2nd Cup affect Ovechkin's legacy/ all-time ranking?

[YippieKaey]

Given the historical dominance, consistency and physicality Ovi is a very unique player. And with his numbers, especially adjusted, having him outside of the top ten seems disingenous.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Jagr > Ovechkin and however small the margin is it's a clear one. The man has five Art Ross trophies, a 123-point season, a 149-point season, scored 766 goals, is a Triple Gold Club member, and for all his playoff "failings" he is just barely under PPG over 200 playoff games. Here are the seasons in which he was a Hart finalist:

1998: Hasek - one of the greatest goalie performances ever
2000: Pronger - one of the greatest d-man performances ever
2001: Sakic - one of the greatest two-way performances ever
2006: Thornton - the last time any player tallied 90 assists in a season

Ovechkin is one of the greatest players in history but we're talking about a guy who is flirting with 5th place.

 

[moropanov]

You have to be totally delusional to call Ovechkin top 5 hockey player of all time. Being honestly objective he isnt top 100 of all time not even top 200 if we talk about overall hockey ability skills hockey sense etc. Watch him play shift by shift what he brings to table he is usually terrible shot is good but that's about it. Every sensible hockey coach would take P.Forsberg Datsyuk Fedorov Kopitar over Ovechkin and it would be wise to take guys like Jere Lehtinen over him if you want to win. Peak Ovechkin was pretty good but it lasted like 3 years average Ovy other 10+ years he's been just lazy fat floater who has mediocre puck skills/motor skills compared to best players in general also lacks much in hockey IQ department. He is most overrated player in hockey history and its very questionable to even call him good hockey player and talk about him compared to guys like Jagr Crosby etc is just bad joke.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

Oh really? So you compare the loaded Caps teams with the rubbish Penguins team that Jagr by himself carried to the playoffs. Or the lousy Caps team or the crap Rangers team or the other bottom feeders Jagr played for. If you honestly think that argument is valid, I have no idea what to tell you.

Jagr still got 2 cups, Ovechkin one. Jagr smokes Ovechkin like a bad cigar on everything stats wise and he did so playing with worse linemates than Ovie.

Lol you are butthurt fanboy who mad your boy Jagr couldn't do anything in the playoffs when he was a top 2 player on his team.

Ovechkin has surpassed Jagr years ago, hell even Crosby has as well

 

[Hockey Outsider]

2000: Pronger - one of the greatest d-man performances ever

Also remember that Jagr missed a quarter of the season in 2000. It's nearly certain he would have won the Hart had he not been injured.

Going back to expansion, only a small handful of skaters have ever been a Hart finalist despite missing more than 20% of the season - Lemieux (twice), Gretzky, Orr, Jagr, Crosby and Beliveau. Pretty good company.

 

[moropanov]

Lol you are butthurt fanboy who mad your boy Jagr couldn't do anything in the playoffs when he was a top 2 player on his team.

Ovechkin has surpassed Jagr years ago, hell even Crosby has as well

That is insane talk Ovechkin better in hockey than Jagr ?not to mention Crosby;D you realistically think there' single hockey coach in NHL who would really prefer Ovechkin over Crosby... Ovechkin make's team Russia worse compared to average KHL player when he joins to play for Russia and some people say thinks like this. Anyone who says Ovechkin's better than lets say Radulov at ice hockey has no clue what they are talking about. Komarov or Matt Martin maybe arguably, but Ovy's skills just are not high enough when comparing to players like Radulov Mozyakin or AMorozov who have high end skill. Ovechkin is best suited to play 3rd line wing at 5vs5 and shooter at powerplay, but isnt reliable enough to play againts opponents top line's.

 

[YippieKaey]

That is insane talk Ovechkin better in hockey than Jagr ?not to mention Crosby;D you realistically think there' single hockey coach in NHL who would really prefer Ovechkin over Crosby... Ovechkin make's team Russia worse compared to average KHL player when he joins to play for Russia and some people say thinks like this. Anyone who says Ovechkin's better than lets say Radulov at ice hockey has no clue what they are talking about. Komarov or Matt Martin maybe arguably, but Ovy's skills just are not high enough when comparing to players like Radulov Mozyakin or AMorozov who have high end skill. Ovechkin is best suited to play 3rd line wing at 5vs5 and shooter at powerplay, but isnt reliable enough to play againts opponents top line's.

If everybody who thinks Ovi is better than Radulov is wrong everybody in the world is wrong. Which, incidentally, means that you are wrong.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

Jagr > Ovechkin and however small the margin is it's a clear one. The man has five Art Ross trophies, a 123-point season, a 149-point season, scored 766 goals, is a Triple Gold Club member, and for all his playoff "failings" he is just barely under PPG over 200 playoff games. Here are the seasons in which he was a Hart finalist:

1998: Hasek - one of the greatest goalie performances ever
2000: Pronger - one of the greatest d-man performances ever
2001: Sakic - one of the greatest two-way performances ever
2006: Thornton - the last time any player tallied 90 assists in a season

Ovechkin is one of the greatest players in history but we're talking about a guy who is flirting with 5th place.

Eh, i'm not hating on Jagr... But he did get to play in a much higher scoring era than Ovechkin with obviously much better teammates.

I know nostalgia is a big thing on this board but it really is inevitable Ovechkin passes him... 900 goals is in reach

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Eh, i'm not hating on Jagr... But he did get to play in a much higher scoring era than Ovechkin with obviously much better teammates.

I'm going to give you an opportunity to correct both of these statements yourself.

 

[Eisen]

Wouldn't make a difference to me. Unless be has a great performace.

 

[Zuluss]

I'm going to give you an opportunity to correct both of these statements yourself.

He is right though. Both the 149-point and 123-point season by Jagr come from a much more high-scoring environment than what Ovechkin played in. There were 12 100-point players and 40+ over-ppg players when Jagr posted his 149 points.
Jagr played a lot with Francis and played with both Francis and Lemieux on PP. Granted, those were not his absolute peak years - but then he did get to play on one line with Lemieux for the second half of 2000/01.
Some of Ovechkin's post-peak seasons could have looked statistically way more pleasant if he had that kind of support.

 

[Dessloch]

People, lets discount Jagr because he got to play with Lemieux and Francis partially during the 1995-1996 season, and that he played on the same line as Lemieux for half of the 2000-2001 season. Forget that Jagr on the whole had alot worse linemates and played for much worse teams most of the time compared to Ovie. Ovechkin has had better linemates if you combined the years together by far, not even close.

For some reason Ovie fans are always snowing in on Ovies 3 peak years and forget the bigger picture which gives a clear edge to Jagr!

 

[Dessloch]

Jagr > Ovechkin and however small the margin is it's a clear one. The man has five Art Ross trophies, a 123-point season, a 149-point season, scored 766 goals, is a Triple Gold Club member, and for all his playoff "failings" he is just barely under PPG over 200 playoff games. Here are the seasons in which he was a Hart finalist:

1998: Hasek - one of the greatest goalie performances ever
2000: Pronger - one of the greatest d-man performances ever
2001: Sakic - one of the greatest two-way performances ever
2006: Thornton - the last time any player tallied 90 assists in a season

Ovechkin is one of the greatest players in history but we're talking about a guy who is flirting with 5th place.

You forget that Jaromir happens to be 2nd in all time points, thats a pretty good thing to have on the resume Had he not gone to russia he would have had almost 2100 points and 800+ goals.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

He is right though. Both the 149-point and 123-point season by Jagr come from a much more high-scoring environment than what Ovechkin played in. There were 12 100-point players and 40+ over-ppg players when Jagr posted his 149 points.
Jagr played a lot with Francis and played with both Francis and Lemieux on PP. Granted, those were not his absolute peak years - but then he did get to play on one line with Lemieux for the second half of 2000/01.
Some of Ovechkin's post-peak seasons could have looked statistically way more pleasant if he had that kind of support.

Jagr won his four straight scoring titles in the middle of the DPE with one year of Francis, one year of Kovalev coming into his own, and half a year of post-retirement Lemieux.

 

[HaNotsri]

Washington not winning more is on their management, not Ovechkin.
I don't think any individual player can win the cup for his team.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

You forget that Jaromir happens to be 2nd in all time points, thats a pretty good thing to have on the resume Had he not gone to russia he would have had almost 2100 points and 800+ goals.

If Jagr didn't go to Russia he flames out and retires much earlier he has said as much... His final year in New York was respectful but far from great.

I know nostalgia is powerful but the gap is shrinking all the time, it very possible both Ovechkin and Crosby end up higher than Jagr when they done they have alot of hockey left.

McDavid is well on his way too

 

[CokenoPepsi]

Jagr won his four straight scoring titles in the middle of the DPE with one year of Francis, one year of Kovalev coming into his own, and half a year of post-retirement Lemieux.

Two of those years ( 99-00 and 00-01) scoring was higher than seasons:

11-12
2013
13-14
14-15
15-16

DPE not a disadvantage for Jagr considering he also got to play in the high scoring early 90s.

 

[Zuluss]

Jagr won his four straight scoring titles in the middle of the DPE with one year of Francis, one year of Kovalev coming into his own, and half a year of post-retirement Lemieux.

But before those years, Jagr got a lot of help from Francis, Lemieux and higher scoring - and then got another shot in the arm in 2005/06 and 2006/07, years with high scoring and a lot of power-plays.

We can also look at Jagr's peak years and dissolve the magic of those DPE letters, which do not really mean per se that something is more impressive than what is being done now / 10 years ago.

Jagr's peak points, average per 4 seasons - 111
#10 in points in those years - 84 points on average

Ovechkin's peak points, average per 3 seasons - 110
#10 in points in those years - 87 points on average

So where is the big difference? Jagr had one extra year of peak scoring, I will give you that. But in terms of how high the peak was - nah, they are even. And that's before we consider the fact that Ovechkin was a formidable goal-scorer at his peak, and Jagr could not beat Bondra or Tkachuk for a Rocket.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

So where is the big difference?

There isn't?

That's the point?

 

[czechmate]

I checked out 2001/02, when Jagr was 5th in points and 5th in All-star voting - he was beaten by Bill Guerin, Pavol Demitra and Glen Murray.
I checked out 2006/07, when Jagr was 8th in points and 6th in All-star voting. He was beaten by Heatley, who Ovechkin was able to beat in the season before that, and by MSL who Ovechkin had no trouble beating in All-star voting even when MSL won the Art Ross in 2012/13.

Another thing to consider is that All-star voting is taken based on one season, not on career or the history of LW position. Jamie Benn is a smaller player than Cam Neely, but in his Art Ross season Benn was a tough competition. In other years, he was not, but there was always enough good LWs around to challenge OV in their career season.



Jagr never got any material number of All-star votes or Hart votes outside of his best 8 years. One of those 8 years happened when Jagr was 33, but outside of that it is not clear how Jagr "aged better". Post-30 Ovechkin has robust following in All-star voting and Hart voting - 10-20 voters vote Ovechkin top5 in the league in all his healthy post-30 years, and pretty much all voters have him top3 in his position if healthy. The same cannot be said about aging Jagr.

Ovechkin already has more top20 finishes in points than Jagr (14 vs 13), and when Ovechkin is out of top10 in points, he is probably just 5 points out of #10 - but also wins goal-scoring titles - so he gets Hart votes, he gets on All-star teams. When Jagr was top10 in points, he was just part of a large pack of players - and thus did not get Hart and All-star votes.
I mean, talk to lifelong Caps fans who remember Jagr on the Caps (I was following Detroit more at that time) and ask them if they would trade 2017-2020 Ovechkin (aged 32-34) for 2001-2004 Jagr (aged 29-31). Based on point finishes (5-19-15 for Jagr, 11-15-16 for OV) you would think they would, right?

Obviously, randomly selected and maybe not fully representative, but just out of curiosity have a look at the the following season:

2015/2016 season:
Jagr: 66 pts. (44 years old)
Ovechkin: 71 pts. (31 years old)

 

[kmart]

He's not top 12. He is in the 13-20 range

Gretzky
Howe
Orr
Lemieux

Are for sure better

Then you have

Crosby, Hull, Hasek, Rocket Richard, Esposito, Bourque, Lafleur, Beliveau, Roy, Jagr

Who are ahead in any order

Nope

 

[Zuluss]

Obviously, randomly selected and maybe not fully representative, but just out of curiosity have a look at the the following season:

2015/2016 season:
Jagr: 66 pts. (44 years old)
Ovechkin: 71 pts. (31 years old)

Funnily enough, that would be only the 2nd season in Jagr's post-30 (in fact post-28) career when more than 10 people had him on their Hart ballot (the 1st is of course his Lindsay-winning season in 2005/06). And while in KHL, Jagr also did not look like the guy who would come over and get a ton of Hart votes either.

Ovechkin had some traction in Hart voting in 3 out of 6 post-30 seasons, and he is not done yet (and then one can also bring up his Hart runner-up season at 29, since Jagr actually declined at 28, not 30).

All-star voting paints an even greater gap.

So yes, Ovechkin has aged better.

 

[BLNY]

Cups are team accomplishments. Some incredibly talented hall of fame members never had the fortune of winning the cup. It doesn't diminish who they were as a player. Malign Ovi all you want. He still goes down as one of the best goal scorers of all time.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Ovi has NOTHING on Jagr or Crosby...

Except for mort Harts, more Pearson nominations, and way more hardware.

 

[dalewood12]

Nope, just needed the one cup.