ATD Chat Thread XVIII

Dreakmur

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How many points would McDavid score in the 80s? We can use VsX to reverse calculate, no?

Yes you can, and it’s very simple. You take his score from any of his seasons and multiply it by the benchmark of whatever season you wish to compare.

McDavid's current score for this season is 149.

In 1985, that would be 201 points. (Gretzky was 208 that year)
In 1975, that would be 170 points.
In 1965, that would be 124 points.
In 1955, that would be 110 points.
In 1935, that would be 70 points.
In 1927, that would be 48 points.
 
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BraveCanadian

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I love that he's blown things wide open.. remember when a season like this was impossible because of parity and because today's players are bionic superheroes?
 

tinyzombies

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Yes you can, and it’s very simple. You take his score from any of his seasons and multiply it by the benchmark of whatever season you wish to compare.

McDavid's current score for this season is 149.

In 1985, that would be 201 points. (Gretzky was 208 that year)
In 1975, that would be 170 points.
In 1965, that would be 124 points.
In 1955, that would be 110 points.
In 1935, that would be 70 points.
In 1927, that would be 48 points.

Ok, that's equalizing stats. Now let's take the actual McDavid and transport him to the 1980's. He's probably going to need Semenko also.
 

BenchBrawl

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Are we transporting the technology of his equipment too? The better ice, the better nutrition, the rules that encourage offence, etc?

Better nutrition has to be the most overrated factor in the proclaimed "upgrade" of modern players versus stars of old. I can't shake the broscience vibe it gives me every time I see it brought it.

Nutrition, like ability to lift heavy weights, are far down the list of variables in determining how good a player is in a vacuum. I'm sure McDavid would still clean the league even if he started smoking a pack a day while eating cheeseburgers, especially up to age 30.

Guy Lafleur had a resting heart rate of 40 bpm and elite recovery. This was reported by the Montreal's doctor. How many modern NHLers have that? My guess is not even 1%. Gretzky was also known to have amazing recovery I believe, but I don't have the source on that one. For Lafleur the source is the biographical book L'Ombre et La Lumière.
 
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Dreakmur

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Better nutrition has to be the most overrated factor in the proclaimed "upgrade" of modern players versus stars of old. I can't shake the broscience vibe it gives me every time I see it brought it.

Nutrition, like ability to lift heavy weights, are far down the list of variables in determining how good a player is in a vacuum. I'm sure McDavid would still clean the league even if he started smoking a pack a day while eating cheeseburgers, especially up to age 30.

Guy Lafleur had a resting heart rate of 40 bpm and elite recovery. This was reported by the Montreal's doctor. How many modern NHLers have that? My guess is not even 1%. Gretzky was also known to have amazing recovery I believe, but I don't have the source on that one. For Lafleur the source is the book Ange et Lumière.

The time machine argument is what it is. Modern players have modern advantages. That isn't just nutrition and equipment. McDavid has had professional skill and skating coaches since he was 6 years old.
 

Johnny Engine

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There was a cable show I forget the name of that tried to simulate stuff like vikings fighting samurai and whatnot, by modeling how badly various swords and other ancient weapons could mess up a human skull. Of course, that's a silly way to determine who would win a fight, because I'm sure getting bayonetted through the stomach takes one off the battfield just as effectively as a morningstar to the side of the head, and that it's all fighting skill and tactics that decide how many of your men are going to meet that fate and who won't.

I'm sure if one put enough effort into it, they could roughly determine a variety of metrics comparing the game as it's played today - it'd involve instensive microstat collection from older games, and you'd have to make a bunch of assumptions like using all-star skills competition results (with the oldest being 1990) as a proxy for how much faster or more powerful you can make an athlete with newer gear, and vice versa, and you'd have to study the amount hooking and holding impedes a player like McDavid - perhaps by comparing his results in a metric like CF% or xG% in games where the tracker judges the refs to have "swallowed their whistles" vs stricter games.

...and I think if you did all that it'd still turn out to be a huge mess that'd tell you close to nothing, even if you managed to turn up usuable, diverse samples for everything you were trying to study.
 
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Dreakmur

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Mar 25, 2008
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There was a cable show I forget the name of that tried to simulate stuff like vikings fighting samurai and whatnot, by modeling how badly various swords and other ancient weapons could mess up a human skull. Of course, that's a silly way to determine who would win a fight, because I'm sure getting bayonetted through the stomach takes one off the battfield just as effectively as a morningstar to the side of the head, and that it's all fighting skill and tactics that decide how many of your men are going to meet that fate and who won't.

I'm sure if one put enough effort into it, they could roughly determine a variety of metrics comparing the game as it's played today - it'd involve instensive microstat collection from older games, and you'd have to make a bunch of assumptions like using all-star skills competition results (with the oldest being 1990) as a proxy for how much faster or more powerful you can make an athlete with newer gear, and vice versa, and you'd have to study the amount hooking and holding impedes a player like McDavid - perhaps by comparing his results in a metric like CF% or xG% in games where the tracker judges the refs to have "swallowed their whistles" vs stricter games.

...and I think if you did all that it'd still turn out to be a huge mess that'd tell you close to nothing, even if you managed to turn up usuable, diverse samples for everything you were trying to study.

hah, I loved Deadliest Warrior!
 

tinyzombies

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Are we transporting the technology of his equipment too? The better ice, the better nutrition, the rules that encourage offence, etc?

No, I'm not playing ATD games, I'm talking about reality. The athletes are just better now. There are major exceptions, of course. Mario comes to mind. Lindros would be unstoppable today with no headshots and no holding/hooking or touching players in front. Forsberg same. Gretzky's vision would still pick defenses apart.
 

BenchBrawl

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The time machine argument is what it is. Modern players have modern advantages. That isn't just nutrition and equipment. McDavid has had professional skill and skating coaches since he was 6 years old.

Even with all that I'm not convinced it makes a big difference for superstars. I'm sure Gretzky had an advantage in terms of "software of training" by how obsessive he was about training at a young age, and with his father Walter, over McDavid or Crosby. Even Lemieux, playing against his older brother Alain (4 years older), which would explain a lot about his 1-on-1, cat and mouse abilities. A coach cannot replace those youth experiences.

Personally, I think the greatest variable is your morphology, down to the tiny angles of how your skeleton is distributed, which determines to a large extent how far at the extremes of a move you can go without committing, your dynamism and mobility, and how solid on your skates you are. Same with weight transfer for shot power. It's not about muscle, it's about structure, and structure is something you're born with. Sure, training will bonify it, but the foundation has to be there. Bobby Orr probably had a perfect skeletal shape to skate as great as he did.

In that sense, how many humans will have the perfect skeletal to play hockey will be random in any era. Could have 0 in the 1930's, 2 in the 1950's, 2 in the 1980's, 1 in the 2010's, 3 in the 2020's and 0 in the 2050's. The distribution of outliers won't be equal, and whatever advantages any era will give to the mass of players won't impact an outlier as much. What it does is make the average player better, but then the short shift game, with its emphasis on 100% effort, suffocates the data bank of creativity a player of old eras could accumulate. So the modern average player might be a better athlete, but have a weaker data bank about shift management and the likes.
 
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Johnny Engine

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No, I'm not playing ATD games, I'm talking about reality. The athletes are just better now. There are major exceptions, of course. Mario comes to mind. Lindros would be unstoppable today with no headshots and no holding/hooking or touching players in front. Forsberg same. Gretzky's vision would still pick defenses apart.
The problem is that you're not talking about reality, you're talking about time travel, which is about the furthest thing from reality as you can get. Any work of fiction involving time travel will have to set some rules and parameters, and what they are is up to the author.

If Connor McDavid played in the 80s in a world governed by LOST's time travel rules, he'd accidentally step in front of a bus before he had the chance to play a game, because the universe would generally frown upon adding an extra player to the 1984 Oilers roster on Hockey-Reference who wasn't there before, but that's not a very interesting scenario to discuss, so we'll have to go with a different one.
 
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Johnny Engine

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I changed my mind, LOST McDavid would actually make it to the game, but he'd be constantly getting hipchecked back into the bench every time he tried to get onto the ice. That one's much funnier to me.
 

Dreakmur

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No, I'm not playing ATD games, I'm talking about reality. The athletes are just better now. There are major exceptions, of course. Mario comes to mind. Lindros would be unstoppable today with no headshots and no holding/hooking or touching players in front. Forsberg same. Gretzky's vision would still pick defenses apart.

What about athletes is better? Training, sure. Nutrition, sure. Technology, sure.

Didn’t somebody actually study this while looking at the 100 yard dash? They determined that the progression of world record times was influenced by footwear and track conditions, and not improved athletic ability.
 

Dreakmur

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Orillia, Ontario
I saw a draft trade where Player A got the first over all pick in the draft and a 13th rounder. Player B swapped first round picks and got a 4th rounder. That may be okay. Player A also gave Player B a pick upgrade in every round except 1 and 13. The result is that Player B picks before Player A in every round except 1 and 13 and Player A has no 4th round pick. That seems like Player B really ripping off Player A to me and no one objected to this trade.

Need a damn cipher before I can respond to this.
 

tinyzombies

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What about athletes is better? Training, sure. Nutrition, sure. Technology, sure.

Didn’t somebody actually study this while looking at the 100 yard dash? They determined that the progression of world record times was influenced by footwear and track conditions, and not improved athletic ability.

There is a better pool of athletes in the game, it's not just that athletes got better. And McDavid is still dominating. He'd probably score 300 points at least in the 80s. He might get his knee taken out tho.
 

Professor What

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I can't help but wonder if all the McDavid talk right now might have slightly changed the outcome for my team. I know one thing. I feel really, really good about that pick now.
 

Johnny Engine

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Hey @Professor What , what sort of effect would the time travel rules in Doctor Who have on Connor McDavid's ability to play in the 1980s? We already know that in LOST it would end up being impossible to get him on the ice, and that in Futurama he'd end up bedding his own grandmother and throwing the entire question of genetic talent into a paradox, but I don't know anything about the Doctor and it might be too late for me to ever start.
 
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Say Hey Kid

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Apparently the Big 4 are all active players. :rolleyes:
I can't wait for the Leafs to win the North.
 

Professor What

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Hey @Professor What , what sort of effect would the time travel rules in Doctor Who have on Connor McDavid's ability to play in the 1980s? We already know that in LOST it would end up being impossible to get him on the ice, and that in Futurama he'd end up bedding his own grandmother and throwing the entire question of genetic talent into a paradox, but I don't know anything about the Doctor and it might be too late for me to ever start.

You'd have to ask the Doctor himself about that one, because nobody else really seems to understand the rules of time. What's said one time doesn't apply the next.

But hey, I only got into Doctor Who a few years ago, and I've seen all 862 episodes now (granted, some in reconstruction form because of necessity). Heck, I marathoned them all over a period of a few months being stuck at home. It's never too late. If you're actually interested, I could give some pointers as to how to start. It's one of the few things I get as nerdy about as hockey history. Lol
 

tinyzombies

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Apparently the Big 4 are all active players. :rolleyes:
I can't wait for the Leafs to win the North.

The Leafs are in for a surprise in the first round I think. They still don' tlike to get hit.If Danault isn't ready you'll win the series though. Of course, this could put us in the box too- in which case we're dead, but whistles tend to disappear this time of year.

183431709_10159216240026221_3650908294843459050_n.jpg
 

tinyzombies

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I just want to say I appreciate all the commentary and research/knowledge on here. I agree with the rankings and look forward to this every year. When I talk about current players, that's another ball of wax as far as I'm concerned.
 

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