vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
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The fact that Markus Naslund and Luc Robitaille are the very next in line in these periods suggests to me that raw points over a stretch of years is not going to produce an accurate list of the best forwards of the era. Especially in Sakic's case. I mean, 1999-2004... there's a 900-pound elephant in the room drawing tougher defensive matchups.
well not that i super want to go into this again, i mean forsberg missed two and a half seasons during sakic's six year peak stretch, and sakic himself missed one half season (forsberg's best).
but as forsberg/sakic softer/tougher matchups has been discussed endlessly before does anyone know of or remember a study of whether sakic scored more with or without forsberg in the lineup? (i think it's safe to say that forsberg scored more with sakic out of the lineup, citing his '03 season.)
Well last I checked half means half so Joe's first half is the 10 years from 88/89-97/98 and Yzerman's first half is the 11 years from 83/84-93/94.
Regardless, ...
if it were me, i'd use the natural breaks in their careers rather than literally splitting it down the middle. but as you say, "regardless..."
I don't think he "made the NHL" sooner. My memory of it is that Sakic made a personal choice/preference to stay in the Western Hockey League one more year.
contract dispute. obviously not his last. funny how sakic became known as such a company man. he wasn't adam oates, but he certainly had his share of ownership/$$$ drama.
And yet, to no one's surprise at the time, and despite the existence of the "generationals", Yzerman appears in Hart talk yearly over the stretch, which can't be said for Sakic.
this is where talking about young yzerman is interesting to me. i started watching hockey in the late 80s, but i was 7-9 years old so who the hell knows what i thought i was watching. but what i do know/remember with some degree of certainty is "the temperature of the room," so to speak. in '88 or '89 if you asked me or anyone else who the third best player in the world was, the answer would be yzerman, almost unquestionably. and the answer would remain yzerman in '90 and '91, but with successively less certainty.
a contemporary analogy: looking at the era between the lockouts, let's pretend crosby is gretzky and ovechkin is mario, and that both guys are healthy and beyond generational and killing not just their peers but their historical competition year in, year out. that's your clear top two of the era between lockouts. so yzerman would be malkin, the guy that basically everyone acknowledges is the third best player. messier is in the conversation as your "toews-tangibles" option, obviously louder starting in 1990, and then hull starting in '90 as your stats-y/"omg goals" stamkos corollary.
but then i go back and look at his hart voting and his stats and it's not as impressive as i would have guessed, going by his rep at the time. that suggests to me that either his rep was inflated, relative to hawerchuk, savard, stastny, and the other elite scoring centers (savard vs. yzerman in '88 seems like a legit question to ask), or that the rep is right and for whatever reason(s) the stats and award voting is deceiving. which one is true, i don't know.
but anyway, going by what i remember being the "temperature of the room," his hart record of 4, 3, 7, x, 7, 8 and scoring finishes of 12 (4th in PPG), 3, 3, 7, 7, 4 surprises me. by reputation, late 80s/early 90s yzerman should have been winning multiple harts and art rosses in a gretzky/mario-less league. as it stands, just the one year.
EDIT: getting to my real point here, what i suspect might be happening in this thread, though, is an overcorrect on yzerman. as time goes by, i don't think we all necessarily remember the esteem peak yzerman was held in. he'd left dionne, perreault, stastny, savard, and hawerchuk and those guys behind. but i don't think he was quite as good as how some are making him out to be in this thread.
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