his pace” cause its actually the exact opposite. That’s why he could very well have sniffed the Ross in both 97 and 98 for that reason as he lead the scoring race when getting injured. You mentioned 2001 above, that history has to be completely rewritten in a “healthy Forsberg” alternative universe since his play was still highly affected by his 99/00 surgery.